Whenever a filmmaker sets out to make a project I suppose that there is always one scene that sets everything in motion for them. For me, it's scene 8. In my opinion this scene is long and boring, but that is the point. It's meant to bring home the fact that Chloe struggles to get her mother's attention and she is bored with her current life. So in a sense, we go into Chloe's world and feel what she feels. Her days are long and there is no excitement at all.

Boredom, especially for a young person is a powerful and deceptive force. When young folks don't have constructive activities to do, positive events to attend, and fill their time with things that will uplift them in an engaging way, they will seek the opposite of boredom, which is often called "fun". There's nothing more tormenting for a young person then to feel that they are being deprived of "fun".

I remember when my younger sister was in her late teens and how she reacted to being bored. When she announced to the household that she was bored, which she so often did, it was a warning that she was about to get into some mischief. It was a message to the other people in the house that we were failing at our duty to make sure she was having constant "fun". And if we neglected that duty, then she would take matters into her own hands.

This would often lead to her getting in trouble with my mother. And when you asked my little sister, why did you do it, she would say, "I was bored".

In a way, young people are entitled to an interesting and exciting life. The real problem is we allow everything outside our households to dictate what "fun" is. Young people develop their idea of "fun" from the entertainment industry and from their peers. When and how do we weight in?

Many parents think "fun" is not a priority so they try to jostle and wrestle their children away from the idea of "fun" by telling them how horrible and sinful "fun" is. Many parents opt to shelter their children from "fun" in order to keep them from developing an appetite for it.

Here's the problem, a sheltered child is more apt to have "fun" when they are out of our site than a child who's learned to process "fun" for what it is and then make a healthy choice to avoid "fun". Another point is, when "fun" is not a priority for a parent, but it is for a child, therein lies the breakdown in communication between parent and child.The Bible says: "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Amos 3:3...

We would do well if we helped our young people experience "fun" as defined by a Christian and help them understand for themselves that "fun" as defined by the world is spiritually destructive. And I know this is very hard to do, and I hope I don't sound as if I'm over simplifying the task. But our children are here now, and we're their guides, and at times we're their spiritual eyes and ears, so we must be up to the task, remembering always that greater is He that is in me than He that is in the world.

The Baptism of Chloe Foy - Scene 8 from Clarence McCall on Vimeo.

This is an incomplete edit of the second half of scene 8. There are audio problems, color correction problems and we're still tweeking the edit here and there. I just wanted to post it for your perusal... Enjoy.

Blessings...

Clarence