Joshua A. Beal: Before this year, bullies were just bullies for no reason, weirdos were just weird, and daredevils weren't afraid of anything. Before this year, people I loved lived forever. I spent this year looking for something and wound up seeing everything around me. It's like I was asleep before and finally woke up. Know what? I'm wide-awake now.
This movie honestly wasn't all that good, and that's coming from a mega Shyamalan fan. But, it still had some really good parts, and it's pretty cute at times, too, like when the cute kids climb into bed with their cute parents. There are some familiar religious themes in this movie like we find in The Sixth Sense, Signs, and Unbreakable (namely the brilliant deleted scene with the Catholic priest), but the spiritual overtones in this film are even more overt.
If we take the time to truly notice the people around us, try to see things from their perspective, and seek to understand them, we may come closer to God than to anyone else.
Maybe it's time that we all wake up and smell the roses a little bit more.
Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust (2 Nephi 1:23).
