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Circle of Life.

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Lyrics of African lyrics:

Here comes a lion father

oh yes it’s a lion

we’re going to conquer

a lion and tiger come to this open place.

 

From the day we arrive on the planet

and blinking step into the sun

There’s more to see than can ever be seen, ‘

more to do than could ever be done

there’s far too much to take in here

much more to find than cane very be found

but the sun rolling high 

in the sapphire sky

keeps great and small on the endless round

It’s the circle of life

and it moves us all

through despair and hope

through faith and love

till we find our place

on the path unwinding

It’s the circle, 

the circle of life.

Anyone else get chills when they hear this English part? I used to love this intro.

It’s just so great. I always though it captured the feeling of being in Africa and being one of the animals in the film.

Something about it. IT just suggests wisdom and steadiness with life.

Well, I doubt it surprises anyone that I like the Lion King. Who doesn’t?

Though to be honest, Simba was never my favorite part of it. I like Mufasa, and Nala, and kind of Timon and Pumba.

Well, everyone loves Mufasa.

And I also hated Scar, which most people don’t seem to. Though at the last you almsot feel sorry for him…almost.

Actually to my mind the whole scene where he hyenas kill him while the fire starts burning them is one of the creepiest Disney deaths ever. But poetically just.

Anyway, why one earth would I make this song the subject of a post?

Well, I always thought this song was embodying some tribal philosophy. Don’t take that the wrong way, it just seems like Disney selected an African culture to base the film off of. (Plus Hamlet.)

Now, maybe it is, but if so, now that I know the lyrics, I’m not convinced that philosophy is so bad.

Again, this song just has a rich tone. That’s what really makes it work. The lyrics aren’t spectacular, until you combine them with those awesome vocals and background music.

Then you get something that basically makes you feel like you’re on the African Savannah watching life happen.

The best things about the animation for this film as that everything in it seems royal. It just spells it out for you. Every beast is portrayed majestically and proud, except for the hyenas and Timon and Pumba. But especially in this opening number, you really feel like you’re that young giraffe we see, or Simba himself. Seeing all this for the first time, and being overawed by it all.

You feel the wonder of being young and new to the world.

And that is a good feeling to have. Especially to us older and often more cynical folks.

also I could feel a sort of appreciation all the beasts have for their world.

And that’s another factor of this film, it’s very simple. The circle of life is easy to explain. You are born, you die. Lions eat antelope; but antelope eat grass, which grows from dirt which the lions turn into after dying. The sun moves over the Savannah and provides light to all the animals, enabling the circle to continue.

It gets even more interesting if you start looking further in the the symbolism in the film. It’s no accident that we see a birth, a death, a coming of age, another death, and finally another birth; all in the course of the story. (nor that we see similar things int he sequel. If you’ve watched that.) It’s a circle.

Now I am not one of those who thinks that thinks just progress in a certain way because of some abstract Mother Nature, or some pattern that just proceeds because it has to. OF course I think God established the rhythm of the world. (It has since been tweaked a lot, and not for the better.)

But because I believe that, I don’t find the circle of life idea offensive. I think it’s very true that things proceed in a circular pattern. This has been pointed out in “The Fourth Turning.”

The reason it simple enough. Human nature doesn’t change, and Nature itself has to operate the way it is designed to. So you have events always repeating themselves, though never exactly in the same way.

Mufasa and Simba are not the same. But they have to take the same role in life.

But it should not be lost on the audience that the movie, though showing deatht o be a real and important thing, supports life as the goal and proper state of the world. Showing how Simba restores life and order to his kingdom.

The whole thing with the Sun even in the song lyrics is pointing to life and health and prosperity.

Also, in true Disney fashion (and much like Frozen) the song is foreshadowing the movie’s events.

Through despair and hope, through faith and love, till we find our place, int he path unwinding.

TO be honest, I neer understood those lines, I fully expected the last part to be “to fulfill our dream” or something like that.

It so would be now.

Simba goes through despair, and then hope, he finds faith and then love. Then he finds his place. (The path unwinding part comes more into the sequel.) The landscape of the film mirrors his journey. From the dry canyon and the thorny bramble, to the lush and lazy jungle, back to his home, and ultimately we see that home restored to it’s lush state also.

