Miscellaneous

Perception vs. Reality

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A lot more depends on our perception than we realize. Our perceptions are not truth, but they enable, or disenable, us to recognize it. Ask any Christian who used to be something else, and they’ll tell you they had a shift in perception. And ask any atheist or deist who used to be Christian, and they’ll tell you the same things. But we all could guess as much without being told.

I don’t glorify Men’s opinions. but  I know they are still very powerful in of themselves. I think one of the greatest disservices we can do each other is to teach each other to have the wrong opinions. Which sound loony to our culturally tuned ears, but that won’t change the facts. Opinions were supposed to be, once upon a time, fixed in the truth about life, but now they are fixed in our personal preference.

Of course you’re bound to offend people if they think what they want should dictate someone else’s convictions. And that is what has happened.

Case in point, I was recently watching a movie review in which two guys were talking about a controversial issue in a kids movie, and they concluded by telling the people who would be bothered by it that they shouldn’t be, because there’s no right or wrong answer. Now these two guys are fairly sensible most of the time, but they are unfortunately very culturally influenced. I’m well aware my view of the whole thing isn’t even popular among a lot of fellow Christians, but I’ll say it anyway: Poppycock.

Look, everyone chooses what they believe, or say they believe, but to tell people who have convictions that differ from your own that they need to change to accommodate controversy….that is flat out disrespectful.

It demonstrates that instead of being tolerant of peoples’ beliefs, you are actually contemptuous of them. Which, if you are, I’d sooner you admitted it out right.

I have been quite pleased with my own followers who have not given me hate for expressing my own beliefs, I’m not afraid to be hated, but it’s nice to know people can still be above that.

However, it is not for my own benefit I raise the issue of tolerance, I know what I think, but my concern is many people don’t really understand what tolerance is.

I hate the word myself, because it is so misconstrued, but to tolerate another person’s belief is to let them believe it without threatening them or arresting them or fining them. they are free to believe it.

They are not free to never be argued with, and to never be subject to change. In fact, if these people will not change their opinions even when they are proved wrong, they are in error. That is actually wrong.

But so long as no one forces them at gun point to change, or something like that, they are being tolerated.

This ridiculous demand that spoiled young people make now that they should be allowed to be idiots in the name of tolerance, that is dangerous.

I have never in my life considered burning down someone’s property to protest something, nor do I go on the internet and blast people personally just because I disagree with them. I don’t mind standing up to someone, but that is not intolerance.

I am not the only role model here, of course, but I can see clearly how insane it would be to do such things, or at the very least, unkind.

I know so many people who buy into this fake tolerance thing. It has really crippled the Church’s ability to teach the truth.

Oh, let me pause here. It is generally assumed that people who go to church are too weak minded to think for themselves, and will go with whatever their pastors say.

But a funny thing about the church itself, as I know, is that they often feel people think too much for themselves, not healthily, but to the point where they will not change their minds, even if the Bible says to, and the Bible is the only thing that should change our convictions.

It may be some people let the church think for them, thought I have yet to meet any personally that I can be sure of, but they would not be the majority now.

But the problem of people being more swayed by the culture than by the church is very real. I don’t expect anyone who is  a non-churchgoer to think this is a bad thing, but can we look at the bigger picture here?

Unless you’re living in your own bubble of unconsciousness, you must have noticed that that the world has not improved over the past three decades. There are many alternative explanations for why, and the fact that I think the decrease of devout teaching is the cause may be laughed at, but still. Look around.

We have turned our back on God, but we complain that our people lack qualities that believing in God would produce, like feeling they have a purpose, feeling accountable for their actions, respecting authority.

I know it is an old topic, but it is getting more apparent all the time that we have lost something. Be it faith or hope or love, but likely all three.

But I am not a naysayer. I still hold out hope that we can change. That young people will not repeat the mistakes of the past generations. It would have to start with us waking up from this haze of tolerance, and self gratification.

The song of that siren, as Patrick Henry would say, will only lead to our own demise.

Only you can choose to open your eyes, no one else will do it for you.

