Life

Anime Bondage: Fairy Tail

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It’s been awhile…hey. 😁

Well, I think anime fans, sorry, weaboos, might laugh at me for using Fairy Tail as an example in this series.

I’ll admit Fairy Tail is on the lighter-hearted side, this is more about an anime trope that fairy tail introduced me to, but I’ve since realized is common.

It’s really pretty sad how common it is, and unquestioned.

For lack of a better term, I dub this trope the “I am too much of a sinner to be happy.”

In Fairy Tail, the character who fell under this trope was Jellal, who also happened to be criminally underused, and the other half of one of the better ships.

Saltiness aside, I was a bit surprised.

As someone who’s grown up on American media, and English Fairytales, I expect happy endings, pure and noble characters, and positive messages.

While anime features characters so relentlessly good they’d almost meet George MacDonald’s standard of the “common good uncommonly developed” it is a lot darker as a rule than our stories. Happy endings are hard come by and can feel rushed and incomplete compared to the rest of the story.

I started to like anime because it showed very real problems and made love and goodness the answer to them.

But I started to get frustrated the more I realized anime is incomplete also.

Here’s the skinny on Jellal if you don’t know:

Jellal is a villain in season 1, but he’s being controlled by another character. he began as a very brave, kind, and noble boy of around 8, and in a moment of weakness to hatred, was possessed by dark magic from a different villain looking for a victim.

Jellal goes on to try to kill all his old friends, and resurrect the Black wizard Zeref, causing a lot of pain and suffering along the way.

Later he survives being blown up (like you do on anime) and loses his memory. he meets his love interested again and tries to prevent a catastrophe. Then gets arrested and imprisoned. About 6 years later (time skip) he gets out and forms a group of former villains turned good guys to try to atone for their sins.

At this point he meets up with his love interest, Erza, again, and turns down her offer of a relationship and forgiveness. Telling  his new friends that for someone like him, love is out of the question. Love and happiness.

He then spends most of the show running from just that, and treating his own life as negligible. At the end he is told he should try to live to make Erza happy. We’re given a hint that he intends to do this, but it’s not shown.

Now, I’m happy it worked out in the end…but the pattern went on for a long time. It’s gone on longer on other animes. Including freaking Naruto (almost done with that finally.)

The reason I would call this attitude of self-inflicted punishment bondage is because it does not even work, even if it were acceptable.

No one ever changed themselves by punishing themselves.

I’m more concerned with how unchallenged the idea goes on anime then that it appears in the first place.

It’s even on my favorite MHA when Iida chooses to leave his hand injured until he can deserve healing.

It’s a very real struggle people have. My dad is one of them. In the past I’ve wondered about it myself, if I need to punish myself for things.

I remember it was humorously explored in one of the Anne of Green Gables books, the 7th one, Rainbow Valley. Where four children elect to bring themselves up by implementing rather creative punishments whenever they do something wrong. It does not work.

Interestingly, the Bible has strong words to say about people harming themselves, and treats the idea of self punishment as rather abhorrent.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Don’t you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit, whom you received from God, lives in you. You don’t belong to yourselves. You were bought for a price. So bring glory to God in the way you use your body.”

Leviticus 19:28 “You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.”

In 1 Kings it says of the prophets of  Baal “And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.”

This worship practice is not something you’ll find God telling His people to do.

Now, we are sometimes told to repent in physical ways, dust, ashes, sackcloth, fasting, but there is no health damage in any of this.

The same applies to emotional damage. Making ourselves miserable is discouraged by the Bible.

In speaking of guilt, Paul says “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” (2 Cor 7:10).

After repenting initially, we are supposed to receive God’s forgiveness, and give up thinking about our sins.

We no longer need to be haunted by regrets.

The reason for this is that God takes even our mistakes and uses them, once we’ve repented, to bring us into more freedom. We have to take sin seriously in order to want to be free of it, true repentance is not wallowing in guilt, but acknowledging how serious sin is, then trusting that God can deliver you from it.

There are many christians haunted by regrets, but that is not biblical. Some churches have taught it because they misinterpreted the teaching of the bible…or ignored it.

In my experience, actually, it’s not the chruches fault. A christian chooses to live in regrets.

I have had, since becoming a christian, been mostly free of regrets. Early on I embraced the idea that I do not need to beat myself up anymore about my past.

Probably because I watched my dad live that way for years, and saw how little good it did, and then had to deal with him imposing that on me because we treat others how we treat ourselves.

I let my past go, I only wished he’d do the same. I still do.

And so, when it comes to the self-punishment thing, I just can’t get on board.

From a logical standpoint, nothing is really accomplished by choosing to keep yourself either injured, or emotionally empty.

One might say ” I do not deserve love.” But welcome to the human race. None of us do.

Love is not about what you deserve, it’s about what you need to be a full person.

Jellal never has much success atoning for his sins while he is doing it out of guilt, the few times he does it out of love are when it ends up working out. Contrast it to Erza, who learns earlier to start forgiving herself and living out of love, and has success after success against impossible odds because love’s power fuels her.