The beasts and other lions also experience despair at losing their king, then hope when Simba returns, they put their faith in him, and in the end things are right again.

Symbolically, we hear the song again at the close of the film. (You remember that thunderclap sound that  everyone got pumped up after hearing?)

Things come full circle.

That was subtlety, back in the day.

There is so much to unpack from this film, but that’ all I can fit into this post. Until next time–Natasha.

For King and Country.

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I try to stay away from a lot of political stuff on this blog. I don’t want to become centered on that.

But I have some thoughts on what’s been going on recently in America. What with this kneeling business and all. And other stuff.

If you live in a different country you may not have heard about the sports players kneeling for the national Anthem as a protest against Racism.

I don’t know if the Constitution forbids that, I don’t remember anything about that when I read it, so I can’t exactly say what they did was unconstitutional.

And I also wouldn’t say disloyalty to your Government is always a bad thing.

Hold on a minute, let me explain:

I would not call the German’s who tried to help the Jews or bend the rules slightly for honest people wrong for not following the system.

I would  not call the Chinese who resist the Communist Revolution wrong.

I would not call it wrong to refuse to lie, kill, steal, or otherwise sin even if your Government told you to.

I would call that the Appeal to Authority thought fallacy, and it it not only stupid, but dangerous. (As all stupidity is after a point.)

I think you are never wrong to do the right thing, as Mark Twain said.

With that in mind, why do I think this taking a knee stuff is not right?

I will admit that the players themselves are probably thinking of it as a good thing and not intentionally trying to be disloyal to the country; or, if they are, they are not aware of why it should be otherwise.

If that sounds condescending, then I’m sorry. Because the only alternative is to think they are intentionally giving the finger to every person in this country who respects it.

I don’t think even that absolute patriotism is an admirable thing. It leads to blindness usually.

Also, I will confess that I’ve seldom ever felt really proud to be an American. I love the ideals this country was built on, but I am only ashamed of the ideals it is turning towards now.

So, I can understand why these players may be having difficulty in feeling kinship with their country.

But I am appalled at how many News Channels and talk shows are lauding this kind of response.

I don’t like the knee bending because I find it immature and insolent at the same time.

It may be kind of weird to pledge allegiance to a flag, or to show honor to a piece of cloth. But the flag is a symbol. Like a crucifix. People shouldn’t go around pledging their hearts to a little wooden figurine, but there is sometimes an inspiring power in physical representations of invisible truths.

The pledge of allegiance equates the flag with the Republic “for which it stands.”

If you diss the flag, you are not dissing racism, you are dissing the Republic.

The flag stands for the American way. Which has nothing, and I repeat nothing, to do with Racism. One way or the other. You won’t find Racism in the Constitution. Or the Declaration of Independence. Or Common Sense. Or the Federalist papers. (That I know of.)

Further more, the Bill of Rights can be amended, so even if Racism had originally been a part of our Constitutional principles, it has long been removed.

I’d like to ask all of those players if they have read the Constitution.

But one might make the point that it doesn’t matter what the Documents say, so long as the Country as a whole is still Racist.

Tell that to Fredrick Douglass; he quoted the Declaration, he claimed his constitutional rights.

But still another question I have is how dissing the flag is supposed to do anything about racism?

What are you protesting really? Racism or America?

Whew! I am getting worked up.

But from a rational standpoint, I still don’t see how it helps their cause.

I do note that most of if not all of these players seemed to be African American.

If they really feel so concerned about racism–these poor, discriminated against professional National Foot Ball league players… of whom at least half are African American–then why waste time making people angry over the flag? Why not form a group and start changing things where Racism actually is? Because it’s not in the NFL.

National heroes like them cold have a lot of influence around inter city gang members, and the underprivileged kid in the ghettos, where Racism take thousands of lives, probably yearly.

What makes me really angry is that these players, and the people supporting them, aren’t going by facts, realities, or statistics. They aren’t going to the places where this stuff actually happens and finding out the real reality. They aren’t interviewing anyone with other viewpoints than what makes theirs sound more real.

Have any of them read the books I have read that actually deal with racism and black lives being at risk? Have they watched documentations? Have they heard stories other than cover stories (which are usually tweaked,) have they talked to African American’s who aren’t democrats to see if they all feel discriminated against too?

