One of the most delightful movies I've ever seen is Galaxy Quest, about a faux Star Trek cast thrust into a real life space adventure. The parody of the whole Star Trek schtick is what is most fun, but I just thought about how much it highlights the need for each of us to live out the adventure.
The distinction between what is real and what is make-believe is so pronounced, with a very generously positive nod to the make-believe as a vehicle for us to get in touch with those desires.
Stories have consequences. Someone once said -- forgive me I do remember who it was -- "Our imagination can enrich us or it can be our master." That's an extraordinarily rough paraphrase, but our imaginations can help us see and find the deepest meaning of that adventure... or sadly, can be used by powerful individuals to convince us that what's true and real is what they tell us it is.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Vanellope von Schweetz as Christ
Last night watched the video of Wreck-It Ralph with my daughter. We'd seen it in the theater a few months ago, but when I watched it again I was blown away by how much the story is an allegory of Christ.
I searched around a bit online for anyone else who'd seen the same thing, but only saw some web published sermon by a pastor who thought the film had a Christian message and thought the Christ character was Ralph.
Uggh. He completely missed it. Just like most thoroughly Catholicized pastors in this country, he utterly and abysmally missed it.
The Christ character is clearly Vanellope, the little girl who is truly queen of her video game world but is found living the dirty, lonely life of a common person. The more I think about the things in this film, the more I am profoundly captivated by how allegorical it is.
Among them, just for a taste, is that to realize her true royalty at the end of the story, she must cross the finish line, a checkered strip in the road that is colored not black and white but red and white. That's just one I recently thought about, and is just a very small example -- there are many more.
I'm not getting into them all now. Watch it again and see for yourself. Watch how Vanellope is limited as a glitch by her world, just like Jesus was as a human in His. Watch how Sugar Rush explodes in brightness when Vanellope is seen as the true monarch, just like the Kingdom is realized when people recognize the deity of Jesus and believe on Him. Watch how she really has an innate certainty about herself and who she is, and watch how evil forces are bent on keeping people from seeing who she really is.
And watch how she dies to herself to rescue others from themselves. Yes, at the end Ralph tries to give his life to save the day, but tragically flawed heroes do that. A lot of us may give that a good try.
Only God does it out of love and then rises from the grave to ensure He gets to hang out with the people He loves.
Yes, it is just a kid's movie, I know that. The point is I am saddened by how few people see what I saw, shrug it off as just that nothing kid's flick. That in and of itself is no big deal.
I'm much more saddened by the paucity of perceptive people who can speak about biblical things, indeed articulate rich truthful phenomenally gracious things that are the most meaningful to converse about.
Just have to write that here. With so many people putting stuff online I just can't see how there aren't some who see it and enjoy vibrantly engaging others about it.
But then maybe there are just too many who're so hypnotically entranced by the World that they can't help but say those terribly depressing words, "I just don't understand what you're saying nor do I care to."
I searched around a bit online for anyone else who'd seen the same thing, but only saw some web published sermon by a pastor who thought the film had a Christian message and thought the Christ character was Ralph.
Uggh. He completely missed it. Just like most thoroughly Catholicized pastors in this country, he utterly and abysmally missed it.
The Christ character is clearly Vanellope, the little girl who is truly queen of her video game world but is found living the dirty, lonely life of a common person. The more I think about the things in this film, the more I am profoundly captivated by how allegorical it is.
Among them, just for a taste, is that to realize her true royalty at the end of the story, she must cross the finish line, a checkered strip in the road that is colored not black and white but red and white. That's just one I recently thought about, and is just a very small example -- there are many more.
I'm not getting into them all now. Watch it again and see for yourself. Watch how Vanellope is limited as a glitch by her world, just like Jesus was as a human in His. Watch how Sugar Rush explodes in brightness when Vanellope is seen as the true monarch, just like the Kingdom is realized when people recognize the deity of Jesus and believe on Him. Watch how she really has an innate certainty about herself and who she is, and watch how evil forces are bent on keeping people from seeing who she really is.
