a monthly DVD club
3-6 spiritual features every month

Every month, they will send you two DVDs packed with three, four, five, sometimes even SIX, features, documentaries and shorts. They sent me one month's collection for review, and after watching them with my mother (84 years young), I can certainly agree with one of their statements, "these are movies that inspire, heal, and transform our lives." In fact, I'll stick my neck out and say ...

I highly recommend The Spiritual Cinema Circle.

It is like a "DVD of the Month Club". You get two DVDs every month, jam-packed with uplifting movies that will make you think, and possibly understand our spiritual universe better.

Before recommending this service to you, I knew that I should check it out. If I didn't like what I saw, I wouldn't recommend it. I requested a sample DVD, received it promptly, and watched it at my mother's house. (She's 83 years young, and she loved it, though she commented that the Tibetan documentary got a little "deep" for her.)

Here's what we saw on the two DVD's that comprise the Spiritual collection for "one month":

• The Visits: a 15-minute narrative feature about a mysterious journey into a husband's struggle with grief and finally releasing his wife's spirit to heaven. This short film reminded me a little of "Sixth Sense" with the wife's spirit continuing to appear in this world after her death, if only inside her husband's mind. My mother and I were both very surprised (pleasantly so) by the ending.
• Waiting for Ronald: an uplifiting and empowering 22-minute film about two challenged individuals coping with life. What I found very inspiring about this film is that the developmentally challenged character, just leaving an institution to finally live in the world on his own, was played by a developmentally challenged actor (in his film debut), and his friend, waiting to welcome Ronald into his new life outside the institution, was played by an autistic actor. The film succinctly showed us how each man had to face his own fears about his own abilities before they could find each other at the bus stop, and presumably, continue on with their lives after "the end" of the feature. This is the type of film that I'll probably have to watch a second time to catch all the little things I didn't catch the first time.
  
• The Yogis of Tibet: a 77-minute feature-length documentary that showed me much that I didn't know about the world of the Dalai Lama and the tradition of the Tibetan Yogis who have spent years in isolation practicing secret rituals. I found it very interesting to hear about their retreats, rituals and other interesting details. One interesting fact that I learned from this documentary: if the Communist Chinese had not invaded Tibet, we might not have learned as much about Tibetan Buddhism as we have learned. So, in a way, the Chinese Holocaust (killing millions of Tibetans) might have actually accomplished the opposite of what the Chinese wanted it to accomplish. They were trying to stamp out every shred of Tibetan culture. Instead, we know more about it now than we ever did. I sincerely pray that the lessons of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet's unique culture do not die out now that conditions are more free than before.
• Mother Ghost: an 85-minute movie about one interesting day in the life of a man who lost his mother one year before. Unlike The Visits, he does not see his mother's ghost, but he feels her presence. How else do you explain that he found her rings next to his sink that morning? He tries to deny that he needs help, but he ends up calling a radio shrink and telling the world about his non-feelings. You have got to watch this movie. I know that I'll be watching it again. I especially enjoyed the big-name actors in this movie, including Dana Delany, Joe Mantegna (I love him as Joan of Arcadia's father), Charles Durning, Dana Delaney, Kevin Pollak, James Franco, and Garry Marshall