Spiritual Journey

Losing Weight

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When my wife and I saw Arrival, she thought it was “ok” and I loved it.1 As we were discussing our respective views on the way home, she asked me why I loved it. Now, ordinarily, asking a man why he feels something is an exercise in futility. I, however, am very in touch with my feelings2 and had no trouble coming up with the answer.

Because it was a beautiful story, beautifully filmed, but most importantly, it had weight. Is love worth the pain? Would we make the same decisions if we knew those decisions would lead to tragedy?

Current Events / Spiritual Journey

Perspective

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As you may remember, our daughter and family live in Cambodia. She teaches in a Christian school there, and she recently had occasion to need some rice for a class project. She asked her teaching assistant, a native Khmer woman, to go buy her some rice. “Get the cheapest rice you can, I’m not going to cook it, just use it for class,” she said, as she gave the TA some money to buy it with.

The TA came back with the rice, but almost fell over herself apologizing. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Phifer, I could not get the cheap rice, I looked everywhere, I had to spend 1800 riel to get a kilogram1 of rice.” She was unhappy with having to spend that much of Ashley’s money, and she was expecting Ashley to be unhappy, too.

Movies

I Feel the Way I’ve Always Felt About You

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Let’s do a little experiment. Go read this column. It’ll only take a few minutes, I’ll wait…

What did you think — might that guy be a pretty good writer? Did you notice who wrote it? Dave Barry, the funniest man in America, the guy who put the booger in booger journalism, the man of a thousand names for a rock band (“Fugitive Squirrel and the Clearly Disturbed Beavers”), the man who wrote columns about setting pop-tarts on fire and setting Barbie’s on fire and North Dakota wanting to change its name (he got a sewage lift named after him for that one).

Movies

The Force Is Strong(er) With This One

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This is not a full-fledged review, just a slightly extended endorsement, for people who don’t need either.

Last year’s Force Awakens had anticipation levels higher than any in modern memory, including the ghost movie. That Movie That Shall Not Be Named didn’t have to not only extend the universe but overcome an abysmal trilogy that most Star Wars fans pretend don’t even exist; Force Awakens did. It mostly succeeded, but only by slavishly copying A New Hope to the point that I christened it A Newer Hope. (To all of those who’ve made a long list of excuses for why Abrams did it and how brilliant he is, I refer you to Alias seasons 3-5 or the last episode of Lost.)

Rogue One, on the other hand, is the movie Force Awakens should have been.

Current Events / Music / Spiritual Journey

Joy and Sorrow

Vince1 Comment

Our first Postmaster General once wrote that nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I’m sticking with the theme, but picking two different certainties, since Franklin’s two turned out not to be quite as certain as he thought. (See Jesus for the former and our President-elect for the latter.)

My first certainty is from yesterday’s post — there’s bound to come some trouble. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, but there’s bound to come some trouble. That’s not pessimism, that’s just reality — we live in a broken world, and we all eventually step on that brokenness and find ourselves with a (figurative) cut foot.

Current Events / Music / Spiritual Journey

Trouble with a Capital “T”

Vince3 Comments

There’s bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain’t nothing to be afraid of
There’s bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain’t no reason to fear
I know there’s bound to come some trouble to your life
But reach out to Jesus, hold on tight
He’s been there before and He knows what it’s like
You’ll find He’s there

There’s bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain’t nothing to be ashamed of
I know there’s bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain’t no reason to fear
I know there’s bound to come some tears up in your eyes
Reach out to Jesus, hold on tight
He’s been there before and He knows what it’s like
You’ll find He’s there

Now people say maybe things will get better
People say maybe it won’t be long
And people say maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow
And it’ll all be gone
Well I only know that maybes just ain’t enough
When you need something to hold on
There’s only one thing that’s clear

I know there’s bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain’t nothing to be afraid of
I know there’s bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain’t no reason to fear
I know there’s bound to come some trouble to your life
Reach out to Jesus, hold on tight
He’s been there before and He knows what it’s like
You’ll find He’s there

Rich Mullins