Jesus & The Chosen
I promised I’d write about Season 4 of The Chosen, having just seen the full season in the theater. It was so well done, emotional, and heart-breaking.
If you haven’t watched one minute of The Chosen, it’s the most successful crowd-funded series in history and the first-ever multi-season series about the life of Christ. It’s become a global sensation. The series is centered around Jesus and all the “chosen” people in His life. Seasons 1-3 are available on The Chosen app via Angel Studios. Season 4, only released thus far in theatres, will come to the app sometime in the near future.
If you have read the Bible and want to see it come to life, especially the New Testament, The Chosen gives you a glimpse into what life may have been like for those who followed Jesus as his disciples. And while the show sticks to Biblical scripture pretty closely, it also improvises and adds characters into the mix that help us understand what it must have been like to live during that time when Jesus was teaching. Jonathan Roumie plays Jesus in a way that is so nuanced and believable that all I can say after watching the whole of all the seasons is this: he makes you want to hug Jesus. Seeing Jonathan portray Him as God and as a man helps believers to see all that Jesus was up against as He spread His messages of LOVE, MERCY, and FORGIVENESS. If you don’t shed a tear during the raising of Lazarus, let me know. It’s pretty powerful stuff.
I say this frequently as someone who teaches communication courses and quotes Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and other Greek philosophers regularly: these aforementioned men all lived 300-500 years before Jesus, and their words are still powerful and relevant. The same should be true for Jesus and His teachings.
The Chosen is a delightful blend of history and scripture melded together with regular people with regular questions wanting to grow closer to the words of Christ. It’s difficult not to become swept up by its beauty, lessons, and love of God.
Friday Night Lights
With only one season remaining to watch of Friday Night Lights, my husband and I have REALLY enjoyed this series. Totally late to the game (haha, pun intended), Friday Night Lights is set in Dillon, Texas, and follows a high school football team (or teams) and the characters that make up the teams and of the town. If you like high school sports, football, and teen drama, this is the show for you. As the anchors of the show, Kyle Chandler plays Coach Taylor and Connie Britton plays his wife; these two keep everyone around them grounded. They are good-hearted people who try to do the best for all around them.
One particular thing I found interesting watching it all these years after it was produced (it ran from 2006-2011), is the lack of cellphones in the show. It reminds me of a simpler time; cellphones were just becoming popular for kids during that time, but the first three seasons of the show were devoid of cellphones. It’s just one small observation, but I wonder how much damage technology has done to our young ones over the years and how healthy it is to be connected to them all the time. The lack of them in the show is noticeable.
The show does a great job of getting you interested in each of the character’s lives. Some characters have great challenges that they must tackle daily. And as well, as they are all growing up, we get to see them morph and change into the people we hope they will become.
New Novel – Coming This Summer
Well, I’ve made it to the final editing stages of The Ones Closest to You. This historical fiction novel is set in New York City in the years 1956-1957, right as The Brooklyn Dodgers are about to leave New York for California. The main protagonist is Veronica DeMarco, a reporter for The News and a first-time novelist, who lives with her sister, Essie, who suffers from polio. As the story unravels, Veronica finds herself interviewing incarcerated mafia dame Rosa Manetti. During this time, Veronica writes the sensational story of Rosa Manetti, while also uncovering some secrets from her own past.
This novel is different for me. It’s only the second time I’ve written historical fiction, and I’ve had a great time researching the time period, the Dodgers, and mafia women of that time. I even visited a prison to help make the prison visits believable.
I’ll keep you posted as to when it will be released.
