altogether now... awwww...

This is so fun, I had to post it.

"Partly Cloudy" -- short film from Pixar

We'll be headed to see Up soon, for sure.

Great film you may have missed: Lars and the Real Girl

Besides the glory that was Star Trek, one of the happiest surprises of my movie-watching year had to be Lars and the Real Girl.  Yeah, I know the movie came out last year, but Netflix fiends have to share the films they enjoy too.

Side observation: there are few films that Focus Features puts out that I don't absolutely love.  Case in point: I can't wait for Away We Go to hit wide release.  (Yes, the film's marketing department decided to rip off Juno by using almost the exact same visual design elements -- we get it!  another pregnancy movie! -- but I nearly forgive them for that since it's written by Dave Eggers, and it stars John Krasinski.)



Ok.  Back to the film.  Basic idea: Lars, played by Ryan Gosling, is a young man who can't connect to the world around him.  He has a job, he goes to church each week, but outside the barest of painful communication with those around him, he's alone and prefers it that way.  His older brother, Gus, and sister-in-law, Karen (played flawlessly by Emily Mortimer) try their best to draw him out, nearly kidnapping him into dinner at their house next door, but he's painfully and obviously uncomfortable and escapes as quickly as possible.  They're thrilled when one day he announces he has a guest staying with him for a while, and asks if he can bring her to dinner.  Oh, and he just wants to mention that she's in a wheelchair, so he hopes they won't make her feel weird about it.

He brings Bianca to dinner, and things are a little awkward.



But what follows is this quirky film about pain and delusion and love and accepting people with all their messy hangups, even when they embarrass themselves... and you.

A few things I loved about it:

1.  Great casting.  Not everyone could pull off the vulnerability necessary to make Lars believable, but Gosling nailed it.  As I mentioned already, Emily Mortimer was fantastic as the sister-in-law, fierce and tenacious in her attempts to draw Lars out of himself.  And Paul Schneider (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) as Gus is angry and guilty and the cynic we need him to be to allow us access into the film.

2.  Even though the story-line doesn't necessarily throw out huge plot twists (other than, you know, the sex-doll part), what surprises is the depth of feeling this film somehow produces.  Yeah, I'm a softy, so perhaps it's nothing to say that this story moved me.  But my Mr. also really enjoyed it, and we talked about it for a few days after.  It just had this air of grace about it that kept humming after the film ended.

3.  I remembered that we all have our delusions, and some of them we can't be talked out of.  Confronting a friend or loved one about hard-to-understand decisions or habits is admittedly difficult.  But it's much MUCH harder to simply stand by and be supportive/welcoming/accepting, knowing that we all let go when we're ready to and not a moment before (and definitely not because someone told us we need to).  Sometimes this is what love demands.

Anyway.  If you're so inclined, give it a watch.  Well worth it.

Stupid Youth Group Myth #378

The following statement, and all of its variations, make me want to scream:

"You have to be totally content as a single person before God will bring that right person into your life."




Never mind where I heard it not long ago (okay, it was Facebook)... but whenever I hear (or read) this kind of advice dispensed as gospel, I can't stop myself from throwing something out there in response.  In my church-land experience, there was no one to yell: "That's  a bunch of balogna!" so I'm overly apt to shoot it down now that I can.  (Enjoy the Jim Gaffigan link).

I'm no giant of faith or anything, and I don't know much, but I do know this: anytime we get caught up in believing religious equations -- if B, then C, where B=your actions, and C=God's predictable response -- we get ourselves into a lot of trouble.  Take the following gems:

--if you live a holy life, God will reward you with material wealth

--if you pray hard enough and live right, God will heal you/give you that job/keep your kids safe/make your marriage work

God-as-pop-machine is crap theology, but this is what we learned back in the day.  What's more, a lot of us still believe this idea because it played from the pulpit, over and over, until it started to seem like truth.  And it's heartbreaking -- because the flip side of that equation says, "If C didn't happen, well then -- you know who to blame."

