Valkyrie – Fall 2008

Man, I cannot believe how much the critics are panning this film and it hasn’t even come close to coming out!
For the un-savvy, the movie is about Operation Valkyrie; The plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and have a shadow government rule in his stead. Of course it failed since Adolf personally killed Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, possibly the head of the whole conspiracy.

Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg

It’s a story that should be done, and one that is really interesting. Will the execution be there? who knows. Tom Cruise is the one producing it under his newly resurrected United Artists production company. The last movie he came out with “Lions for Lambs” flopped big time, but many argue that it could have been a case of right movie, wrong time.

As with “Lions for Lambs,” “Valkyrie” has an impressive cast both in front of and behind the camera. Check out these names: (With movie credits that I’ve personally seen)
Bryan Singer – Director (X-men, X2, The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil)
Christopher McQuarrie – Co-Writer (The Usual Suspects, The Way of the Gun)

Actors:
Tom Cruise– Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (MI: 1-3, Minority Report, Vanilla Sky)
Kenneth Branagh– Henning von Tresckow (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Shackleton)
Tom Wilkinson – Friedrick Fromm (Batman Begins, The Exorcism of Emily Rose)
Bill Nighy– Friedrich Olbricht (Underworld, Pirates of the Caribbean 2-3, Shaun of the Dead)

His foolery and Scientology freakiness aside, in my humble opinion, Tom Cruise can act. Watch “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Vanilla Sky,” or “Minority Report” without prejudice and tell me he can’t? All 3 really great movies that I can’t imagine someone else playing his role.

Will the movie flop? Who knows. I know alot of movie goers are sick of hearing about him and so get turned off when the prospect of one of his movies comes around.  I just watched the trailer for Valkyrie. I’m not going to be the first in line to watch it opening weekend, but I do want to see it in the theatre when it comes out. (I’ll be saving my “Opening night” money on “The Dark Knight” by the way, but that’s another story!)

FUCK!

Will I sleep tonight? Can I sleep tonight? Morning is coming… If I set my alarm for 9am and fall asleep within the next 15 mins I can get at least 5 hours of sleep before I have to go to work tomorrow.  Ok lay down on pillow hold other pillow off to my side. Morning is coming… God why cant I fall asleep?  God please can you let me get alittle rest tonight? Just for a few hours I cant keep doing this. Morning is coming… Well if I set my alarm to 9:30 and fall asleep in the next 30 mins or so I can get at least 3 hours of sleep. I wont have time for a shower but I really need at least that many hours or I swear I will straight out murder the next truck stop ugly that walks into the store tomorrow. Morning is coming… Please God just let me get Just a few hours of sleep. Morning is coming… DAMNIT they need to make a pillow that I don’t have to flip over and over to keep to the side of my face from getting hot. Its like I spent 7 dollars on a nightly reminder that I can never keep the things that make me happiest. Morning is coming… It is hot I am hot it is fuckin 7am and why the fuck can I not fall asleep? Hey look, the sun… I have turned my pillow over 37 and one half times I have gotten up to drink a glass of water 7 times and due to that I have gotten up another 4 times to take a piss. I look in the mirror every time I go to the bathroom and it is like I can actually see myself falling apart. 3 hours until I have to be at work… I think I might have fallen asleep for a moment at around 5 am or so I cant be sure but one second I was lying there on the fresh cold side of the pillow and the next  moment my pillow was hot and my arm was asleep. 7:53am… UGH… 8:37am SHIT, I better get up If I somehow did manage to fall asleep right now I am absolutely positive that my alarm could not wake me. 1 hour until work… Where the hell is my other sock, this is freakin bullshit every last one of my socks is dirty minus one? Where the fuck is your other half sock? Don’t make me yell at you and scare the dog! I have to say the dog does look abit concerned about my actions at this very moment… Alright I gave up I am now wearing one clean sock one dirty sock jeans no t-shirt just a hooded sweater. I have decided that today will be a no t-shirt day. A decision I soon regret its kinda warm today. Mother Nature must be on the rag im thinking… Did I brush my teeth, no fuck that, I smile and greet new customers with horrid breath and a very unkempt appearance and just zone the fuck out. Excuse me sir can I try this on. I point at the dressing room and don’t even look up. I might not murder anyone today but the customers I assure you are on edge. They come into the store and they can tell it isn’t a good day to purchase their size 40DDD bras. That’s a lot of fabric and quite frankly I aint folding no boulder holders today… Please God can I just sleep.

Am I Alone?

I watched an awesome series last night called “One Punk Under God.” And here is this really moving portrayal of how to really live your life for God and with a ton of grace towards everyone. Something that I often have a really hard time doing I might add. And all of that was amazing, but what I really was looking at watching this thing was how he was surrounded by people in everything that he was doing. When he had a tough decision to make he had friends to turn to, and a family that he communicated with and loved no matter how strained things were.

I have friends, and that is a huge blessing. And though my wife and I are separated, in a lot of ways I feel like I can go to her, and talk to her about a lot of things. But somehow I still feel totally alone. I have spent the last few months trying to figure out what it means to just rely on God, and what it looks like to just have the unbridled desire to serve Him in everything that I do. And that is hard, it involves getting rid of a lot of the clutter in my life (especially a lot of the stuff that I was doing just to fill time to make me “not bored”), it also involves being supportive of a separation from my wife. There are things that we both need to work on, but now is the time for her to be on her own to deal with her issues, and that leaves me feeling hollow.

