Inspiration

Black, White, and Grey.

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You all know that you can spell grey with an e or an a? Weird huh?

The spelling of grey is arbitrary, it’s not even a British English vs American English thing as far as I know. (Unlike spelling honor, valor, favor, flavor, and other “o-r” words with an “o-u-r”, which they do in Britain. Or used to anyway. Which is why, I, being the C. S. Lewis fan that I am, still “misspell’ those words sometimes.) How you spell it is entirely up to you.

Doesn’t that just seem fitting? Because we like to say there there’s black and white morality, and then there’s a grey area. The grey area is your arbitrary perception of right or wrong, or your uncertainty thereof.

In simpler terms, the grey area is moral limbo.

Some say there is no grey area. (Gray area?)

Well, I think that there probably is. But I think we need to be more specific about what we mean when we say grey area.

We don’t mean that some things are neither right nor wrong, we mean that some actions are right or wrong in different circumstances, and those circumstances are not always plain to see.

See, I believe in situational ethics, but not what the term means now, but just that different situations call for different actions.

What I don’t believe is that your code of ethics can change with each situation. Just the enacting of it does.

See, if you are a inconstant person when it come to telling the truth, than your ethics are that truth is only important some of the time. So whether you tell it in one situation (where it won’t hurt your case), or hedge it in another (where it will), your ethics have remained the same.

Likewise, if you tell the truth whether it hurts you or not, you ethics are to be painfully honest.

Simple, right?

But that’s more of a black and white example. Or is it?

People would argue that lying is better sometimes in order to save someone’s feelings, I personally think lying is justifiable only when someone’s life is at stake, and that’s a rare situation.

But you see how this black nd white thing can quickly be turned into a grey area.

It’s kind of the inspiration for the title “Fifty shades of Grey,” but I won’t go there. (No, I haven’t seen it, and I won’t if I can help it.)

But this is where all this arbitrariness has gotten us.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Mr. Miracle so much was because in the 70’s, right and wrong could still be cut and dried things. Clearly, Scott was doing the right thing, and his enemies were monsters (literally often enough.) Barda sometimes verges on doing something bad, but she is always stopped or stops herself before it gets to that point.

But look at superhero movies and comics now, our heroes spend more time trying to figure out if they are really heroes than they do defeating the bad guys. Who often try to say they aren’t bad guys. You know, back in Shakespeare’s day, a riveting villain was one who knew they were evil and wanted to be different but had one vice they would not let go of (Read Hamlet.) Shakespeare called it what it was, insanity. There was no grey area. most of his villains don’t even want to change.

Now, we have bad guys who don’t want to change yet we feel sympathy for them because they are more human. Plenty of people will defend to the last this way of treating bad guys.

When this trend started, it wasn’t all bad. Some villains do just need to be shown some mercy. But I would argue they are the ones who are less evil and more confused or bitter. Which would not be the majority now.

Some people are cruel because no one had ever been kind to them, they can change because of mercy.

But some are cruel because no one ahs ever stood up to them. And that is not something mercy is going to fix.

Why should we sympathize with people who have never really been mistreated but decide that it’s their destiny to control everything?

I have both real life and fictional examples in mind, and I’ll bet you do too.

I think this is pretty long, but my word count is not working, so I’ll wrap this up.

We all need to realize that you don’t prevent evil by questioning good. Someone needs to tell the media this. (Of course, sometimes evil masquerades as good.) But when good is apparent, we should not second guess it.

There’s this thing called faith. I like what that one girl in the first avengers movie said after the big New York showdown. The avengers saved her life, so she believes in their intentions.

You see, it’s not the good guys fault that there are evil creatures raining from the sky, but it is their fault that the rain stopped.

That’s all for now, until next time–Natasha.

Give a little more than you take.

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I haven’t yet mentioned that I read the second installment of the Mr. Miracle comic series.

I have a whole list of the problems with it, but I’ll sum it up as being far lesser than the first one.

Of course, as I do, I had some deeper thoughts about it and also about why it bothered me so much. You see, by comic book standards of the seventies, most of it was passable; it wasn’t terrible if I compared it to the Superman of the fifties and sixties. However bad it could be, Barda and Scott could never be that campy and still be the same characters. But they weren’t the same.

I know that this bothers me more than some would say it should, and some hard core fans would be even more upset than me, but for my part, here’s why I get upset when this happens, and it happens a lot.

When a creative person underperforms, it bothers me because it seems like they didn’t know what they had. Often, I think that even when I like what they’re doing. Because it seems too good to be the work of some one who was not trying to be astounding, and often the source was not.

Check out the making of Frozen, for example. It was a long process and what they were trying to do at first ended up being the opposite of what they did.

I also think of the early Ever After High series, it seems like the show was just supposed to be for kids and yet the points is made were worthy of a lot of adult consideration.

Generally something like this gets ruined because of a new writer who just wants to use the franchise to make money. But sometimes the staff remains the same, and they just seem to lose touch with what made their show or series so great.

(Forgive me, but I think this happened with the Percy Jackson series when it switched to “Heroes of Olympus.”)

The problem is, once you get a devoted fan base, you always have an audience, even if you were to do the worst thing possible some of them would defend it. And believe me, as an aspiring writer, I think about how I would handle this problem.

There will always be those who don’t like anything you do that’s new, either. When Ever After High switched over to covering the opposing point of view in their rebel-royal conflict, a lot of people weren’t happy, including me. But I had to hand it to them that a couple times it came out well and deserved some appreciation.

I don’t think a little change is bad, writers and movie makers are always expanding their vision, or so we would hope, and they fill out their stories. They have the right to do that.

so, I would not have faulted Kirby for that, and some would say that is what he was doing.

But there was a very serious problem with how he ended the story. He let evil have the last say. It was sort of like how the Empire Strikes Back ends, (always my least favorite by the way,) but even worse. Because we know it’s not over for Luke and his friends, and we have hope, but the evil figure of this comic book steals the best moment of the whole story from the best people in it. It’s just so unfair to them, and they don’t seem to realize it.

I can’t go into it fully, but that is what I had a problem with. The beauty of Kirby’s creation of Mr. Miracle was in how good triumphs over evil against all odds, and even against our human weaknesses.

Together Scott and Barda are unstoppable. But only when they are being the best they can be. I’d say that’s true in real life. I hope all of us have met at least one couple who was like that, amazing separately, but together they became an inspiration.

That’s what made the whole thing work. I liked Scott okay by himself, and I like Barda by herself, but I didn’t really get into their stories until they were together.

And it wasn’t that that changed, it was how they were together. It just wasn’t the same. But worst of all was I felt like Darkseid showing up at the end made it his victory.

In fact, I really wonder if Kirby did it on purpose. But that’s a whole other discussion.

I guess the point I want to bring out of all this is that, fan base or no, your work will not be worthy of admiration if you lose touch with what made it special. It’s important to know what truth you want to show, and to listen to what your positive feed back is telling you; what people are getting out of your work, I mean.

I’ve been surprised by what people got out of my stuff sometimes, but once I saw it that way, I thought it was even better than what I planned.

Which is not to say you can never try anything different, I try different plots and usually I like the result, and my siblings are always trying new things with their creative pursuits, but you have to have a core.

Otherwise you might start to think it’s about you, and how great you are, instead of about what you give to other people through your creativity. Or your service, if that’s how you give.

I think I’ll end with this song which is about that very thing:

“A single voice is joined by multitudes in song, with every note they’re finding harmonies that rise to carry on, richer and richer the soil in which they thrive, higher and higher a hymn of what it means to be alive.

You’ve got to give a little more than you take, you’ve got to leave a little more than was here; you may be prideful of the strides you will make, but keep one things clear. You’re just a player in a much bigger plan, and still you have to give it all that you can, the very measure of your soul is at stake, you’ve got to give a little more than you take.”

–Natasha.

Totally Scott Free.

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Like I asked a moment ago, what is total freedom?

Well, it turns out it’s not just being able to choose. Scott had a choice. That didn’t give him freedom.

Of course choice is a big part of it, but as weird as this is going to sound, freedom is actually the ability to choose the right thing.

What’s the difference?

There’s a big difference.

Take the extreme example of drug addiction. Most addicts are not force-fed the substance they are addicted to, they choose to take it. They bring their hand to their mouth, or whatever form they use. They are not free. They were at one time, one time they had the choice to not try drugs, and they forfeited their freedom from drugs when they chose to try them. Now they can’t stop.

Choice is not freedom, it is the medium freedom is accessed through, if that makes sense.

Freedom is a state of being, not an ability.

Total freedom is humanly impossible without some sort of Divine intervention, and that is just the truth.

But what about all that stuff about taking freedom?

That’s all true. Freedom is a fight.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” John Philpot Curran.

It’s a fight for me.

There’s another quote about freedom being in disobedience, but as far as I can see that kind of thinking leads to disaster. Freedom is obeying the right thing. Like your conscience for example.

We do choose what we listen to, but what we listen to is what makes us free or slaves.

To go back to Scott Free, he spent years listening to Granny Goodness. (The name is a misnomer.) It wasn’t until Granny took away her voice from him (as punishment, but if you ask me, the psycho was just too arrogant to realize she was doing him a favor,) that he started listening to Metron and then Himon.

You got to be careful what you hear. I can’t tell you how many times I did not struggle with a sin, or a fear, or even a symptom of disease, until I heard about it. Knowledge is not always power, or it’s not always a good power.

One more thing about freedom: It’s a lifestyle.

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”–Nelson Mandela.

We can blame other people for enslaving us, and some of us have a reason to do that, but blame will not free us.

We want to take our freedom, and then we want to pass it on.

Scott didn’t think of anyone else but himself needing to be free at first, but after Barda helped him, he realized she should be free too, and later he came to wish everyone could be, though he knew you can’t free everyone and that they really have to want it themselves.

Barda is an interesting example of someone who is uncertain about freedom at first. She wasn’t ready to leave when Scott did, but once she left, she resolved never to go back without putting up one heck of a fight. And she did.

Even though Barda never seems to want to free others, she is the one who is responsible for bringing four additional people back to earth with them. Four of her furies. Though the furies get a chance at freedom through this turn of events, none of them stay on Earth. They are too bound up to their home planet, even though it will be the death of them.

So we see that freedom is offered to all of us at one time, but few of us accept it.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14.

This verse is generally taken as “It’s so hard to be good, why is it so hard? Why did God make so few things okay for us to do?”

The truth is, the things that are bad to do in of themselves, those are pretty much summed up in a list of ten commandments. Dishonoring God; dishonoring parents; dishonoring what’s sacred; lying; stealing; adultery; greed and covetousness; murder; etc. You can find rules like that in many other books and creeds.

But the list of mistakes we make with even the things that are good, that list is extensive. I couldn’t name all of them if I tried. The reason the road to freedom is narrow is because the road of slavery is so broad. We enslave ourselves to nearly everything; but we free ourselves only in doing what’s good, healthy, and holy.

Scott Free is a little bit like how they portrayed Moses in “The Prince of Egypt” movie. (Thank you Dreamworks.) He can have power, wealth, respect, fame….and he can live a life built on slavery. Or he can run off and become a nameless nobody in a strange land, only to return later to secure the freedom of others.

God is the one who told Moses to go back (and that was the part of the story they changed the least,) and I don’t think anyone ever gets fired up for the freedom of others without it being a Divine thing. Because there’s a certain power in fighting for other people.

So, those are my thoughts on the story and the concept. I hope it all made sense, since I’m still figuring it out myself. I do recommend checking out the stories for yourself. (With the exception of the Barbie Fairytopia one, please do not watch that.)

Until next time–Natasha.

“Freedom to dance, freedom to sing, freedom to grow, I’m telling you Pharoah, let God’s people go!”–Jason Upton.

Getting off Scott Free.

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Some of you may remember the post I did about Mr. Miracle. Well since then I have actually read the comic book of that title, and I thought I’d share my reaction.

Oh my gosh! It is freaking incredible!

Seriously, I have never been a huge comic book person, but this one blew me away.

