"Some people live a lifetime in a minute."
These are the words Al Pacino uses as a rebuttal (or pick-up-line) to the extremely pretty girl he tries to sit with at a fancy restaurant. He says those words to her after she tries to get rid of him on the excuse that her partner should be arriving in "a minute."
This is a key scene that opens up to one of the most beautiful scenes of the film Scent of a Woman. In an incredible film, which garnered Pacino his Academy Award. Without elaborating too much on the plot (although it's not a movie you can "give it away" on) I'll just say that he, Pacino, plays a blind man and does so really, really well. Because of his blindness other senses are, of course, enhanced - including his sense of smell. Hence the title, Scent of a Woman.
But let's address the opening statement. Is that true? Sometimes time is just ticking away. We can get so easily distracted. Bored. Life is sometimes so slow. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is so fast that we feel a little overwhelmed. But life isn't measured by speed. I can't quite claim to know what it is measured by, but it is not whether the minute was fast or slow. What matters is if that minute became alive or not.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Bebo's Blog
This was taken (ripped off of) Bebo Norman's blogsite. He titled it "The Hunted Was God," and the rest of this blog is entirely his.
[Excerpt from an old Journal entry]
I'm reading Annie Dillard this morning and, as always, she is leaving me breathless. Her words say everything. Her willingness to find her own reality in the reality of the wilderness is compelling. She tells a story in Teaching a Stone to Talk (pg. 12) of a man who shot an eagle out of the sky. When he examined the eagle he found "the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to [the eagle's] throat." This is really a story of the weasel. She goes on to describe just how this sort of thing might happen. I did not realize this, but apparently weasels are relentless creatures - absolutely devoted to instinct, to the point of death. She talks of how weasels live "in necessity [while] we live in choice." A weasel attacks its prey by the throat and does not let go - stubborn instinct even unto death. And then she turns and wields the eye on herself:
I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death cannot part you. Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles.
She takes this gruesome thought of decomposition and decay at the hands of instinct and shows me the beauty of it, the beauty of commitment. What if I confessed my one necessity? What if I lived with only one choice, which is really no choice at all? What if I stalked it, attacked it on instinct, and took it by the throat to empty and drain all the good and life out of it and into myself. Would I kill it? Not if it was an eternal thing. Not if it was an eternal source. Not if the thing that I was after had no beginning and no end. Not if the prey was truth. Not if the hunted was God. What if I confessed my one necessity? What if I lived instinctively for that alone? What if I attacked after God like a weasel its prey, "to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse?" The dilemma in my life as a believer is not to figure out what my calling is. My calling is my prey. My calling is my one necessity. My calling is God. So the dilemma is to actually live that calling - to live in necessity, not choice. My calling is to attack the throat of God not to drain the life out of it, but to draw the life from it. And only then does the battle begin - to hang on, jaws clinched, to this thing to which I am now a part, all the while being dragged, dangling up into the air. Up into far reaches and distant places, "over fields,over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless" where I will truly live and where I will also die "from as high as eagles."
[Excerpt from an old Journal entry]
I'm reading Annie Dillard this morning and, as always, she is leaving me breathless. Her words say everything. Her willingness to find her own reality in the reality of the wilderness is compelling. She tells a story in Teaching a Stone to Talk (pg. 12) of a man who shot an eagle out of the sky. When he examined the eagle he found "the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to [the eagle's] throat." This is really a story of the weasel. She goes on to describe just how this sort of thing might happen. I did not realize this, but apparently weasels are relentless creatures - absolutely devoted to instinct, to the point of death. She talks of how weasels live "in necessity [while] we live in choice." A weasel attacks its prey by the throat and does not let go - stubborn instinct even unto death. And then she turns and wields the eye on herself:
I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death cannot part you. Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles.
She takes this gruesome thought of decomposition and decay at the hands of instinct and shows me the beauty of it, the beauty of commitment. What if I confessed my one necessity? What if I lived with only one choice, which is really no choice at all? What if I stalked it, attacked it on instinct, and took it by the throat to empty and drain all the good and life out of it and into myself. Would I kill it? Not if it was an eternal thing. Not if it was an eternal source. Not if the thing that I was after had no beginning and no end. Not if the prey was truth. Not if the hunted was God. What if I confessed my one necessity? What if I lived instinctively for that alone? What if I attacked after God like a weasel its prey, "to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse?" The dilemma in my life as a believer is not to figure out what my calling is. My calling is my prey. My calling is my one necessity. My calling is God. So the dilemma is to actually live that calling - to live in necessity, not choice. My calling is to attack the throat of God not to drain the life out of it, but to draw the life from it. And only then does the battle begin - to hang on, jaws clinched, to this thing to which I am now a part, all the while being dragged, dangling up into the air. Up into far reaches and distant places, "over fields,over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless" where I will truly live and where I will also die "from as high as eagles."
Validation
"She's a hard 10."
At least that's what the actors in She's Out of my League said about the (very) beautiful Molly (as played by Alice Eve).
Incredibly enough this ridiculous (and obscene) film gave me a lot to think about. Too much, in fact. On the way back from the movies my fiance and I talked a lot about the film. Well, at least I talked a lot about it. It wasn't, as I said, good. It wasn't any good at all, actually. But it did make me think.
The entire film revolved around one aspect - acceptance. That's what it seemed like to me anyway. Another way of saying "acceptance" is to say "validation." That word seems to carry a heavier psychological connotation and since that's my fiance's major that was the word we used. Plus it does seem to be a little stronger for vocabulary usage as well.
The entire film revolved around one aspect - acceptance. That's what it seemed like to me anyway. Another way of saying "acceptance" is to say "validation." That word seems to carry a heavier psychological connotation and since that's my fiance's major that was the word we used. Plus it does seem to be a little stronger for vocabulary usage as well.
Validation. This movie was about the search for validation. This is a universal search and it is a unisex search. The incredibly beautiful girl wants it, and the utterly plain dork wants it just as bad. Everybody wants it, and not just in this movie either.
Some people discover their validation in good clothes, the kind that puts your credit card in deeper debt just because it has a popular little logo on it. For some people their validation is in their education or their career or their success at whatever they do. Some people even find their validation in their religion. No matter which of these scenarios a person pursues for validation they are all wrong. They are all unsatisfying.
If someone seeks for their validation in a source outside of God they will always end disappointed.
Talking with my fiance I confessed that I found a lot of my validation as a man in her. Naturally to find some sense of validation in her is not wrong, but to have her have the final say in the matter is wrong. She makes me feel like I'm attractive. She makes me feel like I'm strong. But whenever she is disappointed in me I feel bummed. That's a good thing, it teaches me I shouldn't disappoint her. It's not healthy for the relationship. But, again, she shouldn't be the one to have a final say in how I feel, or, how I am validated.
Does God make me feel attractive? Does He make me feel strong? Do I feel disappointed in myself when I disappoint Him? Am I validated through Him? I should be, He thinks I'm a "hard 10." Actually, He thinks I'm to die for.
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