more movies and a "definition" for "evil"

i keep renting and watching movies...

i watched "nuremberg" this week. if you know me well, you know that i have a fetish/obsession with world war 2 and all the complexities it entails... this movie is about the trials that went on in the german city of nuremberg after the war - the allies are processing the captured leaders of the nazi regime.

after watching in court a film about the concentration camps with all the horrors that happened in them, two of the main character are trying to make sense of what they just saw... they are trying to understand why would anyone commit such atrocitities.

one of them says that evil is the abscence of empathy. once you can't empathize with someone, you don't understand them, and if you don't understand them chances are you won't treat them like human beings.

i know that the extremes of the genocide that went on during the war are beyond meassure and cannot be justified. but under this definition, evil isn't this far-fetched thing, attitude, and/or behavior that is out there, that only "bad" people participate in. if this definition has any glimpse of truth (which i think it does) - then "evil" is a reality in my daily life. i lack empathy for others on a constant basis. it's a lot easier to be judgmental than to seek to understand.

i guess my point in all this is that by watching this movie i was reminded once again that there's no "us" and "them" and that nothing is out of my reach. i have the capacity to be both "good" and "evil". we all do. through this movie i learned to embrace this in me once again, to love the "whole" of me, and to know that others are just like me.

america: the book

more recomendations for you, the reader...

the daily show with jon stewart has put out a book called america: the book. do yourself a favor and buy it right now. it's $20 at barnes and noble.

be forwarned - contempt runs amock in the writing. having that said, it's probably one of the smartest, wittiest, and funniest publications i have seen in a long time. the foreword is by thomas jeferson, who signs it as "tj"...

throughout the whole book, in the midst of the poking fun and sometimes cynical/hateful remarks, you do find nuggets of truth that apply to our politics today...

our friend "tj" in his foreword points out that the ammendments are called ammendments because they ammend, reminding us that the forefathers were not perfect, and somehow they didn't expect the future generations to be perfect. tj pleads with the 21st century u.s. citizen to please not take the forefathers so seriously and to govern the u.s.a. as is best right now...

that's something only thomas jefferson can get away saying in 2004.

scotland, p.a.

friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...

for anyone of you that are in love with the arts, i highly recommend that you watch the movie scotland, p.a. it's a "remake" of shakespeare's macbeth, set in a little town in pensylvannia in the 1970's and in a fast food restaurant. very interesting, funny as in dark humor funny, and proving once again the genius that shakespeare was.

the director says that he wanted to make a movie of macbeth that could be understood and appreciated by the high schooler who's buying the cliff notes and getting stoned :-)

i also realized after i watched it that a friend of mine suggested i saw it a while back... seriuosly friends, go out and rent it.

on hurt pride...

i have more things to say about my feeling of my pride being hurt because of my possibility of working at starbucks...

first of all, i don't mean this to be an insult to anyone that works in a coffee house! that's not where i'm coming from at all!!!

there's a part of me that feels like my next job "should" be on what i spent thousands of dollars in my education. i have a masters of arts in transformational leadership. therefore, it "only makes sense" that i will be working in a ministry position transforming the crap out of many people. the past months have proven to be dissapointing and i don't know what will be my future in full time ministry...

as much as i would like to say that my identity is not wrapped up in what i do but in who i am in god and who the trinity created me to be, reality is that i have desires, and i long in my heart to eventually be leading people toward the transformation of their lives towards the image of christ. that gets confused and my identity sometimes gets mixed up - sometimes i think that i am what i do... hence the possibility of working at a coffee house seems like a failure to some extent.

i know in my head that's a lie... it's the process of believing that in my heart that is challenging...

hence we go back to my theme of living in the moment. maybe this is the best choice for the right here right now, we'll see... i would love to have a clear vision of the future, but i don't. i can only go as far as i see. and for now, i see that i need to get out of the house, get to meet new people, and be jesus incarnate no matter in what setting i find myself in.

"hurricane" jennie and hurt pride...

puerto rico is in the midst of a hurricane as i type this. well, technically it was a tropical storm since the winds weren't at 75 mph, they were only at 74 mph. my parents, my sister and husband, and my close friends are doing fine, but there are many stories about floods, deaths, and trees on the ground. it's been a very nerve-rocking time for me as it is the first time i am not in the island while there's a hurricane. my family is there and there's nothing i could do about it... it was horrible to look at the maps on weather.com and see this huge system on top of a little island that measures 100 x 35 miles... ivan is headed to mobile, alabama, where my brother-in-law's family lives...

i still hate hearing the wind blow... the only paradigm i have for it is a bad storm. when i hear it blow up here in illinois, i still freak out.

among other things going on in my life, today i had the best job interview i've had in the past 3 months... no, it wasn't for any ministry position, it was for starbucks. if the people that interviewed me percieved our conversations the same way i did, i will be providing your caffeine fix in the lake zurich/palatine/kildeer/north hoffman estates area... i'm ready to be out of the house, to meet new people, and to overall give my days a general sense of direction. i'm still in the midst of interviewing and following up with some ministry positions, mostly part time, but in the meantime this feels like the best choice.

it is also hurting my pride a little... i have a masters and i'm about to start working at a coffee place... for now, it works... let's see what happens...

perspective

9-11 will always be a tragedy in most of our memories... but this date was before that and always will be my sister's birthday.

3 years ago it was imposible to reconcile the emotions of what happened that day and my baby sister turning 21.

today it feels like the crashing planes were ages ago as my family prepares to celebrate her 24th.

the day i turned 24 my grandma died... jan 30th will be the day that my mom lost her mom and brought life forth...

now that i've depressed everyone...

not my intention... these are some things that go through my mind... it's all a matter of perspective

beholder's eye

truth is there
reality is there
it can't be escaped
it's just a matter
of how i want to see it
of how i can perceive it
so far.

it can be joyful.
it can be painful.
it can be both
at the same time
confusing
disconcerting
surreal
heart-wrenching.

you can wish it away
you can numb it away
yet every morning
as you wake up
it is still there

it is still there

it is still there.