Scars that Create

“You are never more alive than when you are a teenager. Your brain is flushed with chemicals that can turn your life into a story with epic proportions.” - Chemical Hearts, Amazon Studios

“Behold, I am making all things new.” – Revelation 1:5

One of the guilty pleasures Judy and I allow ourselves is an Amazon Prime membership. Some time ago our daughter gave us a Fire Stick for our TV that through a head-shaking miracle, opens a C.S. Lewis-like wardrobe of viewing. In gratitude for our ample purchases of books and other items, Amazon provides us with an extra set of video resources. Amazon even has its own movie studio, which gets to the point of this. Walk through the door with me…In August 2020 Amazon Studios released an Amazon Original. I suppose it’s only a so-so film as far as any critic would say. But I am not a critic, and sometimes I just like a movie because, well, I like it.

The movie is “Chemical Hearts.” Based on the novel, Our Chemical Hearts (Krystal Southerland), it’s about a complex relationship between two high school seniors. One is Henry Page (Austin Abrams) who wants to be a writer and lands the job as editor of the school newspaper for his senior year. Writing, for Henry, is a form of therapy, and he often finds himself unable to speak what’s on his mind until he is able to write them. He also has an unusual hobby called Kintsugi, a Japanese art of gluing together broken pieces of pottery using gold -  based on the idea that by embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. His bedroom is filled with pottery he has purposely broken and then glued back together. Yes, the film exudes with metaphor.

The other lead character is Grace Town (Lili Reinhart, also executive producer), who is also a gifted writer. In contrast to Henry, she has no trouble finding words to speak, but is unable to write. Grace is recovering from a tragic auto accident that killed her long-time boyfriend, leaving scars deeper than the physical ones. As she says in one of her many poetic lines, “I was asked to write something about someone who was important to me but I just couldn’t find the words.” So, if you’re following this story line, we have a guy who puts broken pieces back together, and a girl with deep brokenness, in need of mending. The film portrays two very extraordinarily gifted young people who are finding their way through the complex chemistry of adolescence while dealing with scars.  As the movie ends, Henry is writing his last editorial for the school newspaper, and he speaks these words: 

"We tend to think of scars as ugly or imperfect; as things we want to hide or forget. But they never go away… I finally understand that scars are not reminders of what's been broken, but rather, of what's been created.”

In some ways, brokenness describes our world right now…brokenness in government, race relations, economics, health care, civil conversation – and then of course the obvious havoc caused by the Pandemic. We are scarred and broken in a dozen ways.

Yet handed these cards, people of faith are called to write God’s story with the hand we’ve been dealt, and find grace. We have a word that can become good news; a word to be uplifted and uplifting. We are called to find it for ourselves, and to speak hope to others in a world that challenges even the most naïve optimist.

Yet this is our job, in the midst of all that is imperfect, even ugly, to remind anybody who’s watching and listening, that putting broken pieces together (to heal), is exactly what God does. Maybe we can help write a story on scarred pages, to tell not the ugliness and imperfection in the world, but rather the new thing God is creating even now. Maybe we can flush the world with those creation chemicals that flow through all of our hearts. Would that we will find the words.