On New Year’s Eve my wife and I saw the movie “Secretariat.” I had heard it was good and to my surprise, it was good. (People had said the same thing about “The Blind Side” and I really didn’t think it was all that great).

There is a strong message for writers in “Secretariat” and I encourage you to catch the movie while it’s at the local theatre if you can, or wait until it’s on DVD.

To be honest, the movie is more about Penny Chenery Tweedy, the owner of the horse, than it is about the horse itself. When her mother passes away and her father is no longer capable of running the family’s race horse farm, Penny steps in and takes charge. In so doing, she steps on a lot of toes and must sometimes put her husband and children second as she does what she can to keep the farm. Eventually she’s even put in the awkward spot of having to turn down an enormous sum of money from a man interested in buying Secretariat. At almost every turn she faces resistance and rejection. Still she plows on with her father’s words ringing in her ears, “You never know how far you can go unless you run!”

Writers will immediately pick up on the need for persistence in spite of the objections (and rejections) incurred in the process of moving ahead. In Mrs. Tweedy’s case, she succeeded wildly. The truth is they only make movies about those who succeed. For every Mrs. Tweedy there are a thousand who persisted, but never went as far as they’d hoped and dreamed they would. But at least they ran the race and found out how far they could go. I think a writer has to have the mindset not that they WILL succeed, but that they will RUN. How far they run will depend on many things, such as what they write, how well they write, and God’s plan for their success.

I hope as you watch the movie you’re inspired to run long and run well. Leave the results to God.

On another matter, I’ve already received the first few one-sheets in my offer mentioned here. You only have the month of January!

I sure hope I find a couple of gems. 🙂

6 replies
  1. Charles Chambers says:

    Thanks for the nice review Nick. So many Bible stories reflect this same kind of sticktoittiveness, David and others in the Psalms, the Prophets, and of course, the penultimate example being Christ Himself in His ministry, suffering, death and resurrection.

    We can usually manage to extract some redemptive characteristics from most movies, but certain ones are a thorough inspiration pregnant with provocation to rethink how grateful and/or set apart we should be in some respects from certain parts of this world. We recently watched the civil war movie “Glory” again for the umpteeth time and it generated more searching questions and discussion between Linda and I than it ever did.
    Cool blog brother.

    Charles

  2. Melissa K Norris says:

    I will add this to my netflix list. Our family just watched the third Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I love a movie that makes me ponder my own life and inspires me.
    Hope you find some gems too!

  3. Michael K. Reynolds says:

    An encouraging note for those of us who strive to ride Secretariat, but can sometimes feel as if we’re saddled atop Mr. Ed. Looking forward to the “awkwardness” of turning down massive sums of money! We will sell no spine…before its time.

  4. Sally Apokedak says:

    I recently saw Secretariat, too, and loved it.

    I was very bothered by her choosing the horse over her family, though. I don’t know how it was in real life, but in the movie it appeared that she disobeyed her husband and abandoned her children while she sought to fulfill her own dreams.

    In the end she says, “I saved my horse and my family,” and I thought, “By God’s grace your horse saved your family by making you so rich your kids would have been idiots to walk away from you.”

    Being a writer I tend to ask the “what if” questions. What if that horse had lost and they had to pay back the investors and they ended up ruined and living in a mobile home? Would her children have forgiven her so easily?

    She had a plan and she was smart and she deserved her win. I don’t mean to take anything away from her on that score. She wasn’t just chasing rainbows. She had a reasonable expectation that she would win. But still, outcomes in horse races are far from assured.

    A lot of great horses, and a lot of good writers, as you point out, don’t make it to the winner’s circle. I think we Christians need to remember what’s important. Running the race is about staying near to God. It’s not about succeeding in some area of business or creativity.

    Mrs. Tweedy, it appears from the film, staked not only the farm but also the family, on one horse. Either Mrs. Tweedy is fooling herself if she thinks she saved her family or the movie didn’t clearly depict her involvement with the her family.

    Your advice that we watch and take away inspiration to run long and hard and leave the results to God is excellent. We won’t all have the results that Penny had. Anyone who has watched a loved one die knows that sometimes God doesn’t answer prayers in the way we wish. Many times we aren’t healed. Most times our horse doesn’t win. Most writers don’t sell a million copies. Running the race is great, betting the family on the outcome…not so much.

  5. Nick says:

    Good points, Sally. I think in the movie it was portrayed that the kids were proud of Mom for her “going for it.” Dad, however, didn’t come off as enthusiastic. But from the movie it seems his beef was partly (perhaps majorly) motivated by finances. I think he was more interested in the easy quick sale of the horse for the money. He did make a comment about the family needing her, but I think he could have been more supportive of her dreams, as apparently the kids were.

  6. Sally Apokedak says:

    🙂 And this is good. You, being a man, were thinking about how a good husband should support and love his wife and I, being a woman, was thinking about how a wife is to submit to her husband.

    And it looks like both of us, being writers, were thinking something like, “God has given me a love for the running, and he has given me the energy to keep running, so I will.”

    The horse runs because God has given him strong legs. He runs to win, but he doesn’t really care if he doesn’t win. His owner will still give him his food at night and a warm, dry stall to sleep in. Money means nothing to him. He runs for pure joy.

    God gives skill to the artist as surely as he gives strength the horse, so we writers are able to run for joy, the same way the horse does, knowing we are doing what God has made us to do.

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