You don’t realize the first time you read it how great it is, you only see that it’s way better than most of the other stuff in the genre, but upon rereading you notice the details that went into the character arcs and plot build up, and how, remarkably, there is no real discrepancy anywhere (I can think of one place that something didn’t entirely add up, but it was minor, and I’m not sure it was really an error, and it was just one.)

Sorry everyone, I’m still in fan girl mode. Which for me is both way more excited and way less than what you’d typically see made fun of on TV.

Aside from geeking out about it, I do have another reason to share it with you guys. I need to do some writing about liberty for a school thing, and all I can think about is this comic book as a reference. (Which is the first time in my life that has happened, I assure you.) The reason is, liberty is a huge point in the story, though it’s ironically the one I’ve thought least about, because being the person that I am, I want to talk about the love story.

But it’s time I gave the idea of freedom some consideration.

Scott Free starts off as a brainwashed prisoner of the hellish planet of Apokalips. I won’t give away all the details here, it would be far too long, but suffice to say he’s different than the other drones. In Barda’s words, they never got to him. Scott is affected by his life on this planet, but he refuses, for a reason unknown to himself even, to ben to all their rules. He in encouraged in this by Metron and Himon, two people who try to help whom they can become free minded.

Now the narrator leaves no doubt in our minds that no one on Apokalips is free minded except Himon. And he has precious few people who are even willing to try to learn his ways. But Scott becomes intrigued by him.

Long story short, with help from is unexpected ally, Big Barda, Scott flees the cursed planet and comes to Earth. We aren’t told exactly what he does at first, but he learns about the place and develops a passion for seeing justice served, but always with a degree of Mercy. he takes on the name of Mr. Miracle and tries to live a quiet life. Or quiet for him.

But Scott soon finds that you cannot just run from oppression and think that will be the end of it, after Barda joins him on Earth both of them try to keep their enemies at bay using their respective skills, but Scott quickly realizes he cannot run forever. So they return to face their past. To face themselves in a way.

I  have avoided this part of the story for one reason, I was concerned that the story was trying to tell us that finding our self is the answer. I know many people will take that from it, and take it at face-value. But how many of us really know what finding our true self even means?

Oddly enough, what came to my mind was a Barbie movie of all things, and not one of the good ones either, it was the second one of the Fairytopia trilogy. (Gag worthy, especially if you already hate Barbie, which I did for a while probably because of those movies.) But there’s one good part, Elena, the “Protagonist” is faced with the option of eating a berry that will turn her into whatever form her “True self” is. Elena was born without wings, and wanted them badly, winning them as a reward for saving the day in movie No#1. Her fear now is that her true self will not have wings.

I actually understand Elena for once. But her friends tell her “Whatever you are, you’ll be happy, because you’ll be your true self.”

Mixed up in the sappy stuff of this whole idea is actually an important truth. Our true self is not always what we want it to be, but what it is best for us to be.

This applies to Scott, as well. He wanted to be free; he wanted, in his own words “tranquility;” and he thought he could find that by running until they stopped pursuing him. Barda knew better, but she would rather chase after a delusion with Scott than be realistic by herself.

But Scott had to realize that we cannot be free by running, running is just the start, the begging of the dive into the deep end.

“Freedom is not something anyone can be given, it is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.”–James Baldwin.

Barda, on the other hand, knew you have to take freedom. She lived this next quote.

“Better to die fighting for freedom then to be a prisoner all the days of your life.”–Bob Marley.

Barda figured on dying in the fight to be free, but she intended to go out with a bang.

What makes this story oddly different is that their battle is a mental one. Scott literally fights it out in his mind. Barda nearly loses on that account, but Scott saves her in the nick of time.

It might be said that Scott will get out of anything, but Barda will avoid getting into it as long as she remains standing. She’d be free to start with if she could.

But the thing it, none of us are born free. We say we are, but we are all slaves to something. To sin usually, there’s always that one thing we can’t shake, sometimes its many things. Others of us get enslaved to people. Being a Christian is comparted to being a slave for God.

Only, in that last instance, it does not last. God wants free people. The reason we consider ourselves slaves fro Christ is because we don’t trust ourselves with total freedom.

