The New Evangelization and You

Sometimes it's the most offhanded prayers that get answered right away.

Like Paul, I've prayed for years for the Lord to take away that particular thorn in my flesh that keeps me from being who I want to be. And, like many people, I've frequently prayed to have the splinters taken out of the eyes of some of my more boneheaded friends and acquaintances while caressing the fine grain of the plank in my own.

To the extent that any of these were answered, judging by the course of my life, it took awhile and had to have gone something like this: "Oh, it looks like someone needs a big lesson in humility." Or, perhaps, like this: "It looks like someone didn't pay attention to that last big lesson in humility and needs a bigger one."

However, some of my more genuinely humble prayers have gotten immediate positive response. The one that comes to mind that has worked a few times in my life was "Oh, God, I don't want to die now. Please don't let me die now." In retrospect, those prayers were probably done in chorus with my guardian angel, my sainted godmother, and those of my deceased relatives who have, possibly, emerged from the purgatorial cleansing to take their seat among the celestial choir. They required a quick yes or no.

The offhanded prayers, the ones that I throw out seemingly without real passion or need, however, are harder to judge. I say them without expecting them to be answered and without really having a particularly pressing need, and so I don't keep track of them. But, one of them it seems has been answered. I discovered this as I was well into my summer reading. I have, in the past, been mostly a one book at a time person, but I suddenly noticed I was well into three different books and making good progress on all three. And, then, I added a fourth one: The New Evangelization and You by Greg Willits, a very good book that has been released only in the last week or so.

As I was getting into it, I remembered that sometime in the past fourteen months after reviewing Willits' first book, The Catholics Next Door, I said something to the effect of "Lord, if you want me to review books for this blog, you're going to have to make me one of those people who can make it through more than one book at a time." While several months between prayer and answer may not seem like the prayer was answered "right away," I think that if you'll reflect on the nature of prayer you'll agree that, except for those life or death moments, fourteen months to a prayer answered seems like the blink of an eye.

And, so, in the middle of the first volume of Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth (which is slow moving because it is so theologically rich), the latest (for me) Blackford Oakes spy novel, and the Catechism (a re-reading), I downloaded the latest from Willits, one of the more prominent leaders in Catholic new media and the New Evangelization.

Those of you, my loyal readers, who either remember my review of The Catholics Next Door or who have gone back to re-read it, will recall that I found it a very worthwhile book that left me with the feeling that the Willitses are much better than I am at being Catholic. This book never really gives you the time to think that.

The New Evangelization and You picks up from where The Catholics Next Door leaves off. In TCND, Willits and his wife, Jennifer, introduced us to their life, their struggles, their joys and their failings. Both of them prolific and creative, they have managed to raise five children, while at the same time engaging in an apostolate that has seen them doing things as humble as making string rosaries and as celebrated as hosting their own three-hour, radio call-in show on SiriusXM satellite radio.

They've moved on, though, both in terms of where they reside, and what they are doing and writing about. Willits is now the Director of Evangelization and Family Life Ministeries for the Archdiocese of Denver (which, when I was trying to shorten it to an acronym, became DEFLMAD, defflemad, devilmad—well, never mind, it's either going to get too cute or become sacrilegious). Jennifer continues as a stay-at-home mom for their children and, together, they show signs of continuing their award-winning podcast after a hiatus to effect their move from Atlanta to Denver.

In terms of writing, Greg Willits has gone solo this time. And, although he shares his own experiences in learning and sharing the faith, he has moved on from confessions to focusing on getting you, me and every other Catholic to begin evangelizing our friends, neighbors and family.

"The New Evangelization is about re-evangelizing the world for Jesus Christ, starting with us. It is about knowing the Catholic faith more deeply, living that faith more fully, and sharing the faith more successfully...," Willits writes. And he doesn't make you wait to tell you what he wants you to get out of his book: "I want to light a fire under you. Or rather, I want to simply inspire you to ask the Holy Spirit to light a fire under you.

