Inspiration

Footloose (and what it says about mourning and dancing.)

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

The movie that defined a generation, right? An oldie but goodie?

Well, they did a remake in 2012 I believe, and I watched it and it sucked. So I was looking forward to seeing the original masterpiece. And it was basically the same as the new one.

Except I have to say, the cast made the original. Kevin Bacon and his best friend really get you through.

But if the movie defined a generation, I’m concerned. The teens in the movie do some really reckless, stupid things, and they don’t really explain why they thought it was a good idea.

But in the end Kevin Bacon makes a good speech with a good point, one I’ve been thinking about this week.

He convinces everyone that dancing is biblical. Which it totally is. I don’t give much for denominations, I figure, each to their own as long as it’s not against God’s word; but the no dancing trend in the 80s and in some churches still really gets my goat. The Bible says to praise God with dancing, David danced, Miriam led the Hebrews in a dance after they left egypt, and Ecclesiastes says there is a time to mourn and a time to dance.

I have no problem with dancing as long as it’s clean.  In fact some people consider it part of spiritual warfare to dance.

Biblical dancing is the best because you don’t have to be good at it, you just make it up, God doesn’t care. No one else does either if their heart is in the right place.

I just got done with VBS (VAcation Bible School) at my church, and there’s never been so much dancing and enjoyment at any VBS in my memory and I’ve been going to them and participating int hem since  I was 8 or 9 years old. sO I have a decade under my belt. The kids were loving th music, and so were the leaders, we all felt celebratory.

It was simple, but that was fine. It didn’t need to be big, the point was that the kids were just enjoying God, and so were the adults.

And for me personally, it marked the anniversary of my cousin’s death. I’ve spent a year in mourning you might say, though I didn’t go all Footloose with it, and now it seems like the time to dance.

Actually, you can dance all the time as a Christian, because our joys and our sorrows tend to intermingle. That’s our life. And it’s not a bad life. Not if you believe it’s just the shadow of things to come.

People really want to live forever nowadays. Or they don’t want to live at all. It seems to be one or the other. And I think for both the reason is they don’t believe in heaven. Or if they do, they believe in it as this abstract ethereal thing that hopefully exists, but it has no bearing on the rest of their lives. Even Christians fall into this.

But how does a heaven like tha fit into Jesus’s instructions to bring heaven to earth? In the Bible heaven is the place filled with the presence of God.

LEt me unpack that a bit. We in the church always talk about “the presence of God” but do we understand what we’re saying? How is it different then just saying God?

It’s complex. We believe or are supposed to, that God is so vast he can’t fit into our perception, so when He is with us, it is never fully all at once there, or it would overwhelm us. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13 that we see dimly as through a glass. Like a telescope you might say. We look at God as something far away that HIs SPirit makes closer and bigger to us, but if we were close enough to see him clearly without the telescope, we would burn up. (Like the sun or a star.)

The presence of God refers to the amount of him we can sense and recognize. Though it is not the God only gives us a piece of Himself, when you get God, you get all of Him,  Just like the 1 John says whoever has the Son has the Father also. (And therefore the Spirit.) Only God could make himself both small enough for our minds to hold, and large enough to fill our bottomless void of needing love.

That said, heaven is the Christian’s dream, or it should be. Because in heaven our mortal limitations will be removed and we will be like Christ. Paul said “I will know even as I am known.” The Christian wants nothing more than to know God as well as God knows him or her. To finally have more than enough understanding of God.

We can’t have that here, but we are meant to be getting ever closer to it, because our eternal life doesn’t start in heaven, it starts on earth.

And that is why we say “Let heaven come to earth.” And goodness knows this earth needs some heaven.

To get back to the topic of dancing, mourning is at bottom not a part of heaven. Rejoicing is part of heaven. If anyone decides to embrace mourning as the truth of life, they have given up hope. And we shouldn’t do that.

If you’ll pardon me for using as superhero yet again as an example, I would point out Batman as someone who embraces mourning as the fuel for his fire. The only thing giving his life a purpose is his grief and anger.

Happy people puzzle cynical people, have you ever noticed that? And they annoy them. And they make them envious.

