Forget politics for a second and read this story of hard-living Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas's road to Damascus conversion after his diagnosis with cancer. Excerpt:
One hot summer day after his surgery, walking through his tree-lined neighborhood in Bainbridge Township, Mr. Eszterhas reached a breaking point."I was going crazy. I was jittery. I twitched. I trembled. I had no patience for anything. ... Every single nerve ending was demanding a drink and a cigarette," he wrote.
He plopped down on a curb and cried. Sobbed, even. And for the first time since he was a child, he prayed: "Please God, help me."
Mr. Eszterhas was shocked by his own prayer.
"I couldn't believe I'd said it. I didn't know why I'd said it. I'd never said it before," he wrote.
But he felt an overwhelming peace. His heart stopped pounding. His hands stopped twitching. He saw a "shimmering, dazzling, nearly blinding brightness that made me cover my eyes with my hands."
Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Mr. Eszterhas had been blinded by God. He stood up, wiped his eyes, and walked back home a new man.
In a phone interview this week, Mr. Eszterhas said it was "an absolutely overwhelming experience."
He and his wife started attending Catholic mass, but got fed up with the dull homilies, and furious over the pedophile scandals. They went to a megachurch, but eventually returned to the Catholic faith:
"It may have been a church full of pedophiles and criminals covering up other criminals' sins ... it may have been a church riddled with hypocrisy, deceit, and corruption ... but our megachurch experience taught us that we were captive Catholics," he wrote.Mr. Eszterhas told The Blade that despite his mixed feelings over the church and the abuse scandal, the power of the Mass trumps his doubts and misgivings.
"The Eucharist and the presence of the body and blood of Christ is, in my mind, an overwhelming experience for me. I find that Communion for me is empowering. It's almost a feeling of a kind of high."
He goes on to discuss how out of touch Hollywood is with America, and how he has refused to write any more of his trademark films:
But after his spiritual transformation, he said, he had had enough of death, murder, blood, and chaos."Frankly my life changed from the moment God entered my heart. I'm not interested in the darkness anymore," he said. "I've got four gorgeous boys, a wife I adore, I love being alive, and I love and enjoy every moment of my life. My view has brightened and I don't want to go back into that dark place."
There's a surprise ending to this too -- as if all this wasn't surprise enough -- but you'll have to go to the story to read it. All I can say to this is: Thanks be to God! You never know what God's going to do with people. You just never do.
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Oh dear. There's nothing I hate more than having to come back and explain myself repeatedly. It indicates poor choice of words on my part in the first place. But I don't want to kick your puppy, either, TR, so let me explain that I didn't mean to imply that you'd ever say such a thing to grieving parents. When people who have lost a loved one hear rationalizations that God helped someone else "because they really needed it," but didn't help their child because the child is now in a better place, didn't need it as much, or whatever, they hear something very much like what I wrote, even if it wasn't intended that way. I don't believe you are a heartless person, nor am I necessarily in a nicer place than you! I'm perplexed and often sarcastic, as you can see.
Oh I really was willing to just drop it. (I had only 3 hours of sleep last night)
I do think some of the explanation of my view came out colder than I expected. Sometimes I see God as my good friend and all, but at the same time if God is God as I understand the term than I think he would probably be looking at the bigger picture a fair amount. I can see how trying to square that with an individual relationship to Jesus/God could seem difficult. And I'm not God so I really don't know how that works in detail. I may have acted snooty like I did or something. I just have what makes sense in my mind.
sigaliris: "The trouble is, that sounds like the model of a cruel, abusive father, not the loving, compassionate one who's featured in religious advertising."
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that God is portrayed as a loving compassionate figure in religious advertising. While there is certainly an element of that, God is also portrayed as angry at humanity for our inability to live up to the moral standards set. There's a fair bit of smiting and eternal damnation for those that don't play by the rules. In the case of Job even someone who did play by the rules was handed a pretty raw deal.
If you read the Reformed Chicks Blabbing blog the sovereignty of God will come up from time to time. Michele will mention that from God's point of view any human deserves death because we're in rebellion against God. Pretty strong stuff when you read it.
At this point I should again point out that I'm not religious so my impression could be way off base.
My son has been fighting weed addiction for some time. He actually is going to southern Ohio in a couple of weeks. Is there any way of contacting Joe and possibly having my son talk with him?
I just finished Joe Ezterhas's memoir, "Hollywood Animal," over Labor Day Weekend. It is long (700+ pages) but well worth it.
This is a very interesting man, who has a fascinating background, and he is actually a very good writer, even if some of his screenplays may be stinkers. (One of his novels was nominated for a National Book Award.)
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