Kirkepiscatoid

Time for another silent movie break. From TCM:

In a small village on the coast of England, Theodora Fitzgerald marries elderly millionaire Josiah Brown in order to please her father, Captain Fitzgerald, and her two older, unmarried half-sisters. On their honeymoon in Switzerland, Theodora is taken under the wing of American widow Mrs. McBride, who accompanies Theodora on a mountain climb. When Theodora slips over a precipice while trying to take a photograph, she is rescued by the young and handsome Hector, Lord Bracondale, who earlier had saved her from drowning near the Fitzgeralds' cottage.

Fearing her growing attraction to Hector, Theodora flees to Paris with her husband. Hector follows them to Paris and encounters Theodora again while she is dining with her father and Mrs. McBride. The next day, while they are touring Versailles as Josiah rests in their hotel, Hector and Theodora realize that they are in love. Knowing that their love is too strong to allow them to see each other as friends, they decide to part.

Brokenhearted, Hector asks his sister, Lady Anningford, to befriend Theodora, which she does. Back in England, Lady Anningford invites Josiah and Theodora to her country estate for a weekend house party. Despite his best intentions, Hector again declares his love. Theodora resists him, however, but sends him a note confessing her feelings, at the same time sending a note to Josiah saying that she will soon join him back in London. Morella Winmarleigh, who loves Hector and had once considered as his future wife, sees Theodora drop the two letters into the estate's mailbox and redirects the letter for Josiah to Hector and the love note intended for Hector to Josiah.

After a confrontation between Josiah and Hector, Josiah decides to sacrifice himself for his wife's happiness and accompanies an exploration party to Arabia. His party is attacked by bandits, and he is fatally wounded just as Hector, Theodora, her father, and an escort arrive. Before he dies, Brown wishes the lovers happiness.

I have seen plenty of Valentino silents, but really, the bulk of my experiences with Gloria Swanson's films is pretty much wrapped up in "Sunset Boulevard" in her (somewhat autobiographical) portrayal as an aging star of silent film. I was captivated by her range of facial expression. I was also sort of surprised, that, devoid of flowing, flashy sheik costumes, Rudolph Valentino was a rather slightly built man.

But I guess what this film got me to thinking about was the whole business of how we often never truly follow our "heart's desire"--not necessarily in just romantic things, but just things in general. All the trouble in this movie starts because Theodora gets roped into doing something she knows is wrong for her.

It make me realize that a lot of times we are even afraid to express our heart's desires to God, and instead, we just do "what we think everyone expects of us," hoping that it is the right thing, figuring if everyone else feels this way, we must be the problem. Then we find out that because we did not really take our heart's desires into consideration in counsel with God, we settled for less than what God expects of us and what would have truly made us happy, even if the road to it seemed "harder", somehow.

I have been incredibly impressed with the number of Psalms in which it is apparent the psalmist was lying awake in bed, in either the early morning or late night, pondering God. I kind of had the delusion I was the only one who did that. I have a feeling this is much more universal than I realized.

We can't always be as lucky as Theodora, whose elderly rich husband conveniently died at the end of the movie. So part of what I am realizing is that my prayer time is not just "time to ask of God," or even just "time to hang out with God," although both of those functions are very important. Part of it is using time with God for "sorting things out." Part of it is to uncouple our heart's desires solely from ourself and lay them out there for God, so we can use discernment. Of course he knows what these desires are, but I think to release them from ourselves connects them to his realm so we can better understand his desires for us, and how these things all "fit".