Now if someone is depressed, I know the answer isn’t as simple as just saying you perceive things the wrong way, but realizing that there is another way, and there is more to life is the first step toward wanting that for yourself, which is a step toward getting it.

And those of us who are already fairly contented with our lives, we need to celebrate that, dance, sing, have a party.

Until next time–Natasha

The Pain Problem.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I saw the movie Adrift today. IF you like survivor movies, you’ll probably like it, but it’s very sad I’ll warn you.

It does have some interesting moments where the main character Tami makes choices that would be hard for us to make, and its theme of love getting you through hard things is of course timeless.

And it ties in to something I was thinking about earlier today. About pain. ‘

How do characters in movies handle pain? 9 out of 10 times?

I’ll have to fire some shots at even my favorite superhero flicks for this, because without fail the hero and villain always have a tragic back story. The villain uses pain as a reason to be what they are.

But actually superheroes are not the biggest offenders here. Any melodramatic television show you like has painful experiences as the driving force of the character’s issues. Usually they give some speech about it. Often taking it out on another character on the show.

Am I the only one who ever wants to tell these characters to get over themselves? Like they think their lives are so much tougher than most everyone’s, when in reality, they are probably better, only so much can go wrong on a show, right? Some of you have lived with the reality of one thing going wrong after another every day, it’s not fun.

These shows might be praised for showing raw emotions, but it’s not very real to me, because people rarely act that way, and when they do, it seems blown out of proportion.

It wouldn’t be saying anything new for me to say that we all suffer pain. But have you ever considered why we accept this as an excuse for bad behavior? Why does the stuff our therapy is made of justify the stuff our prisons are full of?

The child who bangs their knee and take out that frustration by hitting their sibling goes to the corner, the adult who does that gets excused because they have a hard life.

I get it, we’re all human and we shouldn’t judge each other too harshly. But it’s not right to act that way regardless.

Is our pain a bad thing? I don’t think all pain is good. Everyone knows the difference between the pain of healing and the pain of damage, for instance. The pain of getting squeezed too hard in a hug versus the pain of being socked by your brother or sister. It’s not on the same level. So some pain is clearly bad.

But what about the pain that seems to come for no reason. The pain of loneliness for instance. If you’re a Christian like me, you may wonder why this happens.

I had lunch with a friend today and we both have had trouble retaining other friends. I imagine we both blame ourselves in part for that, and sitting there, I wonder if both of us were thinking “So where does that leave us?” Do we just repeat the same pattern over and over again?

I have started many friendships that never went very far, even when I really wanted them to. And the problem could very well be with me. But there are worse people than me who manage to retain friends. Haven’t we all met or been that person who never dumps that one friend who is clearly a bad influence and kind of a basket case? Yet they get stuck with.

Heck, what about our relatives who get stuck with, though they don’t deserve it. You ever wonder why the nicer though quirky people can be the hardest to stick with? I am not sure why that is. It could be that we feel guilty for minding their humanity when we know they are good people, while with bad people we can always just complain about them. Go figure.

Many lonely people wonder why no one stays with them. There’s many reasons I suppose. In my case circumstances never seem to line up for it.

How do we handle that pain? And is it bad? How could it be good?

Well, I can’t say when or how, but the age old answer of God’s Timing is the only one I’ve got.

That’s not just an excuse to do nothing, as some suppose, but it is the acceptation that once you have done all you know to do, the rest is up to God.

Pain is not ever going to seem right (unless you’ve got a masochist side) but it can come to make you right again. I have wondered why God uses pain to shape us. But knowing human nature, I realize that nothing else ever compels us to choose as much as pain does.

Think about it, major decisions usually involve pain. Even having kids is painful. But that pushes you to a decision. A crisis fuels you to make a change. Why do people wait till their health breaks down to adjust their diet and exercise habits? Because pain makes it real.

We all wish it wasn’t that way, and I warrant you, God never wanted it that way either. But it is that way. Because we’re stubborn.

But pain doesn’t make us a slave to God. As I mentioned earlier, pain is people’s excuse often enough to do what’s wrong. And though their anger is understandable, it is not right. Because we all hurt, and we can’t make innocent people pay for what we feel.

