The Way of Nature, The Way of Grace: Why Terrence Malick Is The Most Spiritual of Modern Filmmakers

“The nuns taught us there are two ways through life, the way of Nature, and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow.

Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.

Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.

They taught us that no one who ever loves the way of Grace ever comes to a bad end.

I will be true to you. Whatever comes.”

Terrence Malick votaries will recognize the above as the first words spoken in his 2011 magnum opus, The Tree Of Life. They lay out a vision of Malick’s idiosyncratic spirituality that is centered on Christianity but not exclusively to it. Innocence and the loss of innocence because of desire, corruption, and selfishness are at…