"I want you not only to believe that Catholicism is the greatest part of your life—a golden, shining beacon of hope and truth and faith and joy and constant love—but also to experience a nearly insatiable hunger for knowledge about your faith that draws you on a daily basis to become more excited about its role in your daily existence...so that you can live your Catholic identity to the fullest...I want that ongoing thirst for knowledge and  that unquenchable desire to live out your faith to be so consuming...that it spills out of you and makes it impossible for you to keep it to yourself."

After going all out early on in the book, Willits doesn't disappoint in his recipe for knowing, loving and sharing the faith. His chapters, while monologue, end in an example of someone who is working to re-evangelize his community, or the world through the use of new media (blogs, podcasts, social media, etc.). In this book, Willits strives in great earnestness not to be the subject himself but the bringer of the message. He strives to show that, his many successes notwithstanding, that he is part of a broader effort that includes numerous smaller players.

I think he largely succeeds. Sometimes it's hard to separate the message from the messenger. One of the things I think Catholics are suspicious about when they start following writers such as Scott Hahn, Matthew Kelly or Willits is that those writers will morph themselves into the message like the televangelists one can't always successfully avoid on cable (in my own hometown, Oral Roberts University still gives homage to a wildly popular evangelist who never thought to name his school after anyone but himself). That suspicion usually translates into being reluctant to buy their books or give money to causes they are heading up.

With Willits, though, I think it's fair to say that not only does he present himself as an humble servant, but that having and devoting yourself to a wife and five kids can't help but make you anything but humble. If ever there was a path to personal humility and then holiness for a man, it starts with three simple words: Natural Family Planning.

Willits also makes it clear that he has none of the credentials one might think a modern day Catholic evangelist needs. He doesn't have advanced degrees, and one of the funniest parts of the book is when he tells how he finally received his bachelor's degree. Still, Willits isn't without knowledge. He has put himself through a rigorous self-study of Catholicism. And, he knows a lot about pop culture and how it can be used as an entry to evangelizing the masses.

One example is the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. This is a game that was very popular about ten to 15 years ago, but it obviously had a profound impact on Willits who is one degree from Kevin Bacon because the actor was once on his SiriusXM radio show. I am now two degrees from Kevin Bacon because I met Willits at the Catholic New Media Conference in Arlington, Texas last year (it was a brief meeting. Most of the time, he had the harried look of a man who was sharing a hotel room with his wife and kids while actually trying to get work done).

To tell the truth, though, while I am slightly impressed with my new Kevin Bacon number, I was more interested in meeting Willits than I ever will be to meet Bacon. At any rate, Willits shifts the game to show how everyone is one degree from the Catholic Church, which, unlike the original game, is a unique and useful insight.

The New Evangelization and You is a worthwhile book for everyone. If you are well-versed in the faith, this will be a quick read that will jump start you with specific, useful ways of participating in the New Evangelization. It will have it's most profound effect, however, on those Catholics who may attend Mass but don't really understand their faith. It's the sort of book that, if you can afford it, you should buy twenty copies and put them on the free literature table at the back of your church. The New Evangelization and You  is available at your local Catholic bookstore, BarnesandNoble.com, Amazon.com, and other outlets.

Music Videos and the Middle-Aged Blogger

It's been a long time since MTV took the music video and made it a ubiquitous part of the music scene. Like many people my age, I have memories of watching the launch of Music Television on August 1, 1981 and that first video in rotation "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.

Of course, I would have had to have been awake at 12:01 a.m. that Saturday. And, while that wouldn't have been impossible when I was fourteen going on fifteen, the odds of having seen it on a station that wouldn't come to our local cable system for another two years or so, likely makes my memories of that cultural milestone apocryphal.

Still, I remember watching the rotation of videos over and over again in those first years of the Eighties, hoping that the one that I really liked would be played. Unlike waiting for a song to come up on the radio, though, you really had to be committed and blessed with quite a bit of free time to keep watching the TV waiting for a video. But, while we were years away from being blessed with DVRs, or even a VCR in every home, we were blessed with way too much free time.

So, we waited. And, as we got older, we watched MTV go from something really cool to something kind of boring and gross. While history doesn't record the last video played by MTV, there was a last one and it's been decades now since MTV was a music video channel.

