"You're a lady to me."

As I'm sitting here doing homework (sidenote: on Thanksgiving break...) my family is watching this BBC PBS Masterpiece Theatre show.  I'm not sure what it's called, but it's entertaining, seeing as how I only look up every few minutes and catching bits and pieces of it.

The parts that I keep catching are the romantic parts.  And they are incredibly sweet, let me tell you.  People back in the 1800 and early 1900s knew what romance was.

I wish we still knew what romance was.  It's practically a dead art.

I sure wish it wasn't, though. 

All the boys I've gone with are proof that romance is a dead art.

Maybe that's why I'm still single.    I'm holding out for someone who wants to bring it back to life.

We'll see if anyone tries.

"Now you know I can't smile without you."

I never thought it would be so hard to write a play.

I'm working on a project for my Rhetoric And Writers class, and we were given the opportunity to write in any format we wished, saying really anything we wished rhetorically.  Stupidly, I thought this was a great opportunity to try writing a play.  I've always wanted to, so I figured I would just go for it.

I forgot to look before I jumped.

Maybe it's not even the play format itself, but the content that's bothering me.

I decided I would write about a priest who is young and fresh, but already tired.  He is beginning to think of his relationship with God as more of a dutiful marriage that he is committed to instead of the fiery passion he once had.  A young nameless woman comes to confessional one day and tells the priest that she is dying and is scared.  Through conversation, the priest realizes that this woman has a passion for God beyond belief, but has let her passion go so far that she can't work out her own death. 

I was proud of this story when it first came.  Now I just want to be done with it.

But I can't stop.  Even if my story is crap, it's become a symbol to me now.  I feel like I quit when things get old, I can't quit this.

I think I have a problem attaching symbolism and metaphors to everything I do.

In other news, keep calm cause Neville got sexy.

Four Years Of Silence Is Still Hurtful

You'd think that as much as I've moved and changed and altered life, I'd be used to loosing friends and making new ones and letting things go.

Nearly 22 years and I'm still bad at letting people go.

Some days it's fine and the people I used to know but life has happened or we've gotten into fights we couldn't work our way out of or other friends have gotten in the way or business has gotten in the way or we just don't acknowledge each other's presence anymore and we both look straight ahead when we pass each other, some days these failed relationships are alright.

Some days I look back on all the people that have come in and out of my life - or maybe I've come in and out of theirs - and I can just smile and fondly remember when we were happy and life was good with them.

But then some days, days like today when I have my iPod on repeat one for hours on end and the sun goes down far too quickly and I've been alone for awhile, these days it's not okay.

It's not okay that I didn't fight harder for some friendships.  It's not okay that they didn't fight hard enough for me.  It's not okay that they just decided to move on to "bigger and better things" and leave me behind.  It's not okay that by sticking up for what is right for me means that we can no longer be friends.  It's not okay that you just suddenly and without warning stopped talking to me. 

It's not okay that our friendship is reduced to silence. 

I know that it's just life and sometimes people fade in and out and sometimes you just loose contact with people.  I know this.  I really do know this better than some.

But how is it that sometimes people can just stop loving each other?

How can people who love Jesus just stop loving each other?  This is probably a very naive sentence, but it has been playing over and over in this old head for several days now. 

If we really want to be like Jesus, if I fervently pray that I will become less and less of myself and more and more of Jesus, then why are the people around me not overcome with love from me?

I started this with every intention of venting some frustrations out about a few people I have apparently lost over the years and months and weeks and even days.
But I understand that if I want the life around me to change, I need to start with the change inside of myself.

In between the silence, I'll be fervent in asking for Jesus' love.  And maybe one day when I see you again, sweet old friend, my smile will reflect Jesus and you will realize that you didn't loose me as a friend, you lost the reflection of Jesus in me.

Until then, I'll sit in the silence and love you, friend.

"Puzzles and codes, I imagine they lay down to you like lovers."

Last night I decided to be social, so I went to a friend's house with a couple of friends.  We all decided that it was the perfect movie-watching night, but we had some disagreements on which film to watch.  Some people wanted to watch a scary film, while one wanted to watch a Disney film. 

