Afi Ruel ***SPOILER ALERT*** In my last post about Disney’s Encanto, I shared a conversation my husband and I had about how quickly Mirabel forgave her grandmother. If you missed it, check it out here. But another character I want to feature is Bruno. I loved the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”. The beat, vocals and melodies were phenomenal. But the message of the song was quite sad. An entire family unit and town who refuses to talk about the one person who can see and tell the truth. And they refuse to talk about or even to him because the truth apparently was not what they wanted to hear.
In the Christian faith, we call people like this prophetic. Prophetic people often hear hard truths from the Lord and are sometimes prompted to warn people. Or, like Bruno, they actually see into the spirit realm and see truth, the future or other things. If you know people like this (Christian or not) please be kind to them – unless of course they’re trying to harm you. But please extend grace. They often find themselves outcast for telling the truth, or going it alone because they see and accept the truth about situations that no one else or few others are capable of seeing and accepting.
Which leads me back to Bruno. One of the most heartbreaking scenes was when Abuela blurted out “Bruno did not care about this family!” while she and Mirabel were arguing – right before the house fell apart. It was heartbreaking because we know that Bruno loved his family. We know that because why else would he live in the uninhabitable/nonmagical part of this house with rats and small rations of food, trying to repair the cracks? Why else would he accept being unseen and faintly heard by Dolores (who had bionic ears) just to be near his family?
This presents the ugly truth of the truth tellers. They often find themselves between a rock and a hard place being accused of not caring about the family who mistreated, outcast and maligned them. That leaves them with the hard decision of leaving a system they were hardwired to need or staying and suffering while seeing the hard, cold truth about the same system. Bruno did a mixture of the two. He remained out of sight, which led people to believe he had abandoned the family; but he never really left. And he stopped using his gift because it was deemed as having no value to the family. In fact, it was labeled as harmful to the family and the community they lived in.
If you ARE “Bruno” let me encourage you to continue to see and embrace the truth – but to give yourself permission to live it. That doesn’t mean that you need to confront anyone or everyone who may be toxic. You can, however, choose to live a life free from toxicity or as free as you can get it. There is nothing wrong with leaving a situation, group, job or family that is harming you. I can’t promise that will be easy, but there is always hope that you will find people who will embrace you and your gifts.
Did you see Disney’s Encanto? If so, what did you think about Bruno? Let’s talk about Bruno!