But, I'm still in love with the music video. And, with the internet now several years into packing enough bandwidth to stream videos, they are so much easier to access. So, sometimes, on late Saturday nights after the kids are in bed, I go looking for music videos. A few times a year I'll find one that I get hooked on and just want to watch over and over again. Currently, I'm just now coming off a run with Michael Buble's "Haven't Met You Yet":

Although I'm a fan of Buble's, I missed this when it came out a few years ago. But, then, isn't time-shifting what the DVR and Internet are all about? I was ready to watch it this year, not in 2009, and that's when I watched it 

I do have to be careful with this kind of video, though, because it is mostly mind candy of the kind that gets me distracted a bit too much from real life. The video tells the story of love's first exciting moments. There is a man who is saying all the right things and a beautiful woman who isn't saying anything—just staring into his eyes. Both of these give away that this is pure fantasy. While it takes some effort, I am able to come back to the Earth in the universe where the rest of us live and realize that it is an idealized moment that no one experiences, and that love in the shared sacrifices and joys of marriage goes farther and is more satisfying than that one kiss on top of the grocery freezers in the video.

What's less easy to shake is the thought that I, too, would love to lead a marching band down a supermarket aisle with a perfectly choreographed dance troupe coming up behind me (I keep watching it over and over again to see how they don't knock everything down but can't figure it out). And, just once, I too would like an entire store full of people to follow me out into the parking lot where we are showered with confetti, as if by magic, from the skies. 

Also, of late, I've been into Christian music. There's been some Catholic bloggery about how we shouldn't be creating specifically Christian music, but instead good music in general which, somehow, by default, is automatically Catholic because it's good. Also, there is a general snobbery that secular music is somehow better because it's secular and that Christian rock just isn't real rock 'n' roll. 

Well, real rock is really a combination of three instruments: guitar, bass guitar, and drums. And, this combination has been worn out over the last sixty years so that most rock songs sound like most other rock songs. There are occasional exceptions that usually spring up from more instruments being added to the mix and, frankly, good Christian music is just as good, if not better, than good, secular music. Lately, I've been into this oldie by the O.C. Supertones that I just discovered:

The attraction of this video, beyond just being great music, is that I wish I could jump up and down like that, rap like that and play a boss trombone like that. I did play the trombone in high school, but it was more of an excuse to hang out with my friends in the band than make music. In fact, I'm not sure if I ever did make music. The band uniform was pretty cool though. And, I could jump better back then.

As the summer progresses, and the clock ticks past 12:01 a.m. I'm sure there will be more of these. And, I guess they do break up a day of yard work and chauffeuring the kids around the suburbs to different camps. Sometimes a middle-aged blogger just needs to jump back to those days when there was nothing to do but wait for that favorite video to come up on MTV. 

Boy Scout Update

In the days since I wrote my last post, two organizations have been gearing up to start new scouting organizations that still understand what "morally straight" means. The first, OnMyHonor.net, I mentioned in my post and is now taking information for those interested in leading a new scouting organization.

Also exciting, and moving very quickly, is the Catholic Scouts of St. George being formed by Dr. Taylor Marshall. This organization is being founded for Catholics who want to continue scouting outside of the now-compromised Boy Scouts of America, and who want a specifically Catholic focus in a scouting context.

Both organizations have hundreds of Eagle Scouts and former Eagles Scouts working to create the new organizations. While the BSA holds certain copyrights, it doesn't own scouting and both groups are building their organizations along lines prescribed by Boy Scouting's founder Lord Robert Baden-Powell.

Having a boy of scouting age, I will be following both groups with interest. I'm not sure if we'll continue in the current troop until an alternative becomes available (the current troop is at our church). However, if there's any doubt about the trajectory of the BSA, just ten days after the decision to allow openly gay scouts, Boy Scouts were marching in a "gay pride" parade in Utah. Sure, they weren't supposed to and were told not to, but the sort of people who don't know what morally straight means in the Boy Scout Oath aren't likely to understand what "obedient" means in the Boy Scout Law.

Some news outlets are reporting that there hasn't been the expected flood out of scouting that conservatives were expecting. But, if the same reporters knew (or cared) where to look, they could see that it's just a matter of time before alternatives are organized and start drawing away established scout troops and members.

