Sunday Moring Movies: A Lesson From Nixon

So, this is the first Sunday morning I haven't had anything to do in like 12 years. I woke up this morning at 7 am which is actually sort of sleeping in for me. I was flipping through the channels and looking for something to watch. Anyway, I was trying to decide between watching some thing churchy (it is Sunday!) or watching news or a movie or something along those line. I ended up watching the movie Frost/Nixon.

Now, being a history guy I have always been fascinated by Nixon. I mean a guy with so much going for him and everything to loose. Why would he participate in a cover up and all the stuff that went along with Watergate? So, I am watching this movie and the whole premise of it centers around a series of interviews between British Journalist David Frost and Richard Nixon. Frost is trying to get Nixon to admit his wrong doing. For Frost, it's really all about the scoop that no one else had gotten. Nixon is being typically Nixonian in that he is controlling the interview and controlling how he is seen by people. After all if Nixon can control the story he has the ability to allow people to see him, not as he really is, but as who he desires to be seen as.

It's not until the very end of the interview, which historically, took several days to shoot does Nixon start to drop the image and just be a real person. There were so many spiritual truths that I saw in this movie I was jut blown away....So let me give you some:

• Nixon needed to come clean with himself: He was living a lonely life and spent all his energy trying to keep up the lies he had lived. Coming clean was important for several reasons. First, Nixon needed to come clean so he could stop living the lie....Biblical principle Number 1: We need to stop living lies and come clean with the truth about our own lives. We'll never be free if we are willing to live life without truth about ourselves.
  
• Nixon needed to come clean with America: People were hurting because someone they trusted let them down. Until Nixon came clean healing couldn't begin. Biblical Truth #2: Come clean with those you've wronged. They know what you've done and until you do they cannot trust you again. Not only that, many times your confession is really the starting point for their healing. America didn't really begin the healing process until the confession from Nixon. It still took years but when Nixon finally admitted his wrongs, that's when it started.
• Nixon didn't confess until Frost tossed his clipboard to the ground and spoke from his heart. By getting off the beaten path and just speaking his heart Nixon got off his game and started speaking as a person in pain and not as someone who was trying to keep up the front. Which leads to Biblical Principle #3: If you want to make progress with people you have to get off the beaten path and speak to them from your heart. If you're going to have a canned conversation with someone you can expect canned answers. If you're willing to get real and be a real person you might just get a real person back.
  

Who'd have thunk Nixon would have brought all that out? I could have listed the Biblical passages I was referring to in my principles but that would mean I am spoon feeding you. If this post struck up a nerve do a little research in the word and check it out for yourself!