Goodwill Hunting

I just saw the movie for the first time (I know I'm a little late on that), and yes, I am aware that it is "Good Will Hunting", but I'm sure they meant to say something in the title more than something about the character Will Hunting himself. Maybe they were saying something like Will was hunting for "goodwill", for someone who would truly love him and speak directly to him and not use him, or something like that. Maybe.

But there were a couple things that struck me after having finally watched the movie. The first was the character of Sean Maguire, played by Robin Williams. Out of all the other "shrinks", he was the only one to engage Will, to share of his own life, to genuinely want to know Will and help him, and to be vulnerable himself.

I went to a conference in Colorado this past week where the president of Campus Crusade for Christ, Steve Douglass, shared a video monologue from a woman who was sort of speaking on behalf of my generation, or at least a significant portion of it, to the generation before. One of her main admonitions was for my parents' generation to share their lives with us. "We're disillusioned and skeptical and hurting and don't expect much else from life, but we desparately want more...we need more," she said. "We don't want a bunch of simple answers, but we desparately need you to walk with us, because you have been here before, you do know what it's like. We do need your help."

There was a scene like this in Good Will Hunting where, after Will has torn into Sean about his painting and his wife and all that, and Sean takes him out to the park the next week for their next session. Sean goes on to till Will that his comments the previous week kept him up most of the night until he realized that Will was just a kid and didn't know anything about having a wife, fighting in a war, etc. Here's the quote:

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared s***less kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my f*** life apart. You're an orphan right? [Will nods] Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a s*** about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some f*** book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

At the climax of the movie, Sean shows Will his file from the judge with all the info about his abuse as he grew up. Will asks Sean if he knew about that sort of thing. Sean says, "twenty five years of counseling, I've seen a lot of terrible stuff." "But have you ever seen that before," replied Will. "Me personally?... Yeah, my father was a violent acholic..." With that, Will knew that Sean knew what it was like. Sean then turned to him and said, "You know, it's not your fault." Will shakes his head, smiles a little and says, "Yeah, I know". Sean just repeats it with the same repsonse about five times before Will starts to change. Sean just keeps saying "it's not your fault," and Will finally begins to break down and say "Don't f*** with me." Finally, the walls are down and real healing can take place. Will weeps.

When thinking about sharing the Gospel or discipling, I wonder how many times it takes for those walls to come down. I wonder what kind relationship needs to be established before that's even a possibility. I wonder how many of my walls need to come down before I expect that anyone else's would. I wonder how many times I need to hear Jesus say "I love you. I died for you. Trust Me." before I would really believe that. Not just smile, shake my head and say, "yeah, I know," but let that punch a hole in my hard heart and cause me to weep...and believe.