My Hollywood Ramble

My wife and I watched a little of the Golden Globes last night and I didn't' know what to think. Many of the awards went to tv shows and movies that either had homosexuality tied to it or some other debauchery that I find myself not getting too excited about. My sister-in-law saw Brokeback Mountain and she stated that it was a boring movie. So, with the fact that it won a number of Golden Globes, it either means that boring to some is exhilirating for others or you have the other conclusion.
It's a political agenda.
It almost seems that if we take what some consider the "un-speakable" and put it on the silver screen it warrants a label of high-achievement. Some probably have no problem just writing Hollywood off and not ever investing it what it has to offer. I'm slowly getting to that point. However, being a person who enjoys the arts, it's hard to completely dissect myself from the Film world. I enjoy the creative process and I enjoy creative people. But sometimes I wonder if we have been seduced by the dark side of the force. Peter Jackson just spent over $200,000,000 to make a movie about a giant ape. I saw King Kong and I somewhat enjoyed it's special effects and all, but as I was driving home I said to my friend, "What was point of that movie?" And $200 million is a few million short of what Bill Gates donated this year for hunger relief. The seduction for me goes back to when I was a kid. I remember going to see movies like Star Wars and Superman on the big screen. The smell of popcorn, walking down dark hallways with flashing lights on the floor, previews of other great movies to come, the rousing music and that giant screen that came to life. Every kid loves a good movie. It's escapism at it's finest. However, it's also a platform for ideas and world views. When studying theater in college, we were taught that the greatest affector of emotions is music with drama being a close second. You put them together and "Walla!" you have a very powerful agent that can be used for good or for ill. (Hollywood knows what they are doing.) I guess that's where the rub is. This whole definition of what is good and what is evil. Most of Hollywood would see Christians and those of a religious bent as evil and intolerant. I'd have to say, there is some truth in that. Self-righteousness is as evil as any sin and it is easy for those who claim to have truth on their side to have a resemblance to the "Church Lady" and point fingers and call shame down from heaven. However, we have gotten to a point in our culture that truth is no longer exclusive. Logically, truth has to be exclusive in order to exist but our culture has decided to go for love and acceptance at the cost of truth. In our society, we tend to respect people who search for truth but have a disdain for those who claim to have found it. In my opinion, love cannot exist at the cost of truth. They are 2 halves of the same whole.
So what do we do about movies and anything else that our media puts out? Well, we can't expect righteousness to come from an un-righteouss world. So those of us that would be shocked by what Hollywood is putting out needs to pull their head out of the sand and face reality. We, as Christians, need to be salt and light. Light shines where it doesn't want to be shone. But it shines with truth and love. Rememer, Jesus hung out with sinners, but He did not sin. He was not a chameleon that changed His colors in reference to who He was with. But He loved them. He came to seek and save those who were lost. He came for what the religious would consider the disgusting filth of the world. He did not come for those who considered themselves "righteous." In their minds, they didn't need Him.
We definitely need to be careful of what we digest from this world. However, let's not forsake it. Besides, God didn't.

5

1. We have had a fairly normal 2 weeks since our hospital stay. It's amazing all you begin to find out about epillipsy once someone in your family is diagnosed with it. One is that there are a plethera of medications out there that a person can take. We had to take Anna in yesterday to the clinic to get hers changed because she was having an allergic reaction to the first one. What a day. We hauled the whole family through the clinic to 3 different departments. What we thought would be a quick trek ended up being 4 plus hours. For the most part the kids did ok. Except when the 2 boys wanted to scale the Beanie Baby display in the pediatric neurology ward. Those little stuffed buddies behind the locked plexiglass was just too much of a temptation. Anna did pretty well, except for the end when they had to draw blood again. She's becoming a vet by now. They took a lot this time. The poor girl slept all the way home.

2. I've been listening to downloads of Ravi Zacharias who is one of the leading apologists living today. This man is brilliant. He was born in India, raised a Hindu, became a Christian as a college student and is now invited to many top universities all over the world to speak and defend Christianity. There are Q and A's sessions from Harvard Veritas, as aan example, that you can listen to on-line. www.rzim.com is the site. Click on the "Radio" link and then archives. Lot's of gems there. I highly recommend.

3. My wife and I are getting a kick out of watching the "ice fishing village" that has erupted on the lake in front of our house. These grown men sitting on a bucket, staring at a hole in the ice is just cracking us up. The natives will defend it by saying, "there's a lot of perch in there." I believe it and I bet it's great eating as well. I just can't see myself spending my day staring at ice. Now, on the other hand, I see a lot of trucks out there along with 4-wheelers and snowmobiles. Now, I can see myself maybe putting my line in the water and then buzzing around the lake on a snowmobile. I had the privilege of driving one the other night at my friend's house. He lives on 40 acres out in the country and, I tell you, to be on a snowmobile in the middle of a field on a beautiful night ..there's something magical about it. Other than that, I get my amusement by watching the display out my front window.

4. I recieved an ipod for Christmas. Whoo Hooo! I love this little treasure. My wife and I also received one of those memory foam mattresses for the top of the bed. This has become a blessing and a curse. The blessing is obviouss, the curse is you don't want to get out of bed. It just holds you in there. You CANNOT get out!

5. For my last recent thought, I've started preparing for a number of speaking engagements that I have coming up. One of the subjects that I have thought about is No Other God. I realize once again how easy it is to let my heart be deceived into trying to be fulfilled by other things besides the One True God. Even though I know better. The analogy I have been thinking about is wrapped presents. Wrapping paper has got to be one of the best, most powerful products out there on the market today. It's fairly cheap, however, you can take anything, let's say a rock, and wrap it in beautiful paper and put a bow on it and you'll have people, mainly kids, wanting it. They open it, find out it's a rock, then if you wrapped it again, you could basically re-play it all again. It's the paper! It's a deception. But I fall for it.