I finished watching “The Chosen”

Just found out that school is cancelled for the next three weeks for my kids. Maybe more. Does it feel like every day the world rattles and what was normal isn’t anymore? In 1989, I was working at a retail job when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck during the middle of the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. I hunkered down beneath the desk in the back room while things flew off the shelves (literally) and I bounced around beneath the desk like a ping pong ball. When I made it back home that night, we were the only house in the area that had power because of my dad’s generator. It was strange approaching it down a dark street and seeing light coming from its windows when the rest of the neighborhood was dark.

The ’89 earthquake wasn’t the only disaster I’ve been through. You’ve had your own as well. It’s normal to be afraid when life is turned upside down. But we’re going to make it through this. We’ll learn lessons from it and hopefully prepare for other unexpected events in the future. Right now, we’re getting daily, even hourly, blasts of fear and doubt about the world. I’d like to offer a source of light that has been a big uplift to my family.

We finished watching the first season of a new TV series called The Chosen. I normally don’t recommend TV shows or movies because people have such different tastes. I discovered this show from a friend who watched it with his family. They all loved it. The Chosen is a dramatization of the calling of the apostles and takes place during the time of the New Testament. It provides some fictional, although realistic, backstories to people like Matthew, Peter, and Nicodemus. The scripts are amazing. The acting is truly remarkable. The production crew did such a great job making you feel that you’re in the Holy Land during the Roman occupation. It’s part history lesson, part soap opera, and totally uplifting and inspiring. I have to say that I’m so impressed with Dallas Jenkins and his crew and what they’ve accomplished and hope they fulfill their vision of filming seven more seasons. You all know that I value “Virtus” themes in the books that I write. It was an absolute pleasure to see an entire TV series involving those themes. It’s a story about Jesus unlike any I’ve seen in decades and how he takes flawed people and out of control circumstances and makes things better.

You can watch it for free on Vidangel.com for the next two weeks. After watching it, maybe you will buy the DVD as I did to help fund future seasons.

With so much tumult and fear, we need more comforting words. We need hope. We need light. So here is a message taught by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount that has been meaningful to me this last week:

Matthew 6:25-26

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Be safe everyone!

-Jeff