2001: A Space Odyssey

One of the many things I love about my church community are the wide range of smaller community groups to choose from. With over 8K regular attendees, it helps to have small groups to get to know others around here. And after almost 7 years, I am blessed with LOTS of friends I met through either serving roles or small groups. One of my favorites was just launched last year and it is called Reel to Real. Twice a month the guys who created this group pull out the carnival-style popcorn machine and choose a flick to view and discuss. I love this group! I only made it to a few last year, but I immensely enjoyed all of them. The facilitators, Don and Andy, do a great job of creating talking points and always list a few bible verses that correspond on some level.

We kicked off this season recently with a viewing of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is one of those films that, unless you have lived as a media deprived hermit your whole life, everyone knows something about...even if it is just the famous musical score. I had seen bits and pieces before and had heard all sorts of references to it, but had never watched the whole thing start to finish. WOW! How truly visionary to have put this together for release in 1968! The foresight into how the space program would evolve when we hadn't even landed on the moon yet- genius. The foresight into how dependent society would become on computers-awesomely prophetic. The movie as a whole- clearly drug induced! And the discussion after viewing- priceless. Many jokes were made about what drug inspired the end of the movie. And many jokes were made about who in the group may have been stoned the first time they saw it, if they had seen it in the theaters in 1968.

Seriously, great observations were made by several people. Some had read the book series and had extra insights to certain scenes, some weren't sure they even liked the movie but had great comments anyway, and we made thought provoking connections about humanity and God along the way. There was a lot of laughter. Especially when I had the audacity to suggest the chimps at the beginning of the movie could actually hear the singing associated with the big black monolith. The group looked at me so strangely upon this suggestion that I questioned whether I was the only one who could hear the singing at all! Very funny stuff...but maybe you had to be there. In fact, if you live in Cincinnati, you should join us sometime!