'Trainspotting' and Choosing Life

I recently watched the movie 'Trainspotting'. It's a
brutally honest film that follows the misguided ad-
ventures of a motley gang of male friends who are
heroin addicts in Edinburgh. Whenever I think of
Scotland and movies, I remember 'Braveheart' and
'Trainspotting'. The two films present two quite
contrasting views of this marvelous country and her
people.

The energetic visuals, music, and voice layover of
the opening scene quickly grabbed my attention.
The voice of the main character (seen running
from a failed shoplifting attempt while being chase-
ed by security guards) reflects on the concern of
many to choose life. He lists all that he would gain
by 'choosing life', but ends the dramatic monologue
by boldly declaring that he had chosen not to
choose life. I could only conclude that he saw
through the vanity of the popular views of life that
he saw in the people around him.

Soon the movie ushers us into the presence of friends
shooting themselves up with heroin. They have chos-
en not to choose life. They have chosen heroin, and
they say there is no real reason why. But the viewer
learns that heroin gives immeasurably more pleas-
ure than anything else. According to our narrator
with heroin all worries fall away and nothing else
really matters. Why feel the emptiness and pain of
life when you can experience the ecstatic pleasure
of heroin?

The fragmented manner of the film reflects the
increasingly fragmented lives of the friends. There
is an element of brutal truth that is communi-
cated with considerable wit and humor. Other-
wise I don't think most people could bear to watch
other people slowly perish. Many times I felt like I
was watching people settle in a land of the living
dead. The movie deeply affected me, and I still car-
ry a sense of being heart broken and grieved by
what I encountered in it. The reckless, self-destruc-
tive, fragmented, and chaotic lifestyles of people
really got to me. I feel sad by what I saw.

I realized again in a fresh way that the Gospel of
Jesus Christ is about choosing life, God's type of
life. It excites me to ponder again the riches of
grace that we have in the life, death, and resur-
rection of our Lord. But it also saddens me to
be reminded of how easily we continually choose
not to choose life.

My prayer for you this day, my friends, is that
we would choose life.

Shalom, JT