During this half-hour discussion, Regina Dawn Akers shared enlightening points that this movie, Shall We Dance, held for her and how it served in her awakening. Regina also shared her plans to retire from Awakening Together at the end of next year, December 31, 2022.

It was important to Regina to revisit this movie as it is representative of how the Awakening Together community can move forward with the original vision for the organization that was inspired by her inner intuition.

Regina has envisioned the organization not as one centered on any leader or teacher, but as one that relies on the guidance and service of all of its leaders, including the President-Minister, the Board of Directors, and the Member Board of Trustees, as well as the ministers and members of Awakening Together. Both the original movie discussion from March, 2020 and this short discussion focus on the importance of letting guidance lead us as we lead the organization and the pitfalls to be avoided.

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The original discussion led by Regina can be found here.

Here’s the playsheet that Regina created: Shall We Dance Playsheet.

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Regina Dawn Aker’s facilitated this month’s movie discussion group. The movie this month was Flatland – The Film. Based on the classic 1886 novella by Edwin Abbot, Flatland is an animated film about geometric shaped characters who live in a 2-dimensional world. A Square, an attorney-at-law, awakens from his 2-dimensional world when he meets A Sphere, who takes him to the 3-dimensional world, Spaceland.

You can watch Flatland – The Film for free on YouTube. Here’s the playsheet that Regina Dawn Aker’s created: Flatland PlaySheet.

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This month’s movie was Silver Linings Playbook starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

The central character, Pat, is recovering from a violent outburst triggered by the discovery of his wife’s infidelity and exacerbated by his previously-undiagnosed bipolar condition. In the midst of picking the pieces of his life back up, he begins a friendship with a young widow, Tiffany, who also has fragile mental health. Together, they learn how to confront their demons and relearn that the joys of life consist in more than just silver linings on an otherwise bleak existence.

A Canadian Jesuit movie review noted that the subtle identification of several Christian symbols (crosses worn by both Pat and Tiffany and a picture of Jesus in Pat’s parents’ home)  seemed to under gird this movie with themes of redemption and forgiveness.

The motive for this directorial choice is, I believe, to signify that Pat is being called to undergo a Christ-like role in the scheme that the family has cooked up. He is reluctant to go along with the plan, but soon realizes that he has to swallow his pride and do something that goes beyond merely his own interests. In the end, not only does he participate in the scheme, but he takes control of it: not control in the sense of having complete power over himself, as he desired in [an] earlier scene, but control in the sense that he becomes a support for others. In particular, though his presence and actions, he is able to affirm both Tiffany and his own father. From the midst of his own weakness he finds the strength to heal those around him.

Rev. Kelly Barber facilitated this month’s movie discussion group. Here’s the play sheet for the movie: Click Here

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A young mother and her daughter arrive in a new town. While the town is very conservative, Vianne (Binoche) is quite unconventional. Vianne opens a confectioner’s shop, and as the two newcomers begin to interact with the other villagers, change seems to be in the air, even for Vianne herself when Roux (Johnny Depp) enters her life and her daughter begins to chafe at their vagabond lifestyle.

Change and how we react to it, is a main theme in the movie. Here is a commentary on the film by Samantha Gray on the Spiritual Media Blog.

“…the movie’s theme is one of acceptance and forgiveness. It’s no coincidence that the movie is set in the Lenten season, a time of serious reflection and penitence in the Christian faith. Chocolat is all about the different ways that people confront change in their lives. For the mayor, the change comes in the form of his village which is moving away from the traditions and old ways of the previous decades. His unwillingness to meet that change is personified in his doomed relationship with his never shown wife who’s always mentioned as being “on vacation,” though everyone understands that’s she’s left the mayor. Vianne has to deal with her familiar role as an outcast, but she must also face that fact that her transitory lifestyle isn’t suitable for her daughter Anouk who wants some consistency in her life. The river gypsy Roux must face the prejudice against his lifestyle, whereby people universally view him as untrustworthy and criminal.

There are other major and minor characters in the film that confront similar changes in their lives, and they all meet them in their own way. The movie teaches us that we shouldn’t be closing ourselves off from others because of their differences. Instead, we could be opening our doors to other exactly because they live differently than we do; it’s about understanding that everyone has something to bring to the table that’s worthwhile, whether it’s the traveling chocolatier or the old-fashioned mayor.”

Ron Raitz facilitated this month’s movie discussion group.

Here’s the playsheet for Chocolat: Click Here