I've had a bit of blogger's block lately...

..it's interesting, I've felt the collective weight of you, my .07 adoring fans, before writing...and I've wanted to write stuff that's interesting to you.

But in lieu of anything you might be interested in, let me tell you where my interests have been lying:

1. I saw "Big Fish." Please go see it...see it on a big TV. If you don't have a big TV, go to Circuit City and ask if you can put it in one of their DVD players attached to a big TV. They're cool like that. "Big Fish" is Tim Burton's magnum opus...a beautiful and at times surreal movie about one man's life and the stories he told about it. Stacy and I talked about it quite a bit afterward...I'm not sure...but I think it's about storytelling. More specifically, I think it's about trying to balance the facts of one's life (not the Blaire and Tootie kind...the "what actually happened" kind) with the emotions that one experienced. It's a strange paradox that I think every person goes through. If I were to tell you the story of how Stacy and I met and what that first year was like...and someday I might...I would be recounting to you the facts, with the best descriptive words I can muster. But the truth is, even if I had John Updike and Flannery O'Connor co-write the story of when Stacy and I met, and they told you the real God's-honest truth of what happened, what you would feel would be, at best, 5% of what I felt and what she felt. It's not because we're more equipped to understand true love than anybody else, but it rather highlights that paradoxical disparity: the way YOU feel about what you experienced and the way OTHERS feel about what you experienced will never be the same. I couldn't possibly describe the indescribable magic that occured when Stacy and I would sit on front porch of Emerson hall or dance in the rain that first night...it would sound, well...sweet at best, mundane at worst. But I KNOW what I felt, I just can't pass that along to you.

That's why we embellish. That's why we tell tall tales. That's why we have "fish stories." They're not lies...they're just descriptions of what it FELT like when reality happened, not a description of the events which comprised it. That's what I think Tim Burton was trying to say with "Big Fish." If you look at his films...they're all tall tales...a young boy and his giant peach, a nerd and his magic bicycle, a man and his scissor hands, two kids and a witch in a candy house, a surly spirit tries to get two ghosts to call him back from Hell...and on and on. Mr. Burton is a storyteller who specializes in tall tales...in fish stories...and this movie was, I think, his chance to defend the ancient practice of embellishment...not as a form of trickery or falsification, but as a means of expressing the very real but intangible that happens in each life.


2. I also saw Spiderman 2, and it's got me pondering. I've been trying to understand how we're supposed to deal with the various "absolutes" that our culture tells us we must live and die for. I agree that it is quite possible that there is an absolute in the world which, by any means and to any end, each person must uncompromisingly seek. Those are the heroes in our fairy tales, our movies, our literature, our poems and our songs...those who are true to their absolute. For William Wallace, it was freedom; for Forrest Gump, it was Jenny; for Wallace and Gromit, it was those tricky mechanical trousers. For Peter Parker, it's Mary Jane, but for Spider-Man, it's justice. That's where the tricky part comes up. What ARE we supposed to live and die for?
Bear in mind, I'm not exactly asking for the meaning of life here. (You'll mostly find that on Randy Bohlender's blog, and he's probably right). I'm asking, what is it that we're supposed to never compromise, now matter how much is offered us, how high the pain level gets, or how much we wish to exchange it for something else. Do we believe those who say:
"Love is all there is?"
"In the end, only Kindness matters?"
"Never sacrifice your Dreams?"
"To thine own Self, be true?"
"Love the Lord your God?"
"Never compromise your Integrity?"
"Follow your Heart?"
"Country first...semper fidelis."

What is my hard-line, never compromise, plumb-line for my life? Should I never sacrifice anything at the expense of my love for Stacy? Or should I even sacrifice that for my love for God? What if I am drafted, should I go to jail because my love for God means I refuse to follow his commandment to not kill, thereby superceding my love for Country? What if my love for my Country means I will have to bomb a suppposed "safe-house" which I know contains children...should I then sacrifice my Integrity? What if my Integrity supercedes my desire to show Kindness when a female friend who calls with a desparate need to talk...not romantically, but merely because I'm the best friend she has? What if my heart for Kindness overrules my love for Stacy, and I choose to stay on that phone and help her?

I'd love to believe that the Bible has a very clean and clear explanation on how, if you love God, you will also be following all of these other things. But I don't think that's true. Please prove me wrong. I think these things are, for the most part, mutually exclusive...what the Bible DOES say is that "you cannot serve two masters;" and so my question remains: which master am I to serve? The Bible says it should be God...does that mean, once again, that I may sacrifice all of the other things at any and all times if I think it serves God? That may cause some serious trouble in my marriage...between the rampant 90% tithe and the six days a week I spend fasting at the church and serving the poor, I may not love my wife very effectively.

I'm stuck on this one...anybody got any help?

Thanks for reading.

Peace,
Justin