I have been in a string of serious relationships all the way back to my sophomore year in high school. That means that there hasn’t been a time in my life where I have been alone for more than a couple of weeks for about 12 years. So getting into bed alone, knowing that I will be alone in that bed for a while, and that the person that I want to be in that bed with isn’t really interested in ever being in a bed with me again is a really daunting prospect. And it leaves me with that gut level emptiness. An emptiness that in the past I would have rushed out to find a new relationship for.

But today I’m realizing that the real filling thing would be God. Something that I used to do. There was a point in my life where I was looking to God for everything, and at some point I stopped doing that so that I could revel in my sexuality. There are these verses in Jeremiah that really resound with me right now (ironicaly enough they are the verses that my pastor is basing a sermon series on right now). The ones linked out above are how I feel about my life as a teen, as this kid that wanted nothing more that to see God glorified, but then I got caught up in all this other shit, and I get to here.

I was so quick to say, I don’t need community with God, “I don’t need community with God’s people. I don’t have a problem, I have my problem under control.” Next thing I know I’m saying, “I can’t quit.” And my life is falling apart, and the one person that I feel like was keeping me in check is telling me that she doesn’t want to be there for me anymore. And I’m realizing that this is God telling me, “Rely on me, not on yourself, and not on others.”

So I’m sitting by myself thinking, “What does being alone look like? Can I take that if I have to live the rest of my life this way? Am I really alone?”

So the bible tells me that I’m not.  But I feel like I am.  I feel just totally alone.  Because everytime one of my relationships has dissolved, I have run right into another one, with another person.  Maybe the answer is this time I should run to God.  Maybe that is the relationship I should be jumping into.

I just have to keep working on all of this.

With Eyes Unclouded By Hate

i ganked this story from Brennan Manning who ganked it from Thornton Wilder and i wanted to share it with you :

Thornton Wilder’s one act play “The Angel That Troubled the Waters,” based on John 5:1-4, dramatizes the power of the pool of Bethesda to heal whenever an angel stirred its waters. A physician comes periodically to the pool hoping to be the first in line and longing to be healed of his melancholy. The angel finally appears but blocks the physician just as he is ready to step into the water. The angel tells the physician to draw back, for this moment is not for him. The physician pleads for help in a broken voice, but the angel insists that healing is not intended for him.

The dialogue continues – and then comes the prophetic word from the angel: “Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back.”

Later, the man who did get to enter the pool first and was healed rejoices in his good fortune and turning to the physician says: “Please come with me. It is only an hour to my home. My son is lost in dark thoughts. I do not understand him and only you have ever lifted his mood. Only an hour… There is also my daughter: since her child died, she sits in the shadow. She will not listen to us but she will listen to you.”
 

I believe i have something like what the good doctor has and i think melancholy is an excellent way to define it. i find my thoughts lingering on some of the more troubling things about my character, the places where an angel would not dare to tread. Numerous times i feel like i have taken these ailments to God and asked for healing and i feel like i am running into walls. For a long time, and even now at times, i would blame God for not healing me, for not giving me a heart / mind set / spirit that i could “live” out of. that somehow what i have isn’t good enough, who i am isn’t true enough, or pure enough, or compassionette enough. interestingly though, the right attitude would be to understand i have what i have on purpose. my weaknesses are actually the keys to my service. Instead of allowing our perception of God to be clouded by anger because of God’s “inaction” in healing our wounds, we should be moved to realize our weakness is the place where God can come through to the world. If God “healed” my melancholy the door would be shut for grace to flow through to broken people.

I think it is important to note that in the story the Angel is specific in telling the doctor that nowis not the time for his healing. This means there will come a point when the doctor is relieved from his shadowed heart, when the time is right. I am reminded of Tolkien’s words from the Fellowship of the Ring, “A wizard is never late, he arrives precisely when he means to.” If this is not an allegory for how God interacts with the world then i don’t know what is. We may not understand God’s timing but we can embrace God’s goodness in spite of our lamentations.

In an anime movie,  Princess Mononoke, one of the main characters, Prince Ashitaka, is afflicted with a curse that is killing him. The wise woman of his village encourages him to seek peace in a foreign land with the key to his enlightenment being his ability to see with eyes unclouded by hate. As the movie progresses the same curse that is killing him takes the shape of salvation to numerous others. Slowly Ashitaka’s embrace of vision with out hatred allows him to grow into a man of compassion able to help many in spite of his weakness and curse. In fitting with Wilder’s story, at the right time (which for movies is always at the end) Ashitaka is healed of his curse and is endowed with a new appreciation for his place in the world.  

 So i write this as encouragement, as someone who has been weathered by the seasons of life and faired poorly…there is goodness in the midst of weakness and it’s name is God. In love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve, Our greatest weakness is also our greatest strength. We are each others  wounded healers.

Proud Mary

So Ike Turner died. So I dug into my CD collection and found a live version of Proud Mary that I haven’t listened to in a long time. Mother fucking brilliant. So it got me thinking about how people are really judged.

If you don’t know, Ike Turner was an amazing songwriter and producer in the really early days of rock and roll and R&B. But what is he really remembered for, “I only beat you because I love you.” He may or may not have been a “good man,” but should one time period in his life really define him. I guess that is really sad to me, and really disheartening. I have a past full of shit like this (not wife beating, but dig deep enough, and there is some bad shit back there), and I really hope that when I die, I’m remembered for doing some good, instead of the evil that I threw into the world.

What do you think? Should people be judged for the good or the bad? Or can you only find the real heart of a person by looking at the whole?

Just thinking about this a lot today. Also if you like Tina Turner, James Brown, that kind of hyped up rythym and blues review shows, ala Blues Brothers. Then you have to check out Sharon Jones.