Somehow, we decided that The DaVinci Code was a compromise on these two things.

I'm still not really sure how that worked.

Anyways, we watched The DaVinci Code.  And in between squirming when Paul Bettany tortured himself "for Jesus' sake", wondering why Tom Hanks thought having long hair would ever be a good idea, being generally confused by the complexity of the plot, and questioning what was true history and what was "true" history, I found myself questioning how the filmmakers wanted me to feel by the end of the film.

The point of the film seemed to me to be that Jesus was married and had a child by Mary Madgalene, which apparently meant that Jesus was not divine, but just a regular Joe. 

This just seemed like the strangest point in the world to make.  Of all the reasons you could think of to "prove" that Jesus was not divine, really?  That's the one you chose?

 
Here's my thing: say Jesus was married to Mary and say he was just a man and say God doesn't exist and say we are all just hanging out on earth until we die and say there's nothing after we die, just blackness and the end.  Say all of that is true.  Say it's all true, and that believing in God and Jesus is stupid because there is no God and no Divine Jesus and nothing but us.

Alright, that's fine.  I'm still going to follow God, even if he is just make believe.

Here's why: if there's nothing more beyond us and life, then that means we are all living a pretty hopeless life.  And we're all just going to become nothing after we're done here.

If that is the case, I don't want it.  I don't want life.  If this is it, why keep living this?  There would be absolutely no point besides self-gratification.

So I'll just keep sticking with God, even if there is no God, and even if Jesus isn't Divine.  At least by believing in Him, even if it wasn't real, I'd be living for something besides my own self-gratification.  I'd be living for some kind of purpose.

And if God isn't real and it's all made up, it's not going to make a difference whether I believe in it or not, right?  I'd still become nothingness when I die, so why does Ron Howard care if I believe in it or not?

At least I have more hope and a point to my existence than he does.  At least I wake up in the morning and can embrace the day with a fake sense of security and hope, instead of waking up thinking, "One more day closer to becoming nothingness."

I wish I was as creative and brilliant as C. S. Lewis was and could say this as beautifully as he did, but I don't think I can.  So I'll just write out what he said:

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important that the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well it strikes me as a pretty poor one... I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lean on... we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

I'm glad I have hope.



 

Well you're hot, hot, loaded like a gun

I'm questioning if there is anything more peaceful than sitting in the School of Religion's Reading Room, listening to the rain, and wearing my comfy-but-cute clothes.

I think not.

Well, if you add sushi in the mix, it would make it perfection, naturally.

It's days like these, when there's lots to be done but time to just sit and listen to the rain and talk to God for a little while, these days are the days where it's just good to be alive.

Even bad hair can't get you down on days like this.  These are the days that headbands and bobby pins were created for.

On days like today, I wish I lived in France, and I wish I could dance. Or at least could make an attempt at dancing.  When I dance now, I just look like a dying animal.

I want to dance like Gene Kelly.  Is that possible? 

Storytelling

Sometimes I feel like being a journalist means I get to experience the things that other people do without actually doing them myself.

I can't decide if this is a good thing or not.

I interviewed an actress today.  Secretly, I've always wanted to act.  You know how you have those plans that you will never follow through with, but you know that if you could do anything in the world, you would do x?  I've always thought acting in plays is like that thing for me.

So I was excited to interview this actress.  And in talking with her and listening to the fluctuation of her voice and the way she spoke in hushed tones about becoming her character when she is on stage, I imagined myself in her shoes.  For that eighteen-and-a-half minute interview, I personified myself as an actress.

And then I came home and wrote the story.  And turned back into the storyteller I am inside.

Does that mean that a good storyteller puts on different hats in order to tell the best story possible 

Maybe not.  But I think that's what I'm finding myself doing.

Maybe it's hard to see anything negative about this.  But at times, especially the past month or so, I've found myself backing out of activities and living (in certain ways) because I have to interview someone or write a story or whatever.  And while I am talking to them or writing their story, I feel like a part of something huge, even if it's just talking to an actress who shaved her head for a play or a lonesome man who drives a trolley.

