Trinity’s World

Here is a warm a fuzzy for those who (unlike me) have fast internet connection. A quick little video set to music that has a great message I think. But I’m going to make you link to my friend’s Blog to go see it

elGuapo5000’s Blog: Free Huggs

I saw this as I was looking through my tag surffer Are you A Christian or a Christ Follower I just had to stop and throw up.

I’m sorry, but who gives a shit? I’m sick and tired of Christians trying to one up each other by saying things like, “are you a Christ follower, or a Christian.” Come on people, wake up! Are we back on the play ground in grammar school? I know 3rd grade girls who are not that petty and self absorbed.

If you are a Christian, you follow the teachings of Christ (unless you go to an contemporary evangelical church, then you follow what your pastor says the teachings of Christ are), as they are set forth in the bible. Yes, I’m sorry for those protestant elitists like Baptists who think that no Catholic will ever get into haven, but they are following the teachings of Christ. But it seems that the only way that some people can feel ok with their own personal religious practices is to compare themselves to others around them. Well, I’m more Christian than you because I go to church, or bible study, or work with the homeless. Anyone who actually creates a distinction between a person who “Is a Christian” and who just thinks the teachings of Christ were groovy to follow, is setting themselves up only to judge others.

Here is what I think. If we all just actually listen to the teaching of Christ, and start looking out for people around us for no other reason then they are people that God loves, and stop making a show of everything we do, we may actually find that God is not as fire and brimstone as the church would have us believe. After all, Israel only got punished for saying they would do something then not. God never punished people for showing his love to everyone they came across. In fact, the only time God punished people in the bible is when the were a) oppressing other people or b) when a person/group/people would say one thing and did another. What the fuck does that have to do with “how Christian are you?”

OK, so it’s a rant, ok, so it’s a vent, and yeah I’m going to hell because I say things like Fuck and Shit. However, would you rather I went to hell for lying about my feelings and using other words that were not what I truly thought? You know what, forget the Christians. Reserve my spot in Hell next to Nietzsche, Bob Marley, Martian Luther, and any other free thinker who ever tried to tell “Christians” to fuck off and realize that organized religion is set up by man, run by man, and perpetuated by man, and is therefore not of God by definition. Stop making the Christian community look like a retarded collection of short sighted pop culture addicts, that have to find the latest greatest way of selling their religion so people will buy it. God’s been around since the beginning of time, I think he is going to be around for bit longer and that people will react better if they are not being bombarded with door to door Christianity Sales men/women (yes, God loves women too).

Have you ever gone to work and found yourself struck with wonder at how some people can go to work when they obviously should have gone straight to the hospital that morning instead of showing up for their Job? I am officially one of those people. You see, the benefit of being pour, out of money, and not able to pay your bills, is that you can not afford to miss a day of work when you have already used up your sick days.

How did I use up my sick days? I’m a crisis counselor for Public Schools in Riverside County. I will have been in this job for two years in February. When I first started this job my supervisor pulled me aside, and recommended that no mater what I sign up for one of the company health care plans. People who enter the world of education are surrounded by children who’s parents have taught them to share; that includes the diseases they contract. It will take, on average, two years for a teacher to build up their immune system to tolerate such an environment with out getting sick at the drop of a hat.

So, despite the fact that I am sick, I had to go to work in order to get the money I need to pay the rent (bills will have to work themselves out latter). I felt a weird tingle on the right side of my jaw as I drove into work. No big deal, I’m also in need of some dental work, I figured it was just another side effect of my bad teeth. Then my lips went numb on the right side of my mouth. Them my right eye stopped blinking unless I focused on it. By the time I finished me 45 minuet commute to work (got to love living in So. Cal), I was a little worried. After all, these are some of the signs of having a stroke. So I felt my pulse, it was fine. I felt for any tingle in my arm, none. And I focused on sensing any pain in my body, and found only a slight burning sensation behind my Jaw and under my ear.

“That explains it,” I say my self. “I pinched a nerve and now my face is on strike.” So I walk into work like nothing is wrong. After all, I couldn’t see what I looked like, and I felt fine. Well, I felt really annoyed that my face was acting kind of weird, but I thought that’s just part of getting old. Never mind that I’m only 27, I feel like I’m getting older and older as the days go by.

