My favorite movie of all time is DreamWorks’ 2002 masterpiece Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Hear me out: Not only is it a movie about horses… narrated by Matt Damon… scored by Hans Zimmer… accompanied by a soundtrack of nonstop original bangers by Bryan Adams… It’s a movie about freedom. Which means it’s a movie about love.
It’s the story a wild stallion who gets captured by the U.S. military during the era of western expansion. Even the toughest, cruelest general cannot “break” him back at the military base. After three days of no food or water in the hot sun, he still manages to throw the general off his back.
There’s another captive at the base, Little Creek: one of the indigenous Lakota people. Just as Spirit is staring down the barrel of the general’s gun, Little Creek slips out of his ties and saves Spirit’s life. The two of them escape the base together, breaking down the stables and letting all the other horses run free behind them.
That’s just the beginning of the story! The real story begins as Spirit returns to Little Creek’s village where they build a friendship even though Little Creek keeps him fenced-in. Like he did with the general, Spirit refuses to let Little Creek ride him. Eventually, Little Creek smiles and says: “I’m never gonna ride you, am I?” And he opens the gate to let Spirit go. This is the turning point. From there, Spirit and Little Creek’s friendship strengthens and endures. (Gotta go watch it!) At the very end of the movie as they say goodbye, Little Creek hugs Spirit and names him: “Spirit, Who Could Not Be Broken.”
That’s what love does. It sets you free.
Two years ago, I went on a three-week silence and solitude retreat where I encountered the person of Love Himself—Jesus—in new and amazing ways. During that retreat and the years following, I have spent a lot of time with 1 Corinthians 13. On the one year anniversary of returning home from the retreat, I shared some of my reflections with the spiritual director who guided me through that time. Here is some of what I wrote to him in an email from July 2024:
God has spent the whole year teaching me 1 Corinthians 13: what Love really is, and what Love really is NOT. Love is not being trapped or rushed. Love is not being flattened or diminished or abandoned. Love is not fear-filled or jealous. Love does not punish or lie or keep a record of wrongs. Love does not demand its own way. Love does not demand its will upon me, and demands nothing of my will upon others. Love does not possess and Love does not consume. Love is patient and kind. Love asks, Love learns, Love receives, Love meets others as they are, not as I think they should be. Love is: I am not you, and you are not me. Love is an open gate, a place from which you can come and go freely. Love has ears and hears. Love has eyes and sees. Love waits. Love trusts. Love is not grown in a day; Love is the slowest growing fruit of all times—and the sweetest tasting, and the longest lasting, and (sometimes) the ugliest looking. Love is like rich food that needs be eaten slowly by a starving heart. Love is losing what is to be lost, and Love is finding what is to be found. Love delights to find you, and teaches the heart a longing to be found. Love is knowing face to face, just as I am fully known. It is the Way, the cross, the life hidden in Christ’s life. Because God also knows I have a thing for song lyrics, I should mention that as I write this, He has once again turned the radio dial of my soul radio to play a song I haven’t thought of in years: “Something That We Do” by Clint Black.
Spirit is a story about how one, unbreakable horse learns what freedom really is: Love.
And that is why it’s my favorite movie 🙂
Love,
Grace
© 2025, Grace H Shaw