But sometimes when I'm done writing the story or talking to them or I put away my storytelling pen, I am reminded that I forgo certain aspects of life in order to tell others' stories.  I have at times put aside my own life in order to tell someone else's.

Is that sane?

"This is my rock and role face. Millions of women find it very sexy."

It's funny to watch people's reactions to you smile at them. 

That's one thing I've noticed about students here.  You can tell a lot about a student by their reaction to your smile. 

Maybe people do this everywhere, and I've just noticed it since I've been at Lee.  But when people see someone else walking towards them, they look at everything in the world they can possibly look at to avoid eye contact until the most opportune moment.  

Then, when the timing is right, when you are both passing each other, you look up and acknowledge their presence. 

It's an odd system to me, but I've found myself following this unspoken rule while I've been here.  If you deviate from this rule, it really throws people off.  

What throws them off even more is when you smile as broadly as you can to someone you don't even know.  Or, Heaven forbid, when you speak to them. 

I tested this theory the other day.  I was walking past a girl I had seen around but never actually met.  She has one of the best senses of fashion I've ever seen, and I'm constantly jealous of her outfits.  

So the other day, as we walked past each other, I looked at her until she looked up from the ground, and smiled my most friendly smile, then said, "I love your dress." 

I thought she was going to fall over in shock or something.  

I took her so off guard, I heard her utter an, "Um, thanks," after we had already passed each other. 

It made me laugh that such a simple, friendly gesture would shock someone so much. 

It also made me want to break the unspoken rule more often.  Just to see people react as if the world has just been shaken and confused. 

Attribution for the title: Hugh Grant in Music And Lyrics

Trolley Drivers And Truth

The thing I learned today is that things don't just happen.

I had been working on a story for my university newspaper.  The story itself wasn't bad, but I just kept feeling like I was writing stories just to have words on a page so my managing editor wouldn't yell at me. I knew this was not how a journalist should act, but I just couldn't seem to help it.  I felt stuck as a writer.

I was zoning out a little during an interview for this particular story.  I couldn't seem to get motivated to be a journalist, I was just hoping to squeeze by.  And then my interview-ee changed everything just by a simple sentence.

"I never did figure out the trolley system."

I'm not even sure why this particular sentence made me sit up and start listening.  But thank God it did.

Even though this statement had nothing to do with my particular story, I stopped asking my questions on my list and started asking my interview-ee about this trolley system he couldn't figure out.

The more he talked, the more deeply I could smell my next story.

I decided I would figure out this trolley situation, no matter what.  I was determined.  I felt like I had this breaking story, even if it was just about a trolley.  Or so I thought, anyways.

I did something that is rare for me - I talked to everyone I could think of about this trolley.  I had talking to administrative people, but I didn't really seem to care when it came to this trolley.  I wanted to know.

And then I felt like I hit a wall.  I couldn't find anyone who really wanted to talk to me.  I talked to three or four admin people, but they just didn't seem to see how this story was relevant, even though I was determined.

So again, I did something that all journalists do, but that I typically avoid like the plague.  I ran after my story.  Quite literally, actually.

I saw the trolley sitting on campus as I walked out from a class.  I hadn't prepared for an interview, I didn't even know what kinds of questions I would ask, and I hadn't spent the typical twenty minutes I normally spend mentally preparing for an interview.  I just decided to get on the trolley and start talking.

I could hear the trolley motor from several hundred feet away, and I suddenly was hit with a terrible thought; it is about to drive away.  I might miss it.

So I literally ran from my class to the trolley. It was exhilirating running after a story like that.

I smiled at the driver and he kindly opened the door for me. I didn't know what to say, so I just started talking.

"I'm a writer.  I mean, I'm an editor.  For the Lee Clarion.  The school newspaper, I mean.  Well, it's called the Lee Clarion.  Can I talk to you?  I mean, for a story.  Cause I'm writing a story about the trolley.  Well, not the trolley itself, but like the trolley system. Oh, can I record this?  I have my recorder."

This is literally what I said to the poor man. And even though I blubbered all over myself, he agreed to talk to me.