No.

Where are the people protesting that Ben Carson should have won to keep up the trend of black presidents?

Well, Ben Carson is a conservative. He doesn’t feel discriminated against.

That is what it boils down to. None of this is based in reality. The News Network is not reality.

What’s really fake is the idea that bending a knee to the flag can do anything except incite anger. Does it inspire anything but more resentment and more hatred in people’s hearts? On both sides of the debate.

I can’t tell these player what to do mainly because I can’t speak to them directly at all. I can’t tell anyone who approved them what to do either.

I don’t think the liberal media is going to read this post. And if they did, they wouldn’t listen.

That being said, I do not expect to change the minds of the people who are determined to think this is okay.

What I do hope is that if someone is not bent on one perspective or the other, they’ll consider mine.

I won’t say the Conservatives are handling this in the best way either.

To me it’s not about the party, it’s about the principle. I believe in respect and honor, and compassion, and mercy, and justice.

That’s why I don’t condone ignoring all of those things in order to show the world that as far as you’re concerned, you’re country can go to pot.

But I run the risk of overstating my point, so I’ll stop here. Until next time–Natasha.

 

The Princes’ Quest.

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I’m going to review a movie you have probably never heard of: The Prince’s Quest. 

This movie is, as it tells you, about two boys. One is named Azur, the other Asmar. Azur is the son of a nobleman, who had blue eyes. Asmar is the son of a nurse, with brown eyes. Asmar and his mother appear to be of Middle Eastern descent, I am not sure it is ever clarified what, but my guess is Arabic, because the Nurse tells both the boys a story about a Djinn Fairy. Or Djinn Princess, she’s referred to as both.

The story goes like this:

A small boy

Becomes a big boy

Crosses rivers and valleys, puts out fires

And he saves the Djinn Princess

Together they live in happiness

Happiness.

It sounds better in the native language she uses, but I can’t write that for you.

This song is a sort of prophecy, and both boys want to be the one to save the Djinn Princess.

But meanwhile, Azur is being trained in the arts of nobility, dancing, riding, and what not. Asmar is watching and trying to learn by imitation. But they have their share of tiffs. The worst  being over only having one parent, (though Azur says Janine is his mom also,) an dover who will save the Djinn fairy.

Azur’s father gets tired of him fighting and associating with these lower class citizens so he sends him off to boarding school and drives Nurse Janine and Asmar out. With no money and without even letting them pack their belongings.

Azur grows up and declares to his father that he intends to sail across the sea and search for the Djinn Fairy. His father thinks this is nonsense and doesn’t seem to consent, but Azur sets sail anyway, till a wave comes up and sweeps him overboard. He washes up on the shore of a strange, and he thinks ugly, land. And realizes he’s lost everything. No one could find him here.

Azur goes looking for people and finds some, who speak the language of his Nurse, though he remembers only a little. But he doesn’t get much of a chance to try for everyone runs from him and one man spits at him, telling him that his blue eyes bring bad luck.

As stupid as this seems, Azur believes that he has no choice but to pretend to be blind for the rest of his life.

He gets directions to a city from a different group of folks who think he is only a blind beggar, and on the way he meets a guy whose name I forget, but he offers to be his guide if he’ll carry him on his back. Claiming to have a problem with his own legs. They proceed to the city, where his “guide” proceeds to criticize everything, but the people do give him alms. And some food too.

I forog to explain earlier, but the prophecy of the Djinn fairy also involves three keys. One of fire, one of spices, and one of steel.

While Azur is walking around, his guide mentions that the keys are reputably hidden in the temples of each thing. At least we see two temples, one of heat, one of spice. The Temple of heat has been all dug up in the search for the key, but Azur, never opening his eyes, feels along the outer wall and finds the key hidden behind one of the stones, which was hot.

Later he finds the spiced key on the peak of the Temple of Spices.

After this Azur is told where the house of Janine is, whom he recognizes as his old nurse. She is now wealthy and owns a huge property and a lot of servants. With the help of his guide he finds her door and knocks. They don’t let him in, but he begins yelling for “Nanny” and Janine opens the door. She doesn’t believe it’s him, she says she left Azur across the sea. She says Azure did not have his voice. And Azur was not blind. Azur answer all these in turn, and answers the last by opening his eyes. Janine gasps and embraces him.

