Matthew 27:32-60
As they were going out, they found a man from Cyrene named Simon, whom they forced to carry his cross. They came to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”) and offered Jesus wine mixed with gall to drink. But after tasting it, he would not drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided his clothes by throwing dice. Then they sat down and kept guard over him there. Above his head they put the charge against him, which read: “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.” Then two outlaws were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by defamed him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who can destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are God’s Son, come down from the cross!” In the same way even the chief priests – together with the experts in the law and elders – were mocking him: “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! He is the king of Israel! If he comes down now from the cross, we will believe in him! He trusts in God – let God, if he wants to, deliver him now because he said, ‘I am God’s Son’!” The robbers who were crucified with him also spoke abusively to him.
Now from noon until three, darkness came over all the land. At about three o’clock Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. But the rest said, “Leave him alone! Let’s see if Elijah will come to save him.” Then Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit. Just then the temple curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks were split apart. And tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had died were raised. (They came out of the tombs after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.) Now when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were extremely terrified and said, “Truly this one was God’s Son!” Many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and given him support were also there, watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
Now when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut in the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Luke 23: 39-43
One of the criminals who was hanging there railed at him, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Mark 15:42-47
Now when evening had already come, since it was the day of preparation (that is, the day before the Sabbath), Joseph of Arimathea, a highly regarded member of the council, who was himself looking forward to the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised that he was already dead. He called the centurion and asked him if he had been dead for some time. When Pilate was informed by the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. After Joseph bought a linen cloth and took down the body, he wrapped it in the linen and placed it in a tomb cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone across the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was placed.

That is a simple, yet deeply true statement. And in it is the key to so many insecurities and struggles of women and girls today. Take a minute and just ponder that. That's all.

I managed to catch a cold last week, also. I hadn't had a cold in years...I've had two this year. The first was manageable. This one hit me like a truck. I started sneezing on a Friday morning, by Friday night I was pretty much down for the count. Of course, I exacerbated the situation by driving to Lake Charles and back (2 hours each way) to do stats for the basketball teams. So I spent the weekend in bed. Monday dawned nearly voiceless. But I struggled through. By Tuesday, I was considering going to the doctor...which I never do. The other 5-8 teacher looked at me Tuesday afternoon and told the secretary to send around an email asking for a substitute for Wednesday. haha! So I got to go home early that day. At any rate, I struggled through last week with almost no voice, and coughing almost continuously. The kids now think I enjoy torture. I'm finally on the mend, but the 80% of my voice that has returned apparently makes me sound like Miley Cyrus. That has caused heretofore unknown hilarity among the ranks of students. It is pretty funny.

Other than that, life has been ... well, life. I finally read Crime and Punishment, my first ever Russian novel. It's a great read. It's already in the queue for a second read. Then I countered the deep book with Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Everybody needs a little noir every now and then, after all. And as usual, just when it seems that life is simple and manageable, complication comes to overwhelm my heart. But, it's just another reminder of Who I must trust, Who I must approach with my heart, with my complications, hurts, and joys. The result of all that personal complication, though, is less thoughtful blog posts. haha! It is those complications, and how we find our ways through them that molds us into who He wants us to be, though. It seems so hard to see that, but I just choose to know that it is Truth no matter how I feel about it in the moment. Eventually, it trickles down to change my feelings. Perhaps one day I'll be sanctified enough to move through that circle in ever rarer cycles. Perhaps.

So there's my life right now. Feel free to comment. It's interactive. :-D

I'm finding more and more that it is a conscious battle. Silencing the spectres requires me to make a forceful decision about where I'm placing my hope and expectation. It requires me to choose to trust that other person, particularly when I know that the parts of the situation that have the most power to shake that trust are completely out of that other person's control. Trust doesn't come easy for me. Not trust in others nor trust in God and His work in my life. There are reasons for that. Some reasons attached to the ghosts of the past, and some not. It is so difficult and so exhausting to stop listening to those ghosts. To cognitively place my trust, my hope, my expectation in my truest Friend, Companion, Lover. It is a struggle. Perhaps the struggle seems greater because the rational decision to trust does not necessarily reflect itself in "feeling better." I know, and in these situations you probably do as well, that the spectres are still there, still under the surface, just waiting for another excuse to show themselves. Perhaps these struggles to overcome the ghosts of our past are part of "taking up our cross daily," of being a living sacrifice. Perhaps.

1) My brother joined the National Guard yesterday. He might be leaving for basic training on Wednesday. He's never been away from home for more than two weeks before. The house will be...odd without him.

2) The 6th grade girls are on a mission to sneakily deprive me of my coloured white board markers and substitute black ones in their place. So far, every attempt to force me to write with a lack marker has failed.

3) Cold, rainy days make me want to stay in bed. Instead I have to get up at 5.30. Not quite the same.

4) My sister broke up with her boyfriend yesterday. She didn't tell me. I found out from someone else. Also the fact that he came straight to our house after work. And then left before 9.

5) I upgraded my cell phone a couple of weeks ago. I really like it.

6) Inside recess is loud. For some reason the girls are chasing people around. And one of the boys is fending them off with a used Kleenex. Yes, that is life in the 5th/6th grade.

7) Both nights of basketball games this week are away...over an hour away. That's tiring. But I like my 'job' enough to do it. :-)

8) Teaching numerous subjects leads to desk messiness.

9) Apparently the idea of my love life is unbelievably more fascinating than anything else in the life of 6th graders.

10) We're studying the Battle of Little Bighorn this week. It always saddens me. I know that other countries and peoples have just a harsh a history of feeling superior and thus justifying unethical treatment of other groups. But that doesn't make our history any easier to study.