I’ve said enough, so until next time–Natasha.

 

Different perspectives.

Reach higher.
Poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.
Like a lily among the thorns.

 

 

 

Courage.

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Courage. What makes a king out of a slave? Courage.

What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage.

What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dust.

What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage.

What makes the sphinx the 7th Wonder? Courage.

What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage. 

What makes the hottentot so hot? what puts the “ape” in apricot?

Whatta they got that I haven’t got?

Others: Courage.

You can say that again.

Recognize it? This is the memorable speech give by the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz movie.

Courage. The most foundational of all the virtues, as C. S. Lewis pointed out in The Screwtape Letters.

Courage comes from the French word for heart, cor. I think that is because courage is a thing of the heart not the mind. Nor even of the soul.

The Bible talks about your soul being downcast, but it says your heart is what is afraid or unafraid.  Your mind may tell you fear is rational, or irrational, your soul may feel afraid and troubled, but if you choose in your heart to be brave, then your mind and your soul will not have their way.

Of course there is false bravery; a. k. a. stupidity. That is when there is a risk taken for no real reason except to take it, for thrills. Where do you think we got the phrase “It’s your funeral,” from? (Ironically, that phrase if often used in movies when the person is taking a worthwhile risk.)

No one can be themselves without courage. As the Lion is pointing out for us. I would also argue that no one can let other people be themselves without courage. I read an article about courage on this phycology website I found. It was pretty good, but the comment section under it made me sad. One man said he was considering the idea that the earth is hell. That it matches Dante’s description of it. It was because the article had pointed out how dangerous the world we live in has become.

And that is true. The world is dangerous. Most of that is our fault. But the world, though broken and sometimes twisted, is still in many ways beautiful. If it seems like hell to a person, that person is not doing enough to make it like heaven.

What we contribute affects our outlook. When you act like a jerk or a weasel or just mediocre, you will see the world through those lenses. When you live to bless other people, you will reap good results. I don’t think this man who commented that remark had courage. Because if he did, he would not see the world that way.

Take from someone who was an expert on every kind of fear. Fear spoils life. It has torment, as the Word says.

I get disappointed too, just like all of you reading this do, I see things almost every day that make me shake my head at the world. (All you have to do is watch the news for ten minutes.) I do not have less reason to fear and despair than the average American. Though I will not pretend I have it anywhere near as bad as many people in other places do.

I don’t think I have it bad at all. I feel bad sometimes (truth be told, I’m feeling blue today as I write this,) but I don’t live in constant negativity.

I remember, there was a shooting near where I lived a year ago, and there was one in a place I’d been to, not long before. The day the first incident happened I got to my youth group and they had the door locked, my sister and I had to announce ourselves. We got in a found everyone freaked out. Though not enough to stay home apparently. But I felt calm. I thought, hey even if a gun wielding maniac charges in here, (unlikely as it is) I’ll rely on Jesus to protect me. I don’t think I ‘m going to die that way.

I will not call this bravery because it was not tested, but it was at least an assurance I never used to have. A couple years before, I would have been dying to go home and called my mom.

This may sound weird, but I often consider that someday my faith may put me in mortal danger. I expect it to, all I have to do is go to a country where they are killing Christians, or I could be in this country and meet a radical terrorist. Who knows? (I am not saying terrorists only target Christians by the way, but they especially hate them.) Am I going to let that stop me?

No.

I still struggle with fear sometimes, but it is very weak now. And I will not let it dictate my life. I am a firm believer that you cannot die tell God says so.

And in this more than anything else I rely on God. If you could understand what it was like to live in fear every day and not have God, it would make sense  to you why I can’t leave Him out of this.

But I did have Him actually, I realized afterward that God was there the whole time, I was just ignoring Him. I half knew I was.

But not to pontificate.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but it is when love for something more important than fear overcomes it. That’s my paraphrase of the saying.

I think that’s enough for this post. Until next time–Natasha.

Do Your Worst (Part 2.)

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Okay, continuing from part 1…

So, as I have already covered, there is an attitude toward both real and imaginary people that is very harsh, and it is very prevalent.

