My thoughts on God Friended Me

CBS has a great show on Sundays after 60 minutes called God Friended Me. The show is created by Greg Berlanti, best know for producing all of the DC Comics TV shows on WB. Since it just got renewed for another season, I’ll give my thoughts on it so far.

First of all, let’s look at the premise. Our protagonist is Miles Fine, a podcaster out of NYC with a show called “The Millennial Prophet”. Despite the title, Miles is actually an atheist. His father, Rev. Andrew Finer, is an Episcopalian priest, and they’ve had an estranged relationship ever since his mother died when he was very young. One day, he receives a friend request from an anonymous source claiming to be God. He thinks it’s a prank at first, but decides to check it out and meets a journalist named Cara, who’s begging for a big break. He decides to help her out, and this starts the show’s mystery. Every week, the anonymous account sends Miles a new person, and he and Cara help that person with whatever crisis he/she is facing. Another character he meets later on is Rakesh Singh, a hacker who tries to discover the account and helps them get past firewalls and such.

My Favorite Saints: St. Francis of Assisi

“Go Francis, and repair my house, which you see is falling into ruin.”–Those were the words St. Francis heard one day while praying in St. Damian’s chapel in Assisi. Words that would inspire him to become the founder of what we know today as the Franciscan Order of friars.

St. Francis was born in Assisi Italy in the late 12th Century (the exact year is unknown, but it is believed to be either 1181 or 1182.) He died there forty-four years later. He was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. Although he would later denounce it, he lived a rather lavish lifestyle off his father’s status.

When he turned twenty, he fought the Perugians and was taken prisoner. This was when he received a dream that inspired him to take a different path, returning home in 1205. He gave away all his money to a leper and said he was taking “Lady Poverty” as his wife. He gave his clothes to a merchant and fasted among the beggars. His father heard of his actions and thought that he had become a madman. He had him dragged home and beaten, bound and locked in a dark closet. His mother freed him and he sought sanctuary with a priest.  His father searched and found him. He told his father he had denounced his wealthy origin and was now in service to his Heavenly Father. He stripped his garments and gave them to his father, walking away naked. This was to show that he didn’t want to own anything, not even the clothes on his back!