The Boy Scouts' Sodom Jamboree

It wasn't inevitable, but it wasn't much of a surprise. I held out hope until the end, but in the end, the Boy Scouts became the latest casualty of the push to pretend that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. In the words of the Boy Scout Oath, open profession of homosexual inclinations and the intention to act on them are now considered "morally straight."

In the days leading up to the vote, I thought surely there couldn't be a majority of national delegates in favor of accepting open and avowed homosexuals into the ranks of the Boy Scouts. I was wrong, by about 10 percent. The vote wasn't even close, it came in at a sixty-forty split—and that says something.

It says that the Boy Scouts' moral core has crumbled in the thirteen years since the Scouts went to the Supreme Court to defend their right to exclude those who embrace an intrinsically disordered and immoral lifestyle; to defend their right to help parents in raising their boys according to a moral code that was unwavering and in keeping with Judeo-Christian morality.

Organizations change over time as people come and go. Sometime in the past 13 years, the people who held to traditional morality left the organization as their kids grew older, and new leaders came in. On the national level, leaders of major corporations were allowed onto the governing board, including Randall L. Stephenson, the chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T who, along with others in corporate America, used his influence and money to undermine morality in scouting.

It shouldn't be surprising that the chairman of AT&T would be involved in a war on virtue. AT&T unashamedly makes money by directly selling pornography on its cable system. If you don't believe me, check out the "adult" offerings on AT&Ts U-verse. Of course, the other cable systems do too. And, corporate America in general has never seen morality as something to trump profits, at least not over the long haul. Given the chance, Wall Street will sell out Main Street for a buck almost every time.

Still, it wouldn't have been enough to roll the organization if it had only been a couple of corporate suits pushing for it at the national level. The real cave-in came from the delegates, who are among those most involved in scouting. About 840 of 1,400 saw nothing wrong with putting homosexual boys into tents with normal boys. Indeed, it seemed to them to be not just OK but the right thing to do.

That's where scouting was lost. It was lost because much of the active membership is no longer moral itself.  Sure, there was the usual dissembling and face-saving talk. Openly homosexual adults would still be excluded from leadership, and Boy Scouts engaging in any kind of sexual activity would still be considered wrong. But, the principle was sacrificed. And, as anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the tactics of homosexual activists knows, once the principle is sacrificed it's a just a few years of pressure and harassment before the assaulted organization completely capitulates.

When the time comes, I expect that somewhere between seventy-five and ninety percent of the organization won't care, because those who care about raising morally straight boys will have gone, and those who see Boy Scouts only in terms of camping and colorful badges will be the ones left. And Scouting won't look much different, because the moral rot will be where it is now—in the participating churches.

 If you look at the major religious groups involved in scouting, the Mormons are most involved and they didn't oppose the resolution. The word from Catholic dioceses was predictably mixed because 1) the American bishop with moral fortitude is still a rare breed, 2) there are still homosexuals entrenched in our clergy, and 3) because much of the American Catholic laity just goes along with the cultural flow. The Methodists are much like Catholics in that you never know if they'll figure out the biblical morality at stake, or if they do, whether they'll defend it.

On the other side, the Southern Baptists are already packing it up and getting ready to leave. They'll be in the lead of the exodus of conservative evangelical churches, as well as those Mormons, Catholics and Methodists who know better than their leadership what's coming next in scouting: Want your coveted Eagle award? You'll have to earn your Diversity Merit Badge and prove you're not a "homophobe" to get it. Oh, and while you're at it, offer a pinch of incense at Caesar's altar.

As to my own involvement in scouting, I was a Boy Scout myself in the Seventies, but didn't make Eagle. I was one of my son's Cub Scout den leaders for two years including this final year of Webelos and was hoping to support him in Boy Scouts, although our future involvement is very much in doubt. My hope is that alternative scouting groups will gain traction. I'm particularly interested to see what happens with the group OnMyHonor.net, which was in the forefront of the opposition to the policy change and which is now considering forming a new scouting organization.