The bondage of guilt is one any honest human being has to face, but we do not have to stay in it. God’s forgiveness sets us free if we just ask it.

And human forgiveness is good too. Honestly, more people need to learn to accept each other’s forgiveness and quit worrying about it.

Perhaps I leaned more on the christian side for this, but I can’t separate my idea of forgiveness from my faith.

Christianity is a very free religion in that way. The only one I know of that says guilt can be completely gone, that you can no longer require punishment, and can live free and happy no matter what your past is.

Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

Bringing people back to life.

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“Was it you ‘mid the fire and the ember? Were you there to bedevil and beguile?

See, your face isn’t quite as I remember, but, I know, that wicked shape to your smile.

Bury me as it pleases you, lover, at sea or deep within the catacombs,

but these bones never rested while living, so, how can, they stand to languish in repose?”

(Where is Your Rider, The OH HELLOS.)

Today I want to jump right into a rather unusual topic for blogs.

This began for me by thinking of one of the shows I’ve given my patronage too, that is RWBY.

I have my issues with it, but last year’s season brought some new ideas to the table.

Namely, one episode that raised the question: Is it okay to want people to come back from the dead?

You know, as much as people like to tell you that we’re all entitled to our own opinion, and that we don’t need to talk about it if we have differences, and that we should focus on our strengths, yada yada, I never see so much engagement online or in real life as when it becomes about a moral or religious question (if they are really different, which I doubt.)

A lot of people’s comment on this episode is that death must be accepted and why should one person get what millions of people do not get.

Some people think, it’s no big deal, can’t gods (or God) being people back to life with a snap of the fingers, why not just do it?

Some say, the person has to be worthy of being brought back. It gets real twitchy at that point.

Well, as Christian, I found this debate rather interesting. All religions address the idea of life and death, most of them address the idea of whether people can be brought back to life.

Egyptian and Greek Mythology famously contain myths about trying to bring back dead people or dead gods.

What’s funny too, is that almost every religion gives some reason why people must die and stay dead.

And most modern interpretations of the issue feel the need to justify why people must stay dead.

Even though, strangely enough, the idea that resurrecting people is possible is everywhere. Even through time travel, as the least magical or mystical way to achieve it (sort of).

Have you ever thought about it?

The great writers I’ve read have all encouraged me to think more seriously about ideas that are common to almost all people. Why do we dismiss the things everyone wants, everyone thinks about, as wishful thinking?

It would be more sensible to ask, if this desire shows up everywhere, like hunger and thirst, shouldn’t there be a reason for it?

Grief itself is proof of it’s own strangeness.

Grief is universally shocking. That’s one of the first emotions of it. When we lose someone, even a pet, even a plant, we are stunned.

Even in war times when it was likely, we are surprised.

And we wish it didn’t have to be so.

So when it comes to the idea of raising the dead, it seems to taunt us in a way.

Shows, especially anime and magic-based shows, are very fond of bringing up the issue almost in mockery of the bereaved.

Like bringing back characters who we wish could stay alive, but in ways that make it impossible to be happy. They come evil, they come back because of some terrible crime, or they come back but don’t remember who they were.

That dream of resurrections isn’t truly achieved.

And usually the other characters have to let them go back to the afterlife. If there is one on the show or in the book.

In myths, the idea of bringing back loved ones tends to backfire. Like, you’re messing with nature.

Odd, considering resurrection is actually a part of nature.

The process of reproduction is basically a resurrection in of itself. Let alone the stories all of us have heard or read of recoveries that don’t make sense, out of body experiences, people coming back to life after being declared medically dead.

Death is the most unnatural part of nature.

At least if you believe the Bible.

Skeptics might look at the Bible and declare that death is part of the ecosystem, that we could not survive as a species if we did not die, if animals did not die.

But they assume two things, one, that the ecosystem we have now is the only one we could have.

Two, that the world is the same as it always was, which the Bible claims is not true, that at one time our resources were far greater.

Lastly, though the skeptic may laugh at this, it’s a bit stupid to think that God who made all things could not replenish the earth if we exhausted our resources. He already does that.

The same with death, really. If things do get worse over time, it really doesn’t matter. The bible says God renews youth like the eagles.

So that death happens is strange. But that it is irreversible would also be strange.

Why on earth would it be?

Death, according the Bible, is the offspring of Sin. No sin=no death. The God who could remove sin could remove death also.

We still die, naturally.

Christianity, it’s been pointed out, would be a hopeless religion if Jesus did not raise the dead.

It’s odd that the thing many religions are afraid of, and modern writers tend to treat as an abomination, as a weakness of the person who refuses to let go, the Bible treats as barely an inconvenience.

In both the old and new Testament, raising the dead requires less time and effort than climbing a mountain; phases people less than the voice of God; and barely even shocks them, after the initial amazement.

Elijah raised a boy from the dead, I think Elisha did also, Jesus raised at least three on record, probably more, Peter raised one. Paul presumably was raised from teh dead by God. And Jesus Himself of course.

It doesn’t even seem to stun these people.

What’s hilarious, if you’re comparin it to how we treat the subject in myth and ficiton, is that when the dead are raised in the Bible it’s never for them. Never based on what they deserve.

Because, you see, if they were in heaven, they are far better off, and it’s ridiculous to talk of deserving to return to this messed up world.

If they were in hell, clearly they didn’t even deserve earth.

Nope, every time it’s for the bereaved. The very thing RWBY, other shows, and myths all decry as the worst reason to resurrect someone, is the only reason the Bible does so besides just straight up God-force, like when Ezekiel brought a whole valley of bones to life, and saints resurrected after Jesus died. (Google it.)

Jesus raised Lazarus for the sake of his sisters, Peter raised Dorcas for the sake of her friends, Elijah raised the son of the woman who sheltered him for her sake.

Is it selfish to wish people back from the dead then?

That’s the idea behind telling people “Why should you be any different from anyone else?”

Funny thing is, the Bible abhors that idea.

The Bible’s question to all men and women is always “Why shouldn’t you be different from everyone else?”

“All men die, few men ever really live”–Braveheart

Why should you sin, and die, like all men? Why not seize onto the offer of Christ, as anyone who reads His word is given the chance to do?

Well, the goal of Christianity is that we will all be saved and so share the same fate, but at the very least, you yourself should be saved.

When you consider that life is the normal state of things, it is not remarkable to want people back from the dead. Death interrupted them.

One zany anime has coined this feeling exactly, you probably can guess, if you’re an anime person, that I mean Dragon Ball.

Dragon Ball classically treats death as an inconvenience that is remedied multiple times even for the same character. People joke that death has no consequences on that show, like that’s a downside.

But the Bible teaches exactly that. “O Death, where is your sting?”

The idea most ridiculous to most people is that death does not have a sting anymore, that it could be a nuisance, not a tragedy.

But, hell is the tragedy. Our bodies dying is a inconvenience.

Before I end this, I suppose I should answer the question as to why people still die.

Christians, specifically, since we are the ones who claim we will live forever.

The best answer I have, and I am no expert, is what Paul says about the corruptible putting on the incorruptible.

The body, because we’ve had it while sinners, is corruptible. Many health issues come for sin, a lot of death comes from sin. Jesus, in a mortal body, died.

Mortal bodies pay the price of sin, whether it’s the person’s who has it, or someone else sinning against them.

After all, if they did not, sin would be a minor problem also, or men would at least treat it as such.

But, when we die, as Christians, the Word says we change this body for a new one. We are not ethereal spirits floating through space, we remain ourselves. Our body is a tent, Paul says, one we will upgrade eventually. The body is the last part of oneself to be redeemed form death.

The reason is, God starts form the top, Spirit, Soul, Mind, and Body is the least important part.

That’s to the  best of my knowledge.

Yet, if Jesus had not raised the dead, I’d be foolish to trust that idea. WE must know resurrection is possible before we can trust ourselves to be resurrected after we die.

see, the Faith of the Christian all comes down to this: Are we willing to be resurrected into a different world? Are we willing to leave earth and accept heaven?

It sounds like anyone would, but heaven is scary. IT’s unfamiliar. There have been christian hesitant to go there.

Some people joke about going to hell because all their friends will be there.

Well, that may be, but it wouldn’t comfort you.

Hell is as unnatural to us as heaven, the only difference (other than torment) is that Heaven is not isolation, and so we will have help. While Hell is isolation, utter and total. And if you know of people there, it only make it worse. (See the story of the man who asked Abraham to warn his brothers not to go there.)

It’s a smaller matter to be raised to lif eon earth, that’s a return to an old form, but to be raisedin heaven, it’s going to be different.

That’s why old stories and new stories often do not go far enough. They ask if we should want the dead to be raised, but they never ask if we should want the dead to come back stronger and better than before.

(Except Dragon Ball, that old show really just hit it by accident, didn’t it?)

Lastly, this is one example of a very real truth: That Christianity is not about accpeting thins as they are.

It is about knowing things are not the way they should be, and doing soemthing about it.

IT is dangerous how much the idea of acceptance has crept into the church, and the culture around it. Sure, we should accept people initially as they are.

But we should not accept that thins will never change, because they will. It’s just a matter of whether it’s for the better or worse.

Either you are moved by the world, or you move it  yourself. Archimedes had the right idea.

Image result for archimedes move the earth image

 

Until next time–Natasha.

An odd Thanksgiving Post.

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Being homeschooled is the best, you completely miss big controversies till weeks after they happened.

I heard about this Kanye West thing, but didn’t know what it was about till today.

And, taking my cue from BlimeyCow, one of my favorite YouTubers, I don’t really see it as imperative that I comment on Kanye West’s personal life.

I might listen to the album though, I like rap and Gospel both, so who knows, maybe I’d like them together. (Roll your eyes all you want people over 30.)

