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“Change in the Air,” sadly, is not actual ‘change’ as in all the clowns running our asylum have now promptly resigned, but rather the name of movie hubby and I watched, made in 2018, starring Rachel Brosnahan.

I put a question mark next to the title which I think just about sums it up. I am laughing here, but it was one of those endearing chick flicks that tend to make my hubby groan and roll his eyes, except this time I was groaning right along with him. At one point he let out such a plaintive wail, w-h-y, that it just had me rolling on the floor.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I was determined to watch this movie to the bitter end when every hauntingly disjointed mystery would suddenly fall into place and the reason, the purpose behind wasting 90 minutes of my life would be revealed to us. Alas, no. It did not play out quite like I imagined, in fact it did not play out at all.

The blurb for this movie reads, “When a beguiling young woman moves in next door, a quiet neighborhood is awakened, bringing people face to face with their secrets and, ultimately, themselves.” That is a wonderful tag line! What astounds me even more than this movie is that somebody could take a storyline like that and NOT run somewhere, anywhere. You could pick that tagline up and just faceplant in wet cement and you would at least be telling a story.

The reviews were right too, “gorgeously-beautiful-mysterious.” Indeed it was, the problem being it needed some rhyme and reason, some order to it’s chaos, perhaps even something as simple as….a plot. I don’t wish to be needlessly harsh here, but I would label this movie, “humanistic spirituality porn.”

Spoiler alert here, not that it is even possible to actually spoil random chaos that springs forth from nothingness, but people die and people grieve and then their grief is turned into birds who fly away. Now that we have solved all the world’s problems, I’m sure you will share one reviewer’s wisdom, “heartwarming, profoundly spiritual, and thankfully not creepy and religious.” Dear heavens, I never thought I’d say this, but ‘creepy and religious’ would have been a vast improvement.

All of this lamenting over a 5 star movie brings me to my real point, we are definitely suffering a ‘crisis of meaning’ in this country. In my neck of the woods we have these Occupy people. What do they do? They occupy. What are their demands, what are they protesting? Their right to take up space. Clever, huh? Get it? They “occupy.” If you have any affection for logic, reason, or a plotline, you will understand my angst and woe, my short circuit when trying to understand the “why.”

“Change in the Air” also had a ‘crisis of meaning’ going on, as in their efforts to remove anything that might be misconstrued as ‘creepy and religious,’ such as truth and beauty, or Someone greater than ourselves, just left us with a storyline that lacked all meaning and purpose.

Truth and beauty is a person y’all, the personhood of Jesus Christ. He is connection, intimacy, a two way relationship with another outside of yourself. Sacrificial love. Meaning. Purpose. Identity. The birds in this movie were borrowed from Him. Without Jesus central to our own story, our tears are like birds and while that is lovely and poetic, it says nothing at all about who we are, why we are here, and what our purpose is.

“…..Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”