In the end, it may be good for everyone involved to have gotten a look at the moral decay that is at the heart of the Boy Scouts of America. Now, if you just want your son to go camping and don't care who is sharing a tent with him, you have a ready-made organization to teach him how to set his tent up and tie a few useful knots. And, if you are looking for a character-building organization to help teach your son right from wrong, you know to look somewhere else.

The Way of Barabbas

On Tuesday, I gave what will likely be my last talk as lecturer to my Knights of Columbus council for this term. However, I was graciously offered the opportunity to continue in the position for another year by the incoming Grand Knight, and I accepted. For this post, I offer my talk "The Way of Barabbas." My speeches and talks being generally too long for a regular post, I post them on separate pages. This one is posted here. Comments can be posted at the bottom of the linked page.

Monday, Monday (Of First Communion and Other Things)

I've let almost two weeks go by without posting. I think it must be the time of year. A couple of the podcasts I listen to have been slow to upload new material, and the only blogs that seem to be running at full speed are those dedicated to the downfall of Barack Obama by repetition of every immoral, improper, or just plain dumb thing that the president or some member of his administration says or does.

Just to be clear, I'd love to see him go away too. But, by my calculations, he's got somewhere in the vicinity of 1,400 days left in his presidency. And, while we all hope for the repeal of the health care law in the near-term or at least the striking down of the HHS mandate, and pray fervently for early lame-duck status, there's little else most of us can do about these and other political things that we haven't done already. We just have to wait. Oh, and live our lives.

So, in the spirit of living one's life without constant reference to the national news, I offer a few notes on my life following my last blog post:

My older daughter, who is also my middle child, received her first communion on Sunday. She was aglow, I was aglow, Jesus was present under the appearance of bread and wine, and my wife finally got her revenge on the 1970s. Although I wasn't Catholic back then, she was and she very vividly remembers that she was cheated out of a white dress and veil for her first communion. In the post-Vatican II swirling of countercultural slush, someone at my wife's parish (or more likely a confederacy of people who should have never been put in charge of anything) decided that the kids should just "come as you are."

It's widely known, though, that women almost never come as they are. Even the most natural look is the product of an intense investment of time both in shopping and the application of cosmetics. Daughters learn this early on, and there was no shortage of princesses in the Seventies to remind young girls that looking just right when you meet your prince is important. One can hardly expect they would have lesser expectations for their first encounter with the Prince of Peace.

But, those were the dark days of polyester as a primary fabric in clothing and a Church that was trying to become a polyester version of its previous self. My wife hasn't told me what she wore, but it was obviously some of her everyday clothing. When we were married, she insisted on a veil. And, when our dear daughter went to receive Jesus' body and blood for the first time, she had the white dress, the veil, the wreath of pink flowers, the white silk purse and the crown. Going and coming in the cold morning, she also had the faux fur-fringed white princess wrap with the train that we had to carry behind her. Take that Seventies! So, there, weirdo, Birkenstock-sandal-wearing, hippie, Seventies Catholics!

I'm not sure I can ever fully relate. After all, we just made my son wear a tie and a jacket when it was his turn a couple of years ago (really the outer limit of what you can expect boys to wear, and then only for maybe the length of a short Mass). However, the look on my wife's face as she watched my daughter reminded me of the time nearly two decades ago, when a priest gave me permission to go through the parish library and either keep what I thought would be useful to the parish or throw away what I thought wouldn't. I threw away anything and everything by Matthew Fox, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kung and anyone else who was admired by the baby boomer-aged parish secretary. Also out went any book that had the words "liberation" and "theology" printed within several pages of each other.

After I was sure the garbage had been collected by the city, I told the parish secretary, under the guise of speaking to someone else, that of which I had rid the parish library. I don't think she every forgave me.

I will admit, my wife probably had more charity in heart with her strike at the Seventies than I did. I need to work on ways of provoking heretics in a more charitable manner.

***

 

I have read well into the first volume of Pope Emeritus Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth. It's a book rich in understanding of the man who is both man and God. Although I consider myself well-read, my knowledge of Christ started increasing from the very first page.

