Honest Thoughts

The truth of the matter is that I don't want to give into secruity. I don't want to give into the system. The common system, but the reliable system, the most. It must be my selfish desires to please this human body I call home, at least for now. It just doesn't add up, the starving of love and grace, to have the urge and bittersweet taste of lust.

Look around son, look at your blessings! But I don't listen, the constant and unpleasant sound of sin keeps my attention. Then the honest voice of guilt comes up behind me, like a stranger whose intentions are lurid.

He is grand at flooding you with an accurate view of what you really reflect.

But through it all I see light, by God I see light. Don't ask me how because it is not my actions but his.

I see light.

Fast Day 5

It's been 5 days since my fast started and it has been very interesting.  I have spent a lot of my days at my friend Jared Belcher's house hanging out with him.  This fast has really shown me how much I do watch tv, movies, or get on the internet.  Something good that has come from this fast is the fact that I am reading a lot more.  I am currently reading a book titled The Case for Faith.  A great book, I am starting to understand how much crap time is spent doing absolutely nothing but wasting your brain away.  Now hear my out before you go "Oh crap he is giving the whole fill your brain with knowledge spill" before you assess that I want you to know I am not one to make you think that because I am not a "Scholar" student in school and nor do I love Knowledge and learning, to a point.  In one stance I have seen how much more time I should be filling my head with knowledge about my God.  And how much more my relationship with him grows as I do.  Reading Scripture and books about my faith is really doing me some good.  And also noticing how much I usually watch tv is disgusting.  I really don't want to go back to that.  I hope I can say more about my fast sometime in the next week.  But right now I'm still trying to understand what is going to be the end result, pray for me and I hope I come back with something more interesting to say.  But before I stop I am going to leave you with a question that the book I am reading right now is centered on,  I am going to blog on this soon.  Why does God let so much suffering in the world?

Little Miss Sunshine

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie, I had heard a lot about it but never had enough interest to actually watch it.  Last night Dibbs and Taylor came over with the movie and I thought I would finally watch it.  Both of them fell asleep and I watched the entire movie by myself laughing and really starting to fall in love with the family.  The film does a really good job of making you feel as if you have gotten to know the characters throughout the movie.  I really think this is because of the boldness of watching their struggles.

Little Miss Sunshine is a movie about a flawed family taking little Olive to a beauty pageant far far away in California.  The whole family gets in the VW van and heads out for a fun heart warming ride to the pageant.  The family consist of a Father who is trying desperately to sell his motivational success plan, a mother who is stressed over her entire family's personal crisis, her brother, a gay out of work buisness man, the daughter whose dreams of being a beauty queen reach the sky, her brother who has taken a vow of silence before reaching his goal of being in the air force, and last but not least the fowl mouthed grandfather.  At the start of the movie you see all of these people in their own struggles of no success, depression and failure.  None of them really get along and they are looking for something of hope.  Which ends up being the pageant.  

I absoultely fell in love with Steve Carell's character and the relationship build between him and the son Paul Dano. Steve Carell through the whole movie made me laugh, and I really loved his Character.  The Grandfathers dialogue could have been different but to see how much he loved Olive was really great.  You start the movie really not liking anyone but as the movie goes on you see everyone for who they really are.  The best one that this relates to is the Father, through the movie he says ridiculous things to Olive, as an example they are eating at a restraunt on the way to the pageant and they get on the discussion of ice cream and how it makes you fat, he goes on to say, ''Don't eat to much ice cream or you will get fat and I don't think pageant winners are fat'', along those lines.  He spits out little comments like that through out.  But what makes you end up loving him for is the lengths he goes to to get his daughter to this pageant.  

I loved this movie not because it was down right hiliarious but because it showed heart in flaws that every American home has.  And how through all of that family is number one and you are always there for your family.  It was very well made and the cinimatography was amazing.  The acting was outstanding and each character brings out comedy that blends amazing with the rest of the cast, not to mention those characters getting in the hiliairious situations they get into. 

In Bruges

I went into this movie thinking it was an action comedy.  It stars Collin Farrel and I usually really like him in movies.  So that was our (mine and Taylor's) choice.  The movie is nothing like it is proclaimed.  When they say dark comedy they meant depressing.  This movie was not up to par.....at all.  It was more like a depressing movie that felt bad you were watching it so it through out a couple of jokes that aren't funny which makes it worse. The movie in my opinon was not funny in any sense, the music was very sad and depressing and their was nothing happy about it, Collin Farrel's character is struggling with suicide and his partner Brenden Gleeson and his friendship is disgusting. Since the whole story line is a depressing one they thought that having Collin Farrel through out a couple of one liners would make it a laugh and putting the characters in ridiculous situations would make it a great comedy, not for me.

The story is that these two hitmen Ray and Ken (Collin Farrel and Brenden Gleeson) have just finished a job and have fled to Bruges for cover until everything settles.  You learn that Ray had a job where he accidental shot a young boy and killed him.  Throughout the movie you see Ray struggle with his life and suicide.  Ken is the more straight head of the two and isn't a basket case.  They get themselves in ridiculous situations like going to hangout with a midget actor and his prostitutes and snort cocaine.  Which was not a laugh for me.  Allllll the humor is so dry and barely even a smile came to me in most of the film.  Not only is the humor horrible it wasn't an action movie.  What was shown is very depressing scenes of two suicides and a boy and priest killed by Ray in a church.  Not only is that bad enough but the blood is so gruesome and it makes it worse because it only happens a couple of times.  The blood was out of place from the movie and I couldn't understand why they wanted it to be so graphic.  It made it that much more disturbing.

