Today the church is closed down due to the snow storm raging across New England. We’ve also canceled this evening’s Zen meditation.
Jan is in Long Beach working on the condo, while auntie, the cats and I are sitting together to watch the 1993 film Groundhog Day. A perfect way to spend February 2nd. (Breaking news: it has been announced here in the more or less real world Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning…)
Groundhog day is a delightful film. Critics and regular people love it. Rotten Tomatoes rates it at 97% on its Tomatometer.
And in my circles it is considered something of a spiritual classic. I have to admit it is particularly when compared as it is sometimes to the Matrix, an overrated special effects spectacular whose contribution to spirituality was to dramatize gnostic dualism. Groundhog Day presents an interesting take on a Hindu and Buddhist theme where, for both of you who haven’t seen the film, the protagonist is stuck in a single day that he repeats over and over and over until his heart opens.
Co-written and directed by the brilliant Harold Ramis and starring Bill Murray, supported by a great cast starting with Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliot, it is delightfully done. Lots and lots of people see spiritual influences. Catholics and other Christians like it. Jews do, as well. Actually Ramis reports that he and his co-author Danny Rubin drew freely from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of facing death to provide a superstructure for the film. And that’s likely the principal “spiritual” driver.
But it is hard to not see spirituality in the film. The Wikipedia article on Groundhog Day quotes theologian Michael Phooey saying Harold Ramis “…is an agnostic raised Jewish and married to a Buddhist.” In a 2008 interview with Robert Loerzel, Ramis actually described his spirituality as “Buddhish,” which I take to suggest he embraced a broadly Buddhist world view without actually considering himself Buddhist. And I think beyond Kubler-Ross this Buddhish world view does inform the film.
Personally, I have problems with the cosmic lesson plan spirituality in its various flavors, where our lives are all about lessons and we work our way through the curriculum. Not the world I live in. And one can see this as a driver for the film.
But, there’s something more practical and grounded, and to my spirituality authentic presented in this film. I find. And so do some others. Blogger Paul Schindler seems, to my mind, to put his finger on the useful spirituality revealed, whether intentionally or not, when he wrote, “The movie illustrates the power of practice. When you practice, change happens.”
A good film has a bit of a Rorschach quality about it, we are invited to fill in missing pieces and to help co-write the script.
And I have. For me it is that perspective on practice with which I find my deep resonance in Groundhog Day.
We sit. Or, stand. Or, walk. Or, lay down.
And then we throw in the magic ingredient.
We pay attention.
This ability is magic. It makes us godlike.
Or, it could.
Instead. We rehearse plots and schemes and regrets. Lots of regrets. Our thoughts are often silly and more often than not foolish and over and over again we just miss the point.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
Until we don’t.
Suddenly, somewhere along the line, we wake up. Who knows how many days are involved. One person who counts thinks there are thirty eight separate days in the film. But Ramis opines that to break open, maybe it would take thirty or forty years of repeating that day.
Not a bad count. But, thirty-eight, or forty years times three hundred sixty five, or, just one, somewhere along the line, we stop rehearsing, and instead we become one with.
All of it.
There’s magic for you.
Or, spiritual practice.
Or…
Maybe, just maybe, they’re the same thing…
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