But, I couldn’t help noticing some things popping up that I notice a lot with controversy and identity politics and stuff, and since Kanye West’s reception is simply a microcosm of it, I think I can comment on that using this as an example.

This whole thing has brought out the best and worst in the Black Christian Culture, from what I can see, and the White…and anyone who cares.

I read of one person criticizing West’s political standpoints by saying their blackness and their religion (Christianity) were tied too closely together, and he disrespected that. (By supporting Trump, I suppose.)

All political opinions aside…what…?

In the New Testament, Paul declares that there is no race, no gender, no slave nor free, in Christ. ( Galatians 3:28)

That passage does not mean that race, gender, and freedom do not matter at all, it means that when it comes to God, there is no favoritism. Whatever you are, you inherit the same thing in Christ. all of us pray, all of us receive help from God, all of us are called to the same mission, that supersedes all the other differences.

Of course, if someone discriminates based on race, gender, or freedom, then do something about it, Christianity is the best basis for equal rights. Anyone is able to be a Christian, and Christians do not focus just on the free and respected people.

Ours is a religion of going to remote tribes, prisons, jails, ghettos, gangs, slaves, junkies, hospitals, mental institutions, new civilizations, old civilizations, anywhere and everywhere we go.

Christians stand before kings and culprits alike, and do not care. It’s historical as well as doctrinal.

For this very reason, if someone is tying religion to their race, history, or gender, I already have to wonder about what they believe. Certainly, it’s not the Bible.

Now, there are plenty of religions that allow for the superiority of one race…but Christianity is not one of them.

Though it has been used that way but that was when it was mixed with other ideas and what was actually in the Bible was ignored.

Look, I’m not trying to insult anyone, but is Jesus only the savior of black people? Or is He the Savior of white, Latino, Asian, and every other race under the sun. Heck, if a race of people lived underground their whole lives, He’d be their Savior too.

When white people regrettably brought slaves to my country, it wasn’t right (though, it also wasn’t just the white people, the Africans sold each other too.)

But oddly enough, even as cruel as we were, we shared the most important thing of all with the slaves: Our faith.

Strangely enough, this things that matters most, that is the key to life, is the one thing we weren’t holding back from them.

It’s not really a thing to brag about, because strangely, this is a common theme in history. People can be cruel to each other, but, somehow, a lot of the more organized empires have always stressed sharing religion as the most important thing.

To share truth, and God, is rather strange, because God may take pity on the people you’ve conquered, and decide to help them…so why tell them who to ask?

Yet, it’s all over. From Rome to Babylon. I won’t say the religions were always good ones, but the fact that humans are so adamant about sharing what they think is the real God with each other it really rather a strange phenomenon, we’re so selfish about most things.

Religion was used against black people, but it ultimately was the main reason they were freed and makes the best case for Civil Rights. Also, many slave holders, contrary to what you might hear, treated their slaves better when they believed the most in the Bible. Because it says to treat slaves well, not all masters were terrible people.

I also find is rather ironic to say that your blackness is tied to your religion, and its history, when the Bible doesn’t actually condemn slavery…

Nor does it say it’s exactly right. But that’s another story.

Now, I’m not just picking on black people here, this happens all over the place. This incident highlights one place is all. Identity-based religion and politics always ends up compromising some of the religion or politics itself, just for the sake of affirming one’s identity.

Gratitude:

I want to be thankful to the many people who refuse to be stereotyped or to use their race or gender as leverage.

I’d personally give Kanye West credit for at least not being intimidated about it, if nothing else.

I”m grateful for the readers who don’t give me hate comments for stating these opinions, I’m aware I would be ripped to shreds on many other blogs just for daring to say that black people can mishandle these issues at all.

Also, I spent 6 years of my life going to an almost all-black church, the pastor like to say there was no such thing as a black or white church.

I can say the style is different, and often the doctrine is different too. I didn’t like it overmuch but it’s not like I never have issues with white churches either.

Really, I think it has more to do with the faith of the people and not what color they are. There are black people at my mostly white and Hispanic church, so clearly, it’s not a race-based difference.

I could spend a whole post comparing the pros and cons of each, but does it really matter?

Anyway, I guess my main point was, if we’re going to criticize people, it needs to be for a real reason. And more importantly, Christians should never ever act like they own their religion, like they have the only right way of expressing it, and like they have more of a right to God because of their history.

In the history of human suffering every race has its share of hard periods, but I think the Jews have the worst of it overall. They don’t even get to be left alone in their own country. (And I am part Jewish.)

I do not say this to minimize anything, but to give the proper respect to all people. We all have it bad, we all have it good. We all suffer, yet God takes care of all of us.

And God himself suffers.

So, today, I’m just grateful to worship a God who won’t turn away anyone who seeks Him for help.

Until next time, Happy Thanksgiving, –Natasha.

Pure, Abundant, and Long Suffering Love–More we can learn from Gray and Juvia.

