It is only the rare work of entertainment or culture that can deeply move me. Years of the refining of my particular tastes, combined with ever increasing demand for high standards have created a thick filter that hardly anything gets through.

So when something is created that does have the power to touch my heart, I am grateful beyond words to the creator of that work.

Bridge to Terebithia was the last movie I saw that touched me, brining up a nostalgic longing for childhood innocence and friendships like nothing else ever has, then hitting me with a real sense of loss. It was so well crafted, I thought that I was personally losing a close friend of mine from my youth.

The last Harry Potter book did something similar, by having having us look at the nature and power of love without sinking to sentimental banality. Many tears were shed because the story was real, perhaps shedding light on why some people do the things they do.

And there is this video that was recently brought to my attention. (If you are reading from your favorite RSS reader, you might not be able to see the video. Please visit the site to watch it.)

This five minute pantomime, combined with the words of Lifehouse’s Everything, tells the basic story of humanity’s exile and restoration better than any sermon, lecture, pamphlet, or (insert your favorite evangelistic or teaching method here) could hope to accomplish. It does so because it helps to accentuate and feed our own emotional desire for true restoration. The flood was so great that I couldn’t keep my eyes from tearing up.

The woman, a new creation, filled with the breath of God, is so in tune with the representative of God that she mimics his every movement. A true image-bearer, as humanity was meant to be.

Representations of trials and temptations come, artificially blocking her off from God. The further away she is taken, the less human she becomes, when at the end she is ready to perform a dramatic and final reversal of what God did for her at the beginning: death.

Finally we have the beautiful moment of awakening. The woman sees where she is, and then recognizes how far she is from God. And reminiscent of the Prodigal Son, God runs to his new creation, and then reminiscent of the great Exodus, performs a mighty act to bring his creation out of exile and make her human again. An image-bearer once more.

But just watch the video, and see what thoughts it leads you to have.

Good culture and entertainment can make people look at life in a way that hadn’t thought of before, or in a way they had forgotten. Sneaking into the guarded recesses of a person’s mind, a good story, song, performance, or even combination of the three, can reveal truths that the person would simply ignore if brought to them through another medium.

This is one reason why authors such as Ayn Rand and George Orwell are so popular. They caused people to have “ah-ha!” moments of realization and truth that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

And it’s why I think it’s important for Christians to be in the business of creating culture. It’s a weapon that we cannot afford to leave hanging on the wall. And so I am thankful to whoever created the video above.

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