Two Movies

There's been a lot going on with not much time left to write here.  No worries--there will be a spectacular guest post here on our return from Baltimore.  Get excited.

For now, all I have to offer are some random nagging thoughts and observations on two unrelated movies I recently watched. . .

I watched The Hunger Games once, and then again with my parents.  Dad, who appeared to be engrossed in it, later said, "That was the stupidest movie I ever saw."  Mom asked, "Where is the entertainment value?"  I didn't have an answer, since Hollywood destroys the value in just about everything it produces these days.  I could tell from watching the movie that the book was probably better at conveying a believable setting, but still, the violence seemed over the top and unnecessary.

The whole movie is a roller coaster of emotions, as we watch the poor and powerless in society forced to sacrifice their children to a "game" where the young will fight to the death for survival (on TV--this is a TV show in their world).  There can only be one winner.  It's gruesome and violent, and so horribly difficult to watch at times, but then occasionally something good happens to redeem it, to intrigue you to keep watching.

Some characters fight only to survive, others fight to win. We see humanity in its ugliest, cruelest state.  We are dragged into the desperation of persecution in a mess of ugly, senseless violence.  In a way, it touches the human center of us all that needs to find hope in suffering.  There must be something good that comes out of this.  There is a glimmer of hope, then Hollywood ties it up in a cheap bow and baits us on for the sequel, but we are left somewhat wounded.

There is so much violence in our world, so much senseless violence and death that I don't need my "entertainment" to echo that.   I don't need a fictional story to glorify the violence, because I know that in real life, not this fictional nightmare, there is hope in suffering, and we find it on the Cross.

My dad has tried to get me to watch A Man for All Seasons for as long as I can remember.  As kids we always poked fun at him because it's not at all an exciting movie, yet he claims it's the greatest of all time.  I finally caved and watched it with him.  It tells the story of St. Thomas More, who refused to accept King Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn after the pope in Rome denied his appeal for divorce.  (This is the king's first divorce and remarriage, the one that led him to split from the Church of Rome and give himself authority over the Church of England.)

The film is witty, intellectual, thought-provoking, a little dry at times, but inspirational.  Sir Thomas firmly stands his ground, refuses to sell his soul to acquiesce the king.  As the Duke of Norfolk tries to convince Sir Thomas to take the oath to the king, he points out all the men who have taken the oath and says, "Why can't you do as I did and come with us, for fellowship!"  Sir Thomas More replies, "And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?"

In the end, Sir Thomas dies a martyr among spineless politicians who were willing to sell their souls to save their lives.  We are left pondering the question, "Dare we to enter the kingdom of heaven with ease when Our Lord Himself entered with so much pain?"

. . .

The Following

It's been a long week and I drive with the windows down and I hear
I'll find strength in pain and I will change my ways. 
I'll know my name as it's called again.*

The music moves and pulls me out and on and grace trickles through.
Suddenly it's clear:
when you come to know that God IS, always and forever, everything changes.

The almost imperceptible workings of grace chip away slowly at the blinders around my eyes,
and I begin to see more and more through the eyes of God.
The way of faith requires daily conversion, a choice--to choose God, to choose love, to choose life.
The choice between continuing to love Him and follow Him, or to go my own way and ignore Him.

Doubt creeps in when this self-protective heart and over-thinking mind recognize this freedom, when I realize that I could stop right here, turn to apathy and live life in comfortable indifference.

After all, no matter what I do, God will remain all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving.  HE IS.  With or without me.  "Through it all, Love remains."**

i am, but only because of Him.  I could continue to exist for awhile without acknowledging Him, but when I took my last breath, that would be it.
We would be parted forever.

He doesn't need me, but He wants me.  He wants you.  He wants us to let Him love us.  And He calls us by name.
We try to follow, but weak and stumbling we fall.

Over and over He calls us back to Himself, and over and over we have a choice to make--to move forward or step back, to allow grace to carry us through the hard times or to determine to plunge through the hard times alone, to do all things for His glory or to do all things for our own glory.

If I am to live truly, I must acknowledge where I come from.
If I am to live fully, I must embrace Who I come from.
I must embrace the cross, and in doing so, find strength in pain.
I must change my ways, and continue falling deeper in love with the Creator, the Redeemer, the Spirit.
I must continue to center myself and my life around Him,
so that when He calls again, I'll know my name, and be ready to follow.


*Mumford and Sons, "The Cave"*
**Collin Raye, "Love Remains"**

In the Know

It began rather by accident.  Or maybe it's been building up for years and suddenly something had to give.  Either way, I stopped trying to change the world, and I started living my own life.

It goes back to about a month ago when I began to realize that caffeine was taking a serious toll on my stomach.  I said goodbye to my caffeinated love and switched from too-many-to-count cups of coffee a day to two cups of decaf herbal tea a day.

For two or three weeks there, life was brutal.  The world was against me.  I had no motivation, no energy.  Stress was mounting because I wasn't accomplishing anything and my to-do list was growing.

I gave up on working out and took to "sunshine yoga" (a more fun, more productive-sounding name for "laying out") where I lay out in the sun, soak up the rays of warm Vitamin D, and breathe deeply.  It was restful and rejuvenating.

