Kirkepiscatoid

Well, I have to make one very large confession about this movie. I have loved it since I first saw it at age 12. Something early on told me, "I'm a little like this guy." He's a lot why I choose to live alone in the country, a lot of how "the solitary me" operates, a lot of my need to "step back from the world" on occasion.

Jeremiah Johnson is a war-weary man who leaves the Mexican War behind to live the life of a mountain man. (Never mind we have a big "movie anachronism" here--by the time the Mexican War came about, the fur boom was pretty much over, having mostly gone belly up in 1840.) But mostly, this war-weary man wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, he accidentally bespoils a Crow burial ground and the entire Crow nation in the area comes after him. He constantly has to fight battles he doesn't want to have to fight. The movie is also constantly filled with the sense of foreboding that the life he lives will no longer be possible, as the fur is playing out, and the world not far from him is becoming far more "civilized."

I see some parallels in this Jeremiah with the prophet Jeremiah, also, in the sense of "anger over what he's being asked to do."

I imagine I quickly identifed with his "war-weariness", growing up in a family where alcoholism constantly fueled battles I didn't want to fight, either, and often finding myself "just wanting to be left alone." I still identify with that sense that "the world is changing and I really just want to step away from some of it and do without it."

This movie has been haunting me a little since my EFM class Sunday night, when we had to talk about "community." It also seems to be driven home in another way, as my vacation in Alaska has made me aware that there are a LOT of people in Alaska that pretty much enjoy not being part of the "lower 48" and have a real sense of not wanting the bright lights and big city.

My EFM course Sunday night really challenged me to admit my discomfort with a lot of aspects of "community", even something as theoretically loving as a church community. I find myself a lot like the old "mountain men." Just as they relished living alone, well, they had to come to town sometime for the rendezvous, and they certainly went all out when they did that--sometimes a little TOO all out.

I realize that I am a little like that, too. When I "come to town", I go all out. Maybe TOO all out. It can seem "oppressive" to folks now and then. Staying in town too long causes trouble. I find it harder to "get along," and am sometimes at my worst when I "hit the wall" with my sociability. I am learning that "when it's time for me to go back to the mountains," I need to go back to the mountains--NOW. Other people don't always get this. Sometimes they think they did something "wrong." It can cause friction. But my closest friends realize, "Just leave me be, it will be fine in a few days."

I have also come to realize when I "come to town," not only can it create problems where I might "overdo" (over-giving, over-helping, etc. to the point where it can become a matter of me exerting "accidental over-control,") it also sets me up for being "over-manipulated." It's very close to how the mountain men would lose their money on trinkets, cheap booze, and women. Someone sidled up to them in a friendly way, and they more or less trustingly went along with it, because it looked pretty good at the time. My desire to "come to town and go all out" also carries a little of that same sort of naivete. Next thing you know, something has been psychologically been stolen from me. Then it becomes a dance between "fighting it out" vs. "going back to the mountains, angry and bitter."

Finally, as I continue to hear that inner mystic that lives inside of me, I realize there are parts of the world that I just don't care to enter anymore. It is very much like the "creeping in" of civilization in the Old West. It can just play out and leave me out of it. The increasing shallowness and materialism and need for "more" leaves me cold.

I think about how I use new technology to be more "old school"--how social networking like Facebook and Twitter, I tend to use for deepening and broadening relationships vs. more narcissistic forms of social networking. I think of how I have been taking my friends in Facebook Nation "on vacation" with me. I find I have a deepening love for some of them, and a desire to "take them with me," even though much of this vacation involves "being alone." It's a need to share in a way I'm not accustomed to sharing. I recognize it is another version of my continuing dance between "sociability" and "alone-ness."

What a dance! As my desires to be more and more part of God's reign and not the world's become stronger, I also sense my need to pop "in and out of community" must also grow. My need to be healthy, in those "popping ins," needs to be cultivated. I can hide, but I can't hide. But part of the growth is becoming stronger in my understanding of the times I must exit and go back to the mountains, recognize that this IS a healthy understanding that makes me BETTER "in community" when I'm in it, and not fear my temporary "needs to exit." Otherwise, I will be fighting battles I've accidentally created for myself, and succumb to war-weariness.

Learning to be content in my solitude in order to be healthier in community--what a concept!