Last night, my wife and I sat down to watch the 1995 movie “First Knight”. I had seen it before, but I must have been in a much different place spiritually at that point. I found so much truth and connection in it this time around. I was wishing I had a notebook to record some of the many quotes that are so relevant to our faith. Sure, the “body count” and violence in the battles was high, but beyond that, this is such a good movie.

Some of the “Pearls of Wisdom” included:

King Arthur (Sean Connery) – “This is the heart of Camelot, not these stones, not these timbers, these palaces and towers. Burn them all and Camelot lives on, because it lives in us. Camelot is a belief that we hold in our hearts.”

Shouldn’t this be our goal and our desire? That our homes and cities would not be about the building, but the belief which we hold in our hearts? Later in the film, King Arthur prays:

Arthur: “May God grant us the wisdom to discover right, the will to choose it, and the strength to make it endure”.

That about covers it doesn’t it? Shouldn’t this be our prayer? Especially the “strength to make it endure”.

My favorite exchange of the movie took place when King Arthur welcomes Lancelot back after saving Guinevere. He knows Lancelot to be a loaner, a drifter and someone seeking his way (he also doesn’t know that Lancelot loves Guinevere, but that’s a whole different story). This interaction is rich –

Arthur: God uses people like you, Lancelot. Because your heart is open. You hold nothing back. You give all of yourself.
Lancelot: If you knew me better, you would not say such things.
Arthur: Oh, hey, I take the good with the bad, together. I can’t love people in slices.

That was the line that caught me. “I can’t love people in slices“. How often have I done that? I how often do I only want to take the good parts? Don’t we all want someone that will love the good with the bad, not in slices? Most of all, don’t we all long to spend an eternity in a place like Camelot?