Book Review: Jim Butcher's Dresden Files Book 6 and 7

Jim Butcher is an amazing author, I can truly say that I love his writing. His Harry Dresden series is a main feature on my TO READ list. It helps that there are like 13 of them. I found his series after most of the thirteen were already out, so I've been playing catch up. I have reviewed a couple of them already but I'm not sure I will continue to review them because, while they are great adventures, with the exception of the bad guys, the magic, and the featured characters, it will always be the same Review. Great Books!

Go pick them up...you will NOT regret it.

Movie Review: Paul

Let me start of by saying nine times out of ten I dislike Seth Rogen, and think he is overrated as a comedic actor. If you like his boring, curse word laden, comedic style then more power to you, he has plenty of movies that may suit your needs. Apparently the only time I can enjoy Seth Rogen is when he is voicing an animated character. (I.e. B.O.B from Monsters V. Aliens).

Paul starts with true geekdom! Two brit geeks, in every since of the word, come from england to go to ComicCon. A pair of Alien chasers who are going to explore all of the most famous Alien crash sites. My first thought after being dragged...and yes I was forced -.- My first thought was something along the lines of...Why am I watching this? My second...."Why is the 'black mailbox' white??" Everything was cool after that.

The alien appeared, Christians were made to look stupid (in a good way), sex jokes, sci fi references, and Cameos. Everything started adding up and the movie earned my respect and actually made me like it.

The SciFi References were awesome, and as a not so dedicated scifi fan I caught a lot of them and enjoyed it. The Cameos were cool, mostly because Jane Lynch appeared which made my night!!

All in all a worthy movie to go and see, especially if you can get in on a day where the theater has cheap or matinée tickets!

Movie Review: Beastly

A new spin on a very old classic. Beauty and the Beast is probably one of my favorite Disney movies, so naturally I was drawn to this movie. The new contemporary spin also made me hesitate, because Hollywood has a track record of destroying the things they try to make, remake, or make contemporary.

The cast was interesting, Alex Pettyfer, was a good choice for the vain beautiful guy. Vanessa Hudgins, as the beautiful side line girl who doesn't think beauty matters? Ehh, not a bad choice, she was a really believable character, and I guess it was ironic they pulled a Disney star to play this new 'belle'. However the most surprising star, Mary-Kate Olsen, playing the twisted witch, who curses the Beast. I am surprised to say that I absolutely loved her character and her acting.

The story was slow, an interesting path for the story. It was true to the original in most ways, introducing it in a high school setting. The use of Blogs, Cd's, drugs, parties, and Green ideals contributed nicely to the contemporary setting, while still paying great homage to Beauty and The Beast.

For those of you who believe you wouldn't like this movie, because its cliche or not important. Believe me when I say it is, and those of you that don't want to see it, are the ones I would encourage to see it the most. If this movie would have a Mantra, it would be "Embrace Suck", which is used as a derogatory slant toward the "ugly ones", but becomes the reason why the Main Character finds love at all.

Embrace Suck, go out and play with the cards you are dealt, but make the best of it. Love one another, create a better life for those around you, because games are more fun when you play together.

Embrace Suck, and See this movie while you are at it.

A New Path

I've been Christian, technically, all my life. More or less, however, only the past six years. However there has always felt like something was quiet right, don't get me wrong I love me some Jesus and God. Yet there is a seemingly large disconnect to the earth and the and our ability to help people. Yes, We are charged to feed, clothe and help them in any way we can. Also the charge is given that we should love our neighbor. Thats what I do. Yet there is still something missing.

The missing part came in the form of a greener world, and not greener in a renew and reuse kinda way. Greener in a Green Thumb kinda way. I have a pagan friend and we spend a lot of time comparing and contrasting our religions. More comparison than contrasting really. But, thats not the point here, its one of the things that the bible mentions subtly and its left out of the Christian Faith. There are so many parallels between Pagan and Christian faiths, that it seems silly not to explore what we can use, combine, and take away from each other to better our purposes in this life.

Pagans often burn incense, combine herbs to help heal naturally, and offer oils for the use of anointing with a fragrance and intent of pleasing the Deity. This sounds very much like magic, or Witch craft, that should "have no place in Christian world." I would contest this statement, and I offer my evidence to contrary.

First, Oils and Ointments are a part of the Christian History and the culture from which Jesus was born. When he was born the honored him with gifts of Frakincence and Myrrh. Also As Jesus did his thing, he came across Mary, who anointed and cleaned his feet with expensive oils. There are MANY references to herbs and tinctures in the bible, so why do we ignore them in our faith?

My journey from this point on, will include this "Green Magic", herbalism, herbology, or natural remedies. I think that the connection of the earth offering ways to cure that which has been spawned from natural causes, fits nicely with the Golden Rule. As long as we take care of our piece of land, our piece of land will take care of us.

