Each week at Our House, we set off on a quest to explore how we can live life more fully and develop an intelligent faith, not just dutifully sticking to ancient traditions, but being willing to change and grow. We want to live our lives to the full and believe in a God that is pulling us forward into new ways of seeing the world!
Last week at Q we went on a quest for Catalytic Chaos and heard how scientists add a catalyst to a process to speed up the transfer of energy.
Our world is powered by different forms of energy from nuclear energy and solar energy to chemical energy and hydro-electric energy, but the Pixar world of Monsters Inc is powered by SCREAM energy...
For thousands of years, parents, governments and religions have used the power of fear to try to control the behaviour of their children, citizens and followers and many have insisted, just like Monsters Inc: "We Scare Because We Care!"
Martin Luther was a monk who lived in Germany in the 1600s and stood up to the Catholic Church and their use of fear to power their religion. They sought to control and exploit the ignorant masses by literally selling tickets to heaven! These certificates were known as indulgences and were sold as a guaranteed way to escape the eternal fires of hell whilst the money was used to build cathedrals, as this clip from the movie, Luther, shows.
"We Scare Because We Care"is the mantra of monsters. It's not the mantra of love and it's not the kind of energy we want to power our world with.
And as we sang in this song, there's No Fear in God.
It takes the chaotic arrival of a little girl called Boo into the Monster's world, for them to realise that there is an alternative power source that can replace the need for a system built on scaring people. The Monsters discover that love and laughter are ten times more powerful than screams and so they transform their entire approach to life from scaring, to caring! They bring joy to the lives of children and it brings a new kind of power to their world. We're on a quest for that same revolution in our lives. We don't want to live our lives dictated to by a system built on fear. Here at Q, it's laughter we're after!
"Rejoice in the Lord Always" might sound like an old fashioned, overly-religious lyric, but the spirit behind the words of this Israel Houghton song is that we come alive as humans when we remember that our world is good and our creator is good and focussing on that goodness brings joy to our hearts and a smile to our faces.
Want to watch the whole movies that we showed clips of?
You can watch Monsters Inc on Amazon Prime here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monsters-Inc-Billy-Crystal/dp/B00ESZU1OI
You can watch Luther here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAACMptKD-c
What questions has this brought up in you? We'd love to hear your thoughts!