Why I Love "Field of Dreams"

Why I love Field of Dreams

A Lenten blog – because I forgot opening day

Written by Dan McDonald

 

Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella

 

            I planned on writing no blogs during Lent.  I was thinking of withdrawing from the debates, issues, and discussions which so easily grab all our attention.  Or to put it more honestly had grabbed too much of my own until little life remained within me.  Lent seemed like a good time to let it go.  But I forgot about baseball season starting during Lent.  I wrote about this film years ago, but don't think it ever made it to my blog.  This is a nice blog for opening day.  I think of my favorite baseball movies this might be the one.  Now I admit I think “42” is a better historical movie and better drama, okay it is probably a better movie, but still “Field of Dreams” has a special place in my heart.  I also love the Gary Cooper movie with Teresa Wright “Pride of the Yankees”.  Even if I could never hit, catch, or pitch a baseball and make it to the majors like Lou Gehrig, there was this thing that every boy who grew up watching "Pride of the Yankees" could make it his goal to show up ready for the starting lineup in your job day after day for years on end.  Yeah, everybody with a little luck could do what Lou Gehrig did.  There was also that heartbreaking movie “Eight Men Out” that touched upon John Kinsella’s hero, “Shoeless Joe Jackson.”  But there is a special place in my heart for "Field of Dreams."

            Why do I like, no … why do I LOVE “Field of Dreams”?  I love this movie because it is a story of redemption that reflects the Gospel in its which I have learned sets forth the pathway to my redemption with God the Father from whom I was separated so many years ago.

            The movie stars Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella who got into farming the second of two ways it is usually done.  You likely get into farming, first if you are a child of a farmer.  Ray Kinsella got into farming the second way, by marrying a farmer’s daughter, a role played by Amy Madigan.  Ah the spirit of that wonderful redhead in this movie, what ever happened to her?  She lit up the screen in this movie and was so wonderfully fiery and alive.  The supporting cast was wonderful.  Tim Busfield, whom some of us vaguely remember from the television series “Thirty-something” played the role of Ray Kinsella’s brother-in-law, the guy who could never see the miracle in the Iowa cornfield, and what a moment when he sees what is before him.  Burt Lancaster played the older version of Archie “Moonlight” Graham a rookie who got to play in a Major League Game for the New York Giants in 1922 in the movie, but in 1902 in actual history.  He never got to bat and the next season he traded his baseball career in for a medical practice.  Then there is of course, someone who perhaps stole the entire movie and made it his own, James Earl Jones who played the role of Terrence Mann, a writer in the 1960’s that had disappeared from the limelight.  Also there was Ray Liotta, who played the role of the famous Shoeless Joe Jackson.

            I love this movie because it is a movie about redemption.  I love this particular story of redemption because like the Gospel itself it is a multi-layered story of redemption.  Three times revelations are made to Ray Kinsella.  He has a bitter spot in his life.  He and his father had an argument that was never reconciled before Ray Kinsella’s dad John Kinsella died.  They were separated by death and redemption had to overcome the finality of death.  The separation was caused by the brashness of the son who told his father he couldn't respect a man whose hero was a crook.  His father was originally from near Chicago and his hero was Shoeless Joe Jackson.

            The movie shows clearly that the separation between Ray Kinsella and his dad had lasting effects on the son.  There is a hole in his life, a wound not easily healed.  Then he hears the first voice.  He hears a voice in the cornfield and sees a baseball field and the voice tells him "Build it and he will come."  Ray believes he is meant to build a baseball field and Shoeless Joe Jackson will somehow come to his field and place baseball.  Later he hears another voice and it says “Ease his pain.” He understands that he is meant to go and ease 60's writer Terrence Mann's pain.  In his last revelation he hears and senses that he is to “Go the distance” which means he is to go to Minnesota to pick up Archie “Moonlight” Graham.  In each instance as he gets involved with these persons he is brought to face connections between these various persons and the life of his father, John Kinsella.

            Sometimes we forget how similar this is to the plan of the Gospel we are taught by the Church and in the Scriptures.  We are taught about how we have been separated from God the Father by sin and sin leads to death.  How can we overcome death if that is our ultimate lot in life?  But a way of reconciliation with the Father has been announced.  But this way of reconciliation isn't a direct, but an indirect path to the Father.  We are taught to love God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength; but to also love our neighbors as ourselves.  We are taught that Christ is the way to salvation and that he is fully God and fully man.  When we follow Christ we are in the company of our neighbor and brother as well as our God.  We are taught that to make our way to the altar to worship God we must be reconciled to our brother if we have any offense.  That is really what Ray Kinsella learns as he builds a field where both Shoeless Joe Jackson and John Kinsella will play.  That is what Ray Kinsella learns when he eases Terrence Mann's pain as he pursues healing for the pain of his separation from his father.  That is what he learns when he goes the distance to find Archie Graham and hears Archie Graham tell about earning money with pickup games just like John Kinsella had once played baseball in his younger days.  Every part of "Field of Dreams" had two layers.  One layer was the stranger who had needs and the other was the Father from whom we had been separated.  But in reality they were inseparable because they were somehow linked to the father with whom we were pursuing reconciliation.

            I’m not sure why, but somehow I imagine a piece of heaven in an Iowa cornfield.  It is a field where miracles take place, where an old doctor crosses a foul ball line and gets the hot dog unstuck from Annie's throat and knows baseball was a dream but being a doctor was the one thing he was called to do.  It is a place where people will come, if only in their imaginations for an hour or two because they have many things, money even if they think they haven't enough, but peace it is elusive.  Not ordinary forms of peace mind you, but peace the world cannot give.  There is a place maybe in an Iowa cornfield somewhere a son or daughter is coming to learn to overcome death to be reconciled to the Father of us all, of creation and who awaits us to see once and for all the completed building of faith unto which he will come, the easing of pain, and the going of the distance. Yes I love this movie.