 

I'm also simultaneously trying to watch through Father Robert Barron's Catholicism series. It's a good juxtaposition of media because Father Barron draws heavily on the former pope's work. Although I'm only a few episodes into the series and about a third of the way into the book, it's clear that Father Barron has used Pope Benedict's work as the foundation for significant parts of his series. Of course, we all lean on others, and you could do worse than to borrow from Joseph Ratzinger.

 

***

 

However, it never fails that my disciplined reading starts to fail when I am reading books that require deep thought. I inevitably divert to lighter reading and then, later, come back to further read the weighty tome I had started. It's been no exception with Jesus of Nazareth. Having read an amazing explanation of the significance of Barabbas (the murderer released by Pilate instead of Jesus), I picked up The Story of Henry Tod, the fifth book in the Blackford Oakes spy novel series by William F. Buckley Jr. Thus from the first century Roman Empire, I jumped to the early 1960s to witness the confrontations in Berlin between the Soviets and the Americans. As with the four previous Blackford Oakes novels I've read, it kept me turning pages and admiring the late Buckley's writing style.

 

Finding the period of interest, I then launched into Bomb by Steve Sheinkin, a recent release that tells in quickly read chapters of the development of the atomic bomb by the United States. Most of the information isn't new, but it is presented in the accessible way of a story being told through the eyes of the participants. The subtitle, The Race to Build-And Steal-The World's Most Dangerous Weapon, conveys the author's non-scholarly, but interesting, approach to the subject. I will probably be on it another week before heading back to the first century and Jesus of Nazareth.

 

***

 

Last night, I was elected Faithful Pilot of the Knights of Columbus fourth degree assembly to which I belong. The office, which I will hold for a year, continues my gradual evolution from back-bench member in any organization I belong to, to officer with no real responsibilities (I've been both inside and outside guard), to officer with responsibilities but who doesn't have to lead or organize. I've been lecturer two terms which, while much work, doesn't require me to organize or combine with anyone to accomplish anything. The pilot's position seems to continue on this responsibility without needing to organize anyone motif. However, there's a chance it may be the first step toward actually leading something someday.

 

It's not that I can't lead or organize, it's just that I've led before (both in military and civilian life) and found that the best position in most organizations is to be the assistant of someone who doesn't know how to delegate. You wind up with a nice title and a lot of time on your hands. The Knights though is dangerous territory. There are a lot of accomplished delegators among them.

 

***





Home Run

In the Great Circle of Suburban Life, the coming and going of movies is a stream of consciousness that one connects into at an early age. When I was a child, the local movie theaters used to have kid movie mornings in the summer months and we watched a lot of never-to-be classics like The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber (the much anticipated sequel to Professor), The Shakiest Gun in the West and, of course, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

The better of these movies had Don Knotts stumbling around and causing much of the problems he would eventually resolve by more enlightened and braver stumbling around later in the film. Oh, and there was usually a villian who got uncovered or put in his place along the way. The movies without Don Knotts could still be successful movies, they just had to try harder.

Cheap tickets, cheap popcorn and a two-hour break for mom were quite a draw. And, it made of us children a future audience of full-price paying moviegoers. The stream of movies changed with increasing age. There was Star Wars, which was still playing in the theater a year after it came out, and which I finally went to (I was a Star Trek fan, thank you very much) and every sequel for every Wars or Trek movie since (I was probably the only person alive in 1999 who didn't loathe Jar Jar Binks).

Then there was The Jerk, my first R-rated movie. The John Hughes films and those that imitated them followed, along with the occasional James Bond movie and, into the Nineties, just about anything that might be considered an intellectual film like Run Lola Run. Somewhere along the way, though, the stream washed me up on the banks. It may have been the awful local revival of The Rocky Horror Picture Show I went to in 2000. It may have been age and my realization that flickering lights on a screen don't of themselves generate life, in much the same way words on paper don't by themselves create wisdom.

My guess is it was probably age. I just expected more from movies that were frequently giving me less. I was reading the great Catholic works and comparing them to what the American entertainment culture was offering, and finding American culture lacking. Then came 2004's The Passion of the Christ, in which moviegoers were given an intelligent and intense movie of great artistry about the crucifixion of Jesus, made all the more powerful by the fact that God used an intensely self-absorbed loser to write and direct it.

