{"id":623,"date":"2015-07-20T09:46:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T15:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?p=623"},"modified":"2015-07-20T09:46:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T15:46:02","slug":"were-all-trainwrecks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2015\/07\/were-all-trainwrecks\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re All Trainwrecks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Trainwreck-Movie-Poster-2015-570x285\"<\/a>Let\u2019s get this out of the way first: Amy Schumer\u2019s Trainwreck<\/em> was a crass, salacious mess in terms of its content. Schumer\u2019s character, Amy, rolled around in more beds than a Serta mattress tester. She cursed like a Wolf of Wall Street<\/em> understudy. She was, as the title suggests, a trainwreck: a life predicated on sex, drugs and taking as little responsibility as possible.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t give it a very good review<\/a>. Plugged In<\/em>\u00a0tends to like its protagonists to be, y\u2019know, good people. When I\u2019m getting cramps counting cursewords and our heroine\u00a0is counting yet another batch of ceiling tiles, well, that doesn\u2019t add up to a rave review.<\/p>\n

But trainwreck that Trainwreck<\/em> is, it doesn\u2019t take much digging to pull a kinda cool message from the wreckage.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already mentioned that Amy\u2019s a mess. But when she\u2019s assigned a profile to write about Aaron, a talented knee surgeon, Amy begins to see there\u2019s more to life than quaffing vodka and slipping into another set of a stranger\u2019s sheets. She realizes, almost to her horror, that she likes<\/em> this guy.<\/p>\n

And yet her old life continues to call to her. She\u2019s pretty comfortable the way things are. She wants people to accept her in all her irresponsible glory. And in large part, the people closest to her do just that.<\/p>\n

But as much as they care for her, these people\u2014Amy\u2019s patient beau Aaron and her suburbanite sister Kim\u2014don\u2019t necessarily love all her decisions. And whether they voice their concerns or not, Amy knows it. She feels judged. And so she pushes them away.<\/p>\n

Kim never really says anything about Amy\u2019s unhealthy habits. But in the wake of her father\u2019s death, Amy lashes out against her. She suggests that Kim didn\u2019t love their dad (who shared many of Amy\u2019s bad habits). Maybe Kim doesn\u2019t love her, either. Maybe her life\u2014filled by a nerdy husband and goofy kid\u2014doesn\u2019t have room in it for a freewheeling, hedonistic sibling. Maybe there\u2019s only room in Kim\u2019s affections for folks who have it all together.<\/p>\n

Not much later, Aaron admits to Amy that some of her habits bother him: her predilection for pot. Her unwillingness to compromise. The fact that she\u2019s been with so many other men.\u00a0 Amy feels a little betrayed and pushes back\u2014shoving Aaron right out the door.<\/p>\n

Amy thinks she\u2019s got life all figured out. And yet, she\u2019s living it all alone.<\/p>\n

When I walked into Trainwreck<\/em>, I expected that Amy Schumer\u2019s character would remain unrepentant through the credits. On the upside, it would expose one of culture\u2019s most corrosive double-standards\u2014that we forgive men for promiscuity even as we insist women stay virginal\u2014but it would do so in the worst way possible. I feared the movie might say, hey, women should be outrageously promiscuous too!<\/em><\/p>\n

But the movie\u2019s core message was much sweeter, and even more responsible, than I expected.<\/p>\n

\"trainwreck<\/a>When Amy finds herself alone, she takes new stock of her life. She gathers all her alcohol and pot, throws it in a cardboard box and gives it to a homeless beggar outside her building. (\u201cBooze, pot, drugs and a place to live!\u201d the guy says.) She takes steps to turn her life around, showing Aaron that she\u2019s willing to sacrifice for him. And she visits her sister in a surprisingly poignant attempt to make amends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m broken,\u201d she says, eyes glassy with tears.<\/p>\n

Broken. Just like we all are.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that Amy Schumer was trying to give us a picture of what a \u201ccome to Jesus\u201d moment looks like, but rarely have I seen a better one.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re wrecks. God knows it. On some level, we do, too. Like Kim, God loves us in spite of our messes. Like Aaron, He knows there\u2019s a better way.<\/p>\n

We, like Amy, don\u2019t want to change. We like things our own way. But when we enter a relationship with God, there\u2019s a certain acknowledgement of why we\u2019re there: We\u2019re broken. We\u2019re hurting. We know there\u2019s more to life than what we\u2019ve seen so far. We believe that we can be given new life\u2014if we\u2019re willing to die to our old one.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy to do that. I\u2019ve been a Christian for a long time, and there are still days where I feel like God and I are sitting around like Aaron and Amy, me trying to rationalize and negotiate, with God just patiently listening.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to forget we\u2019re trainwrecks sometimes.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get this out of the way first: Amy Schumer\u2019s Trainwreck was a crass, salacious mess in terms of its content. Schumer\u2019s character, Amy, rolled around in more beds than a Serta mattress tester. She cursed like a Wolf of Wall Street understudy. She was, as the title suggests, a trainwreck: a life predicated on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[234,235,107,83,233],"class_list":["post-623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-amy-schumer","tag-broken","tag-comedy","tag-redemption","tag-trainwreck"],"yoast_head":"\nWe\u2019re All Trainwrecks<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Let's get this out of the way first: Amy Schumer's Trainwreck was a crass, salacious mess in terms of its content. 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