Overall it was a horrible movie it was not the type of movie it said it was and no good comedy in the entire film.  It was a sad look at lives that are twisted and rotting.  Not only that but terribly slow, I never get bored with movies and I almost fell asleep watching the first half of it.  But when it does "get going" it just makes you want to turn it off more.  Nothing good about this movie, nothing to look forward to and not a fun experience don't go get In Bruges unless your looking for disappointment. 

Pre-Fast

I have been thinking for the past week about doing a fast from media (TV Internet Movies) and have talked to my friend Jarrod Belcher about doing it with me, and he has agreed.  I was looking really forward to it till I found out God was really going to make me sacrifice something. Me and Jarrod were talking today and realized we will be doing the fast during the opening of The Dark Knight (Batman).  I have been waiting for this movie to come out since January and everyone in their right mind will be seeing it that night.  When I realized this was happening it made it more of a fast.  I really hope God shows me something through the experience though.  I know he will, I was sitting at O'Charelys this last sunday with Mill and just happened to come across a TV Guide.  We started reading the shows on VH1 and it was disgusting the names of the shows lined up one after the other.  

America is going down the crapper and I don't want to be on of the turds going down the drain.  I have realized recently how much God calls us to be different from the world,  and honestly I think more times than not I don't want to meet the call.  I want to do my selfish things.  If you are a Christian take a look at what you listen to and watch,  I hope I will have great writing of my Fast I am going to be getting on to write about the fast but this is the only site I am allowing myself to go to so I will be writing of the experience.  It will start next Monday and if you pray I would like for you to pray for me.  I hope to come back with something great to write.  

Hancock

I have always loved Will Smith in movies.  He has never failed to make me laugh and he does the same for me in this film.  It has a lot of laughs and and the swagger of no care Hancock is hilarious.  The language was more than I was hoping and I was pretty discourage with how much was in the movie.  The plot to this movie does switch tremendously from no care Hancock to almost a love story.  Which was very surprising and kind of off the cuff.  

Nevertheless I would recommend this movie, I had a great time watching it and their is a great amount of humor and drama to this film, I only wish they could of done a better job of mixing it than dividing it.  This movie delivers for me though, I'm a huge Will fan though so this might have something to do with it.  But if your looking for a laugh and just a "cool" flick go see Hancock it will do the duty for you.

Jesus Camp

Last night I told you I watched for the second time the documentary "Jesus Camp".  This is one of my favorite Documentary films because it is truly done and made so well, not only is it that but the content is a lot of fun too.  The synopsis is pretty much about a christian evangelical bible camp that kids from the ages of 6 to 12 are invited to go to "Experience God".  Most of these kids are home schooled and are brought up in a very strict christian home.  As you see the lives of these kids you start to understand their adolesence and see how their lives work outside of the camp before they go.  

Before the camp starts and before the kids actually get there you see the adult workers pretty much having a prayer walk around the worship center.  This is the first time you see a glimpse of how radical these people are, they pray over the sound system and that the kids would have open hearts (sounds friendly enough) but then the Child's Head Pastor starts to speak in tongues and you see a little bit of something you don't really understand, at least I don't.  Soon after that you see the kids packing their bags and heading to the camp.  The ones you see on the video are very excited to go to camp.  The first night they get their they don't wait around to get busy, you see these young kids "Worshiping" and crying or maybe a better word is sobbing over sin, but not only is it sin, but sin revolved around our Government, catch my drift.  

As the week goes on they get more and more personal with Pro Life and the Child's Head Pastor even goes as far to say in one of her sermons that if you have anything to do with Harry Potter you are messing with evil.  One of the most disturbing uncomfortable moments in the film is when you see these kids sobbing one night once again as they have a guest speaker who comes to talk about Abortion, yea already you should be thinking what's going on, trust me it gets better.  After he is done talking about pro life he starts to pull out models of fetuses that show how small the babies are before birth.  They start to have their whole cry worship time and you see these kids holding and touching these models absolutely breaking down.  To me this is disturbing, because these kids have no idea what is going on and they need to answer these question for themselves.

Do I think abortion is wrong, yes.  But I don't agree with pounding what you believe into young children's heads until they think just like you.  I agree with raising children up in christian homes, but I want my children to decide that abortion is wrong on there own, not through me sending them to a "christian camp" and telling them what we need to do with our government and how wrong whatever is, and let me stress their not sitting them down and just talking about these situations they are having a very emotional cry night on different subjects every night where these kids, especially at their age, have nothing eles to do but cry because it is so emotional and they  feel such a guilt.  God doesn't do guilt, he does individual conviction and I don't think that is what these kids were feeling, they were feeling the guilt of what our nation has become, which I will say isn't pretty,  That's not teaching them the scripture, thats brainwashing them into the scripture, I want to see kids come to god because they want it in their own hearts, not because they don't have a choice or guilt.

This is a very sensitive subject and I really hope I am wrong.  I want to see kids come to christ just as much as these people do.  But I honestly think that that kind of stuff is what turns so many people away from christ.  I believe what I believe but I don't believe in brainwashing kids into what I believe(not saying everything these people are preaching I agree with), I want them to make that descision on their own.  I want to live a life of love for one another and fellowship and obedience and commitment to god.  Not one of narrow minded religion where their is no room for argument and if their is no room for that then where does faith come from?