Over the past several weeks, my wife, Sarah, and I have watching all of Marvel’s ‘Avengers’ movies in chronological order, which is quite the task; each movie is 2+ hours long, and there are always several story lines happening within each film.
One of the most interesting characters in their cinematic universe is Tony Stark. He’s interesting for several reasons, one, of course, being that he’s Iron Man. Another because he’s essentially Marvel’s version of Batman - a wealthy person who doesn’t have super powers by nature, but rather has money to create technology that gives him a skillset. However, the biggest reason Tony Stark stands out to me is because of his character development. From his first appearance in Iron Man one to his last appearance in a film I won’t tell you the name of because of *spoilers,* his character arc grows significantly from the selfish, wealthy man we see in the beginning to the sacrificial, giving person we see in the end. It’s dramatic and true.
It makes me wonder what it would be like if we could see our own character arcs.
How dramatic would they be?
Would we change for the better or for the worse over time? Maybe both?
Where would the timeline stop?
Maybe that will be a piece of Heaven (or Hell?), getting to watch your life on a big movie screen. In Heaven maybe there’s popcorn, in Hell, there probably wouldn’t be. Either way, I can only hope my arc goes up.
-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Continue to learn and grow in wisdom, compassion and sacrifice.