After that it all happens pretty quickly. Azur is brought in, and fed, and told about what happened to her. Janine makes the servants stop talking about his eyes. Asmar is also at the house, but he is less enthused to see his brother. He is bitter over what Azur’s father did.

Janine agrees to help Azur with his quest, just as she is helping Asmar. She sends Azur to see the Princess ( I can’t remember or spell her name) who gives him three gifts to help him. She gave these same gifts to Asmar, and now there is none left. (If you think this is convenient, then remember this is a fairy tale.)

The two men set out, and endure many difficulties, finally they reach the tunnels and caverns of the mountain where the Djinn Fairy is supposed to be. They get close, but then they are attacked by other men looking for her, who are not so honorable. Asmar gets stabbed for warning Azur, and Azur carries him into a tunnel. They find three doorways, one of fire, one of gases, one of sword blades. Azur uses the two keys he has, and then the one Asmar (of course) had, to open each door. Asmar is fading fast, but Azur carries him on till they come to two doorways. One leads to shadows, the other to the Djinn fairy. Azur chooses one in a hurry as Asmar is saying he’s going to die.

They find only blackness. But just as Azur is despairing, a voice gives command for light, and the whole room is lit by hundreds of light djinns, and the Djinn Fairy herself is sitting behind a wall of glass. Azur reaches for her and the wall shatters.

The Djinn fairy is able to save Asmar. But then they can’t decide who it was that actually saved her. Both boys say it was the other. They bring in more and more people (pretty much all the principal characters) to decide, no one can. Finally the Djinn fairy calls her cousin the Elf Fairy to come and decide. The Elf Fairy appears. She is white and blue eyed, whereas the Djinn Fairy looks Arabic.

She can’t choose either, but everyone else realizes that the answer is clear. One Prince for both fairies. The Djinn Fairy chooses Azur, and the Elf Fairy prefers Asmar. Neither Prince seems to have a preference. Everyone ends by dancing and living happily ever after.

This took way longer to tell than I expected, so I’ll try to sum up briefly why I thought it was worth sharing:

This is a very old sort of story. But that doesn’t mean it lacks depth. It covers themes like forgiveness, brotherly love, treating people equally no matter what they look like, and also self-sacrifice and true worthiness which comes from bravery and unselfishness and honesty. (Yes, like in Pinocchio.)

Three is also plenty of mythical danger and obstacles to satisfy the fantasy lover.

The only real flaw is in production. The movie is clearly low-budget. But once you’ve got through the first ten minutes, you stop caring, and the art is still pretty stunning in its own style.

Anyway, it may be out of stock, but if you can find it anywhere, I recommend checking it out.

Until next post–Natasha.

P. S. (Would you believe spell-check doesn’t recognize the traditional way to spell djinn? Honestly.)

On purity and brokenness.

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So today I have a difficult topic to tackle. This has been on my mind for awhile but I didn’t know if I was ready to go public with it. But I think until I do it’s going to bother me.

I know I’m not the only person to have experienced this, in fact probably all of you have more than once even, so here goes.

Some time ago I was meeting up with some friends, and in the course of a late night chat with a few of them, I learned that one of them had compromised their purity, multiple times.

This is not an usual thing, sadly enough. (By the way for those of you who don’t know, purity is the christian word for virginity and freedom from lust.)

But that wasn’t all. This person was still in that relationship and her family wasn’t too happy about it. She was also unwilling to break it off, and unwilling to separate from the guy to go to a different school for a while, as one person had recommended.

There is no one way to handle such situations, but to my horror, the other people in the room began telling her there was grace for that.

I may make quite a few people mad by sharing this, but it won’t be the first time if I do, so I’ll continue.

I was shocked, more at these other girls than at the one who had made the confession. In disbelief I began to tell her that, while I didn’t believe she was condemned, she needed to put an end to this if she really cared about the guy in question and her relationship with God. I made it pretty clear that this was not okay.

None of them really liked what I had to say. The girl herself got mad at me and ended up ending the conversation.

Now it wasn’t all so smooth at the time as it sounds in the retelling, but you get the idea.