But I recognize that I may be the only one who thinks it is a problem. So I am now going to dive into this question: Is it deserved?

Specifically, do these both real and unreal people deserve to be spoken of, cursed, and held a grudge against, in this manner?

What makes this question important even for the made up characters is that many of them do things that real people have done, so we have something to compare them to.

I’m going to go back to Hawk Girl, a. k. a. Shirira, what exactly did she do?

Well, she lied. But that is hardly enough, we all have lied. What makes hers worse, so we think, is that she lied to her friends, multiple times. About who she was, why she was there, and what her own people planned to do.

To be fair, the last one she didn’t know herself and lied more than she thought.

We might jump on that and say, she should have found out what her own people were really planning. Ignorance is no excuse.

It may be no excuse, but all of us have been ignorant and I daresay we acted upon what we thought, instead of what we knew.

So far, I see nothing that overwhelmingly wrong in what she did.

But it turned more serious, she helped her own people defeat her friends, telling them what their weaknesses were, so they could be exploited. She did nothing to stop them from hunting them down. She sucker punched the guy who she’d claimed to be in love with. After asking him to trust her. Not to mention that she’d never told him she was already engaged.  Not that she could be absolutely certain that was going to be a problem since it had been five years with no word from her own people.

All this is pretty bad. On top of it all, she was betraying the whole planet of Earth, almost leading to its destruction. This was heavy stuff.

But as bad as it was, Hawk Girl was never the callous kind of betrayer. She felt guilty for everything.

And I never blamed her for wanting to believe in her own people, who wouldn’t?

It was a tough call, because if they didn’t destroy earth, their enemies would destroy them.

At one memorable moment in the film, Hawk Girl is angrily arguing with her old fiancé, Ro, and cries “So we just trade their lives for our own? That’s not right.” Or something like that.

In a word, Shirira is talking about Honor. Earth is full of life, and its people have no quarrel with the Gordanians, they are not in the war. They were duped. There is no excuse at all for, as she says, for committing this kind of holocaust. Even thought Thanagarians do face extinction by letting Earth survive, it was their fight, their risk, and their choice. We never find out how the war started or who was at fault, but it is certain that the technologically advanced Thanagarians could have had other options, had they not been such a barbaric society. They waited too long, but that was their own fault.

There is no country on earth that could substitute another into its war to be killed in its stead, thank goodness, and I think because of that it is difficult to realize how horrible the idea is. But Shirira did, the reason she was conflicted was because these were her people, how could she turn on them?

She does the same thing to them that she did to the Justice League, but she tells Green Lantern “I did what I thought was right then, which is what I’m doing now.”

I wish I could say that Shirira at least never regretted her choice, but she did. Not enough to unmake it, but she felt horribly guilty and to make matters worse, many people, even in the Justice League, kept ribbing her on it. Eventually she got to the point where she didn’t even want to hear about forgiveness because it was too painful. She got flack for not being able to be loyal to anyone.

I just shake my head, these people entirely missed the point.

Honestly, I think the people writing the series missed the point.

Shirira messed up, but she was listening to her conscience the entire time, and ultimately she did the right thing. She lost her people, you’d think a smidgen of sympathy would be possible. Just a little bit, but it never occurred to anyone to put themselves in her place. Except Superman, I liked him better for that.

And outside the DC universe, what about in real life? Does it ever occur to anyone that these are real people we’re talking about? Who have real feelings, who go through the same things we do, and maybe they made the wrong choice, or maybe they didn’t, but could we just put ourselves in their shoes for one second?

I don’t mean to rant.

Look, I have my beliefs about Mercy, and I know many people do not, but two things Jesus said about it sum up the reason it is important to me. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy,” and “Judge not lest you be judged.”

I want to be shown mercy for my many faults, and I do not want to be judged, so I need to be merciful and not judge other people. Christians are famously accused of being judgmental, but from what I’ve seen, non Christians are every bit as judgmental, if not more.

