I've had a series of existential moments at the movies this summer.

So many movies have given me a rush that I've started kicking around if that rush actually tells me something about how we're wired.  But, of course, maybe it's just me.

When you saw Ratatouille, were you like me?  Were you swept up from the first moment of the short animated feature they started with, kept at least interested by the engaging and quirky story that unfolded (a rat who's a master chef-who on earth came up with that idea?), and then blown away by where they took it?  Suddenly we're watching a parable about the filmmakers themselves, about the creation of an artist.  Why was this such a rush?

This summer that rush has come from an eclectic brew.  Irish street musicians in Once.  Cross-dressing singing and dancing obese people (among others) in Hairspray.  Our favorite tormented assassin in The Bourne Ultimatum. 

Your tastes, of course, might be a long way from mine.  But I wonder if we share a few things in common whenever we feel that rush of a good movie.  I wonder if that rush most commonly comes from seeing a movie made with passion and artistry about a central character that suddenly finds out who they are in the big scheme of things.  The rat's a master chef!  The pudgy girl is a singing and dancing superstar!  The assassin will bring down the evil government agency! 

Some folks have a theory about this.  They argue that there's been a central myth that we can find in all cultures throughout history, so central that they contend it speaks to your deepest desires for where your life might head.  They call it "the hero's journey."  It's a little quirkier than you might think.  Here's one take at what it might look like in, say, The Lord of the Rings.

The classic hero myth involves a "reluctant hero" who lives in what, to him or her, is the ordinary world, the world that's everything he or she knows.  Little does he (I'll go with "he" because the character we'll track with is male) know that that world is actually in dire jeopardy, and that he'll be called upon to take tremendous risks to battle that threat and return with the special gift that will heal this ordinary world of his.  Think Frodo in the Shire, unaware of the tremendous storm of evil that's on the verge of sweeping over the whole planet. 

A call to adventure comes our hero's way.  (Gandalf tells Frodo the significance of the ring, and that Frodo himself must be the ring bearer.)  Our hero says "No way!  Send someone else!"  But often a mentor helps her past those initial obstacles.  Often a "threshold guardian" pops up about now (the black riders) to throw an obstacle in the way of our hero's destiny to cross out of the ordinary world into a "special world," where he doesn't know any of the rules and will have to improvise constantly.  (The world outside the Shire, about to be swept into darkness.) But ultimately our hero does indeed cross the first threshold into the special world, where he faces tests and finds surprising allies and new enemies.  Midway along, he approaches an "inmost cave" that embodies some of his deepest-held fears, and indeed he faces an ordeal there that might all-but kill him or actually kill him.  (Shelob the Spider's Lair.)  Then there's some kind of resurrection and reward, ultimately followed by a journey back home to the formerly-ordinary world to which you bring an "elixir"-the thing that will heal your land.  (The newfound courage and warrior spirit of the returning hobbits-now they can repel enemies from the Shire!)

What these deep thinkers wonder is if this story is your story, if this is the reason we like movies-or any stories-at all.  We're seeing our own story played out in front of us where someone else is taking all the risks. 

What if you're called into a special world, a world that will seem strange to you and where you'll need to improvise constantly?  What if you're on a great quest which only you can fulfill and which has huge-if currently veiled-stakes for you and people you love? 

But-running with this-to say yes to that call is a scary thing.  There will be real suffering that you wouldn't face if you just stayed in "the Shire", in your ordinary world.  But what if there is, in fact, an unseen battle raging around you and you have a key role to play in that battle?  And what if that hero's journey, despite its difficulties, despite the nearly-irresistible urge to stay where it's familiar, is what you've been created for, what will call out qualities in you that you'd never see any other way, what-for all its hardships and challenges-would bring the satisfaction you've been created to experience?

Those of us who give some attention to following God often stumble into insights that point us this direction.  You could make a case, for instance, that this is what Jesus' apostles stumbled into.  One day they were fishermen.  The next they were hunted, itinerant world-changers. 

As we start this next year in Cambridge (where the year seems to run from September to June), may this be a year where you discover new levels of your hero's journey, where you find out if you're the rat who, stunningly, may be the best chef in the world.