Pain drives you to do either the right thing or the wrong thing, but which it’ll be still depends on you. The promise God makes us is not that we won’t suffer but that our suffering will lead us to Him, and not to destruction.

And that is the greatest gift of all, from my perspective.

Whatever I feel when I suffer pain myself, I know it leads me back to God.

Check out Adrift, I think it’s a good story.

Until next time–Natasha.

Just Finish or Finish Well?

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Sorry I haven’t posted a lot lately, schoolwork is keeping me busy.

Still it’s a lot of fun. I gave my first real speech this week. I got a B, so it wasn’t too bad. My Teacher said we ranged for A’s to F’s.

I am not about measuring self esteem by grades. Though I will say some people did not work on theirs;

I wonder why students procrastinate. I do it too, though I try not to. I always here students saying this after a not so stellar assignment. “I should have practiced” or “I should have worked on it more but I didn’t.” Or they just resignedly say they’re done with it and they don’t care what grade they get.

It’s like we just want to finish more than we want to finish well.

All us students have something to prove. We want to prove that we can make it. We can ace this college thing. We won’t have to retake the class. Though some of us will.

It’s amazing how cavalier people can be about their grades. They miss class when they feel overwhelmed.

Heck, I didn’t miss class when I had a headache all throughout it. I paid good money for this, and gosh darn it I’m going to keep my grades up.

Which hasn’t been all that hard, by the way. College Professor want to give you A’s so a lot of grading is based on you being there.

Which may seem stupid, because it should be how well you’re learning, not how much time you’re spending in class, but it’s what they get paid for.

I think it’s easier then actually expecting us to understand it all right away. But classmates keep disappearing, never to return. Even the ones who seemed the most into the class. If you’re a student right now reading this, you have likely been seeing the same thing. Or you’ve been doing it *gasp.

Students seem to have a defiant/flippant attitude. They complain about how hard the assignments are. They really aren’t.

While I question the methods used to teach speech as really being necessary to an effective speech, they aren’t really all that hard. Just time consuming and frustrating when you still do it wrong.

The average student is taking multiple classes anyway. Professors tend to hand out assignments like theirs is the only class you’re taking. Reality Check: some people take three or four. (Hi.)

But the greater fault is with the students who don’t take initiative. One classmate told me he’s not even through the third section of our workbook, as a class we’re in the fourth, and we were supposed to be almost in the fifth by now, since we’re behind.

I am trying to get ahead just so I’ll finish the darn thing, others aren’t even keeping up with the new and slowed down schedule.

Clearly they don’t care that much. Why are they even still there?

If we all have something to prove, why aren’t we proving it?

The trouble is, college feels like extended high-school for a lot o young people. Some of them just graduated last year, like me.

Unlike me, many don’t already have a career goal in mind. And they don’t use the counseling services to make a plan.

They go to school because it’s what they know how to do. They are used to the environment. I wonder if they will feel lost when they get out. A lot of older adults are there too, are they returning? Or did they never attend college?

If it’s the first, could it be that school just feels right tot hem.

The world is my classroom. College is fun for me because the inflow of new ideas is constant. And my classes cover diverse subjects in a nutshell. I find this environment stimulating, My classmates think my favorite class is the worst, just because the’r always work involved.

I think “Well, the professor wants us to actually use this time well.”

I guess I am a true academic. a rare breed among kids my age. I am easy for my teachers to like because I put effort into learning. Not always my A-game, I am not perfect. But I do try.

And it turns out, just being there and giving some effort, even when it’s not 100%, goes a long way toward success. Of course I always try to do the best I can do in the moment, even if the moment is not my best one. Get it?

I am not saying everyone has to be like me. But I am saying that my passion for learning is something everyone should have. Losing curiosity is a step toward losing your soul.

And if everyone had curiosity, they would put more effort into success. A few classes failed is not the end of the world. So long as you realize your mistake and learn from it.

I think that’s all for now, until next time–Natasha.

Well behaved women Seldom make history.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Laura Ulrich used the above sentence in her history of unknown puritan women. You may have seen the slightly altered “Well behaved women rarely make history” on anything from a car to a mug to a t-shirt to a book. I read it in a book by a Christian Female Preacher. The Sweet Potato Queens put it into their theme song.