Who is leaving those hate comments or hate mail; who is blasting those political people; or the opposing side? Yes, Christians do that, but it would be delusional to say all or even most of the culprits are Christian.

And it is not my intent to point fingers, I just mean we all do this. Few people are born merciful. But we all need it, and we all need to learn it.

There is one more thing I want to talk about concerning this, so watch out for part three,

Until next time–Natasha

Do your worst. (Part 1.)

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Today I want to address something very important, and I’m going to do it with the help of yet another animated TV show example.

This one is really fitting, actually.

I’m going back to that show I used to watch every day, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. (JLU.)

Until I started watching that show I had never heard of at least two of the members of the original league, that would be the Martian Man hunter, and Hawk Girl.

I like both of them, but I am focusing om Hawk Girl, also known as Shirira Hall.

To make a very long story short, Hawk Girl appeared on Earth, claiming it was a mistake, but in reality she was on a secret military mission, to learn about the planet and the people. This was unknown to all her friends and fans until out of the blue, an alien warship showed up with her fellow Thanagarians in it. It pretty much went downhill from there. Her friends felt hurt that she had never trusted them enough to tell them and suspicious of the new comers, but they agreed to help them set up a defense on earth against their mutual threat, the Gordanians. However it soon turned out that the Thanagarians really wished to use Earth to build a sort of shield against their enemy, and in the process earth would be turned into an hourglass shaped hunk of itself, destroying all life on the planet.

Needless to say, Hawk Girl was horrified when she learned this, and more so because she had helped her people to capture and neutralize the Justice League when they got too antsy. They had already escaped, so she found them and gave them the information hat she’d learned, none of them really wanted to trust her, but they took it.

Hawk Girl then returned to her people, only to be found guilty of treason, and locked away. There ensued a final battle between the League and the Thanagarians. Hawk Girl was reluctantly set free by Wonder Woman, and then helped Green Lantern to defeat her former fiancé, and shut down the bypass before it could activate.

The Thanagarians recognized their defeat and left, of course leaving hawk Girl behind, she was then voted on to stay or be kicked out of the League, but she left before hearing their decision. She told GL she was going to find a place where there were no more secrets, no more lies. And she left.

Hawk Girl later was readmitted to the league, they had voted in her favor, but it took a long time for the rest of the world to forgive her, if they ever did. And things got no easier for her in other areas.

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, I want you to understand the scope of the story. It involved a lot of deception, a lot of betrayal, and  a lot of bitterness, which is perhaps the worst, in my book at least.

My major complaint about the whole movie they made about this was that despite the outcome, Hawk Girl’s own friends did not let go of their anger for a long time. Well, I should say, not all of them did. (Flash is awesome.)

Also, when I watched a commentary on the movie, I learned that many of the real life fans of the show though Hawk Girl should have been left to her fate by Wonder Woman.

Since then I’ve run across other situations where the fans were the same, they had absolutely no mercy for the characters. And the characters aren’t even real. Nothing they did actually hurt these fans, or endangered our world.

What does endanger us, is their attitude.

Because I have to wonder, if you cannot forgive someone who is not even real, how can you forgive someone who is?

You may think, “Well, if the characters aren’t real, it can’t hurt to hold a grudge against them.” And I would have to politely disagree.

For two reasons: One being, many fans of superheroes consider the heroes to be quite real, to the point where they are irrational about it, and if they can think that way about them, they can think that way about anyone.

The other reason is that I have not missed the things people say about those in politics, or those who are just famous, or even those who are not but who have a small public voice. Horrible, terrible things are said of them.

It is a sad fact that humans beings can be very cruel to each other.

(I’m going to get more into Hawk Girl herself in part two, but for now I’m focusing on this problem.)

And I am sorry, but what a person will say about a fictional character, they will nine out of ten times say about a real human being. I have heard it many times.

The fact is, we are not aware of real or unreal when we pass judgement on people or their actions. That is a simple truth. Our brains will make no distinction, and neither will our feelings. All that changes is how personal it is.

Someone who cannot be merciful when it is not personal will have a hard time being merciful when it is; unless they are working from the inside out, but that is rare. Our attitudes do not switch on and off with our televisions or phones. (That is so a quote I want to remember.)

