Paradigms, Pride & Prejudice

After watching the Oscar® nominations come out this morning, I’m beginning to feel like the rest of America is catching up with the paradigm shift I had that started last spring.  While chatting with a group of Continental Airlines employees a few months ago, the flight attendant I’d first started talking to suggested I watch the movie Crash.  

When I got home & saw it at the store, I did something I don’t normally do.  I bought it with no knowledge of what it was about and having nothing to go on except that woman’s recommendation.  There was just something about the way she looked at me when she first saw me, and the subsequent conversation with her & the rest of the crew that left me feeling like I just had to see it.  It was the same feeling I had when Espen, the Norwegian, asked me to go to the Spanish Steps with him (even though I didn’t know him [not even his name], didn’t know anything about him or the two guys he was with, and didn’t know where or what the Spanish Steps were.  

I watched the movie after having purchased it sight unseen and at the end knew it was a classic.  Even though I hadn’t heard of it at all before the woman recommended it to me, I felt that this was a movie that could change the way Americans & the rest of the world view other people and deal with differences (aka, prejudice).  Maybe with this film people will see that it’s our view of differences that is the original sin.  Or maybe it’s just going to require the women to see it to get the ball rolling for change to occur in the world, instead of waiting on men weighted down with their pride which prevents them from allowing the changes from happening.

Maybe like Good Will Hunting, Crash will now have a much larger audience since it’s been nominated for an Oscar®. And maybe, just maybe, people will let go of their pride, examine their prejudices, and experience the beginning of a paradigm shift like I did when I walked on faith in God in Rome almost a year ago.