Inspiration

Home Sweet Home

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You guys know I went to a foreign country last year and it changed my life. I suspect in way I won’t fully realize for years yet.

Well, today I was reading something by one of the other girls who went on that trip with me, and I marveled at how similar we were feeling in some ways, and how different in others.

It is for privacy’s sake I don’t post pictures of myself or any really personal information here, so I can’t show you what the trip was like, but I have talked about it.

You learn a lot from another culture, and in my case, you learn that different as it is, in many ways it is more comfortable for you than your own.

I really feel out of place in the Western World. I value my rights as an American, and I thank God I was born here, and had the freedom to learn about Him without being arrested, or fined, or laughed at. But that aside, I’ve never really felt I belonged in this country.

You ever get the feeling you were born for somewhere else?

I think everyone gets that feeling at one time or another, before we get old enough and cynical enough to be convinced we deserve what we’ve got and there’s nothing better available. Am I the only girl my age who still believes she’s going to live in a palace one day? Probably not, but in another ten years, who knows? I may very well be the only one who thinks so.

Is it normal to be seven years old and think you just don’t fit into the world around you?

Well, maybe the better question is, is it normal not to feel that way?

We all do, sooner or later, but we usually dismiss it. Or we blame it on the wrong thing. The truth is, we are not meant to be perfectly happy on this earth.

It would kind of be wrong if we were, given all the horrible things that happen daily, I’m not one to focus on them, but it’s like Reason tells Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth. “When you are sad, no one else in the world can be truly happy.” I wouldn’t go quite that far, but no one else can be totally happy while there is suffering in the world. And that is as it should be, we are meant to bear with one another, and if you will not do it willingly, your life will still be affected by the world enough for you to do it subconsciously.

But this begs the question, if we are not meant to be perfectly happy here, where are we meant to be happy?

See, wise people know that a perfect thing on earth will not last, and they do not hold onto to it too tightly, but the wisest of all know that though earth is not the place for perfection, there must be a place.

We all yearn for the perfect, the complete, the finished. There has to be a time when we will or are meant to have it.

Imagine what it would be like to feel in your bones that it was time for perfect joy. I don’t know how, personally, I could stand it; like the sweet water from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it might kill me, but it would be the death I would have chosen. (FYI, the water doesn’t kill, it actually heals, but that’s all in the book, you should read it if you haven’t.)

I believe that we are meant to have increasing joy in this life, because I believe that God gets better the more you know Him. I believe God may even give happiness to people who do not believe in Him, because He never leaves anyone without something of Himself, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not.

I believe that one of C. S. Lewis’s greatest achievements was how, in books Five and Seven, of the Narnia ones, and in “Till We Have Faces” and “The Great Divorce,” and also “Perelandra” in some ways, he managed to make the reader see a tiny glimpse of what heaven must be like. Only the tiniest glimpse, but even in that, it’s like Alice looking through the keyhole of the tiny door, into the garden, and already wanting to go there. (Alice’ Adventures in Wonderland.)

You want to go there, so badly, it scares you.

Whenever we want something with all our being, it is scary.

“My heart and Flesh cry out for the living God.” Psalm 84:2

Wow, this got deep.

What’s interesting is that you don’t have to be a Christian to get what I’m saying, you just have to know yourself.

Actually, plenty of Christians wouldn’t get this, because it is so easy to forget that first love and joy of being one.

If I may say so, one of the biggest problems we believer shave is forgetting what it was like to first be one. For me, it was as if I’d never seen anything before, or heard, or felt, it was all so much more vivid and vibrant. I mean even material things, not just the internal kind of sight.

That’s why I can’t be convinced it wasn’t for real. Nothing before it was as real as what came after it.

I’d like to end by going back to what I said about feeling out of place. I think once we accept that sorrow, it no longer is a sorrow. It is just a reminder of what we are to hope, it keeps us form getting too bogged down by stuff that is just not important. It brings to mind this other song I know, I’ll just quote the chorus here:

I’m going home, to the place where I belong, where Your love has always been enough or me.