This goes for other things besides anger by the way, it goes for hate, sadness, exhilaration, envy, and host of other emotions.

I’ll be getting more into the first one in part two, until next time–Natasha.

Reviewing “This Changes Everything.”

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“This Changes Everything: How the Gospel transforms the teen years.” Is a book with a self explanatory title. It goes into the Christian Living category. It was written by Jaquelle Crowe.

I got to read this book early because of a writer’s group I’m in, the Young Writers Workshop. (No sign ups currently available but here will be eventually if you’re interested.)

I went into this a bit skeptical, despite what many of my own nonfiction writing is about, which is living and believing things that are true, I am not a hug fan of books written for teenagers specifically.  I got over that phase around 16 or 17. Which feels longer than it actually is.

My main problem with many Christian Teen, or just Christian Life books is that they are half baked. The writer firmly believe the have answers, but the content comes off as helpful only to a certain point, after which they don’t really understand their subject. I think Christians are especially susceptible to this because much of God is extremely difficult to explain, and very difficult to understand. As it should be. It’s be more likely to be made up if it made sense to man. But it does throw a kink in writing about it since an author want to explain things to their readers more clearly than they otherwise would be able to.

So, I’ve just had some negative experiences with these books. And this book was written by someone in her late teens.

All this to explain I was not biased in her favor, and I can happily say Jaquelle Crowe managed to earn my respect. Once I got into the second and third chapters of the book, I was figuratively nodding my head. (Usually I say “Amen”, yeah, I’m one of those people.) This book is really good.

Of course I may differ a bit in how I perceive my faith, but that is to be expected. Essentially, I agreed with everything she said. And what’s more, I think teens do need to hear it.

While I don’t favor talking down to young people, I do recognize that Millennials and Generation Y-ers have grown up in a very different culture than we’ve seen for centuries. More has been forgotten and neglected about us than perhaps any other generation for many decades. We do not have to be victims however, and that’s why this book’s message is so important. Jaquelle is giving the responsibility back to us.

Now, that may not be her intention. I think her intention was to remind young people of what the Gospel really means, or to explain it to them if they had never heard it before. But nevertheless, what she says is something that will challenge anyone who really listens to examine their life and, hopefully, to improve it.

The best thing in this books favor is that it is not watered down, or constantly addressed to teens, per sec. It is addressed to Christians. Because it is written for them, and though it is aimed at teenagers, any adult could easily apply it to their own life, and so could a preteen.

Truth is true. Whatever else you’ve been told. And something in us know that. If there is one thing I agree with the dystopian, teen fiction works on, it is that there are always a few young people who know in their hearts that what they see around them is not what they are meant for. And if a young teen feeling that reads this book, it may tell them just what they need to hear.

All in all, I will not say this is the best book ever. (That would be the Bible.) I do not even know if it is the best book on the subject I have read. But it is one of them. It is worth checking out. And it could potentially change some lives. But only if people are willing to accept the message, and that is why I cannot say it is a book that sucks you in, and doesn’t let you go. It is entirely your choice to heed it.

Which I think the author realizes and embraces.

I will not object to rereading this book and adding it to my personal library; and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject matter.

Pixie Dust.

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I’d like to start this post with the lyrics to a song that has struck me as very relevant in this day and age.

“I am not a child now, I can take care of myself, I mustn’t let them down now, mustn’t let them see me cry…I’m fine, I’m fine.

I’m too tired to listen, I’m too old to believe, all these childish stories, there is no such thing as faith, and trust, and pixie dust.”

This song comes from “Peter Pan 2.” Which is a horrible movie, I’m not plugging it. But surprisingly, sometimes these B-studio films have some great songs, at least to my taste. (Admittedly, my taste is not shared by many people.)

Anyway, because I was writing about classics and fairytales, this song came to mind. It just seemed to sum up the outlook so many people have. That we can take care of ourselves, and don’t need to believe in this nonsense that we heard growing up.