I admit it’s a brilliant quote.

But I  wasn’t surprised to read in Ulrich’s account of the slogan’s impact that it had caused a lot of women to justify the most wild and uncouth behavior.

Bad girls have more fun they say. Kind of like nice guys finish last.

Well I submit to you that nice guys only finish last with women who don’t like nice.

I wouldn’t be one of those. Though I admit I can’t stand tame.

And that’s the thing, I don’t think the term wild is a bad word. I hear it used as if it were bad. Wild is used as synonymous with out of control, crazy, rebellious, and bad behaved.

But in my book, wild just means something is in its natural state. Untamed by man. But it does not mean something is at odds with man.

Wild things can be a gift. The only way to survive in the wilderness is knowing how to live off wild stuff. A wild animal tends to have instincts that a domestic one doesn’t. There is something raw and yet vulnerable about wildness that touches us.

But what about being well behaved? I don’t think being ill behaved is the way to make history, not the kind of history I want to be remembered for. The attitude about this seems to be that as a long as a woman is making history, she is doing something noble and brave, no matter what kind of history she is making. In that way a sex icon is as important as Marie Curie.

I don’t think so. Every one has heard of Helen of Troy, everyone has heard of Joan of Arc. Which do we know more about? Which do we want to be like?

I love famous women, if they are good, and I love empowered women. I just never understood empowered to mean “Do whatever darn thing you want to get attention; talk trash about men; and abandon motherhood.” Come on ladies, is that really what it means? I bet you don’t agree with that idea either.

I think few women really think that’s how to be a real woman. Just as I hope few men think that shooting each other and getting girls knocked up is how to be a real man.

Now just for context, you guys should know I am not the kind of woman who sits back and shuts up by nature. I have been strongly hinted at that I should do this. And I can’t say, after what I’ve been reading about it, that I don’t wonder if I might have been treated differently had I been a man.

It’s hard to picture the same people telling a guy who was as enthusiastic as me to tone it down a notch. When does that ever happen?

I mean, it does happen to my dad, who’s like me in that way. So I guess it does happen to men.

I will say this, I think part of the problem is women who make themselves heard can have a very snooty attitude about it. Like we should listen to them just because they are a woman and outspoken. Funnily enough, don’t you immediately feel more interested in a woman if you hear that she’s outspoken and opinionated.

And also oddly enough, I rarely hear a man described that way. Men stating their opinions forcefully seems to be a given.

A woman who really is outspoken will be whether it’s considered normal or not. Take Katherine from “The Taming of the Shrew” as a fictional example. Women like that won’t shut up no matter how much men shake their heads. And that’s not always a positive.

I know women who will give their opinions when applied to, but they prefer to talk about more personal stuff. A woman has political opinions, sure, she probably has strong ones. She doesn’t let her husband speak for her because she’s afraid, she lets him because it’s not what she likes to talk about.

Women don’t like arguing with their friends. (Though they may like arguing with their husband or their mother.) So they don’t talk about hot topics amongst themselves. It gets too heated. It’s that simple.

I know I don’t bring up hot topics when I want to have fun with people because it’s too explosive. And I know men who don’t care if it is, but I don’t know any women like that.

This isn’t a lack of confidence, it’s just women preferring to bond without conflict. Men bond through conflict.

Not that a woman never can enjoy conflict. I enjoy it. Typically more with men then with women. I consider that to be a thing men bring out in women, for a good reason, strength calls out to strength.

In fact, women want to be part of a man’s world because the man is in it. I don’t care if I just ticked someone off. It’s still true.

How many women say they are independent of men even while saying they’ll beat them at their own game.

If you’re trying to beat the men, you’re not exactly independent of them. You have to have someone to beat.

It also backhandedly admits that men have done a lot of amazing things. And I think men have every right to keep dong amazing things. I get a real kick of beating men at stuff. But I don’t grudge them their right to win also.

I think the wild side of men is what stirs up the wild side of women. I see it all the time, women sneak into men’s conferences, women read books about what men should be like just to know what to look for, women like movies that are geared for men. (I liked Braveheart. Most women who saw it did.)