I was embarrassed by my outburst, so I decided to be incredibly professional.  I stood right next to him on the trolley, my recorder practically in his face, doing the Journalist Nod as he talked and doing the Journalist Ear, which means that I was half listening half thinking up my next question.  After getting all the Important Facts from him, I wondered if maybe our interview was over.  I mean, it had only been 6 minutes and 14 seconds, but I seemed to have all the Important Facts I needed.

And then told me I should take a seat. I sat down.

An hour later, I stood up and got off the trolley.

It's not that the trolley driver and I had an especially deep or theological conversation.  We just talked.  About life.  About people.  About goals and dreams and hopes and places we've been and places we hope to go.

And through this incredible hour long conversation with a kindhearted, God-filled trolley driver, I remembered why it is that I am a journalist.

I am a journalist because I love stories.  There is nothing that makes me happier than listening to someone just talk.  It doesn't have to be particularly powerful or life-changing, it's just truth.

For that brief hour, the trolley driver and I made a difference in each other's lives.  He told me that he had been feeling depressed, that he had been wondering about his life and what God was up to, but that I refreshed him.

And even though I didn't say it to him, he refreshed me as well.

So if you are looking for me around campus and you can't seem to find me, just look for the trolley.  I will probably be on it, just riding around with the trolley driver, my new friend, and talking.

I feel like I can spit fire! - Neville Longbottom

"Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below. Music can noble hints impart, engender fury, kindle love; with unsuspected eloquence can move and manage all the man with secret art." 
- Joseph Addison

Rain and music are, I think, the two most beautiful things in creation. They are also very much alike to me. 
I love listening to conductors like Alexandre Desplat when it rains. I think perhaps he sometimes writes his music just for rainy days. 

Have you ever listened to a song and felt like it was the last song you ever wanted to listen to again? I feel like I find songs like that all the time. 


A few years ago, a sweet boy named Michael let me borrow his copy of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. In this wonderful book, Charlie says to his friend, "I have finished To Kill A Mockingbird. It is now my favo[u]rite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another book." This is me at nearly every book and song and film that I see. 
I love Stephen Chbosky for saying that for me. But then I love Mr. Chbosky for saying a lot of things for me in his book. 

I love Mr. Chbosky for this: 
"Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished, I said something. 
'I feel infinite.'
And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way." 


I didn't have a particular point to writing any of this, but maybe that's when the best emotions come out of oneself. Anyways, maybe I just wanted to pretend like someone somewhere might be paying attention and might listen to these songs and read Mr. Chbosky's book and feel as if their soul had found a nice place to curl up and rest. 


One last song for the road. 

And The Sky Is Not Cloudy All Day

I've been thinking about war. Somehow just admitting it seems odd.

Maybe I shouldn't bring everything back to film, but I can't seem to help it.  Film seems sometimes to be my life.  Or at least how I spend a considerable amount of my life.

Anyways, I watched this film entitled Brothers.  It was not what I had expected.
The premise of the film is that one brother is in the military and goes off to fight in the war, only to get kidnapped.  He is mistaken for dead. His wife and daughters are struggling through his "death", so his brother helps them, only to fall for his brother's wife.  While she herself falls for him, she knows her heart belongs to her husband, even if she thinks he is dead, so she stays pure for her husband.  When she learns that he is not really dead, she is thrilled, but knows that things with her brother-in-law will be difficult. When her husband returns, he thinks that his wife and brother are having an affair.  This, mixed with what happened to him while he was kidnapped in the war, makes him go mad.

When I checked this film out from the library, I thought it was just going to be about mixed up love and a lot of good acting. I didn't realize it would provoke so many feelings about war.

There is one part in the film where the husband is forced to make a choice about his future.  He must decide if he will do anything to get back to his family, or if he will instead give his life for the war.  This decision was painful to see because I hated that he was forced to make it.

I understand war sometimes.  I understand that sometimes war is fought to end holocausts or stop innocent people from being destroyed or to bring down a ruler that has sold himself to evil.  I understand this.  What I don't understand is what actually goes on during a war.

I sometimes wonder if the men who are killed and the men who killed them even knew why they were dying or why they were killing.  Do they even understand what is actually going on?  In the heat of a battle, do you stop to think about the value of a human life, or are you just scared out of your mind?

