The Martian Child and Adoption Movies

Lately, adoption has been the topic of some mainstream movies. Juno - and you know how much I love that movie. But also, Martian Child. Never saw it in theatres (and it was panned by most critics). But I finally rented it. Story of a single man adopting a child? Yep, I can relate. Sure the movie is schmaltzy and the child in the movie is far older than my child. But I still saw it there. The quizzical looks at a man who wants to adopt. And then, in classic writer . . . whatever . . . one of those quotes arrives to make me think:

"But right now, you and me, here put together entirely from atoms, sitting on this round rock with a core of liquid iron held down by this force, that so troubles you, called gravity. All the while spinning around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour and whizzing through the milky way at 600,000 miles an hour in a universe that very well may be chasing its own tail at the speed of light. And amidst all this frantic activity fully cognizant of our own imminent demise, which is a very pretty way of saying, "we all know we're gonna die," we reach out to one another. Sometimes for the sake of vanity, sometimes for reasons you're not old enough to understand yet, but a lot of the time we just reach out and expect nothing in return. Isn't that strange? Isn't that weird? Isn't that weird enough?"

And I pondered it for a while. Why do we reach out? It is weird and it is strange. I received a thank you note from a woman at my church today. She has no kids in my youth group (hers, I believe, are long grown up). She is definitely more straight-laced than I am. And she reached out to me. She told me how much everyone is blessed by what I do (her words, not mine). And I thought - WOW! I don't do youth ministry for the accolades and it isn't for the pay. It's to reach out. It's to change one thing or one perspective for someone. And that is weird enough!