A week ago, I was on a plane watching a Korean movie called Past Lives. The movie begins with three people, two men and a woman, sitting at a bar. You hear the voiceover of other customers wondering what their relationships are to one another. Brothers, sister? Colleagues? Is there a romantic couple in the group? If so, which ones are together? Who is the odd one out and why? To answer these questions, the movie flashes back to the woman’s childhood until it catches up to the opening scene. I recommend Past Lives because, like all good art, it resonates with real life. We all have past lives, and the rest of our story is always influenced by our childhood.
As a writer, the movie also intersects a question I’ve been asking myself as I finish up my latest memoir. Am I portraying the people from my past accurately? Fairly? Is my take on our interactions and how they affected me legit? The woman in the movie hunts the internet for her childhood sweetheart. What she finds affects her deeply and propels the film’s plot. What she discovers about herself makes it more than a simple romance. Here’s its trailer. Check it out if you enjoy stories focused on character.
Like the woman in the movie, I too searched the web for images of people from my past. Seeing them again, although much older, my emotions rose as if I was still the person I was when I knew them in school.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
In a key scene near the end of the movie, the woman sums up what she has figured out by re-establishing a relationship with the man from her childhood. She tells him, she is no longer who she was as a little girl, but that doesn’t mean how he remembers her wasn’t real.
That’s the line that informed my dilemma about how I’ve portrayed the people from my past in my memoir. My emotional response to vivid vignettes in my life was recorded through my perception of myself and others at the time. These profound feelings drifted like sediment onto the seabed of my memory and hardened into solid rock. Therefore it’s no surprise that looking at internet images of those who caused intense sentiment could illicit profound reactions even now. However, seeing their aged faces made me realize they aren’t who they used to be way back when and neither am I. Past lives don’t need to define us because none of us remain the same. I can write my story as I perceived it without invalidating their version.
This might seem like a forced connection to Thanksgiving, but honestly, my first response to watching a movie about past lives was, thank God I am not locked into who I used to be! And, thank God, I can see myself through the transforming lens of Christ’s love that frees me to see myself and former antagonists with the endless expanse of God’s grace.
Make no mistake
- Grace is not a cheap pass that gets you or anyone else off the hook.
- Grace transfers what is owed you and what you owe others into God’s hands.
- God’s perfect justice for us all was accomplished on the cross through Christ’s sacrifice.
- Therefore, there’s no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)
- Shame and blame become moot points that allow us to forgive and live free.
All to say dear readers, taste and see that the Lord’s mercy is good. (Psalm 34:8)
Serve that in your holiday pie, and after dessert, if you want to relax with
a good movie, check out Past Lives.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!Psalms 34:8 (NLT)
Cover photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash
Copyright Ann C. Averill 2023