I have not witnessed any sort of war first hand.  I do not know what it is like to be shot at and see your friends blown up beside you and feel as if you would do anything and kill anyone to just make it stop.  I cannot possibly imagine how this feels.
And maybe it is extremely naive of me, but I wish so desperately that no one had to know what this feels like.

I watched another film about a week ago called The Messenger.  The only reason I picked it up was because I am quite taken with Woody Harrelson.  But I am very glad I picked it up. I would recommend it to everyone.
It's all about two men who deliver the news of soldier's deaths to family members and what this does to their own minds and lives.

I never thought about these messengers before.  I never stopped to think how telling about death as a job could possibly affect someone.  But I understand better now.
I also desperately wish that no one had to know what it feels like to deliver the news of a death of someone you don't even know to someone you don't even know.

I've wondered for a long time if I'm a pacifist.  Films like Brothers makes me wonder this.  Perhaps I am.
War I suppose is just too much for me to really get, to really understand and agree with completely.  I suppose it's not my job to understand war, that's for presidents and rulers and commanders to understand.
But sometimes I wonder if they understand it.

I wish I knew how to fight against war.  I'm not going to picket or complain to leaders or refuse to support our military or any of that rubbish.  That's just silly stuff.
The only way I know how to stand up against war is to love.
But sometimes I wonder if love's enough.

The Trap Door In Our Souls

What is love?
Is it making cookies for your new neighbor?  Is it picking flowers with your girlfriend?  Is it watching French films and drinking a glass of wine?  Is it not killing the wasp in the room but opening the door so it can go back outside?
Does love have to be an action?  Can love just be words?  Can love just be a look, a smell, a taste, a touch? 
Can we love without saying a word or performing an action or even being in the same room as someone? Can we love those we have never met but want to meet?  Can we love those we will never meet because they do not even exist?
Can we love by leaving?  Can we love by giving up?  Can we love by making others sad or angry or suicidal?

I watched this strange and comical and witty and brilliant film called Cold Souls.  It was about a man who felt as if he was stuck in a hole and couldn't get out, so he decided to have his soul removed.  But instead of feeling better, he felt worse.  So he decided to pick out a soul.  He picked out a Russian poet's soul, and decided to put it inside of him for two weeks.  But after he did this, he felt as if he was slipping away because he was not what made him him.  So he went back to get his soul, but he discovered that it had been stolen.  So he decided to hunt down his own soul, the thing he didn't even want in the first place.
Maybe this has nothing whatsoever to do with love.  But then again maybe this is love. 


What, really, does that word even mean?  I mean, we use it so frequently for so many different things. We say, "I love your shoes!" and in the next breath say, "I fell out of love for my husband."
Well, did you fall out of love with your husband the same way you will look at those shoes in a year and think, "What was I thinking buying these ugly shoes?"
Or we tell someone we love them, only to break up with them three months later and move onto the next relationship.  Then, in this new relationship, we tell them we love them.  Is there a difference between the love we felt for the first relationship and the love we feel for the new relationship?

Love is just so complicated, I suppose.  But I feel like it should be the easiest thing in the world.

In the film I mentioned, the main character tries at one point to put his soul back into his body.  But there is resistance - his soul does not want to enter his body again.  So he has to put on these special goggles and look at his soul and try to reconnect with it again so that it will want to go back in his body. 
When he looks into his soul, he first just sees a white, empty room.  "I knew it," he says, laughing sadly.  "I knew it would be empty."
Then, he finds a trap door in the floor of his soul.  He opens his trap door, and finds pure beauty - his mother pregnant with him, his wife when he first fell in love with her, his grandfather smiling at him.

At the end of the film, he is trying to locate the soul of the woman that helped him, a Mule (the Russian women who carry people's souls inside of them from Russia to America so that we can have their souls).  He finds her soul, but the doctors say that the spot where the soul goes is too full of fragments of all the souls she has carried with her.  She is filled with everyone else's soul, but she has no room for her own.
This made me so sad for this woman.  She had a little piece of everyone with her, but it did not matter much because she hadn't anything of herself.
 This must be what it's like to go through life giving of yourself and not really loving truly. 

