EATING AND DRINKING THE FUTURE AT SHAWSHANK

 Hope, in Christian theology, is rightly contrasted with wishing. Both deal with a good and blessed future that is as yet unrealized. But whereas wishing is all full of chance and likelihoods of a possible happy turn of events, hope is certain because in Christ the good future has already been begun. In the NT, hope is based upon the resurrection, (1 Cor 15:19-20). The firstfruits of the restored new creation have already been brought in, via Christ's resurrection and gift of the Spirit.Those in him, are even now experiencing elements of the future. Such experiences are rightly called sacramental.

     Just as the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, is a bridge between heaven and earth, between this world and the good future, so too there are other signs and seals of what surely will come in full.

     Whether unwittingly or not, (I think not), the great film, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is about Hope and the sacramental foretaste's of redemption that can occur even in the most hellish of the World's dark places.

     Andy DuFrane is wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife. He is sent to Shawshank a maximum security prison run by brutish guards and, (in the only glaring flaw in an otherwise wonderful movie--WHY does Hollywood insist on doing this?), an outrageously hypocritical-Bible-quoting warden.

    As in any prison movie, the walls and bars and fences are virtually characters in the film. They are the symbols (signs and seals?) of hopelessness and oppression. Early on in the movie, they are featured especially prominently.

    Conversely, light and expanse (symbols of hope), are rare.

     As the film progresses, we have several scenes, which for a time, make the walls disappear. Through Andy's agency, he and his brother inmates work on a roof and enjoy a couple of beers at the brutish guards expense, beers that "Dissolved the walls. We felt like men. We felt that each man was on his own house. "And for a time, the sky is blue and you can see for miles.

     Another time Andy gets some Mozart records and plays an aria over the prison loud-speaker system. Like the beers, the music, dissolves the walls. Red, Andy's friend says, "I don't know what those ladies were singing. It was so beautiful, so deep, it couldn't be expressed in words. Made the walls dissolve. Every last man felt free."

     But such moments get you in trouble. We hear, "Hope is a dangerous thing," several times. Andy gives Red a harmonica to make his own music, and make his walls disappear, but Red does not dare play. The elixir of freedom and hope would be too strong and too painful. The prison is designed to take away hope and any who dare to try to have it get savaged by the system.

    Finally, "time, pressure, and a big girly poster" combine and Andy escapes. In an amazing reversal of the crucifixion/resurrection story, Andy first crawls through the grave, (Sheol perhaps), a 500 foot long sewage pipe, and upon his "resurrection," standing free and clean in the open night air, he does a crucifixion pose. 

     The Pacific Ocean is the place of bright and blessed future, the place hoped for. It is a sort of heaven. All light and expanse. To Mexicans Pacific is "Place of no memory."

     As is always true (on this side of "the other side") there is the tragic mixture of walls and expanse, darkness and light; and in the case of The Shawshank Redemption, violence and peace. There is a fair amount of violence and brutality in Shawshank. The language is also harsh. But this movie could not have been made with an absence of those elements. We *are* talking about a redemption from a hellish place. The movie is admirably restrained in this regard however. The camera does not linger lovingly on the dark side, it shows just enough to help us understand that hope in this kind of place would be a great and dangerous thing indeed.

     This is a GREAT film.