This strikes me as really sad. There’s a proverb “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” In our day and age, choosing what you believe is in, and that is fine, but too often that comes with a scorn for believing the same as your parents. I get that scorn myself. This post isn’t about that exactly, but let me just say this, if what your parents believe is wrong, then it is good to disagree with them. And a child who thinks for themselves will eventually throw off their parents’ beliefs if they are bad; but if the same child chooses to keep those beliefs, I would argue those beliefs may simply be correct. Or at least close enough to convince them.

See, a slave may serve a bad master as long as they cannot escape him, but a free man will only serve a bad master as long as he can tolerate it for his own good, but when it is no longer profitable or necessary, he will not work for such a master any longer.

I think following your parent’s belief is the same. If the children are truly free thinkers.

So, to get back to my point. We all are told we all need to believe in our own way. But though there is slight truth to that, most of the time that is used to justify complete irrationality on the part of young adults in regards to how they live.

No more faith, trust, or pixie dust for them. They have their own way. Even if that way makes little sense to anyone over thirty, they write it off as, all old people just don’t get them.

But interestingly, when we do this, we hit a roadblock when it comes to finding meaning in our, supposedly, liberated existence.

“I try, but it’s so hard to believe. I try, but I just can’t see where you see. I try, I try, I try.”

We try, but if we can’t accept anything old, or anything uncomfortable, we can’t get out of our rut. That rut usually means living for material things. Unable to really connect with anyone. Because we surround ourselves with friends who, like us, won’t admit to feeling lost, lonely, or sad.

This way of life ruins our relationships. We focus on darkness because it’s what we see and feel in our souls, but that focus destroys our ability to focus on anything better, that might heal us. I’ve been there. You probably have at some point, but imagine if you lived there, everyday.

“My whole world is changing, I don’t know where to turn. I can’t leave you waiting, but I can’t stay and watch the city burn. Watch it burn.”

The trouble in our life becomes too much for us. Though people in our lives love us and need us, we have nothing to give them, so we hide from them. We avoid them. Finally this happens:

“I try and try, to understand the distance in between, the love I feel, the things I fear, and every single dream…”

We are stuck. We have felt love, but we have felt fear. And our dreams seem separated from our lives by it. There was a time in my life where I gave up on my dreams because I knew I was too afraid of doing anything to ever accomplish them.

Faith. Trust. Pixie Dust. What does it mean?

The way I see it is, Faith is hope, and belief in the unseen. The realest things in life are the invisible. When we lose faith, we lose belief that there is anything but the here and now, that we can touch, taste, or feel. And we forget that things may be real that are not in our feelings, or in our reach–yet.

Trust means our willingness to be open to love, to joy, to happiness. To crying with people, to celebrating with them. Trust means you face life with courage, because you know there is a Higher Power looking out for you.  But if we give up trust, we have to look out for ourselves. As the opening line of this song says.

Pixie Dust always used to puzzle me, but it hit me just recently that Pixie Dust just represents the things we can’t explain. The powerful things that are beyond our ability to do, but can be done for us. like being able to fly.

You may think I am stretching that last one, but in the movie itself, that is the case. Jane wants to get home her own way, but she can only get home, Peter Pan tells her, by flying. Which she needs Pixie Dust to do. But she won’t believe in it.

So, why have I shared this very sad song, in this seemingly sad post. Well, because it does not end that way. Jane comes to realize that she needs these three things in her life, to really live. And the final verse of the song puts it this way:

“I can finally see it, now I have to believe. All those precious stories. How the world is made of faith, and trust, and Pixie Dust.

I’ll try, because I finally believe. I’ll try, because I can see where you see. I’ll try, I’ll try, I’ll try…to fly.”

What children believe by instinct is usually fairly true. Before they get old enough to think they can figure it all out. Personally, I think a belief in Pixie Dust does a child more good than any materialistic point  of view ever will. At least they believe in something outside themselves.

Not that I justify them always believing that. Or that I plan to tell children it is real. That is not the point. It’s the meaning behind it.

Until next post–Natasha.100_4836-e1490637683752.jpg