That's all I've got for today.

Where art thou, dog?
Thy canine lover.
Where is your hot breath upon the nape of my neck?
We shall form a bond of brotherhood: man and beast.
You shall lick my face, and I shall lick your snout.

There are three characters who anchor this tale; three characters are this tale.

The tone is set and held by the narrator, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, played by a weighty Tommy Lee Jones. He is unruffled, calculating and no-nonsense. Little startles him in this film. I expect this is because of all he has seen. He knows the nature of evil, but becomes overwhelmed by its persistence and senselessness. Bell's opening monologue leads us gently into the brutal story by mentioning the sheriffs of the past. He notes that some of the "old timers" didn't even carry sidearms, and that one can't help but compare oneself to the "old timers" and wonder how one measures up. Throughout the movie, Bell becomes the center of gravity around which the chaotic violence and suspense circles. He is not merely the compass for the story itself, but also for the morality expressed in the story. He not only sees with great clarity the division between good and evil, but he also understands the overwhelming strength that evil brings to bear as we go along. Hence, while the "old timers" didn't all wear sidearms, Bell most certainly does. He laments the senseless evil that he sees in his county now: particularly the drug running and the deaths that occur due to the drug running. Perhaps the most senseless of all evil stories is the focus of this movie.

The protagonist of the story is Llewelyn Moss, played by Josh Brolin. Moss is a Vietnam vet who is as hard-edged and rough as the country to which he has returned. He is a cowboy: a self-reliant loner who is both independent and loyal to his young wife, he doesn't seek out the action that finds him. Moss is out hunting when he stumbles across the scene that will change his life: a drug deal gone bad. Yet, it isn't the decision to take the $2 million left behind that is the truly pivotal one. The decision that seals his destiny is the one he makes because he can't sleep that night. He decides to go back to take water to the one dealer left alive and gravely wounded. This decision spurs the turn of the rest of the movie. This decision was inevitable for the cowboy, however. His innate sense of justice and rightness cannot be denied. There can be no other outcome to his struggle. He is a man of character, and throughout the film he strives to maintain that character while doing what he believe best for his wife first, and then himself.

Opposite to Moss we find the antagonist, Anton Chigurh, played masterfully by Javier Bardem. Chirgurh is the ultimate villain: exact, purposeful, conscienceless. Chigurh is possibly the simplest and most complex of the three characters at the same time. He appears to have no motivation for killing other than the principle of fulfilling some sort of twisted duty, and displays no remorse for the killings. Except once, it seems. Chigurh seems able to belay his conscience by laying off his non-contract killings on a coin. By commanding his potential victims to call it, he shifts the accountability for the deaths to the victims. Chigurh has no place for mercy; it is not part of his world. He is a frightening villain; one that shakes Sheriff Bell to his core. Relentless and dark, Chigurh himself is a cowboy, not the anti-cowboy one might expect. He is the Dark Cowboy, the cowboy led solely by his evil nature, applying his principle to the darkness.

The story itself is stunning, real and complex. Throughout we are subtly and blatantly reminded that no matter the plan, fate intrudes unexpectedly; that nothing is certain. Everything that happens shoves that home to the viewer. Even the ending shocks the viewer with its harsh, unrelenting loyalty to this theme. If we are warned that one mistake can destroy a life, the irony of this tale is that the truly destructive mistakes are made by others than those who end up destroyed. The decisions and mistakes of this movie are small, almost momentary, but their effects are shattering. There is no moment of redemption in this Western; no showdown between the good cowboy and the evil one. That would be inconsistent with the tragedy of this tale. This truly is a country that, as one character puts it, wears a man down. This character reminds Bell that what he's fighting--the evil, the uncertainty--is nothing new, perhaps he just has nothing left for the fight, anymore. Bell admits that he has always hoped for some deus-ex-machina appearance of God, and has found only disappointment. He understands God's apparent absence, though, since he admits that if he were God, he would stay away from a man like himself. It is an interesting admission of sin and failure in the eyes of Who God is. Yet, despite this apparent desolation, Bell's final monologue is perhaps more hope-filled than his character realizes. It hints that though his soul cannot find true rest due to the absence of justice in this life, there will be rest farther on. We are left with thoughts of the very nature of evil, of the fight against it here, of the forms in which it presents itself, and of the eventual end thereof.

This is not a film that wraps things up with a neat bow. It is not a film that answers questions so much as raises them for the audience to ponder. Bell's presence infuses us with a sense of what ought to be while contrasting that with what is in front of us. He himself leaves us with the sense that this world can never be right; that eventually even the whitest of White Hats will grow weary of the battle against evil; that true rest will not be found while we tread this Country. This film is not for the faint of heart: as I mentioned, it is bloody, brutal, violent and dark. It is a work of art that seeks to examine the nature of humanity. It raises all the right questions, and wisely, leaves us without any easy answers.

Hm. So basically, avoid one movie merely because it is violent, regardless of its artistic or ultimate moral merit. Instead, go see a movie that the reviewer found to be barely mediocre merely because it's basically "family-friendly." Interesting. Bella and A Bee Movie may be well-crafted films, yet I find it incredibly sad that the average Christian seeking entertainment guidance by this particular group--and by extension K-Love--is encouraged toward certain movies based entirely upon said movies' relative innocuousness. Yet innocuousness does not encourage excellence; instead, it breeds mediocrity. Last time I checked, God wasn't looking for mediocre followers, innocuous disciples. Of course, last time I checked, the Bible was neither innocuous nor "family-friendly." If it were a movie, you should definitely not take your kids to see it.