Category: A Spiritual Look At All Forms Of Entertainment…

I’m not that big of a fan of football, regardless of whether it’s high school, college, or pro. Sure, I might watch the Super Bowl each year or follow the records of various teams here and there, but in all honesty watching people pummel each other on a field with such incredible force over and over again honestly isn’t my cup of tea. With that being said, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I thoroughly enjoyed watching Will Smith’s latest football-based movie titled Concussion.

The film is based on the true story of a Dr. Bennet Omalu (played by Smith), who uncovers the truth about brain damage in football players who suffer repeated concussions throughout the course of their career. Omalu is a forensic pathologist in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania who begins to learn of this disease when he is tasked to do the autopsy on former Pittsburg Steeler center Mike Webster who died at a relatively young age (50 years old) with little to no signs of anything wrong in his body. After finding nothing during the standard autopsy, Omalu uses his own money to run a battery of medical tests, convinced there’s something more going on. Eventually he discovers through some of those results the damage Mike Webster’s brain suffered during his career, as well as the disease itself, which he goes on to name Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). When other NFL players begin to die in tragic ways similar to Webster, Omalu realizes through their autopsies that the disease is far worse than just one isolated case. With the help of former Steelers team doctor Julian Bailes (played by Alec Baldwin), it becomes Omalu’s quest to expose the dangers of football to the NFL and to the world itself. But to make that happen, he also faces an uphill battle with an organization that really doesn’t want the world to ultimately know any of those truths he found.

The reason why I enjoyed this movie so much is that it felt much like a David and Goliath type story with David being Omalu and Goliath being the NFL. And while I have seen many other football-based films before, this was the only one that never actually took place on the field itself. Instead, it focused more on the off-the-field heart-wrenching stories of both the players who were suffering from CTE, as well as of Omalu, who experienced such backlash in each of his attempts to make such a terrible disease known.

Sadly, I learned by the end of this movie that almost a third of all pro football players will eventually succumb to this disease. That’s a hefty price to pay for such a small number of years bashing helmets against each other repeatedly. Maybe that’s why I never have enjoyed football much because I don’t believe our bodies were ever made to endure such an amount of blunt force again and again. I feel similarly about most violent sports like boxing and hockey. But unfortunately, the fact remains that even with the amount of disease and injury that a mind and body might go through playing any of these high contact sports, and even with actual proof of it coming from doctors like Omalu, people will still continue to play them, because of the rush of the win, the cheers of the crowds, and the glory their ego sustains through it all.

I myself am grateful that those things never beckoned me enough to pursue any of those sports, especially football. Because at my 6’5”, 170-pound frame, I probably would have sustained a permanently injury with my first contact hit. Nevertheless, Concussion truly sheds light into one of the biggest downfalls of the most popular sport in America, and Smith has definitely emerged as an awards front runner once again for his incredible portrayal of Omalu. Overall, I whole-heartedly give this film 4 out of 5 stars and strongly recommend it as a must-see…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Having once been molested at a very young age by the coach of a swim and dive team I once was a part of, I came to understand just how much pain, horror, and agony comes afterwards from something as terrible as this. With that being said, I was reminded of much of what I went through all those years ago when I saw a movie named “Spotlight” the other day.

Spotlight is a 2015 film about The Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” investigative team that uncovered the decades long pattern of sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests in Massachusetts, as well as the Boston Archdiocese efforts to keep it concealed.

Watching the efforts that the Catholic Church went through to settle the sexual abuse cases outside of court for years was hard enough, knowing the ones that truly got hurt would never find peace through any of those small cash settlements the church gave them. But then seeing the Church also shuffled those abusive priests around to other churches in other dioceses for years and knowing those patterns only repeated themselves with more children was even harder to watch.

The work that the “Spotlight” team went through to bring all this to light was most certainly a daunting effort with so many hurdles faced along the way. This was depicted quite well in the movie itself by Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James, John Slattery, and Liev Schreiber.

The one thing that I related to the most throughout this entire movie was the testimonies that many of the abused gave. In fact, I was moved to tears more than once as I heard them talk about being paid attention to by a priest and initially how good it felt. This was how I eventually got molested as well, because no one ever paid much attention to me as a kid, that was until this middle-aged man saw how broken and confused I was in life and began offering me what I so needed and wanted. But tragically, I fell prey to him and suffered for more than a decade afterwards because of it, no different than all those they depicted in this movie who were molested by priests.

Ironically, I once met a priest almost a decade ago now who told me of some of the horrors he saw back before all this sexual abuse came to light. He said there used to be “boy parties” where innocent children were passed around between priests and bishops for sexual favors. It was really challenging for me to hear this, knowing what I went through. I can only imagine what it was like for all those children to have such innocent faith in God and then have that be stifled out by the actions of the closest thing they knew to God at the time, which was those priests or bishops.

The sad reality for any of those who get sexually abused at a very young ago by someone else is that many never come back from it. Some end up killing themselves, others choose prostitution for a living, while many succumb to a life of drug and alcohol abuse. Thankfully, God led me away from all of those dark paths to become strong enough, not only to talk about what I went through to help others heal, but also to be able to sit through this movie that in many ways was like reliving my own tragic experience.

So in the end, I’m very grateful for the team of people who created the movie Spotlight because I believe it can and will be healing somehow for those who ever suffered from sexual abuse. I hope you may take the time to go see this film, as it truly is phenomenal and most certainly will garner favor during awards season…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

It’s interesting how things come into my life when I’m ready for them. I say this because many years ago, I was recommended by a number of people to read a book titled The Shack. But knowing it was hyper-geared towards Christianity and given I still had some serious reservations with Jesus and the Christian religion, I constantly avoided doing so.

That all started to change a few months ago though when I reconfirmed my life with Christ and began asking for guidance and direction from Him on a daily basis. And wouldn’t you know, the suggestion of reading this book came up again not too long after this, except this time, I actually did.

The Shack is a novel by Canadian author William P. Young and is about a man named Mack who loses one of his five children to a serial killer during a family camping trip. In the process, he also loses his faith in God as well. But when a note appears in a bizarre way in Mack’s mailbox one day from “Papa”, whom he often referred to God as, inviting him to come to the shack where his daughter was actually murdered, Mack sets out to prove whether the note is real or not. The rest of the story is all about Mack’s difficult journey back to a life of faith in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

What I loved best about this book is how hard it was to tell whether it was fiction or non-fiction. Young did a superb job writing a novel that truly made me wonder if the events of the story were actually real or not. Regardless, as I read each of its pages, it was so convincing that I too felt as I was on my own spiritual journey back to a life of faith, which indeed I honestly was and still am.

So if you happen to be someone who might have lost your faith in God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit for whatever the reason, like I myself did for a good long while, I encourage you to read The Shack, as you might just find it leading you back into the Light, just like it did for me.

Peace, love, light, and Joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson