Reward or Punishment

I sometimes think of myself as a writer. Of course, I understand that there is a big difference between writing for a blog, and writing as a writer. Even if I were to make the right connections with the right people and actually make money off of my blog, I would still be a professional blogger, and not a professional writer.
In any case, I have several movies and a couple of TV series’ floating around inside my brain. Would anyone actually buy them if I wrote them out? Probably not, but I can dream. One of the TV series’ that I have in my head, a police officer, who also happens to be a widower and a single father, has spent years angry at God. His wife used to drag him to church, and seemingly did all the right things, and was a good wife and mother, but God took her. In the pilot episode of the series, God gets tired of this cop being angry all the time, and decides to spell some things out to him. Among them, that his wife’s death wasn’t punishment, it was just her time. If anything, it was a reward; she was right with God, and is now home with Jesus for all eternity. The only pain she knows now is that her husband isn’t living right. It’s a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea. With Jesus’ help, he manages to work through years of anger and frustration, and give his heart and life to Jesus Christ. Fast-forward a few episodes. Some bad guy captures our intrepid hero. After a certain amount of torture, the villain puts a gun in our hero’s face, and threatens to kill him if he doesn’t renounce his faith. He isn’t really anywhere near ready to actually commit murder, but he would like to hear the protagonist beg for his life. The hero, meanwhile, is trying to figure out just how far he can go before God would consider it suicide. The final conversation goes something like this: “So, tell me, where is your God, now?” “Same place He was when His Son died on the cross for the greater good two thousand years ago.” “Greater good? What greater good would be served by your death?” “I don’t know what greater good God might have in mind for my death, but, if you’ll pull that trigger, I’ll ask him.” Of course, at this point, the rogue throws down the gun in total frustration. He didn’t expect a response anything like that; it becomes evident that he didn’t understand true faith, and he certainly didn’t think that this cop had it. Shortly thereafter, some other policemen break down the door and rescue our stalwart hero. On of them makes the comment, “Man, looks like we got here just in time. Another few minutes and he probably would have killed you!” “Don’t remind me.”
I think that sometimes we misunderstand what is a reward, and what is a punishment. Granted, one man’s reward is frequently another man’s punishment. If a farmer wants rain for his crops, but a golfer wants a sunny day for his tee-time, one of them is going to get disappointed. Is that punishment? Not really, it’s just the way things are. Death isn’t necessarily a reward or a punishment, but it’s usually a punishment to loved ones left behind. Why would God take my wife/husband/son/daughter away from me? Maybe just because He knew that they would never be more ready; I don’t know. I do know that Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Sometimes we don’t see the good. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I heard somebody on the radio a year or so ago, saying that before his last birthday, he had laid some heavy hints to his wife about this watch that he wanted. It was a pretty expensive watch, but it had some really nice features, and he wanted it. Well, when his birthday came, and his wife gave him his present, the package was completely the wrong shape; it couldn’t possibly be a watch. He tried to hide his disappointment, but when he opened the package, it was plane tickets, and a stay at a ski resort in Aspen, Colorado. Now, he could have gotten mad at his wife for not getting him the watch he wanted so badly, but quite frankly, the ski trip was so much cooler than the watch. I think some of us have ski trips stuck in our closets, and we’re angry with God because we didn’t get a watch.

Understanding Women

I heard something on the radio this morning about married women not liking to give their husbands hints. It seems kind of unladylike. On the other hand, I've heard comedians joke about how hints don't work. Women seem to think that being in love means never having to explain yourself--your partner always knows what you're thinking. Women always seem to think they know what their significant others are thinking. I think they'd be pretty surprised if they really knew what we were thinking--and, most of the time, we're not trying to keep it a secret!