I can’t tell you how much this incident bothered me and continues to bother me.

I witnessed first hand what damage compromising can do and I want to talk about it.

I don’t think it’s biblical to be overly harsh with those who have stumbled. It does happen. But it happens for different reasons.

Sometimes the person is rebellious.

Sometimes they are broken and do it compulsively.

Sometimes they are just filled with lust and lose their heads.

Whichever it is, each has to be handled differently. But I’m going to address the second one.

I have talked about this before on this blog. Some people, especially girls, tend to live in sexual sin because they feel somehow that they deserve it or are trapped in it and cannot escape. In can be because they were molested or raped, or abused in some other way, or because they gave in one time and felt that they already lost it all.

Most often these girls would not have fallen had they had better support form their family and friends, or if they did fall, they could have got back up again.

Actually, they still could and some have. The biggest lie in the whole business is that there is no turning back. There are women who have. Ones who aren’t even religious but just feel that the lifestyle is wrong.

But many believe they can’t ever get back what they lost.

It’s true that you can never forget that you made that choice. But there is healing from it, and there is restoration.

Sometimes women (and I’ve heard this personally more than once) believe that because they were raped or molested, their purity was stolen and they cannot get it back anyway, whether they wanted to lose it or not.

As a woman I understand it is terrible to feel helpless. And maybe they choose promiscuity because in some way they feel they have control again.

Rape is a terrible thing. There is no softening that.

But, and this will be hard to swallow, even the rapist can be a broken person themselves who does not fully realize what they are doing.

They have no excuse; but perhaps it might be easier for the woman if she could understand that the only way to heal the hurt is to stop spreading it. Whether it’s through what she does to herself or to what she does not choose to put an end to in other people.

Most people will agree that being raped does not equal losing you purity. Christians especially feel that God does not see it that way. In fact losing your virginity is not equal to losing your purity at all. Married people are still pure.

The girl I mentioned before felt that it was too late for her. That she was already on the downward slope, and she took my admonishment/rebuke as confirmation of that.

To be clear, I told her more than once that it was not too late. That she could be forgiven. And I believe that.

What she heard was not what I was saying. She heard what she was already afraid of deep down, and she probably knew that, in a way.

The problem was, she didn’t want to be free bad enough. She thought she and this guy loved each other.

Maybe they did in a way; but not enough to protect each other. Not enough to stop deceiving her family or going behind their backs. Not enough to respect her beliefs.

There are a lot of factors that would make breaking off that kind of relationship hard. Those kinds of problems tend to run in the family. But it does not excuse ignoring that problem.

Nor does it in any way justify people who are outside the situation refusing to admit it is a sin.

It’s kind of taboo to call it that anymore. As a church in general, Christians have taken a more compassionate view of teenage promiscuity. We have been willing to acknowledge it’s more than just teens trying to be wicked on purpose. In fact, that’s probably only a small percentage of the teens who participate in it. Most of them are doing it out of brokenness.

But there is no place in the Bible or in life when brokenness makes something okay.

It’s like driving around with bad brakes, if you get in an accident, it was at least partly your fault for not getting your brakes fixed. You didn’t mean to get into an accident, but you did without seeing it coming.

Or, as happened to me recently, you don’t even know the brakes are bad because you lack experience with them, and find out only after you start driving. Then it would be on the person who didn’t warn you.

But in no way does that change that bad brakes are a hazard to you and the people around you. It would be stupid to say that the brakes were okay because it’s forgivable that you didn’t know about them.

And that’s the difference. Sexual immorality is a sin. Whether it’s done intentionally or by lack of being prepared.

Telling someone that it is okay to sin is never right because it’s the same as telling them the car their driving is safe when it’s not. You could get them killed. Figuratively or literally.

But I don’t want anyone to read this and then think it’s okay to be a jerk to someone who is stuck in sin. I am all for being compassionate…but not delusional. There’s a difference.

I have a feeling this message may never be popular, but it is still important. My biggest regret is that I could not help this girl I knew. I couldn’t because I had neither her full trust, nor any back up from anyone who cared enough to tell her the truth. Except those whom she’d already refused to listen to.

I hope in the future I will have better answers. But I recognize that there is no forcing people to choose differently.

