Downton Abbey Doubts

Monday Ministerial Musings

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

2022 Blog #24

June 20, 2022

Downton Abbey Doubts

Disclaimer: Below are spoilers for the newest Downton Abbey movie. Continue reading only if you don’t mind reading spoilers.

I don’t mind Downton Abbey but unlike many of my friends I am not a huge fan. I did go to see the new movie in a theater and found it to be amusing as well as troubling. I was troubled by the pain that the character Lord Robert Crawley was experiencing in the movie plot. Through a series of circumstances, Lord Crawley has reason to question if his father was his real father. He is horribly troubled by this.

I wanted to walk through the theater screen, shake him, and explain that it doesn’t matter if the father he knew wasn’t his biological father. The father that he knew was a wonderful man who helped Robert become a good man and that should be enough. I doubt that Lord Robert Crawley would have heeded these words.

In Lord Crawley’s world of British lineage, bloodline is important. The thought of being adopted, as opposed to being in a genetic line would be devastating to him. He suddenly is worried more about his past than he is about his present or his future. I wanted to console him and assure him that he was a fine man no matter who his father was.

I found it ironic that I watched this movie not long before Father’s Day. For many of us, this holiday as we celebrate the wonderful fathers who helped us become the people that we are. Other people who did not know their fathers are spent wondering who their fathers were. Yet others, who had less than desirable father’s worry that they can become less than desirable people, as their fathers were.

For me, the question we must ask is “how can we be our best selves not matter our genetics or our upbringing.” The best of fathers was imperfect but we are who we are. How can we be loving parents, fine neighbors, respectful citizens, faithful Christians, no matter what our backgrounds or our parents were.

Unlike Lord Robert Crawley, we don’t need to stress about our past but be responsible for our present and our futures.

#ReformedChurchInAmerica                                 #PastorMarkAuthor            

#BergenCounty                                                        #BergenfieldNJ

#DowntonAbbey                                                       #Father’sDay

#Discipleship                                                            #Jesus

To read more of Pastor Mark’s writings, please order copy of his book:https://deepriverbooks.com/books/the-circle-of-seven/