Paul L. Caron
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Sunday, October 20, 2024

The Wild Robot: A Radical Sense Of Belonging And The Power Of Christian Hospitality

Mia Staub (Christianity Today), Behind the Story:

I recently watched a video of Andrew Garfield tearing up as he read aloud a love letter. He tearfully said, “This is why art is so important, because it can get us places that we can’t get to any other way.”

@nytimes "I'm sad at the transience of certain relationships in my life. I'm sad at losing my mother." The actor Andrew Garfield talked about love, loss and grief on "Modern Love." The result was a conversation unlike any other in the history of the show. Tap the link in bio to listen. #AndrewGarfield #loss #grief ♬ original sound - The New York Times

The Wild Robot does that. Watching it is like taking an emotional deep breath. Some of the emotions are easy to explain. Parents can empathize with the themes of motherhood and parenthood. Anyone who has felt like an outcast can see themselves in many of the characters throughout the film. But other emotions lie deeper below the surface and are much harder to explain. Why am I crying … in public … on a Saturday night … watching a beaver and a bear cuddle next to each other? Film, and art more generally, can reveal things within us that couldn’t be excavated any other way. The Wild Robot is art. It is beautiful, both stylistically and emotionally. There were shots where I genuinely gasped at how gorgeous they were. The film felt like a necessary reminder of the art of animation and story in a time where so many films are remakes, sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. The Wild Robot also presents us with a radical sense of belonging, reminding the Christian of the power of kingdom hospitality. Watching The Wild Robot was sort of like receiving a hug after crying in front of a friend.

Christianity Today, The Robot Will Lie Down With the Gosling:

Based on Peter Brown’s eponymous 2016 novel and brought to the screen in painterly style, the film tells the story of a robot stranded on an island and forced to adapt to her woodland surroundings. Programmed to be helpful, she soon takes as her task raising a gosling and preparing him for an upcoming migration.

Reminiscent of Ice Age, Wall-E, and The Iron GiantThe Wild Robot speaks to the vocation of motherhood, the clashes between nature and technology, and climate change. It also beautifully demonstrates the humility involved in hospitality. For the Christian, it’s a reminder of the countercultural practice of welcome. ...

Hospitality is more than opening your home for dinner with friends, more than being kind when it happens to be convenient. Oftentimes, hospitality requires sacrifice. That sacrifice includes putting aside our grievances, spending time with people who aren’t like us, and even offering forgiveness.

[O]ur hospitality stems from the unlikeliest association of them all—an almighty God who involves himself with mere humans, who graciously intervenes on our behalf. The church extends hospitality to others because God extended hospitality to us (Ex. 22:21). As Colossians 4:5 puts it, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.”

The Wild Robot reminds us that if our hospitality comes with qualifications—political party, gender, race, whether we usually eat another animal for lunch—then we are allowing lesser things to get in the way of Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbors. To pick up other people’s crosses (Gal. 6:2–5), to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice (Rom. 12:15), we have to actually encounter one another. We can’t be the church without the countercultural sense that the things that reconcile us are greater than the things that divide us, whether ideologies or customs or mere social norms.

As the creatures in The Wild Robot encounter this reconciliation, they are changed and challenged. Hospitality changes the very nature of reality. It rewires a robot; it turns prey into a friend.

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