I stopped wearing makeup.  This was partially out of laziness (but seriously, it allows for extra sleep and/or time to eat breakfast in the morning), but mostly because I'm tired of society's definition of beauty defining the way we see people.  I watched this clip and something snapped and I said, that's it.  I'm done.  I quit the makeup and accepted that my hair is an untameable beast with a mind of its own, and the world can deal with it.  God made me this way, and He loves me, and His love is all I really want.

Once I made that realization, that His love is all I want, I determined to make Him happy.  I went about it the wrong way, driving myself crazy trying to figure out how I can be like Katie Davis from Kisses from Katie.  And love reminded me that I am just me.  That the best way to make God happy is to simply be the woman He created me to be.

That doesn't mean ditching all of my responsibilities and moving to an impoverished country.  It means living every moment of every day with purpose.  It means going to work on purpose.  Dealing with broken machinery on purpose.  Helping customers on purpose.  Drinking herbal tea on purpose.  Eating my lunch on purpose.  Listening to my little sister's chattering on purpose.  Dealing with stress by tackling one simple task at a time, on purpose.

It's amazing how full life is when you look at it this way.  The days that I seem to accomplish nothing special, I've experienced something extraordinary.  I've lived each moment as it happened, and it's beautiful.

It's tricky.  I still get caught up in the rush of life and forget myself, but then I remember, and I simply come back and pick up where I left off.  I swallow my mistakes, nod in determination and keep moving forward.  I'm being proactive.  I'm learning a lot about myself, and I'm learning to see not only myself but others the way God sees us.

Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself, or I get overwhelmed with it all, or I wonder how weak and miserable me is going to get by in this crazy world, and that's when I pray.  It's in those moments that I've been discovering a simple but very real truth:  GOD IS.

He said, "I AM."  And  I believed that, but now I'm beginning to know it.  I know in my heart, in the sunshine, in the rain, in the high maintenance people, in the coffee grounds that won't go away, in the early hours of the morning when I don't want to get up and write but do anyway--I know that He is.  He never changes, He always loves.  He is.

The world is a mess, full of confusion and superficiality and meaninglessness and brokenness, but He still is.  And He still whispers to us, though we don't usually hear Him over our cell phones or Netflix marathons.  He calls to us, for us to love Him for who He is.  And He loves us for who we are.

And I don't just believe that anymore, I know it.

Convicted

In her book Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis states that Jesus wrecked her life.  I would have to say that in wrecking Katie's life, Jesus has also wrecked mine.

I have grown up in a faith-filled home, but I convinced myself that it was enough to stand firm in my beliefs in a culture that doesn't understand them.  It was as if I didn't need to go out and do what Jesus said like feeding and clothing and loving the poor.  I loved Him and He loved me and I lived in a bubble.

If I hadn't read her story, I might have continued on in this ignorance, but I read it.  And Katie's story pulled at heartstrings that were buried by protective walls of fear.  She went to volunteer for a year teaching orphans in Uganda, then ended up founding a non-profit ministry to sponsor children who couldn't afford school.  She obtained a house for her office and opened the doors to the children for studying, learning about Jesus, bathing in clean running water, and eating healthy meals.  Then a few of the girls started calling her mommy, and she began the process of adoption.  She didn't plan on any of those things happening, but she opened her heart to God's will--to His people in need--and carried it out.

The way Katie is led by her faith and her love for God is beautiful, inspiring, and convicting. I was constantly bursting into tears and wondering at how far off from truth I've been living.  Here is this young woman, practically my age, mother to fourteen, doctor, founder of an organization, mentor, feeder of the hungry--someone who has given up her previous life and the comforts of this world to not only proclaim the word of God, but also to live it.

I aspire.  But I am not Katie. I am not Mother Teresa.  I am me.  And God does not want me to pack up my suitcase and move to Africa or India.  At least, not today.

Katie often described how loving the children are that she ministers too.  She is rewarded for her work with kisses and love every day.  I look at the life I lead here in the first world and though I don't have to stitch wounds or de-worm kids or clean up dead rats, I don't have that kind of level of fulfillment from the work I do.  My attempts to be a cheerful giver in the service industry are often met with indifference or straight-up rudeness.  I can pour my heart into a mocha, serve it with a smile, and then receive a huffy, "I didn't want whipped cream on this."

Our society has become so wrapped up in this comfortable lifestyle, in getting everything we want, in living life for me.  We forget that there are people out there who don't have the basics.  They don't have food to eat, or running water to bathe in, or toilets, or roofs that keep the rain out.  They have so much more, though.  They have faith, and hearts brimming over with thanksgiving, and praise for God.

I often struggle with finding a balance.  Don't these people who think they have it all need to know God as much as those who have nothing?  Don't we all need to know God?  So how do we live this life and minister to the spiritually impoverished while also serving the poor?  Do we just ignore the high society and in doing so hope that we are leading by example?

I struggle.  I want to do more to help those in need, but stepping out of my comfort zone scares me.  Because everything scares me.  But after being convicted by Katie's story and seeing in it how much the love of God can transform us when we let it, when we suck up our fears and trust in Him, I know I can do it.  I just need to first focus my heart, soul, and mind on God.