David and Leann Augsburger are two semi-retired people who co-lead a home base church (Peace Mennonite Church, Claremont, California) and volunteer to welcome, care and connect people in the San Gabriel valley.

1. The Crown. The second season of “The Crown,” found on Netflix, grapples profoundly with the issue of forgiveness in episode six. Queen Elizabeth seeks guidance from Billy Graham who is in London for a “Crusade” (unfortunate word) and preaching a gospel of immediate Carte Blanche forgiving. The queen is torn between her love for her uncle David (Edward) and the reality of his denied collusion with Hitler and conspiracies against the crown. Graham offers evangelical clichés, Elizabeth wants to be authentically Christian, but cannot overlook unrepentant evasion and deceit. The entire series is thought-provoking, but this episode touches something deeper.

2. Fires. The wall of flames scorching hills and homes from Santa Paula to Santa Barbara, the tornado of flames along the 405 highway near the Getty Museum, and then the fires in San Diego, San Bernardino and other nearby ranges and canyons all reveal how life can change in a matter of minutes. Ashes are all that remain for hundreds of families. In Australia, fire is seen as a necessary friend that opens hard seeds and clears the land for new growth. In California it is our foe, our fear, not our friend. We dig up pre-Columbian beads in our backyard and are reminded of how temporary our lives are on this green and blue planet. “The visited planet,” C. S. Lewis called it in a memorable Advent reference.

3. A Menorah. We are adding a Menorah and remembrances of Hanukkah. After travel from Madrid to Segovia to Seville to Jerez to Granada and finding cobblestones of brass with Hebrew letters marking homes and synagogues; after visiting museums and memorials and rubbing the feet of Maimonides; after grieving the brutal pogroms and the expulsion of Jewish people from 1492 through centuries following, it has become important for us to reconnect with our Jewish roots (indicated by our DNA) and remember that to survive, Jews were forced to become non-state-church members of the believers churches and hide their roots in Doopsgezinde and Mennonite communities.

4. The Meyerowitz Stories. If you are a member of a family, you will recognize almost everything that happens in this movie. If you are counselor, you will work the whole two hours and laugh as you plan interventions. Every family has some degree of immaturity, butthe Meyerowitz clan sets the bar. From subtle manipulation to blatant control, it runs the gamut and we laugh in recognition of some uncle in our tree or some siblings in the family next door.

5. Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri. For people in the Christ-Tradition (not the usual Christian brand), this movie is a must see. It addresses hate, revenge, violence and brutality with little hints of grace at unexpected moments—a helpless beetle turned over in the opening scene, a glass of orange juice to the burn victim later on, and there are more—but its unrelenting search for an answer to injustice and the resolution of horrendous crime open the innards of anger and festering rage.  A dark comedy, a profound expose of human fumbling and foibles, a deep statement on how hate consumes itself, it will set you thinking about anger in the wider scene of our country and culture.

6. Lady Bird. Seeing life, family, school and friends through a young girl’s eyes; experiencing peer volatility, parental over control, beckoning adulthood; risking autonomy in a context of conformity, making one’s own plans for college, daring to strike out new paths; taking the first step toward reconciliation: that is a lot to tackle in 90 minutes, but this movie does it with such depth that one becomes a co-traveler on this journey of self-discovery. Watch identity form before your very eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNi_HC839Wo