I got home a bit late yesterday because I had to be in church for the mid-week service. I didn’t sleep much the previous day so by 9pm yesterday, I was exhausted and my eyes were heavy with sleep. All alone, I needed something to make the night ‘epic’ like the day was so I decided to watch the “Life of Pi.”
I can’t remember the year this movie came out… Should be around 2012 but I remember having several oppurtunities to see the movie but somehow, I never got around doing that so it slid.
Anyways, I was saying, I wanted to watch a movie so I could sleep off and the “Life of Pi” happened to have fallen into my hands during the day. The plan was to watch couple of scenes and then fall asleep but I was hooked before I even knew it.
I am not here to tell you how interesting the movie is but to deduce some lessons that could have slip past if one wasn’t really paying attention to what’s in between the lines of the dialogues and monologues in the movie.
Let’s do a quick recap of the movie before I go further.
“In Canada, a writer visits the Indian storyteller Pi Patel and asks him to tell his life story. Pi tells the story of his childhood in Pondicherry, India, and the origin of his nickname. One day, his father, a zoo owner, explains that the municipality is no longer supporting the zoo and he has hence decided to move to Canada, where the animals the family owns would also be sold. They board on a Japanese cargo ship with the animals and out of the blue, there is a storm, followed by a shipwrecking. Pi survives in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a male Bengal tiger nicknamed Richard Parker. They are adrift in the Pacific Ocean, with aggressive hyena and Rickard Parker getting hungry. Pi needs to find a way to survive.” – – Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1. The first lesson obtainable from the movie is the fact that there is a supreme being that controls the affairs of men. Man is not really in control as he thinks he is. A particular tribe in India – according to the movie – has over a million gods, yet Pi was able to narrow his channel of reaching the God down to 3 religions. At the end, none of the religions mattered but his faith in the Almighty God.
2.Another lesson the “Life of Pi” teaches is embedded in the frequently asked questions: ‘Why do God allow bad things to happen?’ Here’s a spoiler, we still don’t have an answer but look at it this way, Pi asked the priest when he got into the church and saw a portrait of Jesus being crucified that ‘How could any father kill his innocent son for the life of sinners?’ The priest couldn’t give Pi a straight answer as well other than the fact that God loves us but right there, I thought to myself, people die or get caught in various diseases, terrorist attacks, disaster and the likes and blame God saying ‘If God is the Almighty, how can He allow such a thing to happen.” The truth is even God had to watch His son being mauled and crucified for a sin he did not commit. When Jesus’ agony reached its peak, He cried out ‘Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus, the God who became man couldn’t get an answer from God at that point, instead God couldn’t behold Him because He looked like sin so He turned His face away from His own son! He didn’t help His own son from suffering because of a greater purpose of saving you and I. Many people didn’t understand what happened that day, even the disciples but time revealed God’s purpose to us and now all of us from various part of the world have been reconciled to God because of what Jesus did. We may never fully understand God’s purpose while we are still here on earth but one thing is for sure God is good and everything He does works together for our good. If it’s God, then, there is a purpose to it. Other than this, my knowledge of this phase of God is limited.
3. Also from the movie, we see that God cares about what we go through. He makes it a point to let us know this by exploiting means of reassuring us. When Pi got to the Island made of algae after he had been hungry for days without food and God provided meal for himself and the 400 pounds Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, Pi realised he couldn’t stay on the Island because the Island is carnivorous. haven regained his strenght, him and Richard Parker hit the sea again leaving the island behind. It was later discovered that the island disappears. Pi made a very thankful note to God as he left showing gratitude for sustenance and reassurance. According to him, God gave him encouragement to continue his journey, he said although it feels like God wasn’t there and his prayers weren’t getting to Him, God used the island to reassure him.
4. Pi couldn’t stress the importance of not giving up enough. He kept on repeating this till he became a survival.
5. Pi acknowledged the role of his teacher – His father. He said without his father’s teachings, he couldn’t have survived the sea. This is funny because I remember vividly a time when his father was trying to teach him a life lesson and Pi taught he was cruel. Similar to how we view God’s reprimands most times huh?
The overall message in this movie is that there is a God and anyone can bear witness to, or experience a miracle if you believe.
Photo credit: Screen Rant
– Written by Alex Amos
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