UP is a brilliant film. It’s funny, touching and insightful.
Carl floats off in his house to avoid being sent to live in a nursing home. He promised his late wife that they would live at Paradise Falls and he tries so hard to make that happen.
What he doesn’t see along the way is that things change. His responsibilities change. His context changes. But his outlook doesn’t.
He made a promise. He has a goal and he’s going to reach it, no matter what!
There comes a point that Carl realises that he is literally tied to his past and that it is time to let it go. By letting the house go he isn’t letting go of his love or his memories or his past. It’s just a house.
It’s not hard to see why Carl wants to keep his house. It’s full of memories of his wife whom he loved dearly.
It made me think of how much we all have problems with change, especially when it means letting go of the things that remind us most of the people and times that have been so special to us.
But things aren’t the memories. They aren’t the people or the relationships we cherrished. They are just things.
Sometimes we can only move on to a new adventure when we let them go. But that’s hard.
Letting go is a massively difficult thing to do. It’s probably the major difficulty in ministry. We have a habit of trying to keep things alive that are better off being allowed to die, but when people have invested their lives into these thngs, it’s not easy to let go. And so ministers/clergy allow things to stagger on way beyond their most effective time and it becomes even harder to bit the proverbial bullet. It’s because we’re compassionate people that we don’t want feeling hurt, but maybe if we were a little more hard nosed about things the church could go forward more efficiently. But then, efficiency isn’t the Holy Grail of ministry…
I have also watched this film and enjoyed it. I agree to it being touching and moving. It also showed how at times we need to listen to others and be guided towards alternatives, when we can only see one way ourselves.