metaphors

An Italian movie with English subtitles about a Spanish-speaking Chilean poet.

Il Postino feels like one of my favourite movies.
I think it's mostly just that, the feel of it, the music, the awkward main character who reminds me of the genuine, beautiful simplicity and depth of my friend John Coghlan, the poetry of Pablo Neruda, the ocean...
I've fallen asleep listening to the soundtrack before, and woken up in Paris.

Here are a few quotes:

"The whole world is a metaphor for something else."

This reminds me of the shadowlands that George MacDonald wrote about in The Golden Key. C.S. Lewis echoed this same imagery in many of his writings. The movie Shadowlands, the biography of Lewis used this title because it was such a big theme in his life. The idea that the created world that we experience, and all goodness and beauty is just a shadow of what is truly real. The word "poetry" comes from Greek "poema" which means to create. Our longings and desires are just shadows, meant to show us and bring us to to the reality of our God and creator, Jesus Christ. This same theme is described beautifully in chapter 7, Dulce Domum (sweet home) of the Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Graham. If you've got a copy on your shelf or can find it in your neighborhood library, it would be worth it to shake off that childish dust accumulated from years of neglect and rediscover at least this one chapter of a classic tale. And, if you want to travel farther down that same road, find another of my favorites, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. If you want some biblical foundation for all these fancies, a good place to start would be Hebrews 11, specifically verses 8-15. Our scriptures are laced with with this ribbon. Jesus Christ is Longing Fulfilled.

Here's another quote from Il Postino, A poem by Pablo Neruda
(Try reading it while listening to the sound of the sea.):

And it was at that age...
            Poetry arrived
in search of me.
I don't know how,
I don't know where
it came from, from winter or river,
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of the night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

                              -Pablo Neruda