I feel like this should be ended with some kind of answer.  But maybe the answer is just in asking the question.  Maybe love is not even realizing that you are loving until you stop and ask.  Maybe when you just make cookies for your new neighbor and think nothing of it, you are loving.  Maybe picking flowers with your girlfriend because you know she enjoys it is loving.  Maybe watching French films and drinking a glass of wine is loving because you are just enjoying life.  And maybe not killing the wasp in the room but opening the door so it can go back outside is an action of loving.

Maybe. Or maybe I'm just complicating things.

Ultimate Reality

"I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can't remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world's still there. Do I believe the world's still there? Is it still out there?... Yeah. We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I'm no different."
                                           - Memento

I'm taking this class this semester, Film Criticism. 
It's an amazing class, partly because I get to watch and analyze films for homework and partly because I think that my professor is an absolutely brilliant woman and quickly becoming my hero.  She writes children's books and teaches on the side. 
Or maybe it's the other way around.
Anyways, she's stellar.  And she lets us watch really stellar films. 
One of the last films we watched was Dark City.  And if you haven't seen it, sir you're missing out.  It's kind of trippy, but in that swell sort of awesome way.
Anyways, I had to do this presentation on it, and I chose to compare it to several other similar films.  I talked about Dark City and Memento (a really trippy film) and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (an even trippier film). 
The question that all of these films deal with is do our memories make us who we are or is who we are make our memories. 
The quote at the top is from Memento. 
Basically, the gentleman (played excellently by Guy Pierce) cannot form new memories, and the last thing he remembers is his wife getting raped and murdered. 
So the whole thing is him trying to find his wife's killer.  Since he can't remember anything from five minutes ago, whenever he finds a clue about this killer, he tattoos himself with the clue. 
Trippy, right?
Anyways, in the end he does something terrible, but is trying to convince himself that it's okay because he won't remember that he did it in like ten minutes. 
And the whole idea is can he be held accountable in ten minutes when he doesn't even remember doing it?
After I did my presentation, my professor told me to watch this other film called The Thirteenth Floor. 
I didn't think that a film could get trippier than Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, but I was wrong. 
The Thirteenth Floor is an incredible film, but lord is it trippy.  Kind of makes you feel like you're high or something.
The Thirteenth Floor kind of has the same idea as Memento. 
In this film, these people create this entire other world in a live video game, then connect their brains to the brains of some of the people in this other world.  What they don't realize is that this world they create doesn't realize it's just a created world, so it functions like a real world, with real people, doing real things and falling in love for real.
So it's like these people are walking around, doing their lives, thinking they've got this, then suddenly they get zonked and don't have any control over what the video controllers do and then don't remember doing anything. 
So for example, one perfectly respectful gentleman who has been happily married for over 30 years gets zonked, and his "game controlling person" is a scoundrel who sleeps with all these women.  Then when he's done, he unzonkes the respectful gentleman, and lets him live his life.
The problem is this gentleman's wife figures out he's having affairs because she smells the perfume on him.  But he's really not, it's his "controller". 
Watching all of these trippy films has really got me questioning reality a lot. 
And the thing is, as hippie as that might sound, I think it's great. Here's why.
While I am from this world, I am not of this world.  This will never be Home, because Home is with the Creator. 
Maybe it's a weird and twisted analogy, but while I was watching The Thirteenth Floor, I kept thinking that I'm like the video game people - I live and breathe and love and fear and weep and smile, but there is something much more Real than the Reality I am doing all of these things in.
And it's perfectly fine for me to live and breathe and love and fear and weep and smile in reality, because after all, that's why the Creator made this reality. 
But it's like, once I figure out that this reality is not the Ultimate Reality, I should live and breathe and love and fear and weep and smile knowing that one day, I'll get to leave the video game reality and go the Ultimate Reality with the Creator.
I got this tattoo a few weeks ago that says "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me."  
If I were to just go through life in this video game reality by myself, there really would be no point. 
There's a point in The Thirteenth Floor where one of the characters realizes that his world is not really Reality. 
He is staring out into the "world" and says that no matter what he does or whom he loves or whatever, nothing will really matter because he will die, and no one will remember him and his life will just be a video game character so who cares?
This is like what it is when we go through life on our own.  It doesn't really matter.
But when we let the Creator take over and get in our heads and our hearts and direct us, it gives our lives here meaning. 
Because there is no higher power than our Creator.  And he knows how all of this works because he's the Creator.  So he knows the best way for things to work. 
So of course we want His input.
Just a thought.
I guess it's kind of like how people compare The Matrix to Christianity.  Or The Lion King.
None of those really made sense to me. 
But this does, somehow.