And watch how she dies to herself to rescue others from themselves. Yes, at the end Ralph tries to give his life to save the day, but tragically flawed heroes do that. A lot of us may give that a good try.
Only God does it out of love and then rises from the grave to ensure He gets to hang out with the people He loves.
Yes, it is just a kid's movie, I know that. The point is I am saddened by how few people see what I saw, shrug it off as just that nothing kid's flick. That in and of itself is no big deal.
I'm much more saddened by the paucity of perceptive people who can speak about biblical things, indeed articulate rich truthful phenomenally gracious things that are the most meaningful to converse about.
Just have to write that here. With so many people putting stuff online I just can't see how there aren't some who see it and enjoy vibrantly engaging others about it.
But then maybe there are just too many who're so hypnotically entranced by the World that they can't help but say those terribly depressing words, "I just don't understand what you're saying nor do I care to."
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Are There So Few Cassandras?
I've been getting into Willful Blindness a bit more, and while much of it has been frustrating -- maybe I may address the reasons in another post -- it has been getting good. The author mentions Cassandra, the woman from ancient classical legend who sees the truths that few others see.
On the one hand this makes me feel good, that I'm not the only one who asks penetrating questions about things while all those around go, "Guh?" But then, I feel very lonely. There simply cannot be that few who can see what's what.
Yeah, maybe that's why Cassandra is so renowned. How many are like her? So few that the ones who do reality checking so well stand out.
On the one hand this makes me feel good, that I'm not the only one who asks penetrating questions about things while all those around go, "Guh?" But then, I feel very lonely. There simply cannot be that few who can see what's what.
Yeah, maybe that's why Cassandra is so renowned. How many are like her? So few that the ones who do reality checking so well stand out.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
The Willful Blindness We Are All Too Blind To See
I picked up a brand-spankin' new book at the library today. I'm not even two pages into it, and I'm already going bananas about it.
It is called Willful Blindness by Margaret Heffernan. What this blog is about is all over that. And yes, the book is indeed precisely about what the title says.
I can't say much about it right now. Again, very much looking forward to diving into it.
But I'll bet there is one thing I can predict about the book that will be scintillatingly disappointing. And quite unsurprisingly so.
The last chapter is "See Better." I'm sure Heffernan suggests all kinds of ways we can be less willfully blind. Or she just resigns herself to the distress of people just never getting it nonetheless. Or both.
I can pretty much guarantee, however, that the chapter will not mention the One thing that would make us not-blind anymore, totally, completely, wonderfully. And that is if we allow the One Who Made Our Eyes to see once again like we should.
That we simply see with the eyes of Christ.
Will He show up in Chapter Twelve? Doubt it.
But it should be some fun until then.
_
It is called Willful Blindness by Margaret Heffernan. What this blog is about is all over that. And yes, the book is indeed precisely about what the title says.
I can't say much about it right now. Again, very much looking forward to diving into it.
But I'll bet there is one thing I can predict about the book that will be scintillatingly disappointing. And quite unsurprisingly so.
The last chapter is "See Better." I'm sure Heffernan suggests all kinds of ways we can be less willfully blind. Or she just resigns herself to the distress of people just never getting it nonetheless. Or both.
I can pretty much guarantee, however, that the chapter will not mention the One thing that would make us not-blind anymore, totally, completely, wonderfully. And that is if we allow the One Who Made Our Eyes to see once again like we should.
That we simply see with the eyes of Christ.
Will He show up in Chapter Twelve? Doubt it.
But it should be some fun until then.
_
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Eternal Question - And I Mean THE Eternal Question
Today I learned that Hostess, the company that makes Twinkies, has declared bankruptcy. The reason is that it is finding out what so many companies have discovered, how dag-blammid expensive labor is. What I found interesting is that right when I walked into the local supermarket, I was greeted with this:
Wow. They sure do want your business back. They even had three different trays, each with a dozen cups filled with samples of three different Hostess products, Zingers in this case -- which are just Twinkies with frosting. You see them there on the right.
I don't think I'd ever seen that before.
Frosted Twinkies offered as samples.
