Perhaps it is fitting that one of the movie channels is showing the "Rocky" series of films.  I just finished watching the intitial story when the news came of Joe Frazier's passing this evening.  Frazier appeared in the first movie as himself seeing as he is a former heavyweight boxing champion.  I realized that he is the first heavyweight champion in my memory.  He apparently hid out his cancer diagnosis until the very end of his battle.  Some of my sadness is due to this awful disease claiming another victim.  Some of it is an age thing to be sure.  Life keeps moving on toward a final destination.  Both the movie and the news of a death will yet again give me reason to reflect.

I was in high school when the first "Rocky" movie was released.  This is a film that no one wanted to make except for the lead actor.  Few expectations were given when it opened to the public.  Odds were good is it would be a sports movie that few would want to see.  Studio executives really did not have a clue about what would happen.  It made tons of money for those who took the risk to make it.  Awards were abundant including the Academy Award that year for Best Movie.  We would eventually be given five more installments in the story of this one forgotten boxer from Philadelphia.  Guys would come out of the theaters showing off their best boxing moves.  Girls would be swept up in that rarest of love stories between two people who were overlooked.  It would take until the last sequel for the star to recapture that initial magic.  "Rocky Balboa" would end the series much as it began.  He would remain our hero.

One thing stood out to me tonight while watching this now 35 year old movie.  This was no fairy tale despite our images over time.  It was a raw and gritty movie in its day.  Maybe some of the effects seem a tad cheap by comparison to today but it was very much an adult film.  Every one of the characters has some flaw that besets them.  Some will overcome those flaws or discover new layers to life.  Some would remain forever trapped within those shortcomings.  Some even forget that Rocky did not win the fight in the first film.  He loses on a split decision to the champion.  Punishment is delivered by both of the combatants.  Neither character will be presented in that realism of the first movie ever again.  We would go from honest and raw to the soft focus of illusion.  But it seems that human nature prefers that over honesty.

I could write so much here that would reflect the dark side of church life.  You can find other blogs where the focus is on negative issues even when the writer is a believer.  Doing church stuff is a very real and sometimes ugly occupation.  Words are used to describe other believers that you could not use on your children for fear of being abusive.  Politics has nothing on the use of dirty tricks for some church members to gain that which they seek.  Seems to me that when Jesus told us there would be wars or rumors of wars in the last days that He was not referring to churches.  Ironic is a good word to describe how we conduct our business in private yet act as if we are in that soft focus of illusion in public.  But we will let those private skirmishes remain under wraps.  We will avoid being so genuine that it frightens us about what we do.  This will keep us from dealing with those flaws we all have but it will allow us to guard that illusion of safety.

Bro. Trey