I went into my boss’s office to talk about an issue with one of my sites, and when she finally looked up at me (she’s nice but very busy at times) she looked like she has just seen a ghost. When I asked her that was wrong I realized that what I said was not, “What’s Wrong,” but actually, “Bhat’s Brong?” She told me to go to the bathroom and look at my face. So I did. Wow, it was weird. My eye was big. Not Dialated like I was high or anything, but the eye muscles did not keep it closed at all. My other eye (the good one) looked like I was tired so the two together did not look right at all. And as I opened my mouth, the entire right side was crocked. “My God,” I thought. “I look like my great grandfather after he has his stroke.”

So I went back to my boss and said, “Isn’t bhat weirb.” She told me I need to go to the hospital. I told her that I couldn’t because I had no sick time to cover the time I would miss. She looked it up and found I was right. “So what are you going to do,” she asked. I told her I was not in any pain, and that I felt fine. I would go to my site like normal for the day, and promised to go to the Urgent Care when I got home.

So I when to my school site, where no less that 3 people told me that I really need to go to the doctor because my face looked like I was having a stroke. I told them that I was fine, and would be going to the doctor that night. Some of my kids pointed and laughed at my funny face, and it really was a great chance to kind of make their day brighter at my expense.

So Why did I not freak out? Simple, this has happened to my Mother-In-Law a times. The doctor told her that it looks like a stroke, but is not. Simple medication can take care of it, but it takes a few weeks to get you back to normal. I thought that it was the same thing. It should not be an issue, I thought. I would just go to the doctor and get some good drugs and be ok. I would go right after work.

So I went to the doctor, she told me I have Bell’s Palsy. She said that there is no know cause for the condition, but that some how one of my facial nerves (there are two that control each side of your face) is inflamed and that makes the muscles that it controls do nothing. I feel no pain, I just have no control. I get to stay in the office at work, instead of going to my sites, and I get to catch up on all the paperwork that I’ve been falling behind on.

When I came into work today, I apparently look worse than I did yesterday. My Boss said that she was certain I was having a stroke, and I had to hand her the doctors note that said I was not before she would believe me. Go figure! At least I got a great perk out of it. My boss said to go home at 1:00 and count it as an 8 hour day.

I received a comment on one of my book reviews that go me to thinking…that can be dangerous. Why do I like Harry Potter? That’s a complicated question to answer.

To be completely honest, I read the Sorcerer’s Stone (yes I’m an American and our population does not understand the many uses of the word Philosopher, so they dumb things down for us) out of defiance. I was in my fourth at University when a friend of mine who was interested in children’s lit read the book. You must understand that I attended an Evangelical Protestant University, and anything that was linked to magic was assumed to be of the devil. Add to that the fact that this particular friend had a lot of negative and odd experiences with self proclaimed witches in her family’s life, you can see who I saw an extremely irrational trend of people condemning a book with out even reading it just because of it’s content. And being one of the few free thinkers left on the campus, I decided I would read the first book in the series to form an educated opinion on the subject. Did Harry Potter really teach kids to work the Devil’s magic, and entice them to “stray away from the path of God.”

My thought at this time was, “The only thing more scary than a powerful idea, is large groups of stupid people who think an idea is scary.”

So I read the first book. I looked for any signs of classic which craft, calling of the elements to do work for you, invoking of spirits to do you will, creation of potions in order to entice higher powers to do your will. And I found things that most of my fellow Christians did not take the time to even think about. I found a boy, who forged a relationship with friends even though they were social outcasts and he was the cool kid (Harry). I saw teachers the encouraged students to do great and wonderful things, even if there were incapable of doing simple things like make potions (Sprout). I saw students who stood up for what was right at their own person risk (Nevil). And I saw a family adopt Harry Potter as if he was one of their own, even though he was forced to return to his unloving family every year (Author and Molly). But my fellow Christians had a point, there were spells being cast. But were spells really being cast?