I’m not running from, don’t think you got me all wrong, I don’t regret this life I chose for me.

But these places and these faces are getting old, so I’m going home.

Until next time–Natasha. 100_3137

A break from my norm.

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I just visited one blog that had a post about Christianity, Agnosticism, and Atheism. I must have read two dozen comments form non-Christians that were under this post.

I almost think it’s funny. Not funny like ridiculous, but funny like “Why do we get so upset? Someone must have struck a nerve.”

I think I get a couple of atheists and agnostics on this blog, and I have no wish to offend any of them, and even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t do it by being mean. That’s not how I think God rolls.

It’s funny too, that I’ve seen worse things said online from other believers than from atheists, often, but there are some very unkind things said by them too. And some nice things said. You can’t put everyone in a box.

People like to say that the burden of proof is on us Christians,  but it’s not that simple.

As Kent Hovind first pointed out to me, any belief system can use science to support it, if they look hard enough, and often they throw out something that doesn’t match their beliefs, this is what people do.

I firmly believe, that believing in God is more important than knowing science, because science is so very limited, we can barely understand material things, let alone immaterial. But I like science, and I have no objection to believing it also. I know there are people who simply cannot accept anything unless they can see how it makes sense scientifically, and there are people who couldn’t care less about all that high browed mumbo jumbo. And neither are exactly wrong. Most of us are in between those two extremes. Though my calling them extreme would offend the people right off I suppose.

After all, Science does explain everything right? Or is it just so flexible and changing that we can’t rely on it? Well, few of us hold that opinion anymore, so I’ll just leave it for now; but many of us do rely on science to guide our choices, or some of them.

Many intellectual people think we should test everything with reason, but the older I get, the more I realize, I cannot possibly understand everything. I know some folks who have worked themselves into a cage made of their own reason, and like the dwarves in “The Last Battle,” they are so afraid of being duped by blind faith, that they cannot actually be undeceived and see the truth. I hope they will be undeceived before they die, because I think afterward it will be of no use to them.

There’s another problem with relying on science alone, science allows for no afterlife. No hell, no heaven.

Many people are only to glad to not believe in Hell, but few of us like to think that after death we will be oblivious. That we just end and nothing can prevent that. I think that Atheists choose to ignore that because they have to ignore it, no one likes that idea, not even the most evil of people want to die and be in oblivion, in fact they want the opposite, they want to leave behind a legacy that will never be forgotten as long as this Earth if fallen, and Hitler; and Stalin; and Attila the Hun; and Caesar, and Ivan the Terrible; (to name a few,) have left such legacies that even their names evoke bad things in our minds, do you think they are happy now?

Indeed, oblivion seems merciful compared to the kind of torment they must have if they are in hell. But they themselves seemed to dislike the idea of oblivion.

But is it right that good people should just end, and not go on? Well, some would say that is just the way it is.

Personally, I have longed to be able to believe hell is not real. I am not joking. I used to wish I could. I even tried. But I couldn’t try very hard, because I just could not accept it.

It is true, I was raised to believe in the afterlife. But there is not a child born, that I have met, that will think the idea is odd, until they are taught to.

It ought to be of interest to people who think we evolved, that children are born with instinctive belief in wondrous things, in things unseen, and usually in God. I never have told a child under 8 about God and had them scoff at it. That’s because reason does not start to develop until after eight.

But I ask, why? Why are we born with that belief? If it is false, why is it natural? Furthermore, just reasoning skills don’t do it, Children do not stop believing in God till they are taught to.

It seems to me that if there was truly no God, that children would have to be convinced there was one. But they don’t. They have to be convinced there isn’t one. Adults now, we have to be convinced, and I am not even saying that is wrong in of itself.

But we should not disregard instinct. We use it too often in other things.

I may be laying a shaky foundation here, since we should not always follow our instincts. But I might add, our instincts are generally good, under the right circumstances, and it is our reason that tells us when we should follow them.

