Know Jesus, Bless People: One Church's Commitment to Four Words

By David Barker

Field of Dreams says it all.Ostensibly, it's a film about baseball or, on a slightly deeper level-and this should be no surprise given its title-a film about pursuing your dreams.Yet it isn't really a film about baseball or dreams at all. If you read the novel on which the film is based, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, you discover that baseball is a metaphor for faith, specifically Christianity, and Shoeless Joe Jackson, the real-life Chicago White Sox outfielder, is something of a Christ figure. And, speaking of metaphors, the decision made by Ray Kinsella (portrayed in the film by Kevin Costner) to plow under a huge chunk of his cornfield to create a baseball diamond can be seen as a metaphor for, literally, creating a significant place in your life for Jesus.So when the voice tells Ray, "If you build it, he will come," he's not really talking about Shoeless Joe Jackson.But Hollywood being Hollywood, any hint of Christianity was stripped from the story of Field of Dreams. And yet... At the end of the film, as the camera arcs up and away into the Iowa night sky, revealing streams of headlights, hundreds of cars, making their way to Ray's baseball field in pursuit of dreams of their own, suddenly the promise of If you build it, he will come seems overwhelmingly true.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1949888029
• ISBN13: 9781949888027
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Parson's Porch Books
• Length: 108 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 8.5"