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The other day I wrote a post about one of my favorite ships and I touched on some subjects I thought it would be nice to expand on.

Here’s an excerpt from the post Stand By You that contains what I wanted to talk about more:

“But Juvia acts out of her strong love for Gray and manages to convey a lot without knowing she’s doing it. She fights for him, and is always there whenever he does choose to open up. Sometimes it’s simply that she does the right thing by accident that seems to mean the most to Gray, because she wasn’t trying to make him see a point, she just honestly wanted to help.

There’s a time to teach someone, but there is a time to just be there, and love them however you can.

And I like the additional message that love is messy and we aren’t smooth about it all the time, but our honest efforts rings the most true to people.

It’s beautiful. And its not something you have to be an expert on relationships to do, that’s the great part, you can start off knowing nothing, and still be able to do this.”

What I mentioned here was that Juvia and Gray are not really experts at love.

That gives me hope at least, because I am far from an expert at love.

I write about it a lot, I talk about it, I can give theories and examples, but at the end of the day, love is what you practice, not what you preach.

I’d like to talk about a couple different aspects of love this ship made me think of, and that I’ve also noticed in my own life.

First, Love is Pure.

Love has to be pure, first and foremost, or it will be hollow.

In my own life, I have a parent who is great about saying he loves me, giving me all kinds of praise, and verbal affirmation.

And he would berate me for not being satisfied with that.

Red flag, by the way, to anyone who does this with someone they know. If you are criticizing someone for not receiving your praise…that’s part of the reason they don’t receive your praise. It’s a bit of an oxymoronic thing to do.

The reason I didn’t like my father’s praise was that there was nothing behind it. He might call me good things, but he didn’t know any of the good things I really was. He didn’t often ask me about my life, and when he did, if I told him, he’d make the conversation about something he wanted to talk about.

He didn’t know what I liked, or what I hated. He didn’t know who my friends were, for the most part.

And, he wouldn’t do anything to back up those words.

My father’s love was not pure because it was not honest, it was based on an idea of himself and me that wasn’t accurate. And if I did not line up, I would be punished with coldness or criticism.

I find this is too common in human beings. We tend to want things on our terms when we give love. We’ll go so far, and no further. If it’s not received well, we pull back.

Juvia, on the other hand, is never daunted by how well she is received. To the point where you might almost call her inconsiderate. But not really. If you look more closely you’ll notice Juvia does not ever put more on Gray than Gray can handle, even if it makes him feel a little awkward, he’s not mortified. If he shows it bothers him, she’ll pull back a bit (in most cases, as I mentioned, the show uses it for humor.)

Second, Love is Abundant

Juvia pours her whole self into loving in the wonky way she does. It’s not always graceful or subtle, it’s extravagant, open, and overwhelming.

But, deep down, doesn’t every person want to be loved that way?

The truth is, if you don’t like being loved like that, it’s certain you have issues.

I don’t say that to judge, since it’s one of my own problems to not receive love as well as I wish.

We were made for extravagant love. In fact, as the Bible describes it, there is no such thing as love that is not like an ocean, an all consuming passion. The Bible doesn’t call a fleeting fancy love.

Love may not be a feeling always, but even the action of love is a full on commitment. Whether you feel the warm, fuzzy stuff, you are supposed to pour yourself out however you can.

Paul wrote of his ministry “I am being poured out like a drink offering.” (2 Timothy 4:6)

David also said “I am poured out like water” in Psalm 22:14, which is a prophecy of how Jesus would pour himself out on the cross, the highest act of love.

Fitting that Juvia’s power is literally being water.

It is daring to love in this manner.

People are broken, many more so than Gray, and they rarely know how to accept love, let alone how to return it.

And that leads to the third thing: Love is long-suffering.

Juvia waits a very long time to get what she wants, at least when you’re in love, it feels like a long time, doesn’t it? And yet, it also doesn’t.

In Genesis, one of my favorite Bible love stories is how Jacob worked 14 years for his wife Rachael, and the writer tells us that his love for her made it seem like a short time.

How valued must Rachael have felt, right?

Wrong, actually. Rachael had insecurities she took out on Jacob even after such devotion. She wasn’t satisfied with human love.

It’s just a part of life, that the people we love cannot be happy solely on our love, even if it makes them happier.

Jacob continued to love Rachael till the day she died, and treasured the sons he had with her more than his other children. In the end, he told her to take her problem to God, not him.

A wise thing to say.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for our loved ones is to stand by them and let them go to God. Something my family has implemented with my dad lately.

Juvia also does this for Gray. She wishes to be able to help him at all times, but sometimes she has to trust him and do her part in other places.

If you’ve noticed I’ve used only Juvia for an example here, well, she’s my favorite.

But Gray does bring something worth mentioning to the table also:

Gray, like many men, and many women, does not really understand Juvia all that well at first and makes plenty of errors on that account. He also does not know how to respond to her love, and often tries to push it away.

But the thing Gray does right, that is beautiful in its humility, is stick around for it.

