I had an interesting reaction yesterday to my sermon “As a Mother…” that I preached as a guest pastor at Bond Hill Presb. Church. I began by crediting Susan Sarandon with inspiring it, which as I could tell by smiles and people leaning forward, caught the congregation’s attention. I explained about my writing the Mother’s Day article for Visual Parables, and that all of the films in the article starred Ms. Sarandon as a very protective and nurturing mother–especially her Marmee in Little Women. As you know if you’ve read the article, there are some wonderful quotes showing how supportive and inspirational Marmee was for her unconventional daughter Jo. Most of the sermon then explored some of the feminine images for God to be found in the Bible.
After the sermon a young man who was visiting his mother said how much that he liked the sermon–and that he had met Susan Sarandon. Now it was my attention that was captured. He explained that he was working on The Shawshank Redemption (one of my favorite films!) as a “costumer” when the actress came to spend some time with the director Tim Robbins, her long time partner. He is in Cincinnati now working on a film (supervising the actors’ wardrobes) to be called Act of Contrition. He’s enjoying it because it is a period film set during the 1950s. He showed us some pictures taken of a Presbyterian church in which an important scene takes place. What an enjoyable way to end my visit to one of my favorite churches in the area.