That’s not because women are weak. It’s because women are smart. We know there’s something for us in both worlds. And if men are smart, they’ll pay attention to what women like too. I don’t begrudge a man the enjoyment of a few chick flicks , some of them are meaningful stories.

Some men enjoy more feminine dominated stuff. That’s okay. In the end, it’s not what you do but the way that you do it that shows the differences between people and between genders.

I win like a girl, because I am one.

Until next time–Natasha.

Believer and Pain.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

You may have heard that song by Imagine Dragons, “Believer.”

I am not a huge fan of Imagine Dragons, but I still want to give them a shout out for having the band name I would want to have if I was in it. I freaking love the name Imagine Dragons.

But their music is a little to heavy metal/pop for me.

However, I’ve heard this song, who hasn’t of a certain age? And since I actually watch lyric videos to find out what a song is about, I watched one for it and found out the song is about something a bit unusual.

It’s become typical to have, pardon the word, bad-ass songs. (I really want a clean equivalent of that word to use.) The “in your face” song.

I like some of them. And this song is technically in that category, but it has a profound twist. The song is about pain. The pain, as the words say, making you a believer.

People love this song. In the past the idea of pain being what made you a believer would have seemed problematic to me. I’m a huge believer in beauty being an inspiration, love being motivation, and peace being what gets you through.

Yet, in the past few months, my most constant companion has been PAIN.

What does a dreamer like me do when pain seems to be taking over their life. For weeks I didn’t want to write or even read, or think about all the stuff I wanted to do with my life, because how could I do it? I felt crippled by something that was mostly in my head.

Now this song didn’t bring me any great revelation. But it has made some people decide to keep going, and I read one person decided not to kill themselves after hearing it.

And I can say it’s because the song is true.

The words “My life, my love, my God, they came from pain.” I don’ think it means pain makes any of those things, but it’s a honest realization that without pain we’ll never know if those things are real.

To be honest with you guys, I haven’t seen a flat out miracle in a long time. I haven’t seen the things that make people think Christians are doing LSD. ( we aren’t.) I haven’t seen a miraculous healing in a long time. And I’ve never seen happen to me.

Like I said, I’m a dreamer. I believe in all those things. Call me crazy. There are things in this world that cannot be explained away.

yet I still have no personal evidence.

And what do you do with that when you’re suffering for months for seemingly no reason.

I admit freely I got pretty mad at God over it. I gave him a piece of my mind. But in the end I always come back to Him. I guess you could say I’m addicted.

It’s rough too when people get tired of hearing you complain about what you’re going through. And the only response I got from God was “trust Me.”

You Christians who read this, you ever wonder why you trust God? What He’s done to make you so confident?

I have.

Yet, I began to notice there was a miracle taking place in my life. I was being plagued by fears about how I was feeling, and anxiety. Then gradually that changed. I started to be less afraid. I have a low pain tolerance, and do not handle it well, but now I was pushing on through it. Moving on with my life. Drawing closer to God.

And oddly enough, I came to see that pain can be a gift. It’s not one anyone wants to keep. (I would hope.) I wouldn’t take it. But if it comes, and you accept that, then it is a gift.

Pain jolts you out of your stupor that the distractions of this world can put you into.

I know Christians who ware waiting for the next revival, the next breakthrough, the next movement of God. I think they don’t realize that they are waiting for pain.

Because pain is a part of creating life in this world. from childbirth to starting a business or becoming a professional athlete, it’s going to hurt.

Pain sucks, and no mistake. I don’t enjoy it. But I know it’s necessary. I still wish it wasn’t when I’m feeling it, but looking back I don’t want to change it.

Pain can indeed make you a believer, because you don’t know where you believe till you’ve been through the fire, the rain, and all that.

Sometimes the miracle is not being saved from suffering, but in seeing yourself changed by it.

So, good for Imagine Dragons. They hit something profound.

Until next time–Natasha.

Are Millennials nice?

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Let’s talk about millenials again.

This blog is directed partially ot them anyway, and I think we get a bad rap. Not that I don’t have my furstrations with people in my general age range. (Which is getting close to 20, yikes!)

