Bruce Almighty

Merril is away!  As long as no one tells her, I leave no evidence, and she does not read this, I can throw a wild party!  I can watch whatever I want on tele while eating copious amounts of cereal.  Wild to me is moving from one place to another.  I know it is extreme, and out there, but until I can control myself I am likely to be over the top.
I can, but I don’t think I will.  The party is likely to be wilder with her there.  Besides, I am such a creature of habit.  I arise early.  I Facebook and email.  I try to work to about 12 noon.  I watch the news.  I sleep. I work again.  I watch tv.  I go to bed.  There are other things I do, but that is the basic routine.
The same goes for movies.  We have Foxtel.  The choice is quiet vast.  Yet I find myself bypassing movies I have not seen, and gravitating to what I have.  Today I watched “Bruce Almighty” for the third time.
To me there are some really really funny bits in the movie, like when he asks God for a sign, while following a truck full of signs that say things like “wrong way” , “go back,” and what he does to a guy (played by Steve Carell) he is jealous of.  It actually has a great cast including Jim Carey (reporter), Morgan Freeman (God), Jennifer Aniston (Carries girlfriend), and Steve Carell (TV anchor man).
The plot has Jim Carrie complaining that God is not doing a very good job, (he is not getting what he wants, and situations work against him).  So God gives Carrie His job for a week, and Carrie discovers it is not as easy as he believes.  There are two things Carrie’s character is not allowed to do with his power.  That is, he cannot tell anyone, and he cannot mess with free will.  Of course Carrie does both with dire consequences.  He tells his girlfriend, and tries to make her love him (which she does, but she resents being forced to).
There are a number of things that stood out to me, but I love it when Carrie asked God “How do you make someone love you, without messing with free will?”  God’s response “welcome to my world.”  Another time Freeman asks Carey to pray.  He prays for world peace, and no more hunger, and asks “how’s that?”  God’s response, “good if you are Miss America.” He then asks Carrie to pray again a heartfelt prayer.  He prays for his girlfriend.  He does not ask for her back, (though he desperately wants her back,) but he prays she would meet someone and be happy.  That was something God could work with.  It sorta confirmed to me what I have believed, and that is that God does not count our prayers, he weighs them.
Of course it has a happy ending, which was funny in itself.  He ends up on his knees on a highway, telling God he surrenders.  He is hit by a truck.  While it was touch and go if he would live, he sees God who tells him “if you are kneeling on a highway you are going to be hit.”  He makes amends where he can, is happy with his job, gets the girl, and they all live happily ever after.
Of course it is just a movie, but it is funny and poignant, and I cannot ask for much more than that.