Babette's Feast

I finally watched Babette's Feast.  I don't even know how many times I'd heard about this movie before sitting down to watch it the other night.  It waited for weeks on our shelf, and as it was holding up the queue from finally reaching Inception, Rachel and I finally sat down to watch this movie so we could send it back.  It's a French movie, and all in subtitles, and though it is pretty old, there is a beautiful story hidden in here.

To summarize, it's the tale of a French religious community, one that appears to be fairly strict.  The leader of it passes away, and leadership falls to his two daughters, beautiful women in their time who were strongly encouraged not to wed by the father.  The two women, in their advanced age, take in as a servant, a refugee from Paris.

I'm going to spoil the plot, because blogging about this movie without revealing the ending doesn't leave much to write about, but I don't feel badly about it since the movie came out in 1987.  If your going to be upset that I ruined a 23 year old movie...well, deal with it.

Babette wins the lotto, a considerable sum of money, and spends it all on a lavish feast for the strict religious community.  Turtle soup, quail, you name it.  I didn't know what half the dishes were, but it was fine French dining, and the French are pretty passionate about their food.

The sisters are astonished that she spent all this money on one meal, but it was Babette's chance to give away her art.  'An artist is never poor,' she tells them.

It reminds me a lot of what Seth Godin talks about, the idea of giving away our art.  What is it that you're really good at, that you love to do, and how are you giving that away?  Are you?  I think that often we don't give away our art, holding onto it because we don't think it's good enough, or that we might lose out on money down the road.  Give it away, and see what happens.  God has given us each tremendous and different gifts--let's use them for the glory of God, and let God continue to transform the world through us.  May we give away what has been freely given to us.