What is total freedom anyway? It is not the absence of tyranny, that leads to anarchy most of the time.

I think I’ll dive into that in my next post, until then–Natasha.

Important or unimportant?

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Continuing from my previous post about teens and fame and correction…

What does this pressure towards fame have to do with the correction thing I mentioned? Because we teens feel so important, we don’t need correction. That’s the obvious answer, right?

Wrong. I’m inclined to think it’s because teen feel so unimportant.

At some point, either during high school or college, we wake up to the fact that not everyone can be the best, like we were all told back in kindergarten.

Actually, back in kindergarten I was told we can please God by helping others, and years later I still believe that. Go figure.

I’m not dissing the message exactly, but we all feel disillusioned at some point. If you never have, good for you.

The fact is, this disillusionment proves nothing. As a boy C. S. Lewis felt even more disillusioned than some of us have. He never expected to become famous or even to be greatly important at all, from what I gather from his writings. And he stayed immensely humble even after he became famous.

Whether you feel great or not has little to do with whether you will be great. But I do know that the surest way to not be great is to strive after it in all the superficial forms.

Which to most teens seem unattainable, and so they give up thinking they are important.

Many of us come from broken homes and other bad situations, it may seem like no one ever thought we were important.

Personally my problem had always been being told I’m exceptional, but not being encouraged to be. People think I’m already on the right track so they need to focus on the people who really need help.

But no matter how smart I am, it doesn’t make me exceptional. Like I mentioned before, several years ago I found out that God wants us to accept correction. For a long time, I’d only accept His. IF it was in the Bible, fine; but if it wasn’t, what did anyone else know?

As stupid as that seems, I was 13. I’m just glad I had something I considered the infallible period. But since then I’ve learned to listen to other people more, and the downside can be you start questioning your infallible source.

I’m still convinced the Bible is always right. But I’ve had my moments. And if you have no such rock to hold onto, you’re bound to drift.

Honestly, I think I wouldn’t be sane if not for the Bible and my faith. Someone like me, left to her own devices as I often have been, could go very wrong. But I also could go very right with the proper direction.

That’s what God has given me. I had to be willing to learn from Him though.

I want to be clear, neither with God nor with anyone else should fear be your only motive or your central motive to learn from them.

I didn’t learn jack squat from anyone I was afraid of. In fact, once I was afraid of them, that pretty much cut off whatever good they had done; maybe you’ve been there. If God was not my safe place, and if I had not found other people who were also a safe haven,  I could not learn from them. You probably will not learn from anyone you don’t trust.

Once trust in established, its’ your choice. You can misuse this new confidence you have to get away with stuff you never would have dared to do otherwise, or you can get wise and listen up.

Sometimes you need to shut up, and sometimes you need to speak, but what people older than you, or more experienced, will teach you is when and how to do either.

The more times you shut up or speak at the right moment, the more other people will start to think you’re wise. And when people think that, they’ll trust you. That’s the main thing about true greatness, people know they can count on you to do the right thing, and to advise them to do the right thing. In that sense, you can be great on social media just as much as on TV. If it works.

One more thing:

“The simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps. A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident.” Proverbs 14:15-16.

Consider the sources in your life now. If all you hear is rage, and at surrounded by people who do not consider these steps they are taking, then find some new sources. It’s okay to know people like this, we all do, but do not listen to them. This goes for you TV and movie influences as well. It’s okay to know what they say, but if they do not encourage departure from evil, and they do encourage you to believe their every word without questioning, then don’t heed them.

Fox news has a motto “We report, you decide.” You may not think they live up to it, and I admit, they are not perfect, who is? But that’s at least the right kind of thinking. You need to think for yourself.

But don’t be self-confident if you’re only thinking through your emotions. Wise people know not to act when they’re in a rage. Trust me, it always backfires.

But then again, feel free to question what I’m saying. I would not be a hypocrite. You can take my advise or leave it. But I will say, I need to take it myself.

So, hen you’re done with this post, take a minute to think about what I said. Maybe you disagree, maybe not. I don’t mind more imput.

