The movie A Beautiful Mind i s based on the story of a brilliant mathematician, John Nash. Nash is as arrogant as he is brilliant, but that changes as he goes through an excruciating process of being diagnosed as a schizophrenic. The mind that served him so well betrays him and he is left wondering what is real and what is delusional.
The viewer of the film walks the journey with the character (played by Russel Crowe) and we enter a world of frenetic paranoia and misbelief. We experience the disease and throughout the process we too are left wondering what is real.
There are many moments in the film, but for me one particularly poignant moment sums up the entire story. John Nash is in their bedroom sitting on the bed. He is in deep distress. He is questioning everything. He doesn't know what is real and what is a hallucination, the result of a disease taking over his mind. In an unforgettable moment, his wife takes her hands and puts them on his face. "You want to know what is real?" she says "This is real." She then takes her hands and puts them on her face and then her heart.
"This is real."What is real? The question resonates through the ages. Perhaps someone with mental illness has to face it more directly then others, but we all have to ask this question - what is real?
From the time we are young our world is divided into the secular and the sacred; the real and the 'not real.' We go away on a weekend of prayer or retreat, and we are told at the end "Tomorrow you will go back to reality. You will leave this mountaintop experience. You can't live in it forever." We are told to "remember the mountain top when we get back to reality." We soberly nod, we will try and remember all this when we are back to real life. After all, we reason, the disciples didn't live on the Mount of Transfiguration forever.
But what if we have 'real' wrong?
I am taken back to the scene in A Beautiful Mind. What is real?
"You want to know what is real? I'll tell you what is real."Real is the Holy Trinity, mystery and awe surrounding the three in one.
Real is the body and the blood, Christ and his church.
Real is forgiveness, mercy, and grace.
What is real? Let me take your hands and show you what is real.Real is communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Real is communion with others in this journey. Real is knowing that the eternal is forever and the now is just now. Real is knowing there is a greater reality in this thing called life.
We are tricked and trapped into believing that everything is reality, except the holy.
But perhaps it is in the holy that we find our truest reality.