I will never argue people into my faith, and I don’ really want to; I had rather they met God for themselves. But one of the obstacles to that is the ridicule we get for believing in God. And even more if you are radical about it. People hate radical Christians more than they hate Christians period.

Because it’s the radical ones that defy their governments in other countries, and defy the socially acceptable in my own.

I know plenty of people who will not hate on me for being a Christian, but they will get angry if I try to talk to them about it, or they will simply be indifferent. Or they may write me off as overboard about it.

Who knows, devoting this whole post to it may even make some folks angry. But I think better of my followers than that, usually you guys are very forgiving.

I hope even if you are not a Christian you’ll take this in the way it was meant, as an effort to make my position more clear and understandable, and not as an effort to jam it down your throat, because if I wanted to do that, I would do it on purpose. Believe me, I am not an unintentional blogger.

Well, I am overtime on the word count, so until next post–Natasha.

 

 

 

 

 

Experiences.

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I am re-uploading this post because it’s been several months and I think I can say it better now.

I want to get more into why we have experiences in this reboot.

Brushing your teeth is an experience, but it is not really memorable; versus going to another country, which you will probably remember as long as you have a sharp mind.

Though experiences themselves are easily defined by the facts, what they do to us inside, that is not so easy.

It’s funny how a seemingly terrible experience can later in life prove to be a good thing. one you are even grateful for. Like having a bad tooth pulled. Or getting disciplined by your parents. Or it can be a far worse experience, traumatic even, yet later, it makes you stronger.

I want to share with you guys something I got into this week, it’s an old comic book story, by Jack Kirby, about Scott Free and Big Barda.

AS yo may know, I don’t read a lot of comic books, but here and there I have one I like. This actually was all a tory I read online and saw pieces of on Justice League Unlimited, I only rada little of it in an actual comic book. I am not endorsing the show, but id o recommend reading the comic book saga if you get the chance, it’s an amazing story.

Not just because it may be the most romantic one in the DC universe, and it has a functioning couple to boot, but because even individually the stories of these two characters are poignant and surprisingly real.

Raised on the hellish planted of Apocalips, Scott and Barda are very different. Scott is the adopted son of the ruler of the planet, Darkseid, while Barda is a selected child who is being groomed to be the head of the furies, horrible female warriors who have no mercy, no pity, no remorse. It’s not really their fault, they are all brainwashed, hypnotized, and severely punished for doing anything remotely good or beautiful that Darkseid doesn’t like.

To make a longs tory short, Scott and Barda both witness one injustice too many, and Scott decides to flee to Earth, Barda, for reasons she does not fully understand, decides to help him, but does not follow till later. When she does they are happily reunited, and after a lot of adventures together come to realize they have fallen in love, they get married, and continue to have adventures. Though the most memorable may be the one where they go back to their “home” and face their nightmares (almost literally.)

Now I bring this up because the amount of experiences both these characters have is huge, and most of the experiences, at least early on, were bad.

So, it’s just a comic book, right?

Never!

Something about this story rung true with me. I have not had such a horrible life thank goodness, but I recognized something about it.

see, though we don’t live on a world that has no hope, many of us live in a kind of personal misery where we feel no hope. And we are brainwashed by many sources, hypnotized by entertainment, and severely punished by circumstances or possibly other people if we dare go against the norm.

I’ll bet most of us would look at Scott and Barda and say “that would never happen in real life, two people raised like they were would never be able to live a healthy lifestyle.”

Come on, is our modern phycology so very different from the kind of messages I’m sure Scott and Barda both heard? “You are meant for this, you can never be anything else, hope is pointless.” And I do not mean the lack of self esteem, but the lack of awareness just of what life is really about.

You might say, and honestly I would have agreed with you, that Scott and Barda would both be really messed up. Haunted by their past. and for awhile, they were. It literally cam after them. But they protected each other.

Until the fateful moment when Scott decided he was through running. He would go back and face it. And Barda, though she believed they would die, went with him. And they didn’t die, though they came close.

