Noah the movie...and then some deep thoughts on sacrifice.

For those of you who haven't seen this movie, just, i don't know, just don't keep reading.  Ima try and not spoil this, but....SPOILER ALERT.  This movie is the greatest piece of storytelling since....George Lucas made a space opera about twins falling in love with each other.

To protect the rights of those involved all names will be changed.

Javier--a few decades before France had a revolution and he sang his way off a bridge--is married to the ageless beauty that is J-Conn.  Javier and J-Conn have three sons.  Shem, who is played by nobody I was familiar with (But E said he was Romeo with Julian Fellows...so back to the story, Romeo is their first son.  Percy jackson is son # 2, and then a third son (I can't remember his name in the bible/movie/real life).  While running away from the metropolis that Cain's decedents built Javier and J-Conn and their sons stumble upon a group of dead people.  They find Hermione Granger amongst the corpses, and rescue her just as the marauders come back (the director sort of glosses over why they are coming back to the bodies they just raided).

The first family runs away and soon enters a forbidden land.  We know it is forbidden because there are skulls marking the boarder.

Once inside the safety of the bad zone they encounter some calcified...petrified...no, calcified is the right word...ents.  The nets throw Javier and his family in a hole from which no one can escape.  However, later that night, Treebeard somehow gets them out (again, we just sort of gloss over that part) and takes them to see their grandpa.

Hannibal Lector lives on the top of a mountain, and when Javier takes his son Romeo to meet his grandpa they have a really fascinating conversation about berries...idk.

Grandpa Lector then uses the priesthood and renders Romeo unconscious by rubbing his nose (I did not see that in the white handbook), and then he ruffies javier so that he can have another vision.  Lots of ruffies getting passed around in this movie.

Treebeard and the other Ents help Javier build a giant fortress.

Micki Rourke uses a magic snake skin to become president.  He then forces all of his people to mine these magic gold rocks that God left lying around after the creation.  These rocks are bullets, bestower os life, fireworks, and hallucinogenic.
Micki Rourke uses these magic golden bullets to attack the Ents and the ark.  Treebeard commits seppuku and blows everyone up.  

Spoiler Alert! there is a big flood.  I mean, like HUGE. One would compare it to a deluge.

Once they get off of the aircraft carrier Javier becomes a wino, and somehow passes out on a beach without his clothes on.  It is here that Hermione Granger puts charms around the island to protect them, like she did when she was wandering the moors with Harry and Ron.


Alright.  All that being said, I actually enjoyed this movie.  It made me have two very important thoughts.
1.  I would hate to be a prophet.  The weight of that responsibility would literally be soul crushing.  I believe it was an unintended benefit of this movie to show the psychological pain Noah (and by default all prophets) went through.  Theirs is a terribly lonely existence.  While they were blessed with spiritually strong wives, this was no guarantee that things would be easy.  The burden of carrying that calling was theirs alone.  Sometimes their wives didn't get it, and sometimes they did.  Remember that Zipporah had to do a lot of stuff that moses couldn't do, and her Father gave Moses a  lot of great ideas.  Their support didn't make his duty any easier.  Another perfect example of this is Abraham.  He and Sarah both went decades without children.  Think of the excruciating pain he experienced during the three day journey to Mt. Moriah.  God didn't speak to him during that time.  He was alone with his thoughts, and the devil probably hounded him every step of the way.

2. Along those same lines, this made me wonder if each prophet has had to participate in an Abrahamic Sacrifice, and I'll explain that in a minute.  In the movie J-Conn tells Javier that she understood how difficult it was for him to watch all this death because he valued life so much (I understand that those words aren't contained in any scriptural record I know, but lets run with it).  To turn his back on what he had worked so diligently for must have been devastating.  And this if what an Abrahamic Sacrifice is.  
I don't know if other religions talk about this as much as mormons do.  I would assume that the Jewish tradition focuses on this, but maybe no in the same regard.  Joseph Smith said, "a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation."  Subsequently, Mormons believe that you will sacrifice everything to be with God again.  For us this can be seen in Abraham, who's "everything" was his son.  It is the one thing that he didn't want to give back to God.    
This movie made me realize, or at least contemplate the idea that each prophet--and by extension each person--would have their own sacrifice.  Moses' sacrifice might have been his riches in Egypt.  The record is incomplete, but is it really so far fetched for us to think that those riches weren't the most important thing to him?  Adam's sacrifice was the luxury and ease of the Garden.  
I think you could make a very interesting study of all the prophets in scripture to see what their most prized possession were, and to see how they sacrificed that.  There will be some examples that are super clear-cut.  Those individuals had to choose between death and obedience.  Life was important to them, but they would give it if God asked.  There are others, like Abraham, and Joseph Smith, who had more nuanced sacrifices.  
Focusing on this concept even further prompts one to eventually consider what their own abrahamic sacrifice will be.  Part of what makes this an interesting experiment is because it is a paradox.  If you can say you would be willing to sacrifice something then you haven't actually found the one thing God is going to ask of you.  If you are able to pinpoint that one thing that you aren't willing to give to God, it makes you wonder why God would ask that of you.  I believe that part of the abrahamic sacrifice is that God is going to ask you to do something, and it is going to know you off of your feet; at once because you didn't see it coming, and because you realize that it is actually the most important thing in the world to you.  

