For last year's anniversary of my mother's death, I quoted Bono from U2, someone who lost his mother during his teen years. This time, I'll quote Paul McCartney, who---like Bono and John Lennon---also lost his mother during his teen years (if you know these three men's songs, you can see how these events influenced their songwriting).

The song "Let It Be" was written by Paul during a time of growing conflict within The Beatles. Perhaps he could tell that they wouldn't be working together for very much longer---I don't know. But, he dreamt one night that his mother visited him and told him something along the lines of "It will be alright, just let it be," and that was the starting point for the song. By the way, "Mother Mary" in the lyrics refers to his own mother, who was named Mary.

Now, I'm not going to get into any possible religious significance of the dream except to say that "let it be" can sometimes be a fine way to translate the Greek word "aphiemi". In the New Testament, this word can mean everything from "send away" to "divorce" to "depart" to "permit" to "forgive," for example "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12, ESV) and "let both grow together until the harvest..." (Matthew 13:30, ESV). Sometimes, it is a matter of faith to "let it be"---to let go of one's fears, expectations and grudges, to forgive, to trust that God has reconciled to himself all things through the cross (Colossians 1:19-20), that He is making all things new (Revelation 21:1-5) and that Christ will lose nothing that God has given Him (John 6:35-40).

Enjoy the movie!