And this is how I feel like I relate to this story. Facing your past, and the fears that go with it, can be terrifying. You can feel like you’re going to die. Pain hurts. That’s what pain does.

But here’s why I don’t find their story unbelievable and I do find it real: I have been on the same journey. I continue on it. I do not feel as fearless as Barda, or as clever and optimistic as Scott; but I have had to learn to be brave, wise, and hopeful. I love Barda because she tells Scott right before they go into a dangerous situation, which she compares to a shark. “We’re jumping down that shark’s mouth together–and then I’ll beat it to death from the inside.” Who doesn’t want to marry someone with that kind of devotion?

Having a rough life may suck while it is rough, but one thing is certain, you cannot become so tenacious as to beat a shark to death, unless you’ve had a rough time of it.

And it takes tenacity to love, take it from someone who once had the backbone of a jellyfish, at least when it came to facing my own demons.

Scott understands, as he tells Barda, that they are proof Apokalips can fall. Not because they have defeated Darkseid himself, but because they defeated the darkness that he tried to instill in them. They overcame it with love and justice.

Usually we think of love, but you need justice too. Justice is what tells you when it is time to face your fears, justice tell s you when it is not fair to other people to act the way you do. Justice tells you that you should have a better fate than what you’ve been assigned by your enemies. (Whatever form they take.)

I think we are apt to get tired of hearing about the inner battle, but it is the one we have the most active part in, and it affects more than you know. More than I know.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to fight, ladies and gentlemen, and if you find a person who will jump down that shark with you, keep them around.

Note to self: Marry somebody who has no problem beating a shark to death if  it should ever be necessary.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this unabridged post from DryBonesTruth. Until next time

–Natasha

I really Lived.

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I have heard many times that we need to live life to the full. We just need to live. Period. I may actually be sick of hearing this message. The reason is , no matter how often I hear it, I never know quite how to apply it.

I want to live well, to use my time wisely, but how? How do I know what’s worthwhile?

And even if I know, what if I don’t want to do it?

And even if I want to do it, what if I can’t?

Why does this have to be so hard?

Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just seems hard because we make it so. That’s probably not news to you.

There’s this song that I happen to really like, and it’s not a Disney sequel one. This one is by One Republic is I am not confusing my band names. Perhaps you’ve heard it, it’s called “I lived.” I read on Wikipedia that one of the band member wrote this song for his son, and such songs are typically the best, because though we don’t know what we want, we have much clearer vision for what we want our children to have. (Even if they aren’t our children, but just children we care about.)

But I love this song because of what it exhorts the listener to do.

Hope when you take that jump, you won’t feel the fall.

Hope when the water rises, you built a wall.

Hope when that crowd screams out, they’re screaming your name.

Hope if everybody runs, you’ll choose to stay.

Hope that you fall in love, and it hurts so bad, the only way you can know is give it all you have.

And I hope that you don’t suffer, but take the pain.

Hope when your moment comes you’ll say: “I, I did it all. I, I did it all. I owned every second that this world could give. I saw so many places, the things that I did. And with every broken bone, I swear I lived.”

I literally get chills just typing these words out, they are so good.

There’s a verse in the Bible that has been made into a song, (as many of them have) but also expanded upon. It goes like this “Teach us  to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

The song tweaks it to “Teach me to number my days, and count every moment, before it slips away. To take in all the color, before they fade to gray. I don’t want to miss, even just a second more of this.”

What these two songs are telling us is very true. And the reason they use the analogies they do is because we understand better that way.

The first song is talking about how we need to live. We need to take jumps of faith, and if our faith is in the right thing, we won’t feel the fall. We need to face the storms of life and build walls to protect ourselves and those close to us. Now, the crowd screaming your name thing can be see many ways, but the best light to put it in, is that we will do so much good that we will be cheered on.

It is so important to me that the writer of the song used the word hope. No parents can make their child do any of these things, they all involve wisdom on the child’s part, and courage, and faith. But it is what a parent should want and prepare their child for. But it get even better.