I’ve always observed the people around me to be fairly nice most of the time. So when I started school, I wondered if my sheltered christian bubble would burst.

But so far it hasn’t. I’ve been blessed to be in classes with nice teachers and seemingly nice students. n fact I almost think it’s a God thing.

I know not all people are nice. I would not be shocked to run into some not nice ones. yet I usually don’t. Everywhere I go, on the bus, in school, to the store, people show little considerations of each other. They maybe don’t bend over backwards to help, but they will be decent. Move out of the way for someone in a wheelchair, help someone else understand their homework, be willing to cheer people on even if they are the competition, and scoot over so you can fit on a crowded bus. All real examples.

In one of my classes a fellow who people either jokingly or seriously said was racist because he is wary of black guys since getting mugged by one covered for the black student who couldn’t make it to class. They seem to be on good terms.

Now I know the whole racist thing is not always a serious remark, but that’ kind of my point. Instead of being oversensitive about it, they ignored it.

I don’t know how any of these people I’ve mentioned are int heir personal lives. Sometimes it’s easier to be polite to strangers..always it’s easier. I get that.

But since it’s complained about a lot that folks just aren’t nice or considerate anymore, and millennials are especially selfish and spoiled, I have to wonder, are we wrong about this?

We should at least consider it. I know this can be more of a Western thing, and all my viewers who hail from the Eastern countries may know a very different story about their young people, but I think in Europe at least this problem is the same. Why?

My guess is that Millennials and down are still lacking a moral compass, but good manners is something just about every parent tries to enforce at some point, and it can be our only nod to some general standard of behavior. Our only way to feel like good people.

And whatever our bad boy/girl songs say, we like to feel like good people.

Frequently at my college the young men hold the door open for both girls and each other. (No favoritism right.) In an age where chivalry is disappearing maybe some of it is coming back in. maybe they just feel they should.

I hold the door open for both guys and girls too. I say it’s whoever gets there at the right time. It would be weird to stand there and wait for someone else to do it. I’m not that committed to making the point.

Maybe I’m lucky, or maybe good places attract people like me who are seeking good environments. Not because I can’t handle worse, but because who purposely puts themselves into a negative environment unless it’s to fix it? Not many people.

I have wondered if occasionally it is my influence that causes this, but I have o proof of that. It’s a nice thought, but it might give one person too much credit.

Still, have we been misrepresented?

Millennials and down are spoiled, it’s true. And our biggest flaw is not an unwillingness to work, or to work hard, but to work consistently. We are a microwave generation. I don’t think that’s our fault exactly, but it is something we need to challenge ourselves to rise above.

It’s not, I believe after observing us more, that we don’t care about people. I think we actually care about more people in a small way than many generations before us. On thing we can’t ignore is that tragedy is happening all the time, and we aren’t all desensitized to it.

But all this caring in a small way has left us unable to handle caring in a large way. We don’t know how to act when an opportuintiy to change someone else’s life comes along. I doubt we recognize that opportunity when we see it.

We can be nice to almost everyone, but truly honest with no one. We can get out of the way for others, but not put ourselves in harm’s way for them.

Why is this?

Because we aren’t made to believe we can or should do those things. We are raised to avoid danger, trouble, confrontation, and discomfort. Conflict is the worst enemy now, not evil. Many young people believe certain evils are fine just so long as you don’t fight over them.

That’s pathetic, but it’s not the young person’s fault. They’ve been taught that fighting is wrong. It’s not.

The way to save this generation is to let them grow up. We keep coddling them. They can handle more. I believe it. They just need to be pushed out of the nest. yes, they will fail at first because they aren’t prepared, but I think we have plenty of stories about people adapting to their circumstances to back up the idea that Millennials will learn.

If they don’t, that’s on them. But we should not let them get away with not trying.

We don’t need to write books for or about young people and their problems, we need to tell them to write the books. They need to make the movies. They need to create the jobs. We need to get out of their way.

Yes, I know that what they’ve been taught is not good. But I see no end to it until they have had time to try and fail and realize there’s more to success in life than they know. When that happens they’ll need us to help them figure out how to fix it. but no do it for them.

That’s my thought on it, until next time–Natasha.