Instead of avoiding Juvia, Gray spends time around her and gradually learns to be more receptive. He is uncomfortable without being dismissive entirely.

And the thing is, as flawed humans, if we’re totally honest with ourselves, sometimes our most loving act is simply to hold still and let ourselves be loved.

Most especially with God, but I’ve hurt people by pulling away from their embraces, and I know I’ve been hurt by people rejecting my efforts at loving them.

I know that sometimes I really do have to force myself not to run, sometimes all I can do is sit there and just not run. I may not even be able to ask for what I need, but I can stay, and give someone the chance to help me.

Gray screws up a lot, and he feels ashamed… but in the end, he lets himself be comforted and adored. He probably can’t express how grateful he is, but he accepts it as much as he can.

A little tip to guys, if you have a decent girlfriend or wife, than the most kind thing you can do for her sometimes is just let her take care of you. It’s like magic in a woman, we feel better when we do that. Even if you don’t feel like you need it, let her do it.

I’m guessing some men feel the same way. (Obviously I don’t mean being condescended to, I think most people can tell the difference on their own.)

There is so much more to say, but I don’t want to make this too long.

I think I covered the central part anyway.

Something I apply to myself, I want to keep on loving even if I’m not requited. Even if the kind of love I feel has to change with the situation, the point is never to stop loving.

I may talk about that more another time, but for now, stay honest–Natasha.

Anime Bondage: Naruto, (final part)

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Hello readers, I’m back with the final part of my Naruto Bondage (though not the last part of this series, I’ll be moving on to other animes after this.)

You all seem to like this series so far, thanks for the support.

This time I want to talk about MC himself.

Again, I have not finished the show yet. So I won’t discuss how I feel about it. I’m using these characters for examples, not reviews, I just don’t want any fans to think I’m criticizing or praising the show itself for anything except a portrayal of the issues.

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

I was gong to just talk about Naruto’s fox spirit problem, but with Shippuden, I’ve come to realize in technicolor that his issues are two-sided.

In Naruto, the OG show, the Fox Spirit inside Naruto was treated like an eccentric old bachelor living alone in his weird mansion, Naruto could sass it and it complied, briefly, it almost seemed like it might get fond of him.

While it was less freaky than Gaara’s problem, I did think it was problematic to portray having a demon inside you as a chill thing. I love MHA, but Tokoyami’s quirk really can’t be taken too seriously without very disturbing implications.

I have been greatly satisfied to find it was treated as an actual problem in the follow-up show, and very accurately.

Naruto begins to struggle with the Fox spirit tempting him to use it more, it’s getting stronger every time. Hurting his body now, where it didn’t used to, and now controlling him, whereas he used to retain his own mind when he used it.

The fox goes form being mildly annoyed when Naruto uses it, to tempting him too. It seems like a bit of a shift, but it’s reasonable to think the Fox realized it would have more freedom if Naruto began to lose himself to it, and so began to actually wish him to rely on him.

I want to note that this show portrays beautifully a very overlooked truth: You are what you rely on.

The Bible says “Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return. The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; but the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”  (Galatians 6:7-8)

If you sow to the flesh, you are entrusting yourself to it, and you reap destruction. If you sow to God, you reap life.

The fox spirit tempts Naruto based on his flesh, his weakness is feeling he is never enough. He fails to save the people he most wants to save.

Yamato (I do not remember his real name) tells Naruto that he needs to save Sasuke with his own power. That he can do this and does not need the Fox.

Naruto, horrified at how he’s hurt people he loves by using the Fox, agrees, and from thereon begins to resist the Foxes’ efforts to take over. He does not always succeed without help, but he begins digging himself out of the hole.

It was shown with Gaara that he also did this, he began to choose not to tap into the power.

The show interestingly made the statement that free will is involved with the corruption of the Jinchuri (the people with demons in them.)

Naruto also is shown to be in contrast to Sasuke here, in that Sasuke was also cursed, but chose to rely on that curse and corrupt.

In real life, with demonic activity, the question of free will is tricky. Demon possession is horrifying mostly because it undermines a person’s free will.

Usually, at one point, the person opened a doorway, as we call it, and allowed it to come in. In that moment they sacrificed their free will. hey had a choice, you can choose to lose free will like you can lose a driver’s license, by making poor driving choices.

However, like I said in my Gaara post, someone can have a curse put on them by someone else, and it not be their fault that they suffer from the problem.

The Bible says a curse without a cause falls void (Proverbs 26:2). And as a popular christian children’s book, Punchinello, put it “The stickers only stick if you let them.”

It is sadly true that human beings could not be cursed if we had no sin. Sin breeds death and allows curses to have power over us. Most people activate curses by sinning. If we were all pure, it wouldn’t matter.

Gaara, Naruto, and Sasuke all deal with this in their own ways. Gaara was never given a fair chance to control himself, but he chose to make it worse by playing along. When he chooses to stop, his curse becomes weaker, and eventually, he gets freed from it entirely and gets a new life. (Literally, it was awesome.)

