It’s 2024, and I love T-Mobile! This isn’t a product plug, although a sizeable discount would be nice if they read this! My growing affection for my cellular service provider is because of what they gave me in my new phone plan, a free Netflix subscription! Another streaming service isn’t in my budget, so this is a cool bonus!
A Catalog of ‘Hughes’ Proportions
Scrolling through Netflix’s vast catalog of content, I uncovered a gem of a documentary series called “The Movies That Made Us”. Each episode gives a behind-the-scenes look into how some iconic movies came to be like “Back to the Future”, “Forrest Gump”, “Pretty Woman”, and “Home Alone”.
The late John Hughes wrote the latter film. He was the visionary behind 80’s and 90’s teen coming-of-age movies such as “Sixteen Candles”, “The Breakfast Club”, and “Pretty in Pink”. My favorite of Hughes’s works is the 1991 comedy, “Career Opportunities”. It’s about Jim Dodge*, a 21-year-old job hopper and town liar who falls in love with a girl from school while they’re locked in a neighborhood Target store.
If Jim’s fellow Target shoppers and residents regarded his tall tales as facts, they’d believe he was an FBI officer, inventor of an artificial cow’s heart, a multi-million dollar investor, and an international diplomat.
By George, I Don’t Think He’s Got It
Jim has a non-fictional counterpart, a “Dodger” of truth in his own right, former United States House of Representatives congressman, George Santos. I speculate Santos might’ve looked to this movie to craft his image. To apply for the job, he, too, gave a list of far-out credentials.
The people of New York selected him to represent them assuming he had a “Jew-ish” heritage, graduated from Baruch College, earned a Master of Business Administration degree (M.B.A) at New York University (NYU), and worked on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
Santos used his inflated resume to siphon thousands of dollars to finance a lavish lifestyle. The public and the House majority caught on to Santos’s game. The latter group voted to expel him from his position on December 1, 2023.
Begin to See Through a New Lens
We may desire to follow Jim Dodge and George Santos’s lead and form an identity that betrays who we are. Before we were formed in our mother’s womb, God knew us. His ultimate vision is that we know Him.
If we choose to surrender to God and His goals for us, we can accomplish great things this year. One of my all-time favorite writers, C.S. Lewis, illustrates this in technical terms, “While in other sciences, the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred—like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.”Someone said that nations change when people change. The only one that can change a person’s heart is God.
A Prayer for Clarity and Familiarity
My prayer for each of us is that we submit to His divine vision even if it means we must set aside desires that conflict with His purpose. God says in Isaiah 66:2, “My hands have made both heaven and earth; they and everything in them are mine. I, the Lord, have spoken! ‘I will bless those who have humble and contrite hearts, who tremble at My word.“
As we begin to explore in 2024, let’s strive to have an accurate view of ourselves the way God does. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.“
Happy New Year everyone!
Sources:
Website: T-Mobile
Website: Netflix
Documentary: “The Movies That Made Us”
Biography: John Hughes
Movie: “Career Opportunities”
Movie Scene: “Career Opportunities Opening Credits Scene” (*warning: clip contains profanity)
Movie Scene: “Career Opportunities ‘Jim Is So Cool’”
Article: “The Talented Mr. Santos: Here’s Every Single Lie Told by George Santos” by Matt Steib and Margaret Hurttman — published December 1, 2023
Article: “Indicted Republican lawmaker George Santos expelled from US House” by Makini Brice and Richard Cowan — published December 1 , 2023
Quote: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, page 144 (reissue published in 1996 — New York: Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster)
Scripture: Isaiah 66:2
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:12
Scripture references are from the New Living Translation. Their links go to bible.com, courtesy of YouVersion, makers of the Bible App available for iOS and Android devices.
