Again and again and again

Image from crossfitmf.com

I just heard that the first Monday of the first week of the year is touted as “the most depressing day of the year.” The first Monday after all that holiday time off, celebrations and festivities and then**Ka-BLAM!**–Most “New Year Resolutions” are already broken, those Christmas pounds are pushing at your pants and it’s back to “the old grind.”

Depressing.

But–Congratulations to us all! We made it through the most depressing day of the year already.

Maybe.

No lies—I have no doubt that this year will hold a cornucopia of events for us all.

Some good. Some bad.

Life is tough. Divorce, dead end jobs, relentlessly cruel bosses, mean store clerks, jerky drivers, taxes, financial woes, health struggles, and so on and so on…
Yet nothing leaves a bigger void than the loss of a loved one. Whether it be a sudden, unsuspected loss, like the quick tearing off of a bandage, or whether it is a lengthy illness, stretching out a loved one’s pain. Both are equally painful and both resulting in a galaxy-sized hole in your life.

My “energizer bunny” father and my joke-telling, sweet grandfather passed away within a month of each other. And several of my friends have experienced similar losses. One after the other; again and again and again; leaving void upon void that aches like the ghost-like pain of an amputee.

Part of you gone forever.

How do you honor that? How do you honor them?

“Maybe not in life, but in imagination. Because that’s what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.”—Walt Disney

This quote is from Saving Mr. Banks. The story details how Walt Disney, struggling to keep a 20 year promise to his daughters, fought to get the rights from Pamela Travers to her book “Mary Poppins” so he could turn it into a musical movie. I am glad I saw this movie many years after my losses. For me, this story overflowed with the relationship of father-to-daughter, daughter-to-father and that complex, yet special bond.
“Pamela” didn’t want to give over the rights to “Mr. Disney” because the characters were family to her. And through the movie, we discover they truly are her family.

And Walt Disney’s musical movie wasn’t what she had in mind to honor them.

It would seem, giving up the rights of her story to him meant letting go of what illusions she created to honor her family.

And my illusions are that, even if this “based on the true story” movie didn’t contain all the facts, it did honor those it was about. For me, those two hours in the theater were spent endearing me to “Pamela” and the love she had for her father; of discovering the man behind Walt Disney (his father, Elias) and the tenacity of Walt in his promise to his daughters, as well as remembering my own father and weeping about loss with those who have had this same struggle of how to honor their memory.

Life stops for no one. I mean, how does one grieve in the three days of bereavement leave some jobs allow? Even the “moment of silence” offered up at memorials passes away and is too quickly replaced with the hustle and bustle of this supersonic paced world we must return to.

We need a place to lay things to rest.

“That is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn’t have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet. If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace. And that is why we need God.”
–Elizabeth Gilbert from “Eat, Pray, Love.”

So, whether it’s for a divorce, a job loss or a freshly opened wound created by a death; and whether it’s in a movie theater, a church, or the tallest tower of an Ashram in India; I pray that you invite God in, and find peace in honoring the losses in your life.
Again and again and again.

Dedicated in Memoriam of Harry Herbert Hyde who left this life on 12-30-13

ZOMBIES AND JESUS

ZOMBIES AND JESUS
Stick with me on this…The “un-dead” and “overcoming the grave”—It’s not that far off…

I LOVE RED BOX! Recent movies for cheap! Yay!

Last week we rented (from RB!) the movie “Warm Bodies.” It’s a zombie movie from the voice of “R,” one of the un-dead who misses the world the way it was before “the infection.”
It is based on the novel by Isaac Marion (and I love when a good movie is developed from a book!) I would’ve seen it in the theater but the week it was there I must’ve been zombified ;)**wink**wink**

Anyhow, the zombies who can’t sleep or speak, simply “live” just to maintain the slow process toward eternal torment and on the constant search for humans to eat in order to subsist. They mosey about zombie-style (pale, grunting, slow and disheartened) in an airport terminal (very clever imagery of their transitory state.)

One of my favorite parts is a scene where R is lamenting about missing the way it was before the infection. He truly misses how people used to connect. –His memory flashes back to a crowded mall bustling with people all very busy and focused on their cell phones, texting, and listening to headphones.

R has an ironic sense of humor.

The only sense of peace or joy they achieve is through eating the humans’ brains, whereby they vicariously re-live that person’s memories. Apparently there is a progression of “zombie dead-ness” and at the end of the “dead continuum,” one becomes a “boney.”

The zombies’ goal is to not lose everything and become even worse off like the boneys– completely devoid of any hope and ravaging anything with a heartbeat.

The remaining uninfected humans are holed up in a safe zone and leave only to search for food and medical supplies.
—
Also this last week in church, (YES–Zombie movie-goers also go to church—-well, least two people do,) the pastor reminded us that “In the beginning…” God was “US.” He was and is (and always will be) the God who is three; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us…”

God is a relational God.
—
Back to the Zombies.

R misses relationships with others so much that he “rescues” and takes back a human named Julie (great movie name!) to his area–an airplane that he calls “home.” As he eats the brains of her boyfriend (unbeknownst to her at the time), he resurrects the memories the boyfriend had of her and falls further for Julie through this experience.

His heart begins to beat.

Several times she tries to escape, yet she realizes she cannot do it without R’s help. Both the boneys and the zombies sense her beating heart.

She needs him.

Skipping ahead.

Other zombies see the change in R and several of them long for the connection they witness in them.
Their hearts further awaken through the prompting of a picture (a movie poster) of two people holding hands; it resurrects the memories of their prior connections and relationships. (Check out a great original image created from the movie visit the “Weekly Movie Poster No 2: Warm Bodies” at http://www.52shadesof zj.wordpress.com.)

Even though they managed to coexist before, as the zombies begin to show signs of life, the evil boneys are threatened. They desire to ruthlessly kill and ravage all who show heart.

Sometimes returning to life threatens those without hope.

This is when it gets really good 8)

A movie worth watching so I won’t give any more away.
—
God sent His son Jesus to rescue and redeem our world from the infections of sin and death. And just as Jesus reached out to the sick, the broken, the outcasts; each of us is called to reach out to rescue one another.

“Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil with doing good.” (Romans 12:21)

For all who have accepted the “free” gift of God’s grace, you have access to a power (and heart!) dwelling in you that is stronger than what the world will throw at you.

Extending a hand to someone you wouldn’t normally reach out to might be just what it takes.

In our disconnected world, you might be the only “Jesus” in someone’s day.

In the movie, the act of simply reaching out for another changed the circumstance.

In The Book, a pure heart seeing beyond the sin and death and willing to overcome evil with doing good can actually change the future; it changed the world.

See the movie: “Warm Bodies”

Read the story: The Holy Bible