Naruto has a harder path because it does not seem likely he will lose his curse any time soon. He’s trying to manage it the way people mange mental illness…with about as much success. Good days, bad days, trying to live his life despite having that hang over his head.

But unfortunately, he has other issues the curse only makes harder.

Naruto’s emotional scarring about Sasuke becomes more and more of a problem with each time he fails to get Sasuke back. He blames himself each time for not being powerful enough.

To the point where he pushes himself beyond healthy limits in order to get stronger. He is obsessed and driven, to where he will not rest, and finally ends up hurting his own body in the process.

The absolute insanity of it is that his friends and teachers allow this, they even encourage it, shrugging off the consequences because “Naruto can handle it, he’s got stamina.”

At no point so far has he been told it’s a bad idea to desultory himself on Sasuke’s account.

I do not know if he is later, but I find that it has gone on so long already to be disgusting to my sense of wisdom.

The same thing happened with Sasuke. Kakashi waited until Sasuke was already ready to kill Naruto to tell him revenge might not be the best plan ever… long after Sasuke was past the point where that might have helped.

And it’s horrible for Naruto himself.

Naruto lives in guilt and shame over never being enough. It actually ties into his complex still left over from being an outcast. Nothing he ever did was good enough for Leaf Village to accept him. He was isolated just for being cursed.

Now he brings that into how he views Sasuke. He projects his own feelings onto Sasuke, and thinks it’s not right if he can be free but not free his friend.

It’s noble to want to help your friend, but if you are willing to destroy your own life over it…you have a problem.

Naruto however, is hardly an unrealistic example here. There are many people who sacrifice themselves for others in a way they shouldn’t. In my own family, it was what contributed to years of an abusive cycle.

That may be why I feel so strongly about Naruto’s case. I have lived to please and help someone who would neither be pleased nor helped, and I have damaged myself a lot in the process. I’ve seen my family damaged themselves even more than me.

Thank God we are beginning to heal, but it took so long.

I blamed myself too for not being better at loving, I had to realize that if someone will not receive love, it doesn’t matter how good you are at it. God himself cannot help someone till they receive it from Him (directly, of course He is always helping us in other ways.)

So, I know all about Naruto’s problem. And I know it’s common.

I will put this kind of bondage down to two things, neglect and abuse.

Naruto was abused by having a demon sealed in him. You could liken it to how all of us are programmed with bad behavior by our parents, at least if we have parents with issues.

Naruto was then neglected for most of his life, ad still is because people thing he is stronger than he really is. His strength is often brittle, and superficial. While his true strength is not nurtured by the people around him.

This combination would give anyone unworthiness issues. Naruto simply puts himself on the back burner.

I do the exact same thing. I shelve my needs in favor of my family’s.

I am so glad that I have God, because I do still take my needs to Him, even when I don’t to others. And if you take your needs to God, you will still get healed, even if God and people combined is faster.

But people alone is an imperfect solution, and for Naruto it’s not even a viable one most of the time. There’s a couple people in his life who would help hi,m, but he pays the least attention to them.

It’s not his fault, for it all comes of what he is used to. You tend to go with what  feels normal to you. If being treated meanly or neglected is normal, you’ll hang around people who treat you that way.

I know I have. To me, that was just how people treat me.

If you are blessed enough to meet someone who treats you better, and you like theme enough to let yourself get sued to it, you are one of the lucky  ones.

Often it has to be a choice to start seeking out better relationships.

What I would say in Naruto’s case, is that the best thing for him is to finally admit he is valuable enough for what’s been done to him to be worth getting angry over. He needs to cry about it. For himself, not for his friends.

He needs to start saying he deserved better.

And he needs someone to come alongside him and help him to stand by that.

For me, that’s God. I don’t think anyone else is as good, but even human beings can bring immense healing to each other.

The last thing, is that, Naruto (and us by extension) needs to let go. He can’t save everyone. He does not need to save everyone. We human beings are not the savior of the world. That position is filled already.

It is in God’s hands whether people are saved or not. And it also is on each individual themselves.

And it is not his fault. It is not your fault if someone in your life refuses help. Whether it’s your sibling, your child, your parent, your friends, your spouse, they have to want it.

You cannot make them want it. You cannot do that for them.

That’s a good thing.

And once you accept that you are merely human, you can begin to heal.

That is all for this post, until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

 

Answer to what someone said.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Taking a break from my anime series in order to write a post that I felt inspired to write after reading something that popped up in my recommendations.

I don’t want to name the blog because I think it would be unfair to criticize them by name when I have not asked them, and I don’t want to be one of those people who ends up bringing down a hate storm on another social media person just because I disagree with them, publicly.

That being said, what grabbed me about this post was how strangely vague it was. It’s really a perfect example of a modern 20-30 year old’s viewpoint, as is commonly expressed in media. And, I meet college students who talk like this.

