All In The Same Boat

In the movie, “Harold and Maude,” it is Maude, the 80year-old lover of life, who challenges the young Harold to greater sensitivity to the wonder of life around him. In one scene, Harold sees only a field of ordinary daffodils; Maude asks him to look at the uniqueness of each individual flower. When Harold and Maude drive into the City of Los Angeles, Harold sees tall buildings and lots of cars and people; Maude sees a tiny, dying, choking tree and determines to uproot it and plant it where it can grow into the tree it should really become! In the film, Maude says many unconventional things which might cause some uneasiness to those of us who adhere to the traditional philosophies of the Western World. But, it could be that unconventional Maude has a deeper sense of the meaning of Christianity than many “conventional” Christians.

The call to Christianity is, after all, a call to liberation-a call to be free to become the…