But I just want to point out, no one is forcing them to keep choosing the same thing either.

Freedom is available. All you have to do is want it bad enough.

One last thing, I don’t claim to have it all figured out or that this post was an extensive look at this issue. It’s a small peek into it, that’s all. There’s a lot more books and talks on it that would be better for anyone concerned with the subject to check out.

I’d recommend “Purity,” by Kris Valloton. (It’s less preachy then it sounds.)

“Kissed the girls and made then cry,” by Lisa Bevere.

And the “Message to teens,” sermon by James Robinson.

Until next time–Natasha.

Mary Poppins

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If I may wax nostalgic without ripping off some popular you-tubers, I’d like to look back on this classic.

I just watched it today, and it seems, like all classics, to have more in it than I realized as a child.

Since I grew up right as Disney was transitioning more and more to 3D and coming to the end of it’s Renaissance phase (that’s all the 2D princesses and princes after Sleeping Beauty,) I never found the really old films quite as interesting to re-watch, but I felt their charm and I think it’s shame a lot of kids now haven’t even watched these classics.

Mary Poppins is at least a perennial favorite movie of mine. I always wanted to ride those merry-go-round horses (it used to really frustrate me that I knew they weren’t real) hop into pictures, laugh on the ceiling and dance on rooftops.

I also have seen Saving Mr. Banks, so that lent the movie even more meaning. I remember asking my mom once during Mary Poppins, while Bert was talking/singing to Mr. Banks, why he was doing so. She told me he was trying to help him learn the lesson Mary Poppins was trying to teach him. I wasn’t entirely clear on what that lesson was. I’d often ask my mom questions about stuff I had already figured out just to hear what she would say, and often she’d say something I hadn’t thought of though basically agreeing with me.

So, that said. What do I think about the movie now that I’m older?

I think that in the end there are two basic messages of the film, and they are expressed in different ways through the whimsical things that happen.

The secondary message is that life needs a little wonder in it and a little fun in everything, or it isn’t worthwhile. I know that this movie influenced my attitude about chores and other tasks. I play music and sing when I clean just because it’s more fun  hat way and I’m more likely to finish the task. Oh the tedious hours of cleaning before I clued in to this trick. Ugh.

Now my mom might just listen to a radio talk show, or nothing at all, not everyone needs to use this method; but the point is, especially if you’re young, you don’t like grueling work.

And who doesn’t want a merry-go-round horse that can go off the carousal? I wish.

The funny thing is, though I didn’t like Mr. Banks, I knew he was right that those things weren’t real. Even Mary Poppins never admits that they were and seems affronted at even doing them half the time. I was that kid who grows up knowing Santa Claus isn’t real, and frankly the Easter Bunny was never appealing to me. And fairies aren’t real, and so on.

Yet I never ceased to enjoy stories aobut those things, or to wish in a way that they were real. And now I believe in them in a different sort of way.

I don’t believe that Santa Claus is real, but I believe in the possibility of things like Santa Claus. I don’t believe Mary Poppins is real, but I do believe that there are people just as wondrous as her who don’ get have the recognition. Remember that real life is stranger than fiction and their are weirder things than tea parties on the ceiling.

Heck, in the very same movie Mr. Banks references the Boston Tea Party, and that story is almost as odd as an actual tea part defying gravity.  I mean, colonists dressed as Native Americans? Seriously? Why would the Natives have thrown tea overboard? It was almost comical…funny. Like the tea party on the ceiling…hmm.

Anyway, the Primary message of Mary Poppins hits even closer to home. It’s about how adults can get to where they miss the little things that are so important.

You see, fixing the children’s kite, the tuppence, the feeding the birds, they are all of a piece. They are all little things. Things that seem to a busy man like a waste of time. He is focused on railroads, bridges, tea plantation, etc. All noble things perhaps (it’s debatable) but are they necessarily more important?

It’s an age old dilemma that adults have been trying to answer forever. Is it more important to be contributing the world in general and helping humanity or is it more important to be at home with your family making real memories. And people have answered it different ways. There’s a big movement now, especially among feminists and Hollywood, that we can have both.

But the fact is, that is almost impossible. Some few people can make it work, but most can’t prioritize family and work equally.

