Although I was alive during the hippie invasion, at that time, I was in survival mode due to various events. Therefore, the flower child culture did not penetrate my thinking. Only as much as the Vietnam Era was brought to me via the media was I conscious of that lifestyle.
In '69, I dropped out of school, enlisted in the military, and ended up in the Middle East. It was there that I got a sampling of a weed induced head, but mixed with the tunes I most loved, within traditional country music and jazz, the psychedelic lifestyle still didn't emerge.
In '72, I experienced an amazing conversion to Christianity through which I learned to love the absolute truths found in Scripture. That love challenged me to be obedient to a godly moral code. Despite how nice something may feel, it still can be immoral behavior.
Grace's pot smoking, I have no trouble with as I am a proponent of its use, especially for health reasons, Also after having performed for decades as a bass player/singer in countless country bars, I view alcohol as being more potentially life threatening.
Within this film exists a kind of coming-of-age theme, as well as one that insists that peace and love are the products of sex, the latter being the message that is, to me, off putting. Another theme, one that best resonates with me, is the release of burden, a birth of freedom through a refusal to hold onto hurts. It is about our responsibility to forgive those who trespass against us.
However, freedom must have mixed with it, in order to be genuine, godly virtue, not some whimsical identification with nature that is self-defining, as Grace's unspecified spiritual connection to whomever or whatever. To love oneself, one must know how to die to oneself, to set aside every weight that is so easily besetting and to build into one's life a truly stabilizing foundation based on righteous principles.
In this film, the laying aside of a former bad relationship to replace it with "free love" is a call to disenchantment and disillusionment. Okay, so Grace seems free, but she endorses sex whenever, with whomever, and encourages it without hesitation.
There is nothing mentioned about what God says regarding fornication, or how our lives ought to be centered around a love for Jesus that helps us to strive against unrighteousness. Instead, we are called to let go of all restraint. A bad mistake.
In '69, I dropped out of school, enlisted in the military, and ended up in the Middle East. It was there that I got a sampling of a weed induced head, but mixed with the tunes I most loved, within traditional country music and jazz, the psychedelic lifestyle still didn't emerge.
In '72, I experienced an amazing conversion to Christianity through which I learned to love the absolute truths found in Scripture. That love challenged me to be obedient to a godly moral code. Despite how nice something may feel, it still can be immoral behavior.
Grace's pot smoking, I have no trouble with as I am a proponent of its use, especially for health reasons, Also after having performed for decades as a bass player/singer in countless country bars, I view alcohol as being more potentially life threatening.
Within this film exists a kind of coming-of-age theme, as well as one that insists that peace and love are the products of sex, the latter being the message that is, to me, off putting. Another theme, one that best resonates with me, is the release of burden, a birth of freedom through a refusal to hold onto hurts. It is about our responsibility to forgive those who trespass against us.
However, freedom must have mixed with it, in order to be genuine, godly virtue, not some whimsical identification with nature that is self-defining, as Grace's unspecified spiritual connection to whomever or whatever. To love oneself, one must know how to die to oneself, to set aside every weight that is so easily besetting and to build into one's life a truly stabilizing foundation based on righteous principles.
In this film, the laying aside of a former bad relationship to replace it with "free love" is a call to disenchantment and disillusionment. Okay, so Grace seems free, but she endorses sex whenever, with whomever, and encourages it without hesitation.
There is nothing mentioned about what God says regarding fornication, or how our lives ought to be centered around a love for Jesus that helps us to strive against unrighteousness. Instead, we are called to let go of all restraint. A bad mistake.
