One Patriot Not Proud of This Pop Culture

I went to the Yahoo home page this morning to sign into my email when a top news story caught my eye.  

Box Office Report: 'Ted' Earns Record $54.1 Mil; 'Magic Mike' Sizzles With $39.2 Mil

I clicked on to read about the record breaking numbers and found the article reporting, "It's the first time in history that two R-rated movies opened north of $20 million on the same weekend" (Yahoo! Movies).  In fact, the top 3 movies in the box office right now are 'Ted' at number one, followed by 'Magic Mike' in place two, and THEN Pixar's 'Brave'.  Not to mention 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' is currently holding the sixth spot on the list.

Let's take a look at books while we're at it.  I'm sure we've all been made aware of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy that is still holding position one on the New York Best Seller's List for Fiction.  This is erotic fiction, and it only took a week for 856,000 copies of the trilogy to be sold.  The surge of sales is being compared to that of Harry Potter books.  The first book was only released last year, and already it has swept across the nation, making its name known, and has been translated into over 30 other languages.  Oh, and get this, Universal and Focus Features have already bought the movie rights.

Back to the box office.  I can't even imagine the weekend that this film will be released.  How will it not be put straight into adult movie stores??

You know, the entertainment industry only supplies to the popular demand.  I don't think it is fair to put all the blame on them.  Really, America?  It is our participation and our money that supports this kind of pop culture.  I cannot say I am completely innocent...there are plenty of sitcoms or movies that have some suggestive material in them that I've simply dismissed because I still like the show.  However, seeing things blow up to this level of crude humor and sexual innuendos makes me realize how just how slippery the slope is.  Maybe I'm not one to support 'Ted', 'Magic Mike', or Fifty Shades, but what about the people that do?  I've heard some of my own friends and people I love and respect mention some of these titles and nonchalantly admit to reading or seeing something that reserves some shock factor for me.  They didn't start there.  It has gradually become more and more "okay" and perhaps more addicting to be entertained by raunchy themes and erotic elements.

So what's next?  What is going to be on the screens 5 - 10 years from now?  What will we keep allowing to ooze into our culture that will break new records and might have our great-grandparents rolling in their graves?  Come on America, let's stop and use our brains for a second.  Where is all this leading?  Is it really fulfilling? 

What are we here for? What is the bigger picture? For all that we have done we are condemned, but we have been offered such an amazing gift.  It defies all odds - there is a God who loves and offers not just immediate, but ETERNAL salvation!  Love.  Love that defies all odds.  Love that will completely enrapture your heart if you let it.  Love that redeems, that saves, that is pure and healthy.  In light of that, are we willing to mess around at the peak of the slippery slope? 

^{Romans 1}

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

References:

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/box-office-report-ted-earns-record-54-1-155620510.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/literary-phenomenon-50-shades-of-grey-outsell-harry-potter/269018-40-103.html

I Can't Play Your Game

It makes me sick,
This little trick -
It gets me every time.

You set to win
Then enter in,
Take all those bets of mine.

How I ramble
As I gamble
And you play the game so right.

Now I'm left wanting
And your ghost is haunting...
Did you do it out of spite?

~Heidi Joens

What a precious morning!

Today was my last day with my cooperating teacher in Field Based 2. I have been in first grade ever since the week before Spring Break, and they are some of the most precious children I have ever met. This morning I was asked upon entering the classroom to teach during the time I was there, and while it was a bit of a difficult morning with their desks having been rearranged and the rowdiness brought to a new level, I was able to leave on a very good note.

The first precious comment I received, although a bit silly, happened when little McKayla raised her hand and asked, "Miss Cinderella, can I go to the bathroom?" My immediate reaction was to laugh at randomly being referred to as a fairy tale character, and in response to this she looked at me, placed her hand on her hip, and said, "Well, you do look like Cinderella," as if this was an obvious fact I should have known already. This same girl has once before asked me if I was Rapunzel.