The upshot of this intriguing chain of events is that I was at the store just to pick up some broccoli. Looking at this I just wonder of the injustice of it all. I mean, how many dozen boxes of Ding-Dongs did I get as well? As you can guess, I got zero dozen boxes.
And I got the broccoli.
Really, people. What other question for the ages outclasses this one:
Why is it that Hostess cupcakes are so phenomenally yummy when they are also so phenomenally rotten for your health, but broccoli tastes so wretchedly putridly spewtastically awful but is so good for you?
(And don't give me any of this ridiculous falderal about you liking broccoli. I don't believe you for a second.)
This will indeed be the very first question I ask God when I get to heaven. And I really don't think I will be the only one...
Wow. They sure do want your business back. They even had three different trays, each with a dozen cups filled with samples of three different Hostess products, Zingers in this case -- which are just Twinkies with frosting. You see them there on the right.
I don't think I'd ever seen that before.
Frosted Twinkies offered as samples.
The upshot of this intriguing chain of events is that I was at the store just to pick up some broccoli. Looking at this I just wonder of the injustice of it all. I mean, how many dozen boxes of Ding-Dongs did I get as well? As you can guess, I got zero dozen boxes.
And I got the broccoli.
Really, people. What other question for the ages outclasses this one:
Why is it that Hostess cupcakes are so phenomenally yummy when they are also so phenomenally rotten for your health, but broccoli tastes so wretchedly putridly spewtastically awful but is so good for you?
(And don't give me any of this ridiculous falderal about you liking broccoli. I don't believe you for a second.)
This will indeed be the very first question I ask God when I get to heaven. And I really don't think I will be the only one...
Sunday, October 16, 2011
It Really Does Seem Like People Do Want Truth...
The world continues to convulse under the weight of the value extraction that powerful people practice, but it seems no one is willing to do the hard work to discover what is really behind it all.
Do those who want to occupy Wall Street and every other Ivory Tower Street really understand how the World System works? How they are being played to give the very people they excoriate much more legitimacy to keep them enslaved to the System they willingly support and fund?
Do they know that the only Way to see the justice they demand is to accept that they themselves are just as much the object of that justice?
That realization is a brutal thing to face, and why so many refuse to actually see the truth...
Unless they encounter the Truth, who also happens to be the Grace.
Do those who want to occupy Wall Street and every other Ivory Tower Street really understand how the World System works? How they are being played to give the very people they excoriate much more legitimacy to keep them enslaved to the System they willingly support and fund?
Do they know that the only Way to see the justice they demand is to accept that they themselves are just as much the object of that justice?
That realization is a brutal thing to face, and why so many refuse to actually see the truth...
Unless they encounter the Truth, who also happens to be the Grace.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The Truly Free Market
I've been reading a few books lately that interest me, and it seems everyone is upset that the free market isn't really free. That there is no real free market. That government must be in the picture to keep awful people from being awful so -- really, no free market, huh.
The truth is that it is completely wholly fully totally free -- that is, in the sense that people pay freely for a good or service and get that good or service. Government is really just one of those services people choose to buy. Government is really just part of the free market.
Don't want its services? Don't buy its product. Don't want to enter a contract that enslaves you to someone you've assigned to govern your affairs, don't sign on the dotted line.
Virtually every single person would then ask, "Don't you have to pay taxes?"
Do you?
Have you ever examined all the assumptions about taxes, and what the law is really about? If you live thoroughly by the World, you will only know of the World's perspective.
There is also the Kingdom's.
Except that, if you're going to remain awful, then the World may be just the right fit.
The truth is that it is completely wholly fully totally free -- that is, in the sense that people pay freely for a good or service and get that good or service. Government is really just one of those services people choose to buy. Government is really just part of the free market.
Don't want its services? Don't buy its product. Don't want to enter a contract that enslaves you to someone you've assigned to govern your affairs, don't sign on the dotted line.
Virtually every single person would then ask, "Don't you have to pay taxes?"
Do you?
Have you ever examined all the assumptions about taxes, and what the law is really about? If you live thoroughly by the World, you will only know of the World's perspective.
There is also the Kingdom's.
Except that, if you're going to remain awful, then the World may be just the right fit.
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