Women seem to think that love grants one psychic abilities. It doesn't. We can't read your mind, and you can't read ours. You can generally get an idea about what we're thinking, because men are much less inclined to play games with it. Women will often create a pretense just to see if the man catches it. Even if we know that your behavior is a sham, we generally don't know what to about it. Dave Barry wrote a column in which he said, "A woman is someone who, when you ask her what is wrong, says, 'Nothing.' A man is a person who, when a woman tells him nothing is wrong, believes her." Obviously, that's not entirely true. At the very least, Mr. Barry has learned (from long, hard experience, no doubt) that when a woman says nothing is wrong, that usually means that something is very wrong, but she isn't willing to talk about it. Are we then to begin guessing as to what it wrong? Not really, because that simply leads to further denials about there being anything wrong. Sometimes, you can wear her down to the point where she will say, "If you loved me, you would know what was wrong." Again, there is a big difference between being in love, and being psychic. Frequently, men get frustrated and just quit worrying about it (or, at least, try not to worry about it); after all, eventually she will tell us what's bothering her, or get over it. In any case, without a clue as to what is going on, we can't really do much about it, except play dumb. I know there's something wrong, but she wants to pretend that nothing is wrong, so I'll play her game. This generally means that retribution will be much harsher, later, but she's not in the mood for a game of twenty questions, anyway. I'll go watch the game, or finish fixing the closet door, or whatever else I've got to do, and wait on her.

Another thing about women that I don't get: Why is it, that when a woman wants affirmation that she is still loved, that she can't wait for a commercial? Why does it always have to be when the score is tied, there's thirty seven seconds left on the clock, our team has the ball, and it's third and twelve; or the TV detective has just called all of the suspects together and is about to reveal who the killer is, or the guys in the black hats have got our hero pinned down and he only has one bullet left... And she wants to turn the TV off and discuss what color tile should go in the hall bathroom. Of course, we both know that this isn't about floor tile, this is about her making sure that she is more important than whatever it was we were doing. We know that, but it's still frustrating (less frustrating with TIVO, of course, but still).

Is it just me, or does it seem like Hollywood is getting less and less imaginative? This year we've had Spiderman 3, Shrek the Third (a.k.a. Shrek 3), Pirate's of the Caribbean: At World's End (a.k.a. Pirate's of the Caribbean 3), Live Free or Die Hard (a.k.a. Die Hard 4), Ocean's Thirteen (a.k.a Ocean's Eleven 3), Evan Almighty (a.k.a Bruce Almighty 2)... I've heard Ratatouille is very good, but I have a hard time getting into animated movies, although we did a Father's Day presentation at church that involved clips from The Lion King, and now I kind of want to see that movie.
It also seems like if it isn't a sequel, then it's a TV show that's been taken to the big screen. Transformers is doing very well (although I hear it's not really aimed at 9 to 14 year old boys like the original series--it's aimed more at guys that were 9-14 when the series aired). I've also heard that there is a Get Smart movie in the works.

I think I've made it clear previously that I like movies. I prefer movies that make me think, but, sometimes it's good to watch a movie that just lets me not think, you know? I've seen the first three movies listed above, and will probably end up seeing the others as well.

There is also a new Stephen King movie coming out on Friday the thirteenth. Sounds appropriate, doesn't it? Isn't also funny that this past Saturday was considered to be so lucky? July 7th of '07 (7/7/7), just 6 days prior to Friday the thirteenth. If Saturday were so lucky, wouldn't the day one year, one month, and one day previous have been a really bad day (6/6/6)? Where do these superstitions come from?

I've also heard that Six Flags over Georgia had a septuple wedding ceremony on Saturday (seven different couples tied the knot). Shouldn't they have found someplace with 'seven' in the name, instead of six? I don't know of any such place in the Atlanta area. Maybe if they measured the distance from Five Points to Six Flags and then continued on past Six Flags the same amount...

Personally, I think the smartest choice for a wedding date would be February 14th. I know a guy that got married on Valentine's day. I told him after the wedding that he has no excuse for ever forgetting his anniversary,and he told me that was the idea.