I announced about ten minutes before I would be having to leave that it was my last day with them. There was a chorus of "aww"s and "No!"s around the room - of course it is always touching when they are sad to see you go. I then informed them that I had brought a little something to give them before I left, and immediately the classroom mood changed as a "Yay!" was announced unanimously. I pulled out of my bag bookmarks with various pictures on them ready to be colored and let each child pick out the one he or she wanted. By this time the teacher had come back into the room and it was time for me to go.

Their teacher gathered everyone's attention and told them again that it was my last day and that I was about to leave. Immediately, the three students closest to where I was standing threw their arms around me as the rest of the class started moving in our direction. The teacher instructed for them to get in a line and take turns hugging me, but some of them would not pull away and even had to be pulled off by the teacher so that other students could have their turn - how precious!! I cherish moments like these.

One of the girls came up to me with her bookmark during all the hugs and asked if I could sign it so that she could "remember me". :) Of course I obliged. Soon enough, a couple other students came up to me with their bookmarks and a sharpie asking if they could have my "autograph". Suddenly I was a celebrity! I'm not sure why that term came up, but there very quickly formed another line of students all wanting me to sign their bookmarks that I had just handed out. I signed my name about 22 times, and by this point I was way past my due time to leave.

On my way to the door, their teacher asked if they could allow me to get to the door and ordered for no one to "grab at me", but a couple students gave me another hug anyways, and how could I not hug them back? They were so sweet and, obviously my favorite word to use in describing them: precious. I would not have traded this experience for the world. :)

Blinded

I wanted you
To be my light,
So I put sunglasses on.
I imagined you
So very bright,
But my perception was all wrong.
The shades obscured
My point of view,
And when I finally removed them,
There you stood,
A faded blue,
A rock and not a gem.
My shoulders slumped
And head dropped low
As disappointment reigned;
Cupid must have
Bent his arrow
When he nocked and aimed.

~Heidi Joens

"She steps out of the room and returns with a small portrait of her face in profile. Her hair is pulled back off her forehead and her lips are creased in a Mona Lisa smile. Booth thanks Lucy and gives her a long last look. He then turns and walks out of the Hales' suite, explaining breezily that he is off to get a shave, wondering if he will ever make it to Spain to see Lucy again.

As he walks back down the hallway, the sound of the closing door still echoing in the corridor, he admires the picture and slips it into his breast pocket, next to the pictures of four other women who have enjoyed his charms. The life of a narcissist is often cluttered.

The pictures will remain in Booth's pocket for the rest of his short life."

~Killing Lincoln

This book gives so much insight to the people and the era around the time of Lincoln's death and the end of the Civil War. So much is discovered about the character of John Wilkes Booth - who he is, his personal interests, his beliefs and morals - and he is just one of many people in our nation's history that the authors highlight. I have to say, I was a fan of Lincoln before, and after reading so much about his priorities, his conduct, and how he made his decisions, my respect for him has increased dramatically. The book reads like a thriller and many of the chapters end with a profound statement like the one mentioned above. I love the author's simple explanation of Booth's overall character that can be made after discussing his romantic interests: "The life of a narcissist is often cluttered."

Tongue-Tied

I feel trapped inside my head
With words I dare not speak.
If I voice them,
You might hear,
And then you'd know everything.
Like a puzzle
You would place the pieces
That are so easy to match,
But I'm not ready
To be solved.
I only feel safe
Behind this secret -
I don't care
If that makes me weak.
These words are mine,
Known only to me.

~Heidi Joens

After every interaction between us

It's there -

A knot of anger twisting inside me

Made from a string of hope

Meddled by imprecations

I make on myself

For being so daft to hope for such a thing.

It swells until my breathing quickens

And I nearly choke on the tangled mess.

But my composure I keep as my strength I regain -

Stronger the longer

You are away.

The knot unravels

And I nearly forget

All the trouble this was -

Until we meet again.

You will never change,

And as well you will never know

How I suffer each time we get close.

~Heidi Joens