It's hard to save your own soul.

Duvall's 'The Apostle," is a movie I've seen more than 30 times. Duvall wrote it, directed it, produced it and wrote the checks. For that reason alone, it's worth seeing.  There is a lot going this picture. It reminds me of the way I grew up.

Without regard to one's position on the still smoldering embers that is Liberation Theology, one must admit that  confronting Jesus Christ, wherever this occurs, is transformational.

Christianity creates dissonance because  its belief system is devoid of middle ground. Christ corroborated this: , "I will spit the lukewarm out of my mouth." (Revelations, 3:16.) The middle ground is Christianity's dead zone, an  abyss from which all  should flee.  With this in mind, I reflect on  The Apostle. The film drives a telescopic lens into the touchpoint between a man and his quest to know God.  It is of no surprise that classic Pentecostals are gaining adherents in Latin America and Africa.

Latin and African cultures connect with the expressiveness  --the verbal release, if you will-- at the core of the Pentecostal Experience.  Liberation theology seeks this expressiveness--but, through acts of service to others.

The main character (Apostle E.F.) lives in a world--a Pentecostal galaxy --  where liberation is expressed  through acts of service to God. Simply stated, this means saving souls.

Robert Duvall-- a gift to anyone who loves movies -- directs Miranda Richardson, the late Farrah Fawcett, Billy Bob Thornton and, of course, himself, to muted, flawless performances.

This films unravels the paradoxical threads of Christianity— that hungry quest for knowing, that desire for meaning and the quixotic, uneven balancing of time versus eternity. The Apostle  is filled with characters yearning  to avoid the abyss. In this film no one takes the middle ground because they see it for what it is: as a transparent fallacy. 

The universe does not balance all things.

Did I say how much I love this film?

An Affair to Remember: Kerr, Grant and the closest thing to heaven.

In every love affair, there is a moment when you have the opportunity to simply be decent. After the euphoria departs and is replaced with a knowing this real and enduring is the point where love can begin. “An Affair to Remembers” glides along the course. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet and fall in love in a perfect shipboard romance.

The pair—betrothed to other lovers—made a unique pact: “If what we feel is real, let’s meet at the highest point in New York—the top of the Empire State Building—in six months.” Such was the conflict.

 Would this --after returning separately to their lives and their loves-- survive or tumble onto the quiet slope of memory. At the agreed upon moment, six months later, only one of the lovers arrives at New York’s nearest point to heaven. The story, really, begins here.  The lovers—and their love—matures and is tested. What they learn gives tacit hope to all who in the wilderness of loneliness hope for an enduring love, a last love…one that is remembered.