Life Happens

 "We're at the end of the universe and you're standing there blogging!"
- Doctor Who

I recently took this two-week break from social networks.  I logged out of my Facebook, I didn't pay attention to Twitter (unless you count the text messages I would get from Anderson Cooper), I didn't post a blog, and I just generally tried only to check my e-mail and do editorial work, then get offline.

It was wonderful.

Let me explain why it was wonderful.

Being away from things like Facebook and Twitter made me realize that life doesn't happen on the internet.  Life doesn't happen while you're half-heartedly Facebook chatting a friend you haven't actually seen in three months.  Life doesn't happen while you're listening to someone to see if they say something funny you can Tweet about. 

Life happens when you get out and actually live it.

I've been thinking about this concept of living life a lot lately.  I know it sounds really weird and kind of morbid, but sometimes I think we forget to live our lives.  We're like these zombies walking around, too busy staring at our social network applications on our phones to really pay attention to the people around us that are begging for our attention and love.

I was in my Benevolence lab a few days ago and we all got talking about this idea of Benevolence and social justice and how we need to join this fight.

As I was walking back to class, I had this thought of why are we so concerned about strikes and getting the Bad Guys and making them pay and fighting in wars?  This isn't love.  This is Religious Christianity at its worst.

And then I realized the simplest thing in the entire world, and yet it seemed to change everything for me. 

I love Jesus. And Jesus loves the world.  After all, He came to save it.  So I should love the world.
It was like I made this diagram in my head.  And everything seemed so simple and right.

If we were to focus on loving people the way Jesus loved them, then the other things would just fall into place.  If we loved people the way Jesus loved them, then we wouldn't want to go to war and kill each other because we would love each other.  If we loved people the way Jesus loved them, then we wouldn't have rapes or murders or drug deals gone sour or children being abused because we would all just be loving each other.

I know it sounds so simple and maybe a little silly, but I'm going to let this affect me like crazy.  I'm not going to worry about spending five hours a day feeding the homeless because I have to get service hours in.  I'm not going to worry about updating my Facebook status so that people will think I'm really cool.  I'm not going to worry about handing out tracks to people as they walk by.
I'm just going to love people as I go about my life loving Jesus.

The rest I figure will fall into place.

Communication In Society Speech - 27.02.11.

"As Moses descended from Mount Sinai... he did not realize that the skin of his face shone as a result of his speaking with the Lord.  When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone and they were afraid to come near him...whenever Moses went before the Lord to speak with Him, he would remove the veil until he came out.  After he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded, and the Israelites would see that Moses' face was radiant.  Then Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went to speak with the Lord."  - Exerts from Exodus 34:29-35
This is one of my favourite passages in the entire Bible because of this connotation that Moses' face was radiant after spending time with God.  God's love and goodness and grace was so overpowering that it shown in Moses' face and it says that the Israelites were frightened. 
They were frightened because God was revealed in Moses' face.
Does God shine through in our faces when we spend time with Him?  As I come into society after a precious encounter with God, whether that be through a worship service in a church or a sweet time spent with God alone, can others see on my face that something is different?
Shouldn't our interactions with Jesus change and alter us so that others can see it?
When we come into our great God's presence with fear and trembling, we should come with an expectation that Jesus will rock our world and alter us, so much so that others will stop and stare, wondering what has made us shine.
All too often we come into our Father's presence and think, "Let's just get this over with," and miss the precious time to just be in our Creator's presence.  We miss Him and we leave no different than we went in.
Earlier in Exodus, Moses meets God through a burning bush and God tells Moses to remove his shoes.
"When the Lord saw that he [Moses] had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, 'Moses!' 'Here I am', he answered.  'Do not come closer.  Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground'... Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God."  - Exerts from Exodus 3:4-6
Maybe one reason we have lost this shine on our faces is because we have lost this respect  for being in our God's presence. 
There's a song by Nichole Nordeman called "Tremble".  In the chorus, she sings, "Let me not forget to tremble / Face down / on the ground / Do I dare to take the liberty to stare at You?" 
This attitude of reverence and awe of God is what we should have when we interact with the Lord and creator of all things.
When I enter into His presence and worship Him with awe and trembling, I feel His mercy, grace, and love being poured out on me as He washes over me.
And when I leave this place of awe, I leave knowing that I had a holy and wonderous interaction with the One Who created me.
And this makes my face shine as a reflection of my Jesus.