At this time I completing my Battlers Degree in Biblical Studies. I was required to take a class called comparative religions in which we studied the religious doctrines of all the major belief systems in the world today, as well as a large number of minor ones. The teacher was a retired missionary who served among the nomadic tribes of Yemen, and had some amazing stories about the kind of things the Shamans were able to do for their tribes that had no logical explanation. As his PHD was in Folk Religion, I went to him during his office hours to ask him what he thought of the magical world of Harry Potter: Did he think it was a “gate way to witch craft” like so many extremists at my university were proclaiming? His answer was an emphatic no, and spelled a list of reason that we actually spent the next three weeks of lecture discussing as the basis for many different kinds of folk religion and practice. But he and I agreed that the level of violence and darkness that appear in the books does warrant parents taking an active roll in their children’s lives (which they should be doing anyway) in order to make sure they understand the theme that occurs over and over again: Magic does not save Harry Potter, he would be nothing if he did not use is head, and rely on his friends, because even people who have magical powers have problems in their lives that do no go away.

I had my answer. I had my reason to be defiant, and throw it in the face of those around me that hated Harry Potter that they simple were short sighted and being lead like sheep by people who did not think beyond their own prejudices. It was at this point the danger of the Harry Potter saga sank its fangs into me. I finished the first book, and had to know what happened next. Before I knew it I had bought the whole collection in hard back, and was waiting for the Goblet of fire to come out. I was hooked. I was addicted. I had to know how the thing ended.

So…there is my lengthy answer to what sparked me interest in reading Harry Potter. My nature is to question authority and go against the grain. Harry Potter does that himself, and I kind of like that. The story is full of rich characters that really could be people from my own life that I know (aside from the whole magic thing). I currently work in schools as a crisis counselor, and see the impact that Harry Potter has had on a lot kids who never wanted to read a book before. Now all of the sudden I’ve seen students pick up books that still challenge their reading abilities, but leave them begging for more just like me.

I think my favorite book thus far is The Goblet of Fire. It is action packed, addresses the a lot of important issues like civil rights and prejudice, but is also put Harry in a position he has never been before: he is all alone. Book four really shows us how much Harry depends on Ron and Hermione for support as well as other Hogwarts students. He has a falling out with Ron that almost leads to his death because Ron won’t talk to him. He never really thinks to talk to Neville about how to survive in the lake because he is so focused on doing it himself (Shame on the movie for changing that). And he comes to understand that Dobby really does enjoy being an individual while other House Elves really do enjoy their lives as servants. Harry does a lot of growing up, which is a good thing because he suffers the worst tragedy (in my opinion) next to the one he suffers in book six (if you don’t know what either of these are, read the book). Harry not only has to face his inadequacies, but his worst fear: What if he is not strong enough to defeat Voldermort? All in all, this book launches the rest of the series forward and signals a change in maturity in the characters, and the start of a new dark era for the wizarding world (and as book six shows, the world at large).

So that’s my feeling on the books. The movies were a travesty. I own them all because I’m an addicted fan, much like Starwar Fans own all the movies in spite of the fact that the last three released sucked! I have a personal bias against Christopher Columbus as a director, because I don’t think he understood that the stories did not need any special additions in order to be great stories. He spent so much time on special effects and quiditch that we had to sacrifice important story elements that showed us important parts of specific characters. The third movie was very well done, and stayed closest to the story, but again we see scene added (night bus squishing between two buses) that were unnecessary and took up screen time that could have been given to other things that are more important to the story. The fourth movie really is hard for me to decided weather it is good or not. They left out the whole house elf story line completely, which is a very important story element. They changed the fact that Barty Crouch Jr. was the one who set off the dark mark, and left Winky out completely, so how are we going to understand the roll that Winky and Doby play in the next movie if we don’t have any reason for her to be there. I know that there was a large amount of story to cover for a movie, but the choice of things kept, the things added, and the things dropped, made no sense to me at all. That being said, I think that the director did an amazing job of showing teen as they truly are at their age.

I can not wait till the final book comes out. There are so many theories, so many ideas, so many guesses as to how it will end that you could spend days on the internet reading it all. My wife and I do not agree on how it will end, so it will be interesting to see which of us is right (most likely her if the pattern holds true).

Thanks for the great question from Rohan, which sparked this post.