"LOST SPARROW"

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” (James 1:22)

It’s ironic that my last posting was about an independent film I watched on PBS television many years ago. This post is also about an independent film I watched on PBS. I saw this one on Wednesday night on the PBS show “Independent Lens”. The film was “Lost Sparrow” a documentary by journalist and filmmaker Chris Billing. I was not prepared for what a powerful film “Lost Sparrow” would be. It’s a very important and yet troubling and disturbing film.

It took Chris Billing about three years to make “Lost Sparrow”. Chris, now about 45-years-old, grew up in a strict Baptist home in northern New Jersey. He not only had several biological siblings, but his parents adopted several Native American children (specifically Crow Indians) from Montana. Two of the Native American boys had run away from home (when they were around middle school age), had lay on railroad tracks at night and had been run over by a train and killed instantly. Chris was surprised that his parents never really talked much about it. It happened. Their funerals took place, and the family “moved on”.
Chris set out to research what happened...why the boys ran away...why they were on the tracks and died that way.

I’m sure you are familiar with that expression: “Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it!” Sometimes that’s also rendered as, “Be careful what you WISH for...”. In the end, Chris had mixed emotions about having done the project. He uncovered a big and horrible secret: His model Christian father... a “pillar of the church” had molested his adopted sister numerous times over several years. Chris’ Mom ends up being one of the most complicated and confusing characters in the film. She tells Chris that she had suspected something was going on, and discovered the molestation at one point, but that there was really nothing she could do about it. Later in the film, she strongly implies she knew nothing of the molestation and that she wishes she could have known so that she could have saved her Native American daughter. Chris’ Mom and Dad are now divorced. Both profess and express a very strong evangelical Christian faith to this day. The sister that was molested now lives in North Carolina. She has been an alcoholic and has had numerous scrapes with the law. Chris flies down to North Carolina to interview his sister. As she describes the horror that was her childhood, the viewer can’t help but feel great sympathy for her, and can’t help hating the father.

In the early part of the film, Chris interviews his father and asks about what he did. The father is blunt and cold, essentially refusing to talk about it, and blaming the Native American daughter’s problems largely on her. The Dad DOES break down when discussing the deaths of his two adoptive sons. With great emotion, he tells the audience that the engineer of the train had forty-seven years experience and was so distraught over the deaths of the boys that he could never do that job again. Along that line, the police officer who arrived on the scene that night is interviewed and really can’t talk about what he saw.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Native American biological parents of the boys received a brief and blunt letter saying their sons had died in an accident. They knew no more details for almost thirty years. Chris learned that one of the boys had caught the father molesting the girl and tried to protect her. The boys were distraught about the molestation and the awful secret in the home. They ran away to try to get help. It’s theorized that they lay down on the rail bed because the rocks were warm, they then fell asleep, and awoke to be instantly killed by the train.

It’s amazing how much GROUND Chris Billing covers in this fifty minute film! After watching it, it SEEMS like it was a three hour movie. Over the course of time, the father fully admits to what he did. I started out hating the guy, and feeling like he was a phony Christian. But there’s a scene where he talks about King David being “a man after God’s own heart” who committed terrible sins like adultery and murder and calls HIMSELF a man after God’s own heart who also committed terrible sins.

Initially, in North Carolina, the daughter who was molested really doesn’t want to see her father again. But over the three year period, Chris kind of “works” on her and on his Dad. Eventually, a meeting is arranged in North Carolina with several family members, including the mother. The Dad fully admits what he did, and asks for forgiveness, and the daughter grants it. The Mom, very emotional, and reminding me of many middle aged women I’ve watched pray at Pentecostal altar services lays hands on several family members and fervently intercedes aloud for them. My heart went out to her, yet there IS that nagging feeling of “but why did she allow this to go on?”

The film ends with a burial. Arrangements are made to move the Native American boys’ coffins from New Jersey to the Crow Reservation in Montana. The Crow funeral service was deeply moving. First, a Crow medicine man chanted, and explained that to Native Americans, moving bodies is a VERY bad thing to do, but he understands this HAD to be done. He is asking God to forgive them for moving the bodies. Then, a female Native American Protestant minster leads in what for most evangelical Protestants would be a more typical graveside burial service. A Native American plays his flute. It’s very sad and poignant.

Some of my readers may think the purpose of this film was to trash evangelical Christians or to expose their hypocrisy. While hypocrisy was definitely exposed, I do not think that was the purpose of the film at all. Towards the end, the Mom comments about her ex-husband. He is distraught about all that happened and all he caused. He is truly sorry. He truly loves God. But he is an unhappy and deeply troubled man. She comments that there ARE consequences of sin, and that he is living with those consequences. In the end, the family feels sorry for him, and the viewer feels sorry for him.

As a Christian, I am left pondering that IT’S JUST NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY! This was just NEVER what God intended! And how sad that sincere professing Christians allowed their “flesh” and their “old nature” to SO dominate them (especially that father) with such tragic results. You know, if those parents had really LIVED what God had called them to, well, they wouldn’t have been “perfect”, no one is (except Jesus). But they WOULD have left a strong Godly heritage and legacy.

How important it is for all Christians to be “doers of the Word and not hearers only”. Thank you Chris Billing for sharing your powerful and very painful family story with us.