When I was sixteen years old, a traveling preacher visited the church I grew up in.  He reputedly possessed "the gift of healing," so at the end of the service, I walked up to the front and asked him to pray for my back, which hurt for months following a rough spill down the stairs.  He prayed.  I came back the next night, and the man asked me if I felt better.  I truthfully said I was still in pain.  He and others stood in a circle, placing their hands on my head and back and beseeching God to heal me.  I tried to believe as hard as I could, tried to imagine that hot ache receding.  When I returned the third night, the healer repeated his question.  I answered honestly.  He didn't like my answer much, because he looked down at me and said, "Well, I've done my part, and God has done His part -- are you sure you've done your part?"  I blinked up at him, with no idea what to say.  I must not have believed hard enough.

Years passed before I bothered God about that kind of thing again.

...These days I hear similar things from dear, talented, creative, funny friends who want to be married, but aren't: "I just have to be completely content where I'm at before God will move me forward.  I must not be there yet."

Let me say first that there are really good, very practical reasons (not just in this particular area, but in all of life) to work hard at contentment and gratitude for the present season, the main reason being that you don't kill all your time wishing your circumstances were different, lounging around waiting for what comes next.  There are things I was able to do as a single person that I can't or don't do now... if I would have spent all my time whining about being single rather than just living my life (and only occasionally whining), I would have missed out on some really fun things (and I'd probably still be on my couch at the Little Blue House rather than married to Justin).

Yes, there are reasons.  But none of them have to do with arm-wrestling the Almighty into giving you what you want by pretending that you don't really want it, or by somehow attaining this level of perfection that would make you intolerably irritating to a very-human potential mate.

I can guess at what the reasons might be, but guess only.  I guess at what my own reasons probably were, and that's only hindsight -- imperfect at best.

-- It took time for me to know myself well enough that when Justin came along, my heart recognized the difference between what I found in him and what I'd vainly searched for in others.  There were a lot of times I thought that maybe what I was looking for simply didn't exist.  I'm happy to have been wrong.

-- Though not completely secure or self-confident at the time (still not), I was at least able to let Justin in on a more real me, messy parts and all.  I needed time to get to the place where I wasn't trying so hard to earn love or project a perfect image of myself.  This was another major difference: the times I felt most freakish, Justin just pulled me closer.  Still happens.

-- Probably more unique to me, my faith needed time to grow into itself, to grow big enough to allow questions and doubt and an entirely different perspective.  If I had my way early on, I'd probably be married to some spiky/messy-haired youth pastor, were he foolish enough to marry me, and I'd be miserable -- facing big, deep, scary questions on my own, or silently, or worse -- not asking them at all.  When Justin came along, it was almost spooky to hear my questions coming out of his mouth.  The conversation continues, and I'm never alone in it.

I needed time, time, and more time.  A lot of us do, though we don't see it until later.  And suggesting that possibility to someone while they're stuck in the not-yet is horribly cliche, I know.  (It's like that "Well, I just knew ," statement I despised so much until I found in my own case that it was quite true).  But at least it's not putting the idea out there that I am happily married because I arrived at some uber-spiritual place of wanting for nothing, and that if a single person can just be AMAZING like me, well, maybe they too can enter the perfect, sublime world of the married too (snicker).

I've just never known God to be good to me based on my got-it-all-togetherness.  You?

an update. finally!

A long-awaited update on my dad, sorta.  After re-running all the tests in Seattle, the doctors there determined that a valve replacement wouldn't likely be the solution to dad's low heart function, as much of the heart has been damaged by radiation treatments, past congestive HF, and resulting pericardectomy.  They're looking into medications that can help.  On the one hand, we're genuinely relieved that what was described to us as a risky surgery won't have to be done at this point in time.  On the other hand, while much of Dad's life activities (biking, especially, which he loves) won't need to be adjusted, the docs are unsure if he'll be able to return to work, as any kind of lifting may be off-limits for him going forward.

More tests to come, and while this could be quite an adjustment for my folks, we're now thankful for all the delays at our local hospital.  If there would not have been so many delays and bumps, it's possible he could have already undergone a surgery 1) that had a lot of uncertainty for the docs going in, and 2) would not have helped him all that much.

We've really sensed your prayers and a peace in the midst of one-thing-after-another, so for my family and myself, thank you.