The End

Yeah, obviously it's time to say...

The End

I've archived most posts but have left ones with comments up, simply 'cause I hate deleting other people's words.

Whatever Happened to Stories?

From a recently read review:

The PG-13 rating (mandatory for maximizing audience size) disallows any serious bloodletting or sexuality, and this makes much of Robin Hood seem almost cartoonish...One has to wonder whether Scott's original vision of Robin Hood was more adult and fully-formed than the theatrical version.

So basically, he's saying that a film's not for grown-ups if it doesn't have a plentiful amount of blood and sexuality? Well, guess what? Some of us deliberately look for movies without that! So "Casablanca" is for toddlers? And "Rear Window", which managed to be suspensful without explosions and carnage? Sheesh, whatever happened to storytelling?

You Gotta Watch

Writing is all the more dangerous when you write well.

I followed a link and started reading a blog of a young, pretty missionary who wrote emotionally and well. The first post I read was really quite good. So I read some more. The next one, ehhhh; good, but some things crept in that made me cock my head. Then the third, and the comments (since when is it OK for Christians to drop f-bombs??!?), and well, I stopped reading and started just thinking.

At first I was envious because she wrote well and people read and responded to it. (Stop coveting, girl!) But as I read more, I started getting disappointed, and then bothered.

They were responding, for sure. And that's where I saw the problem.

The problem is not that people will listen to her--they already are; she has over a thousand followers--but that people will just listen. She does say things that need to be said, so I'm not saying "stay away!", but she's also saying things that don't. Test everything, folks (1 Thess). That means EVERYthing,(1 John 4:1), for cryin' out loud. Just because someone is convincing doesn't mean they're right.

I know, I write, and I get it wrong sometimes, of course. We all stumble in many ways, as James said. But if you back up a verse there, you'd read that people who teach (as simply writing, simply communicating will teach, whether you're trying to or not), will be held more accountable than those who don't. You gotta watch what you're doing. Especially if you write well.

Peering

I've wondered before why God didn't lay out specific instructions on everything, so there wouldn't be all the disagreements, arguing and division. Why didn't He say, "This Tribulation that I'm telling you about will happen in 70 A.D." or "2300 A.D."? Why didn't He say, "I made the Heavens and the Earth in..."?

He did, of course, lay down the law on many, many things. He told us not to murder each other, steal from each other, told us not to use His name lightly. The Ten Commandments. And He gave a lot of detail over things like building the tabernacle and not weaving two kinds of cloth together. But He didn't cover all of life. Maybe the Bible would still be in under construction today if He did...

God is indeed a mysterious God. But I have realized one thing about why He didn't leave a complete set of instructions. It's because He doesn't want us to just follow a set of instructions. He wants us to follow a Person.

The Real Toothy Cow

You know the sign of a really good book? You have to hold your hand over the next page to keep your eyes from jumping there to see what happens.

I had to do that during the reading of "The Monster in the Hollows", by Andrew Peterson. I also had to reach for a tissue here and there throughout, and at the end, lying on my bed reading, my throat ached with the tears.

I read it in one morning. Another sign. And pre-ordering it, something hardly any books these days call for (lamentably). This one, I thought, was the best of the series yet.

Not that I didn't fall for "The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness". The name alone was enough to delight in. And the other names in the book! Who couldn't giggle and jump over someone who clearly loved making up names at least as much, if not more than, I do? I mean, “Toothy Cows”! These books are now referred to in our household as “The Toothy Cow” books.

Well, until now and "Monster". Not really because the cows didn't roam plentifully throughout this book, but because the story has matured through “North or Be Eaten” and this third, to where it has more of a Wingfeather atmosphere now.

You know what the best part was, though? When someone said, "That didn't go as I'd hoped," and then God nudged me with the next little phrase:

“Little does,” Nia said, looking away.

Being used; the best thing that a book could hope for. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to wait for the fourth.

* * *

P.S. I still have to say that I really, really loved that librarian!

To Flee or Not to Flee?

I seem to tend to start plotting blog posts in my head when I'm dissatisfied. I know why this is. It's because I've been slowly learning to "be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry", and therefore hold my tongue when things start erupting. At the same time, I have grown to hate confrontations.

But sometimes some of these things can still bother me, inside there, with no outlet. It's what made me, I think, latch onto blogging with such ferocity in the beginning; all those things I've wanted to say now had an out!

But that's cowardly, isn't it? Saying things on here that you don't want to say to someone's face? No, not even merely cowardly, but just plain wrong. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, after all.

But tonight a different view inserted itself into my mind. What if...what if it's just a different, and less confrontational, form of confronting? More loving, even?...especially if they see it and are more open to it then if it was screamed into their face?

I don't know. Count another one up on the "shelved for now" shelf.

All Things Scottish

I've nattered on about "favorites" before, and such came up again tonight in my mind.

See, I've been immersing myself in all things Scottish lately. Scottish accents (my husband does a great one!), Scottish wav files and sound bites greeting me on my computer, songs (Tartanic! Love that CD we just bought!), and concentrating on the Scottish side of my ancestry.

So when my current favorite Tartanic song played on my mp3 player tonight (yes, I do have that one favorite), and I backed it up and listened to it again, and hunted for it when I first sat down, I still reveled in the other music on my player. Especially the world music, and I don't mean just the current "world style". I mean the Ukrainian songs, Jewish, Arabic, Indian, and American-based world-influenced stuff, as well as the early Christian New Wave things and the just plain rock songs. Who could choose?

Words From the Past

Last Sunday God actually used my own words to speak to me. This isn't bragging; rather, it's a huge relief because most of the time I feel so unusable/unused. Say, 99.5% of the time. I can only offhand recall one or two incidents where I actually know I did something lasting. But the pastor was talking about how exciting and enticing God is, and what was going through my mind I can't now recall, but my words that He brought to mind were...well, really, it won't make as much sense as it would if I include a few excerpts rather than just the summing-up words.

One year ago today, we stepped on the plane to Germany. One year we've been away from home. What a long, strange trip it's been...

Excerpt from my journal:

5 Feb 94, Sri Lanka

Words, pictures, even a video camera could not get Sri Lanka across to a Western mind. We were trying to come up with descriptions on our ride from the airport, but nothing really worked. Lush, we said, but you would think of a Club Med vacation. Poor, we tried, but then we'd see large intricate shrines and houses. I was desperately trying to match things I was seeing to experiences--this reminds me of that--but nothing connected. But when Mark said over dinner, "Welcome to the Third World", I thought, "Yeah, that's it!" There were people walking wherever you looked; not masses and masses, but some everywhere. Cows and dogs roamed the roads, and drivers were a kind of free-for-all...

...What else have we learned?

-That loving your neighbor is easier when you don't actually live with them.
-That I could pass as a native in a number of countries. (Until I opened my mouth, that is.)
-That nowhere else that we've been do people live and eat like they do in the States...

24 Dec 1994

Christmas Eve in Malta. In downtown Valletta, Christmas lights dance across every street; hawkers' craft booths are stretched out under them. A man named Ray is preaching in the streets, and 24 people respond to his message, in the very spot where, 30 years ago, almost to the very day, he was arrested for doing that same thing...

...Well, since 9 Jan 94, we've visited 14 countries and 19 ports in those countries. We battled constant illness for seven straight months, said good-bye to friends we may never see again on this earth, got infrequent mail from back home, laughed a lot and cried more--what have we learned? That's God's presence is the most exciting thing on the face of the earth.

Those last words were the ones.