A post by u/OrangeManNotBad moved me to post a comment about the Catholic Church, which reminded me of a movie (Brother Sun, Sister Moon) from 1972. The film dramatizes the life of St. Francis of Assisi (Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, c. 1181–3 October 1226).
The film contains a long scene where Francis appears before the Pope, praising nature as God made it and contrasting the beauty and simplicity of the natural world with the wealth and fake majesty (stunningly displayed in the film) of the Pope and those he surrounds himself with.
This does not go over well with the court, who become angry and order guards to drag Francis away, probably to his death.
But the Pope is overcome with a . . . vision, or experience . . . and orders that the young Francis be brought back.
The Pope then stands from his throne, removes his ludicrous headgear and heavy outer robe, becoming a little more human, and slowly descends the many steps from his throne to the floor below, eventually standing before Francis.
The Pope tells him that HE, the Pope, began his ministry much as Francis did, but eventually that changed as he took on more responsibilities. He then says:
We are entrusted with riches and power. You, in your poverty, put us to shame.
Then he lets Francis go, to the astonishment and consternation of the court.
The Pope climbs the long staircase up to his throne, where he again wraps himself in his thick robe, with his humanity once more symbolically locked away behind finery, wealth, and power.
And yes: I feel that this clip has important parallels and relevance to the Great Awakening.
The scene itself is split into two clips here, well worth the time for those interested. It's perhaps the most emotionally powerful movie scene I can recall; it had quite an effect on me when I saw the film years ago.
Clip one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-msmuDZfRs
Clip two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYH2WS3CU6A
Each clip is about seven and a half minutes long.
I was raised in a St. Francis school, from 1st to 4th grade. I had no idea who he is until some 30 years later when I tried to trace my childhood.
This clip opened my eyes, like, wow, he really just went to the Pope and straight up said, "what's all this about hierarchy, when we can just live a simple life if our goal is the same?" Because I kinda did something similar with a high-hierarchy organization like that. I chose not to move up in my career ladder knowing the political hoops I have to go through will make me a very sad person.
I have also never committed to any church after I attended the school. I learned about regular American church, black church, MEGA church, LDS... and I often wondered why I need to go to a church if I can just look up into the sky to find God and Jesus? To this day I don't know what their differences are. But they're often very nice people!
I love/fear God, and I like to have Jesus with me as he's everywhere. I thought that's more than enough to keep me going through my human life.
Perhaps spiritually I'm a disciple of the Franciscan Order all these years and I just didn't know it. And if that's the case, then I'm really grateful for it, knowing there's someone who just wants to live a simple life and doesn't get caught up with money and power.