Dear Friends,

Happy Eastertide! Over the last week, we have all celebrated the great acclamation that gives this world meaning and redemption: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Dying, Christ destroyed our death, rising Christ restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory. I pray that this message of amazing news finds you all well.

It has been more than three years since I last entered a movie theater. Besides church, few places in this world have been more of a home than the cinema. There was a time from 2009 through 2011 that I visited the theaters at least three times each week, and shared my thoughts on some of those movies with my Movie Board brethren: TulaneLSU's 2011-2012 Movie Review Thread.

The return to theaters was the last thing on my mind when today began. The entire family has been on the Outer Banks in North Carolina for Holy Week. Mother’s friend offered us his condo last year, so we made a trip of it. I was at first reluctant to go, instead hoping to join SuperSaint for a day of charity and round of golf at Tehama, but when she told me we would be staying in Kill Devil Hills, I thought what a perfectly named place to prepare ourselves for the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. As most of you know, it was at Kill Devil Hills, not Kitty Hawk, that the Wright brothers first soared through the air.

We began the morning with a vigil followed by a stunning sunrise service on the sands. Lacking the solemnity of a service at St. John the Divine in Morningside or Fourth Church on Michigan Avenue, which isn’t quite the same since John Buchanan retired, the undisonant backdrop was beautiful in its simplicity. There was an ever brief pause in the brumal rain at the moment the minister proclaimed Christ rising from the pit of death. Fittingly, a petrichor emanated from the bulwark of sea oats atop the nearby dune. The downpour and service continued.

Impluvious, the family rushed from the service to the beach house, where Mother, Uncle and I began preparing for a feast. Mother’s spectacular crown roasts of lamb, reminders of the true Lamb who wore the crown of thorns for us, as usual, stole the show. Uncle blessed the food and the words flowed as liberally as the freshly squeezed orange juice spiked with Sprite Zero.

“What do you think about Air?” Cousin interrupted a discussion Uncle and I were sharing on the use of anástasis versus egegermenon in the different Gospel stories. l

“Cousin, have you been reading Jane Eyre again? Or is this another EPA debate? Or are you going on about the coastal Australian or Scottish towns?”

“No, TulaneLSU. Air. The movie about the birth of the Air Jordan brand.”

Not only have I not been to the theaters recently, I haven’t watched TV or listened to a radio in two years. “No, but tell me more.”

Cousin proceeded to tell me about it being a Damon-Affleck flick. “Remember, TulaneLSU, when we last saw them together. It was at that dollar theater on Vets by the upside down V shaped Bud’s Broiler.” I am told that Bud’s recently closed for renovation. There is debate about whether it will reopen as a Bud’s or whether it was sold to one of the nearby car dealerships. Apparently, Tom Benson tried unsuccessfully for decades to buy that land.

Cousin was referring to our trip to see Good Will Hunting in the summer of ‘98.

“Oh, I remember. You tried to sneak into He Got Game after it was over and got caught and you were banned forever from Joy’s Cinema 8. Those were your iniquitous years – you most certainly remember when you left me in the car while you entered Down’s Lounge to watch Miss Sophie, whom you called ‘the ballerina queen of burlesque.’”

Cousin’s kid was at the table, so he quickly changed gears, I suppose because those stories are tacenda now. “I’ve heard it’s great. I remember how big of an MJ fan you were, and it’s been decades since we saw a movie in the theater together. We should go see it today!”

This post was edited on 4/9/23 at 10:50 pm