The post was discussing someone’s search for meaning, and going through school, not really taking philosophy, then studying mythology and wondering why the gods punished people for stuff they were fated to do, and how he went on to become a Marxist, and later a Romantic, that is, someone who denies that God, love, justice, beauty, are real.

He denies being a cynic, saying he appreciates them more because they are not real. And thinks that Jesus, when he was dying and felt forsaken by God, is a remarkable idea.

In the end, he almost laughs at himself for wanting to be real, when he’s made of wood. That he cannot dream himself into being human.

The last sentence of the post  declares himself Alone, and Meaningless in a dark, empty world.

(Any more and I’ll be directly quoting him.)

In all fairness, I can’t repeat it word for word, so you’re taking my summary of it as accurate, but the blogger himself admitted to basically finding meaning in nothing.

He reflects at one point about a Christian girl who once told him that God has put it into everyone’s hearts to want to know him.

He laughed it off then, but admits that it’s basically what he’s describing, but, he knows God is a lie.

After I finished reading this, I had one question: How does he know God is a lie?

This guy pretty clearly suffers from depression, I believe it’s even in other posts on his blog, so his thoughts may have a morbid tenancy anyway.

But I couldn’t help noticing that at no point in his story did he ever say he sought God personally. He asked other people about Him, and pondered the idea of God, as well as other values most people agree are real, and he found them unbelievable, for whatever reason.

But there is no record of Him approaching God face to face and seeking revelation.

Ironically, many times when nonchristians tell me they’ve sought truth, or sought God, it ends up meaning they sought ideas about Him. Perhaps they went to church briefly, they talked to a christian…and failing to be impressed by it, they left.

Well, Christians can be bad at representing our faith, however, part of the problem with nonbelievers is that they expect something of us that we are not able to give them.

God, frankly, never makes sense to anyone who has not tried to meet Him personally.

Not because God can not be explained in a way that makes sense, but because the explanation is not enough to make you know what He is like.

I can give you the best description of my friend, till you almost feel like you know them already…and until you hear them talk, see their face, or even see their handwriting, you will still lack a true impression of their character.

The God of the Bible, distinctly unlike gods of most religions, is not high up in the clouds, or deep down in the heart of the earth, He’s not in the sun, or the planets, or the wind.

God is not in one place, He is in everyplace, one can meet him in a closet, at a beach, on a mountain top, in a bar, in an alleyway, a brothel, a prison, a church, a battlefield…anywhere at all.

It is no use to say you have sought the truth about God, and found nothing in it, unless you have spoken to God directly. From the heart.

Someone might say “If you do not believe in God, then you cannot speak to Him from the Heart.”

If you yearn for meaning, if you feel dissatisfied with how empty life is, then, you can speak to God.

If you can speak to the void, to people who will never meet you, you can speak to God.

This is the one thing no one ever wants to do. In the Bible, in Exodus, when Moses approached God on the mountain of Sinai, the people begged him to talk to God for them, they said if they tried to, they would die.

Moses, in contrast, begged God to let him see His glory.

Was it really so impossible for the people?I wonder.

There is no record in the Bible of anyone ever praying to God sincerely, one on one, and not getting some kind of answer, even it it took awhile.

What there is a record of is God lamenting constantly that people do not seek him. He promises if He is sought, He will be found, if we seek with all our heart.

I will say, God is not found by anyone who is looking for him like one might look for a free show.

People who search for God flippantly, with the attitude that if He is not exactly what they want, they will bail, are unlikely to find anything.

I do not know this blogger well enough to say for certain why He has not found God, he seemed quite close, in some ways.

But, if I went just by what he said, as an idea, then my answer would be this: He did not find God because He did not seek him one on one.

It’s the simplest thing in the world to pray, yet, people are scared to death of it. It feels like such a commitment.

It’s funny too, since, no one else will ever know if you pray alone in your room, even in your head, but it still feels huge.

I may make someone angry by claiming that atheists are just too afraid to seek God, and I do understand that some of them have other reasons besides this…

…but, by and large, the people who hold the belief that all of life is meaningless are cowards. They believe that because they are afraid to believe it has meaning, because the meaning might be something they cannot handle. And if God could direct the meaning for them, they fear He will direct it a way they don’t like.

The meaning I even give to these people themselves is because I believe life has meaning, they ask that I listen to them, that I care, but deny the reason why I should. The honest ones admit that, but fail to see how the fact that they even care would in itself prove life has meaning.

You can’t want something that does not exist, you have a hunger because there is a food for it. You thirst because water exists. You feel pain because nerve endings are real.

You can’t ache inside without there being a balm for it.

This has run long, so I am going to end this post with this:

I don’t think this blogger will read my answer, and, I am not sure it would help him if he did, unless he could face his fears and look at God for himself.

But to me, it’s so beautifully simple. When I struggled with those feelings myself, the solution came when I spoke to God directly and surrendered to him.

That has no meaning to someone who despises that approach, thinks it’s too simple…Well, to that, all I will say for now is I don’t see much happiness in thinking the other way.

Until next time–Natasha.