Since then, there have been various efforts at tapping the religious movie audience that was discovered lying amidst Passion's $600 Million in box office receipts. That draw showed both Catholics and Evangelicals that they could make films about the Faith that people would pay to watch thus making even more movies possible. But, like movies in general, the new Christian films have been mixed in quality. Of the Catholic films, For Greater Glory, has been the one I've found the most worthwhile. And, while I'm not fully plugged in to Evangelical culture and its cinema, I was really moved by October Baby. Both of these movies were in theaters last year.

So, it was with interest that I went to see Home Run on Friday. I had been given the gift of an unexpected babysitter by my wife who was going to a crafting party and who thought I was leaving with my son on a Webelos campout about 12 hours before I actually was. Dining solo at my favorite restaurant, I checked the Showtimes app on my iPod and watched this trailer:

It didn't exactly seem like the sort of movie I like, but I wanted to support the cause, and my wife said she wanted to see my other choice, Oz the Great and Powerful, with me on a future date night. So, I bought my ticket. There were two things I didn't know until I got into the theater: First, it was the movie's opening night which meant, mostly, that all the good seats in the balcony were taken. Second, that the movie had been filmed in Tulsa, where I live, and the surrounding area. And, I don't think that helped.

In Home Run, Cory Brand (Scott Elrod) is a professional baseball player with a past that both drives him to greatness and keeps him from it. He plays for the mythical major league Denver Grizzlies baseball team. And, he's become a YouTube sensation for his wild, drunken behavior both on and off the field. He has an agent who tries to contain him and, failing that, contain the damage he causes when he (frequently) escapes her control. When an argument with an umpire gets him suspended by the league for eight weeks, he is required by his team to show he has attended a 12-step program before he comes back.

Making amends for public relations purposes takes him back to Okmulgee, Oklahoma, his hometown (which is about 40 miles south of Tulsa). But, more drunken acting out gets his brother injured and Cory finds that he, in yet another public relations move arranged by his agent, must coach his nephew's baseball team while his brother recovers. It's here that the movie tries not to be cliche and fails pretty badly. I don't have to tell you that the coaching experience is supposed to bring him to a new understanding of his life, but it doesn't, or at least it doesn't in a convincing way.

The other track that is supposed to awaken Cory, the 12-step program, doesn't either. Even though the best performances of the movie come from the actors playing struggling addicts, the movie never really seems to connect Cory's own circumstances with those of less famous addicts. There is a moment that brings realization, but it comes late and seems contrived.

During his coaching and rehab stint, though, he discovers that he has a son. It is this discovery and his desire for a relationship with the boy that ultimately drives his redemption even though the writers and director of the film don't seem to know it. They spend way too much time developing the 12-step recovery angle and way too little time on the son and his mother.

In baseball terms, Home Run plays deep when it should play shallow and shallow when it should play deep. That may be the fault of the editor and perhaps a better cut of the film would go a long way to correcting this movie's problems. Still, much of the plot is both cliche and contrived, and that's the fault of the writer. It feels like you've seen it before but that the writers are trying to move deeper with it, deeper into the struggles of a society that is bound up with so many addictions and which, ultimately, will only find its peace in Christ.

Kudos for the theme and realizing this is an area that a Christian film could bring light to. Disappointment that Home Run didn't quite do that. In the end, Cory finds peace but in a way that also seems cliche, forced and improbable.

I said above that filming it in Tulsa and Okmulgee may not have helped the movie. But, I don't think that would be an issue for most people. I go to the movies to escape, and I wasn't able to because I recognized most of the landmarks as my everyday places. For example, I knew things like they were using the old Double-A baseball stadium in Tulsa for the major league scenes, but that tight shots keep you from noticing it's not a major league park. However, that's trivia that won't affect most viewers.

Home Run is worth seeing. But, it should be approached as one would a made-for-TV movie. There are parts you are going to enjoy and remember, and those will help you overcome the feeling that the pieces only sort of fit together in the end. Home Run is a good solid double. But, it leaves it to some future movie to bring the theme of addiction, recovery and redemption all the way home.