Communication In Society Speech - 23.01.11.

"Our desire is for Your Name and renown."  - Isaiah 26:8b
So often, especially in today's society, we worry about our own names and our own renown.  We focus on ourselves.
"Am I looking popular?" "Am I getting the recognition that I deserve?" "What can I do in life that will make me look good?" "How can I get people to focus on me?"
But it's not about us.  It's never been about us.
It's all about Jesus, because we would be as filthy rags without Jesus.
When God looks at us, He chooses not to see our filth and our sin, but instead sees Jesus inside of us.
Wouldn't we want the world to see us like this?
If we really want the world to see the best that we are, then we should want them to see Jesus, because Jesus is the best thing we have.
I am the first to admit that I like to be noticed for me and my accomplishments.  But the thing that I need to remember is that when I do something and receive recognition and renown for my name, I need to give credit where credit's due.  I would be nothing and would not have the strength to do anything without Jesus, and this is what I need to remember when I am praised.
"Lord, You will establish peace for us, for you have also done all our work for us.  Lord our God, other lords than You have ruled over us, but we remember Your Name alone." - Isaiah 26:12-13

No Narcissism Intended

I have wanted to have a blog for several years now, but I kept pushing it to the side, firstly because I didn't want to seem narcissistic or because I figured no one would care to read my ramblings in blog form, so why have one?
While I still don't have an answer for this, I am hoping to break through the narcissistic aspect of blogging and somehow find a way to make this not so much about me but about whoever happens to stumble upon my ramblings, if anyone.
I will try my hardest never to write unnecessarily about myself.  For all intended purposes, I plan on writing about books that I think the world's population needs to read and music that will grace the ears of the world and thoughts from people so much smarter than me that I want to share.
I would like to think of this blog as more of a vessel for me to share the brilliance of others that I have happened to come in contact with. 
With that said, go listen to this song. 
Now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArFdPjyzNzQ

Explanation Of Title

So I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide on a name for my writings.  I decided to look through some of my favourite books to look at what I had underlined, and I came to a part in John Green's section of Will Grayson, Will Grayson where he says this:
" 'I have an idea,' I say.  I can feel her looking at me, and I cinch the hood of my coat.  My ears feel cold like burning. 
And she says, 'What's the idea?'
'The idea is that for ten minutes, we forget that we have feelings.  And we forget about protecting ourselves or other people and we just say the truth.  For ten minutes.  And then we can go back to being lame.'
'I like the idea,' she says."

I wrote this conversation one time between a boy and a woman. They were talking about war and why there are wars.  Their conversation ended with this:
" 'I like the way you talk to me,' Jim said seriously to Beatrice.  'You're not like most people around here - you tell me things that are true.  You tell everyone things that are true.'
Beatrice smiled.  'People need to know the truth, Jim.  I don't care how much it hurts them, people still need to be told the truth.'"

This idea of truth is very important to me.  I want to thrive on the truth.  It is one of the reasons I want to be a journalist - to be able to tell people the truth, even if it ugly or unpleasant for them to hear or just hard to hear. 

But we are human, and we can only take the truth in small dosages some times.  We can take ten minutes and soak up the painful truth, and then we can have a few hours of lameness in order to gather ourselves together and prepare for another ten minutes of truth.

So that's what this will be.  I will take ten minutes at a time and do these writings about the truths that I want to share. 

Thus ends this ten minutes.