Big News, and Rumination on My MA Classmates

When I first started this blog I was at a safe place in my life.  I had a great job, that I loved.  I was living near my family, and I was pretty sure I knew what things were going to happen.
Leaving all of that behind to move to Omaha was....an adventure ba-dum ching.
No, but in all honesty, I had no idea what was ahead of me.  3 years later, 3 jobs later, 3 roommates later, and a Degree and a half later (dang, almost 3), I am leaving.

Again, I thought I had my life figured out, and I thoroughly intended to stay in Omaha for several more years, but it looks like that isn't meant to be.
I have been offered a job to be a teacher/administrator at American Preparatory Academy's new Las Vegas campus.  I couldn't be more thrilled.

I have had some great experiences while in Omaha, and I've only written down a handful.  I'm going to try and spend a few minutes each week writing down a few things that I don't want to forget when life moves on.

I never thought I would have gone to Creighton.  I had no expectations, and no way to know what I would experience or who I would meet.  Fortunately I had classes with some of the greatest people.  We rarely agreed, and we all had different interests, but we had so much fun.
Sitting in our English 600 class was stressful, probably because they were all in the same boat as I was.
As our degree progressed I came to love our dynamic.  Each person contributed something different, and unique.  I don't say that in a pandering way either.  We were a remarkably different group.  I knew that Amy was an expert on technology.  I knew that if I ever wanted to know a thing about laboring class poets, or women writers that Katie was the person I should ask.  Libby had us covered on mystic poets.  I knew that Amy and I would always get along because she was a peacemaker.  I knew that Rachel would always speak her mind, and present a logical argument for her position (she was also usually right, so I'd hate to go up against her in court).
Each of my classmates were great writers.  They were excellent scholars.  I always felt inferior to them, and was astounded at their insights, and their ability to absorb complex information.  I still don't understand Saussure or Derrida, and they were writing essays about those philosophers in their sleep.
Besides being outstanding examples to me in school, they were amazing friends.  I was really antisocial for a long time--in fact I still really am.  Despite my antisocial behavior they were still friendly, and inclusive to me.  I loved when we went to see our professor act in a shakespeare comedy.
I loved when we would run into each other in the library, or student center.
I will always look back on our time together with fondness, and appreciation.

Ladies, good luck in all your endeavors.  I couldn't be more proud of my time with you.

OMG remember how stressed we were when we thought about presenting a paper at a conference?  Well we all successfully found our party.    

The Love of my life, and how Disney will ruin her.

Alright, confession time.  The woman of my dreams doesn't exist.

I know.  Shocker.

Despite her....fictitious status we have had a torrid love affair.  Let me introduce her.

giggle giggle

Alright.  So I get that this is a cartoon, but that doesn't mean our love isn't real...actually, of course it does, because despite my frequent letters she has never responded...so....torrid might be an outrageous exaggeration.  Lets go with tepid.  

I have loved Sleeping Beauty for as long as I can remember.  It was my favorite Disney movie as a little child, and she is by far the best of the Disney Princesses.  

Which one is the Princess?  hint.  It was the one played by Donny Osmond

I recently learned that Disney was going to "Remake" this exhibit of perfection, but adjust the story to focus on the backstory of evil incarnate.  

I have several issues with this.  I can just tell you right now that there is 1 awesome thing about this movie, and several terrible things.  

1.  This.  This is the saving grace of this movie.  Lana Del Ray has such a great voice, and this version of the song is magical, and sultry, in a way that should be inappropriate for a children's movie.  

2.  We have given Maleficent a background story.  Why do we feel the need to have all of our villains with some kind of justifiable malice?  Why can't more villains be like the Joker, and just want to see the world burn simply because they can.  It drives me crazy that we try and make the bad guys out to be the picked on younger sibling, or the angry environmentalist just trying to protect their marsupial siblings.  

Maleficent is evil.  She is just evil.  There isn't some backstory, or reason. So Disney, just stop it.  

3.  

Miss Fanning looks like a pretty woman.  However, they made her look really plain.  Plain is not Princess Aurora.  

In the words of Jenna Maronney from 30 Rock, "there are entire generations of little blonde girls that are growing up not knowing that they can be beautiful" and this movie is doing nothing to help that.  Disney should have spared no expense on this.  They should have hired an entire fleet of Photoshoppers to make sure that no skin blemish, or errant bone growth marred the flawless image of Aurora.  Her hair should have been sculpted from the finest flowing tresses of nearly extinct Mongolian blonde pony mane.  I understand that real hair doesn't look like that, and that sometimes people exhibit split-ends, and the like.  You know who doesn't have split ends?

Who has two thumbs and the flowing hair of an extinct albino horse?  This girl.

That being said, i'm gonna see it.  I mean....It is still gonna be awesome.