To hope that falling in love will hurt sounds strange, but it is wisdom. Love, when it is purest, strongest, and most unfailing, hurts the lover. It won’t hurt all the time, but the ability to love so much that it hurts is the ability to have perhaps the highest human connection. I speak of true love, not the pain of unmet desire, that is something else entirely. That kind of love requires you giving it all you have, and that is a great thing.

To stay when everyone else runs, to not suffer, but to view it as taking the pain. Why, that is encouraging bravery, and not being the victim but the hero.

Seriously, I love this father’s prayer. It is like a prayer.

In the chorus of the song we get to the end goal, that the child will one day look back on their life and say “I lived.”

There’s a movie “Secondhand Lions,” which I recommend. It tells the story of two men who had an  amazing life, and passed on what they learned form it to their nephew, Walter. At the end of the movie, the grandchildren of one of the two uncles old foes, a wealthy sheik, show up at their house, and one of them says to Walter. “So those two men form Grandpa’s stories, they really lived?” And Walter says the most powerful line of the movie “Yeah, they really lived.”

I hope that will be said of me when I am gone. Or that I will be able to say it of myself.

It’s not what you do so much as how you do it. If you put your whole heart into it, that is living.

But there is the possibility of living for the wrong thing, and that is where the second song comes in. We only live for a short time. And even if we have good motives, we can easily direct them into the wrong pursuit.

That’s why it’s so important for the Christian to live for God. To do what is right, and what is helpful, not just what we enjoy. I maybe just lost you there. “Another message about how I can’t do what I want, yada, yada, yada.” Well, sorry. I don’t pretend never to struggle with this myself.

But I think that is because I forget the message of these two songs, (and every other form I’ve been told it in.) You don’t give your life meaning, but you can make it meaningful.

See, God gives life. He gives it meaning. But what you do with it, that may be left up to you.

“I lived” get to this as well.

Hope that you spend your days, so they all add up.

And when that sun goes down, I hope you raise your cup.

I wish that I could witness, all of your joy, and all of your pain. But until my moment comes I’ll say…

When all your days add up it should amount to something. Read that again.

Let me repeat, God gives your life meaning, you make it meaningful. That is not saying you have to make an effort to be important. You already are important, and many of us actually wish we weren’t because we see how we negatively affect other people without intending to do so.

No, what I’m saying is, you can pursue worthwhile things, like making other people’s lives better, and even more crucially, worshipping God; or, you can live your life like it was a credit card given to you with no max. You may use it all up on conveniences, but in the end the credit means nothing because there is no such thing as infinite provision without you working for it somehow. You’ll only run up a debt of time.

If you owe something your time, and don’t pay up, you lose your soul. That’s because time is the medium through which we even come to know and grow our soul, it is what God has given us to use for this purpose.

We, as the songs say, need to allot time for many things. For love; for adventure; for serving others; for Faith, foremost of all; and for enjoyment; and for taking in the colors, the rich beauty around us, if we only have eyes to see it.

“That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Yes, if we realize how our time is precious to us, we gain wisdom. I don’t know about you, gut that’s a kind of wisdom I’m still acquiring, I don’t think I have it yet. But I hope I will continue to learn it.

Maybe there will be some broken bones along the way, I am positive there will be broken hearts, but those can heal. So, when the moment comes when you’ll look back on your life, I  hope you’ll say “I really lived.”

–Natasha.

Poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.
There are no small roles
Reach higher.

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

Classic View–part 1.

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I wonder sometimes if I write this blog a little too formally. If it comes across as lofty. I do have reasons to write the way I do, the main one is it’s how I write naturally and I feel comfortable using that style.

The reason my style is the way it is is because I spent my childhood (like it was so long ago, I know,) reading Classics. As a homeschooler, with a small social life, and no television, books were the best form of entertainment. Though I spent plenty of time doing other things mind you. Since I was immersed in the language of these books I picked up phrases, some slangy. I’ve got to be one of the only people who ever used bad grammar because of a book. That’s where I learned the word “Ain’t.” My parents never use it.

