{"id":1292,"date":"2022-01-06T08:13:59","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T13:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2022-01-06T08:58:58","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T13:58:58","slug":"a-new-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/06\/a-new-world\/","title":{"rendered":"A New World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(c) Twentieth Century Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fans of the highest-grossing movie of all time will have to wait just a little bit longer for a sequel.\u00a0

The 2009 blockbuster Avatar<\/em> has grossed almost $2.9 billion worldwide.\u00a0 Director James Cameron originally planned to release the second installment of his science fiction masterpiece in 2015.\u00a0

Then came production delays, along with extended waits for moviemaking technology to catch up with the director\u2019s ambitious vision.\u00a0 The pandemic set things back yet again.\u00a0 Along the way Cameron decided not to make just one sequel, but four.\u00a0 Chapters two through five are now set for December releases in 2022, 2024, 2026, and 2028.\u00a0

The new films can\u2019t come soon enough for loyal Avatar <\/em>fans \u2013 some of whom actually plunged into suicidal sadness when the first movie came to an end.\u00a0

For them, life in this world couldn\u2019t hold a candle to the ravishing beauty of the fictional moon called Pandora.

A few years back, CNN reported on a fan site called \u201cAvatar Forums.\u201d\u00a0 One of the topic threads was called, \u201cWays to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible.\u201d\u00a0 The forum included posts from about 1,000 people who were experiencing depression, along with others trying to help.

Forum administrator Philippe Baghdassarian acknowledged: \u201cI can understand why [the movie] made people depressed.\u00a0 The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don\u2019t have here on earth.\u00a0 I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed.\u201d

A fan named Mike admitted he considered taking his own life after seeing the movie:\u00a0

\u201cEver since I went to see Avatar,<\/em> I have been depressed.\u00a0 Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na\u2019vi made me want to be one of them.\u00a0 I can\u2019t stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it.\u00a0 I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora.\u201d

A Swedish fan named Ivar Hill left this post: \u201cWhen I woke up this morning after watching Avatar <\/em>for the first time yesterday, the world seemed\u2026gray.\u00a0 It was like my whole life, everything I\u2019ve done and worked for, lost its meaning.\u00a0 It just seems so\u2026meaningless.\u00a0 I still don\u2019t really see any reason to keep doing things at all.\u00a0 I live in a dying world.\u201d

A number of other fans, as you might expect, have been urging such devotees to wake up and smell the overpriced popcorn in the lobby.\u00a0

After all, it\u2019s just a movie.

But maybe the people who were profoundly affected by the vision of a brighter, more vibrant, more colorful world are expressing something that\u2019s planted deeply within all of us.

After all, we do live in a world that wearies our souls.\u00a0 Daily life is scarred by conflict, deception, poverty, corruption, and rage.\u00a0 Turn on the news today and you\u2019ll hear non-stop recitations of the Point \/ Counterpoint narratives associated with last year\u2019s January 6 Capitol insurrection.\u00a0

From the beginning of history, people have cherished the hope that surely there\u2019s more to life than what we experience on this broken planet.<\/em>

The longing for heaven is more than just a desire for our physical lives to continue.\u00a0 It\u2019s a homing beacon that makes us yearn for the healing of all creation, and to become part of a world where everything, at last, will be whole.\u00a0

As C.S. Lewis once put it, everyday diversions can never satisfy (and were never meant <\/em>to satisfy) our hunger for heaven: \u201cWe are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.\u00a0 We are like ignorant children who want to continue making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the sea.\u00a0 We are far too easily pleased.\u201d

Jesus assured his disciples, \u201cI came so that [you] can have real and eternal life, more and better life than you ever imagined” (John 10:10).\u00a0

Every time we decide anew to follow him, we can experience that little stab of joy that our deepest yearnings are one day going to come true.

That\u2019s because the dream of God\u2019s New Creation is not just a movie.
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Fans of the highest-grossing movie of all time will have to wait just a little bit longer for a sequel.\u00a0 The 2009 blockbuster Avatar has grossed almost $2.9 billion worldwide.\u00a0 Director James Cameron originally planned to release the second installment of his science fiction masterpiece in 2015.\u00a0 Then came production delays, along with extended waits for moviemaking technology to catch… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[377],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-new-creation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1295,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions\/1295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}