End of Days

I read a recent comment amongst my five hundred friends that mentioned the end of days, and it had me riled up. I'm not totally sure why I was incited so easily by such a common comment. However, I think that I'm just tired of the catastrophizing that goes on in our nation, and in our lives. As a Psychology Major, Classics Minor, Church Elder, and Group Home Counselor, I work primarily with children, but often in the face of God and in respect to religion. My children, all of them, have a purpose in this world and I don't want to see people tell them that it’s just to live long enough to see the world as we know it come to an end.

Revelation is the book that sparks the most uproar about the end of days, and is what most people will refer to when speaking of them. However, like most of the Bible, they will make the current situation fit into a few verses that correlate. And when I say correlate I do mean loosely. If you look at one verse in the bible, its like listening to one verse, or line of a song or poem. Its equivalent to reading a paragraph from any other book and assuming you know what it’s about. It can be compared to listening to a second of the weather and planning your entire week accordingly. You just can't do it.

Revelation is such a deep and compounded book that many theologians dedicate their lives to studying and researching the book. I cannot pretend to be one of these theologians, but I have enough contextual understanding and non literalist perspective that can help me remove today's fears from the readings. However my point in this writing is to argue from a literalist point of view, which is very contrary to what I would normally do.

Revelation, after the letters to the seven churches, begins with John being invited into the spirit to see the plans that God has made. I want to interject here, it was written much like the writings of Hesiod and Ovid, very mythical and on a grand scale. Which if we stick to that comparison means that we have no idea what the true intent of God's message is here. I've heard arguments that John had no idea what he was looking at, and you would have to agree, if you agree that the end of times will be in our life time or our children's. Unless we somehow revert to living in a society with no electricity, machines, or technology...then poor john would have been scared crazy at some of the things he would have seen, I.E. Tanks, helicopters, and other war machines.

It continues with the Scroll and the Seven Seals, which invites the Four Horsemen, who are kind of cool...and also not present in our world as of late. We have war yes, we have famine yes, we don't really have pestilence, and strife...well we have that in spades.

War has existed since the dawn of time, if we thought the end of times was kicked off every time that happened, well we would have been Rapture a thousand times since then. Also the wars we have now are nothing in comparison to the ones that once existed. It was nothing for wars to last a hundred years, or destroys entire cities. Think back to our very own World Wars one and two, those were wars, albeit short wars. What we have now is a fight against a specific type of lifestyle that is a danger to us all, not any one country trying to take over many others.

Famine...let me tell you about famine...its about having a plate full of food for you and your household each night with no fear of its cleanliness and expense. Oh wait...that doesn't sound like Famine...that sounds like America. If America would get off its greedy hands and distribute the amount of food that we have, we could end world hunger. That goes also for many European countries, despite that their proportions are a third of what ours are. There are countries that exist in Famine but seeing as it is within our power to end it, I don't think that horseman is up to full power yet.

Pestilences...bubonic plague anyone? We have a handle on most of the diseases of today's times. In today's times I would argue the HIV/AIDS is probably the most dangerous and wide spread communicable disease of our time. It infects and kills close to 1% of our population. Despite seeming like a low statistic, that is an overwhelming number of people. Around 5 million people infected and killed. However 600 years ago, Europe alone lost FIFTY (50) percent of their population. I hate HIV and AIDS with a passion, but I think that a warrior of God, spreading disease would have higher rates.

Strife, as I said we have that in spades, be it in our families or churches, and even in our political arenas. We love us some strife. However, that’s because we are dumb… and sentient. We have the ability to make choices and have opinions. The Bible claims that strife will employ the wild animals of the world, which I’m fairly certain hasn’t happened in recent times. Strife or Death being the Fourth Rider has significance in and of itself, which when paired with later verses in Revelation would say that God is taking Death away from those who aren’t worthy. People still drop dead every day, we haven’t gotten there yet.

I think that the earthquake in Japan, is the point of most people’s concerns currently. I pray that they find relief, and help from those that can. However Revelation 6:12 states that “…and there came a great earthquake…” and continues to detail how we will lose the sun, the moon, and the stars. Revelation says A great earthquake. One, singular, massive. I think it would be safe to assume that when this one great earthquake comes it will rock our world…literally. Japan is in trouble, how quickly we forget Haiti, how quickly we forget Sri Lanka, how quickly we forget San Francisco and many more earthquakes that strike periodically. It’s what the earth does.

Please pray for Japan, and everyone else caught up in the pain and suffering in this world. Know that God has plans for every smile and laugh that a child can give you, and know that the End of Days has not quiet reached us. When the sun blacks out, then be scared. Till then…I’ll see you on the bright side of 2012