So, that said. I developed a love for books at a young age. And I particularly like fantasy.

Classical Fantasy, a. k. a. fairytales.

Surprisingly, I’ve never been a huge fan of traditional fairytales since I was nine or ten, to my memory. But I like retellings, and books written in the style of fairytales. I also prefer other types of fiction, nine times out of ten, to any nonfiction. My reasons are simple, I can retain more from a story, and it is much more fun.

I have been sharing my problems with the amount of darkness contained in a lot of modern fiction, in my recent posts. (A little disclaimer: I did not come up with the terms bent, and broken, for books. They are from “A Thomas Jefferson Education.” DeMille and Woodward.)

Since I’ve listed the problems I have with these types of books, I thought I had better give some positives in favor of others.

You may wonder why I’m bothering to write this much about reading when I usually tackle larger subjects. But in my book (haha) this is large. Which is actually part of my point.

Let’s start with the criticism levelled at reading only Whole or Healing books. (More terms from the book I named above.) Usually, these books have happy endings. Often if they are children’s books, they are not very suspenseful, and they have no in depth look at evil. This is perfectly fine for children, but teens often despise such ooey-gooey, sappy stuff.

A common complaint it that these stories (movies included) are not realistic.

But I would throw back this reasoning in its own face because these same people will defend watching horror movies or reading those works with the words “I know it’s not real.” Or “It doesn’t affect me.” We find then, that their logic is faulty. If they really intended to watch realistic stuff, they would watch no fiction at all; and they would not read it.

But if you are like me and believe that real or not, what you see affects you, then it is easy to defend my watching habits. (It may very well be true of the Romance genre that it is unrealistic, and I personally despise most of the modern romance novels and chick flicks.) Unfortunately, any movie more focused on heart than action can now be labeled a chick-flick. Therefore, it is unreal.

To bring all this to head, that itself is my concern. The Heart is being more and more ignored in entertainment.

Young authors and young readers have grown up not understanding this concept. They are used to everything being mental. They are used to deranged villains, and heroes with some mental issues of their own. They are used to meeting people who are bipolar and not big on reason. Perhaps it is no wonder that they don’t set too much stock on reasoning.

This is where Classics come in. They rely on reason. It used to be a precedent. If your book made no sense, it wasn’t hailed as worthy of serious reading. Writing a story without reason would be unthinkable. Not that it didn’t happen, but those books are long forgotten, whilst the Classics still remain. And if you’ll pardon my saying so, in a less stupid culture, the Classics would still remain a priority.

See, I meet kids all the time who don’t know how to judge a book by anything but its cover. Literally. They don’t know how to tell whether something is good or not. Their parents imagine them to be better off, because they are more easily contented.

Like in the Disney Atlantis, when Kida argues with her father about the people and their lack of knowledge. “A thousand years ago,” she says passionately “Our people did not have to scavenge for food in the streets.” “They are content” he replies. “They do not know any better.” She retorts. Later Kida informs Milo Thatch that the people do not thrive, though they exist in peace, their culture is dying.

And if not for Milo teaching them how to operate their technology again, they would have indeed died. In the end, their ignorance was more dangerous to them than their knowledge had been.

See, a really good parent wants their children to have the best life they can have. A good human being wants their fellow human beings to have the best life they can have. We still honor people who try to bring that about. We are not so far gone that we do not even give a nod to such efforts.

But we are delusional if we think our children can grow up content with Cartoon Network and Mind Craft and still have the best lives possible.  Frankly, we are mildly insane if we think our teens can watch horror and read trash and still have a positive outlook on life.

I stand by the Classics. They taught me what I could expect out of life. The good and the bad. They taught me that both things must be handled the right way if you wish to stay on the right track.

It is more realistic to admit our entertainment has taken a  downward dive than to pretend it is harmless or even helpful.

As always, my charge to you is to think it over and then act. Until next time–Natasha.

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Reach higher.