Until next time–Natasha.

“Kid, you’re just getting started.”

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Does anyone else here really hate criticism? Not giving it, but receiving it?

Personally, unless I asked for it, I get mad when people criticize me. I don’t know if this happens to you, but often people who have a problem with me do not go directly to me first, but to someone in authority over me. I then get the treat of at wo pronged attack when I’m confronted both by the person who can punish me and the person who I didn’t even know had a problem with me. Anyone relate?

But several years ago I read the book of Proverbs and found out that being corrected was actually a good thing. Do I like it? No. Do I think the way I just mentioned is the right way to do it? No. But do I need it? Yes, like everybody, I am not perfect.

I have often wished people would just be more sensitive when they correct me. I don’t know what it is about me that makes people in authority be very blunt and sometimes harsh when I cross them, but I guess I inspire that reaction.

Oddly enough, I usually butt heads with the type of people who like to have control, who like to do things their way, and who don’t like to be questioned. I am one of those types of people. They say like forces repel.

I don’t even think its always okay when I act that way, but I also don’t think its’ always wrong. The problem usually is, I’m a teen, and people don’t like to be questioned by teenagers, above all others.

But on the flipside, many teens have chosen to flat out rebel as a way to deal with their emotions. It’s true often people don’t understand us, because we don’t even understand us, yet. But instead of developing patience, adults and teens can often take the easy way and grow apart.

I am no expert mind you, I’m still figuring this out myself, and I won’t be a teen for much longer. (Roughly a year and a half to go people, yea!) but here is what I do know.

Young people, teens and 20-30 years old alike, all feel enormous pressure to be world changers. At this time more than perhaps any other in history, because social media has made it possible to get the message to almost every country. We all want to change the world.

I’ve been doing some research on our founding fathers in America, and those great men all did remarkable things, but you know what their ambitions were after the war? All of them that I’ve studied, they said they just wanted to settle down with their families and live quiet lives for the rest of their days. Really, how can you think there’s not a God, up there laughing and shaking his head saying “Kid, you’re just getting started.”

Now those words are exactly what all of us hear as soon as we move out of one phase of life into the next. “Kid, you’re just getting started.” As soon as we go to middle school we hear this, when we go to high school we hear it, when we go to college and when we get out of college. But when does greatness catch up with us? It seems like we’re all just getting started on the ordinary work we have to do.

Our fathers may have wanted a quiet life and been given a busy one, but most of us want to do great things, and feel we are stuck in the ordinary. How many of us would trade with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or George Washington in a heartbeat? “We’ll take the war, the inventing, the diplomacy, you take the school and the home life.”

I’m sure, whatever country you live in, you’ve heard that it’s not the people who want fame and power who actually deserve it– or can be trusted with it.

Is telling kids that they can all be the greatest really the best idea?

I don’t doubt that everyone can be great in some way, but not everyone can be famous. I read somewhere that people my age all feel they will be famous some day. But we don’t know how.

Some of us have good motives. We want to help our fellow man. We think the more people know us the more we can help. Others of us just want to be popular.

The hard fact is, we can’t all have that.

Some of us don’t really want it either, we just think we do. The spotlight would make a lot of us miserable. But, it’s usually the people who hate it the most who need to be in it. Not those who love it.

I’ll be honest and admit I’d still like to be well known. I do not want to have everyone all in my business, and scrutinizing my every move. I hope that my gifts and talents do help humanity, I really do. What are we here for if not to bring God pleasure and help each other to do the same?

But I recognize that if I ever am famous, it will have its pitfalls and drawbacks. A person needs to have a strong character to survive it. Look at all the poor teen celebrities who have let their lives go to pot because they can’t help it. I wonder if they are secretly relieved when they lose a lot of their fan base. I don’t judge them because I feel no teen should have that kind of pressure on their lives, and few teens could be expected to handle it.

However old you are, fame is not an easy thing to cope with. Unless it’s limited to a very small circle perhaps. But even then, you should see the lives of some pastors. One church has a lot of needs.

Maybe we should be grateful that things are quiet for now. But there’s more to this I think, so catch my next post–Natasha.