Gone Baby Gone

In the past few weeks at church we've been talking about hospitality. Today we focused on our neighbors. We watched the movie Gone Baby Gone a couple of nights ago and I keep thinking about how much of this is what we are talking about. Even though this is just a story, it's still a somewhat accurate depiction of how so many live. In my neighborhood people are addicted to drugs, people are hungry, people are poor and kids are in the middle of it. They are paying the price of bad choices and bad circumstances. So what do we do? Part of me wants to not allow my children to ever play outside without leashes and to have them sleep with us every night. The other part of me knows that we need to be part of a community. We have responsiblities. Who's going to help if we don't? The person that Casey Affleck's character is sitting with at the end of the movie reminded me that we can't change people but we can help them.

I don't know if this video will work or not but it's a clip from the Today Show about a man that was hit by two cars on a busy street and it took over a minute for someone to stop and help. The expert says that part of the reason for this is our lack of community.


Connecting Caring Communities

NOTE: Gone Baby Gone is not a family friendly movie. It's hard to watch or even think about some of the things that happen. I still think it is worth it. The story is challenging and makes you think. That's what a good story does.