Aug 17 2010
I just got home from seeing the movie Eat Pray Love.
I always love the stories about abandoning all to travel the world and discover new people, places and lessons. I live vicariously through their experiences and adventures. I suppose many of us do, wishing we too could take a year off to “find ourselves” or recharge, or just get a break from the drudgeries of life.
We tend to idolize the dream world that movies portray, wishing our lives could be that way and using them as a form of escape. I know I do it all the time. “If I could just take a break and go to Italy and taste wine and eat good food and hang out with fun, boisterous, life-appreciating people…oh man, that’d be amazing!…so much better than ‘normal’ life.”
But movies are fictitious. They don’t include all of the dull moments, they eliminate many realities, and idealize things that we can never do or be.
As I sat in the theater, I couldn’t stop analyzing the movie and thinking about my own life. My first thought was that I wanted to go travel, get away, meet new people…but then those thoughts stopped. I realized that if I stepped back and examined my own life – or if it were to be caught in glamorized snapshots like a movie – that it’s actually not so far from the fantasy of film. Not because my life is just so perfect, but because I live many of those moments and opportunities that I simply overlook or see as normal.
For instance, earlier this week I spent an evening out with a friend from church at a wine bar. We ordered a bottle of wine and split a pizza and talked for a few hours. In fact, not only did we Eat and Love, but we Prayed. That’s right, we invited the Holy Spirit into that wine bar and prayed in our lounge-style seats with each other. 
Two days ago I went for a hike in Griffith Park, a full afternoon of outdoor physical activity, nature, and enjoying a panoramic view of the city. Not exactly a hike through the hills of Florence, but a nice afternoon of exploring things I’d never seen.
Today I spent a few afternoon hours at another friend’s house with a group of people from church, all still getting to know each other. Conversation and laughter flowed naturally over food and coffee, not unlike a scene from a movie of people simply enjoying and learning from one another.
Even tonight, I went to the movie with a friend – someone I met on the streets of Hollywood – who couldn’t be more different from me. But we strolled down Sunset Blvd and chatted to and from the movie and enjoyed a relaxing night together. Just one example of the many people I’ve met here who is so different, yet has just as much to teach me as I do them.
I get to try new food, meet new people, and 
have new, entertaining, and spiritual experiences every day in Hollywood. It may not have the romance of Italy, India or Bali, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have many of the same joys. I can find friends, wine, food and beauty here as well as anywhere else. I meet with God every day. I hear from him on a regular basis…sometimes in the most chaotic of circumstances.
Eat. Pray. Love. The movie is basically about enjoying life, finding answers through prayer, and learning from the unlikely people that we end up loving. Most of us will never get a year off to explore the world and “marvel at something”. But just maybe, if you take some time to pause, open your eyes to the beauty around you, love people, order some good food and wine, and reflect on your day to day experiences, you’ll realize that you have many of your own movie-like moments every day. Escaping is not the fix. Finding pleasure and entering into the reality of the here and now is.
“You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.” – Eat Pray Love (the book)
