Brehm Center

When random acts of kindness aren’t so random

“Send out your bread upon the waters,

for after many days you will get it back.”

Ecclesiastes 11:1

            Our kid’s schedules are tighter than many adult schedules. Soccer practice after school on Mondays; ballet on Tuesdays; church youth group on Wednesdays; violin lessons on Thursdays; to say nothing of accelerated math classes. There is no longer time for talking to the baseball as we throw it against the garage door. There is no longer time to produce a backyard drama, or create an imaginary universe. There is certainly little time for a child to imagine how they might help make this world a better place.

            The movie Pay It Forward tells the story of a social studies teacher (played by Kevin Spacey) who thinks it important that his students nurture their imagination. Mr. Simonet challenges his class to imagine a project that might make our world better and then to put that project into action. The teacher doesn’t actually expect much. He has made the same assignment for twelve years with little result. The students aren’t interested. But this time, one of his students, eleven year old Trevor McKinney (wonderfully played by Haley Joel Osment, the star of The Sixth Sense), takes the assignment to heart. He is willing to dream.

Trevor proposes a plan not of “paying it back,” but of “paying it forward.”  He will do three acts of kindness to others, things that really help them, things they can’t do by themselves. He will then ask those he helps not to return the favor to him, but to help three new people instead.  By having others “pay it forward,” by challenging them to do a generous act to three others, he believes that goodness might be multiplied exponentially.

As you might expect, there are complications as Trevor implements his plan. His mother Arlene (played by Helen Hunt) is an abused, single mom with a drinking problem, working two jobs to keep it together. Life is chaotic and Trevor is a latchkey kid who must take care of himself most of the time. But Arlene is determined that her son Trevor will escape the cul-de-sac in which she finds herself. Eugene Simonet, the teacher, has his own issues stemming from a horrendous past that has left him disfigured and emotionally closed off. His method of coping is to have a perfectly ordered life on the surface – shirts ironed, pencils sharpened, everyone and everything in its place – and to deny any emotional attachment. Afraid of life as it presents itself, both parent and teacher thus transfer their hope to young Trevor. And he does not disappoint.

Trevor tries, as you might expect, to bring his mother and Eugene together through his acts of goodness. But trying to force a relationship doesn’t exactly work. Nonetheless, the power of the boy’s imagination ultimately does have a ripple effect both in his own family and across the nation. Trevor ends up an unlikely hero.

Though set realistically in Las Vegas, Pay It Forward is anything but realistic. It is instead meant to be viewed as a fable. It invites us to suspend our cynicism, if only for two hours, and experience the compelling power of goodness. Not all will be able to do this. Some will find the movie too schmaltzy. The plot is somewhat predictable; the ending sentimental. I saw the movie with Gen-X friends who thought they had been manipulated, particularly by some of the music. Yet for other moviegoers, the movie works. It did for us. You know you are being emotionally set up, but you let it happen. In part, this is because of the riveting performances of the three main actors/actresses. You will care for each of their characters. Life has not been kind, and yet they are fighters who come to envision a better way.

But there is more than good acting and winsome characters to draw you into the movie. At a deeper level, the theme of the film rings true. We are not just presented a theology of random kindness. Trevor has instead imagined a better way – the way of Jesus. Here is a story that portrays what might happen if we more often followed the Golden Rule. Not all will respond positively to our kindness; sometimes our actions will in fact prove costly. But what we do will nonetheless be significant -- at times even redemptive.

As adults we so seldom imagine that our acts of generosity might make a difference that we end up failing to make the effort. It was Elizabeth Sewell who once wrote: “The progressive abandonment of the imagination begins in childhood.” We need to recover that wide-eyed wonder that fills Trevor with the preposterous idea that maybe our actions can actually make a difference.

Robert K. Johnston

Catherine M. Barsotti

November 15, 2000