Which is more important? Mr. Banks comes to think that it is his family. Time goes by so fast, and kids will grow up, perhaps not hating their parents who neglected them, but never having that kind of bond with them that kids who felt valued did.

I can personally attestify to this. Once childhood is gone, it’s gone. Adult children can become close to their parents even after years of estrangement, but it’s a different kind o close. It can be just as good but never just as innocent as the first.

That’s why we need to treasure childhood instead of trying to rid ourselves of it, as Mr. Banks does at first.

The spoon full of sugar metaphor is pretty clear, a little sweetness is not hard to give, and it pays dividends in relationships.

The fixing of the kite ties all three metaphors together. The tuppence for paper and string, the kite, and the sweetness even after the medicine of being fired and disgraced.

Little things are important.

As an author and a reader I notice how often in stories little events end up being what the whole ending is hinged on. Often our Salvation turns on the smallest thing.

Big things are important of course, but the secret may actually be that big things are composed of many small things suddenly coming together. That’s my experience.

Those are my thoughts, until next time–Natasha.

Graduation!

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I have an announcement: I graduated highschool! Diploma and all.

It’s official now, my diploma arrived today.

Homeschoolers have to take the test a little differential than the public schoolers do. by the way, I’m pretty sure only homeschoolers even use the term public-schoolers.

You know what’s funny is how often people forget I’m home schooled after I tell them and when I remind them they’re like “Oh, right.”

I on the other hand have a hard time keeping public or private schools straight. Actually I tend not to think of people in connection with school at all. Which to an adult I’m sure is normal. And I guess now I don’t have to worry aobut it anymore.

Anyway, so I had to go to the Adult education center near where I live and take a special equivalency test. Which generally only people who’s second language is English, or who had to drop out of highschool for some reason take. The general assumption being you want to be able to say you’re a highschool graduate on your job applications or you just want to have more self respect.

Well, I guess I fit into both those categories. I was getting really tired of saying I was still in high school and not even knowing what grade I was in. And I’m pretty sure it affected my job hunting.

But the test was a breeze and I passed with more than enough. I actually scored as high as possible in three subjects, not to brag or anything.

And one of those three was math. Which is by far my least favorite subject and one I profess no real skill in.

Well it turns out I understand some things better than I thought and other things not as well as I hoped.

Other than that though, the test really tells you nothing. I can say that now that I’ve been through the process. The information covered can’t really prepare you for life, all it can do is tell you you retained basic knowledge of the world around you and how it functions. And to be honest, I guessed at a lot of answers.

Really that Id id so well I attribute to the Grace of God. Though many people would tell you I’m super smart. (I know because they’ve told me to my face.)

Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. I don’t know what smart really is nowadays. And smart and wise are two different things. But I am glad to not have to do geometry anymore.

I’m not going to tell you that now that I’ve completed required schooling I’ve had this big revelation about how sort life is, how much more value I need to put on my time, and how unprepared I am for the future.

That wouldn’t be true. Because it didn’t take graduation for me to start thinking aobut hose things.

I also am not a fan of being worked up over how short our time is. Because time is going to pass whether you worry about it or not. And I’ve tried to run ahead and get more impressive stuff done and it has never worked for me.

My life right now isn’t glamorous. It’s not that fulfilling from an outside perspective. And nit’s not the life I would want to lead for years. But my life isn’t empty either.

You want to know what I started doing as soon as I graduated? I went back to studying languages every day. Something I couldn’t find time for before with my other obligations but now I’m free to do. I didn’t start just because I graduated, but because I want to. I enjoy it.

I have plans to start some heavier reading again. I’m already reading more.

Once I have a job my schedule will change of course, but at least I won’t have to worry about keeping up with school (until college.)

Never tell me reading isn’t a good preparation for graduating. That test was mostly reading.

So if you’re home-schooled and haven’t graduated, or if you’re thinking about homeschooling, don’t stress it is my advice. Just pace yourself.

The way I see it I’m a few years ahead of a lot of millennials because I’m already wondering at eighteen what they might be wondering at nineteen or twenty, so maybe I’ll figure it out sooner.

Anyway, this had probably been unnecessarily long since it’s just my thoughts on my personal life, but I hope you enjoyed. Until next time–Natasha.