The Lighted Pathway

Rating: 10/10 (7 December 2009)

What have we become, if not a nation of lost beings? We seem to be starving from the ravages of unmet needs and relentless fear-- festering deeply a growing malnutrition of the soul. Indeed, was there ever a time when human beings truly lived to the full measure of their capacity for good?
Every once in a while a story is so beautifully constructed that we find a penetrating transformation has overtaken us, defying explanation, yet is as instinctively recognizable as joy, or laughter, or even deep sorrow. Such is the work of Writer/Director Frank Darabont in his powerful motion picture tale, "The Shawshank Redemption", which is based on a most unassuming parable by Stephen King.
Only through redemption will our nation find its way; and it is only by the people, those individuals who refuse to compromise their capacity to create beauty--or better, recognize it--who will guide us to our true potential as a society, or more fundamentally, as a planetary species.
Indeed, beyond redemption is a lighted pathway to our intended destiny, where fear transforms into compassion and hope becomes the new reality, ever nourishing our spirit.
Remember how you felt after watching this film? Though it may be true that we have never met, in many ways I know who you are. And with that insight wells up a comfort so luminous it lights this pathway on which, through all the mysteriousness of the vast universe, we both travel ever onward and upward.
Ellison Horne