Listen to the Recording

Rev. Marisol Landin and Marthe Neill co-facilitated this month’s movie watcher group.

This month’s movie is a favorite, Revolver, directed by Guy Ritchie. To the casual observer, it seems to be a crime-thriller involving gangs, gambling, cocaine trafficking, a high-stakes heist, murder, and revenge. However, to the discerning spiritual student, it is one of the best films ever made about letting go of ego and awakening to pure, undisturbed peace. One spiritual commentator nicknamed Revolver as “The Formula to Enlightenment.” Even if you’ve seen this movie before, we recommend watching it with subtitles on so you don’t miss a thing.

Regina Dawn Akers, recently in the interview toast to celebrate Awakening Together’s 10th year anniversary, shared that this movie is her absolute favorite movie for some specific scenes that were directly instrumental in helping her to let go of the voice of the ego no matter how loud it was, and to choose again instead the voice of Truth.

Here is a link to the playsheet designed to assist with a Spirit centered movie watching experience: Revolver PlaySheet

The movie is available on Microsoft, Vudu,  Amazon, Itunes, Google Play, and Direct TV.  

Listen to the Recording

Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert facilitated this month’s movie watcher group.

The movie for the month of July will be Somewhere in Queens. The main characters, Leo (Ray Romano) and Angela (Laurie Metcalf) Russo live a simple, blue-collar life in Queens, surrounded by the big personalities of their overbearing Italian-American family. When their lanky, soft-spoken son ‘Sticks’ finds success on his high-school basketball team and a chance at a life beyond what tradition expects because of a basketball scholarship, Leo risks everything when the scholarship becomes jeopardized, including ties with his overbearing Italian-American family, to give his son a shot at a different life.

Somewhere in Queens was also written and directed by Ray Romano.

This movie was chosen because it explores family relationships, the desire to manipulate life in order to achieve desired outcomes, and the often missed invitation to confront fear head-on and, thus, to heal and grow from life itself.

You can rent this movie on Vudu and Amazon Prime.

Listen to the Recording

Rev. Kelly Barber facilitated this month’s movie watcher group.

Tom Hanks portrays Fred Rogers in a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between him and journalist Lloyd Vogel. After a jaded magazine writer (Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America’s most beloved neighbor.

Listen to the Recording

Wonder Woman 1984 is an action, fantasy, and adventure movie based on the Superhero character Wonder Woman. Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) lives quietly among mortals in the vibrant, sleek 1980s — an era of excess driven by the pursuit of having it all. Though she’s come into her full powers, she maintains a low profile by curating ancient artifacts, and only performing heroic acts incognito. But soon, Diana will have to muster all of her strength, wisdom, and courage as she finds herself squaring off against Maxwell Lord and the Cheetah, a villainess who possesses superhuman strength and agility.

Wonder Woman 1984 was chosen as this month’s film because of its fun, spectacular demonstration of the wish (desire) for something to be different than it is that never leads to lasting happiness. Those who know the Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament, or “NTI,” may remember that Holy Spirit uses this description of the wish/desire to separate from our True Self/Divine/God and to make up our own kingdom, and what a mess that makes…a painful delay to awakening to our Glorious Divine Nature.

Witness Wonder Woman’s temptation to change what is. Notice her resistance to saying “no” to personal desire…ego…thereby letting go of the dream in her mind and choosing Divine authority in service to awakening. Explore whether she trades one world-focused path for another or if she chooses service to the awakening.

Other themes in WW84 include the vital necessity of self-honesty and that “greatness” is not what the ego thinks it is.

You can find this movie on HBO Max, HBO Max Amazon Channel, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Redbox, TNT, and DirectTV.

Here is the playsheet that Joy made for us to contemplate this movie with Inner Wisdom: Click Here

Listen to the Recording

Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert facilitated this month’s movie discussion group.

To the Wonder is a mystical meditation on the many manifestations of yearning and love. Like the wind that blows across the plains as the main characters engage in a playful chase, the Spirit of God teases us and invites us to follow. “Teach us where to seek you,” says another character in the film, Father Quintana, echoing the call of spiritual people through the ages. The response is equally universal: Everywhere you turn you see the face of God.

There is within all human beings a deep yearning for transcendental meaning and a connection with the Source of Life. As the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal put it: “We have always wanted something beyond what we wanted.” This desire is characterized by a restlessness in our souls. We desperately want to break out of the prisons of separateness that our egos construct for us. This film seems to suggest that our yearning draws out the mystic inside of us, reminding us of our need for unity.

To the Wonder delves deeply into the different kinds of thirst or desire or yearning which give our lives texture, substance, and meaning. Within many religious traditions, these qualities have been seen as problematic. In watching and discussing this film, we will have an opportunity to contemplate whether all desire is reflective of True Desire, which seems to be the message of the filmmaker.

You can find this movie on Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Vudu, and iTunes.

Here’s the playsheet created by Rev. Jacquelyn to help your movie-watching experience to be an inspired experience and a deep contemplation of the themes of this month’s movie, “To the Wonder”: Click here.

Listen to the Recording

Rev. Kelly Barber facilitated this month’s movie discussion group.

City of Angels is a 1998 American romantic fantasy film starring Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan. It’s a love story between a female doctor (Meg Ryan) and a heavenly angel (Nicholas Cage). When Cage finds out that he can be seen by Ryan, he longs to give up his immortality to become human. Once he becomes human, he realizes the true meaning of love, and with that, the consequences of the fragile nature of life around him.

This movie was chosen for its spiritual themes of how it falls in line with the Four Principals of God teachings, the power of thought, the arrogance of the ego, and the desire for experience. This movie has a beautiful non-judgmental point of view for all of it.

You can find this movie on YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.

Rev. Kelly created a playsheet for us to use as a guide to contemplating this movie.

City of Angels Playsheet

Listen to the Recording

Laura Joy Bedford facilitated this month’s movie discussion group.

The Adam Project is a 2022 American science fiction action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Jennifer Garner. Ryan plays Adam Reed, a fighter pilot from the future who uses technology from his world to go back in time and meet his younger self. His mission is to save his wife, Laura. Maya Sorian, the leader of the dystopian world wants total dominion over the time machine technology and wants Laura killed because she knows too much.

The younger Adam helps the older Adam and the adventure begins as they attempt to change the future by destroying the time machine. Along the way, both Adams meet with their father and old resentments surface that eventually lead down the path to forgiveness.

This film was chosen because it explores many awakening subjects such as forgiveness, seeing things differently, the magnetic attraction of ego, Divine Love, correcting error, how love finds itself (the Divine Field), the concept of time, the suffering involved with the desire to be right and the desire for control, and much more, all within a fun story.

You can find this movie on Netflix.

Laura Joy Bedford created a playsheet to use as a guide to contemplating this movie.

The Adam Project Playsheet

Listen to the Recording

Listen to the Recording

Listen to the Recording