serenity now

I had dinner tonight with one of my best friends. She is a true friend, the kind you can be real with and you don't have to lay down an hour of "safe" small talk before getting to the heart of what's worth talking about; or as is often in our case, just what's really been going on. Now that I live in Grand Rapids (and not the Zoo, an hour away), I find that our close proximity has NOT inherently increased our hang time. Funny how you still have to work at friendship. What is that saying about the things worth having are the things worth fighting for?

I travelled to Owosso again last night. One more rehearsal with the band before the show on Friday night. I spent the hour and a half practicing the song I'm going to sing with them (basically this little white girl attempting a little gospel soul). So I got there and just listened to them finish up. I do love their sound and could listen to Lara sing for hours.

So I'm sitting there taking it all in, getting to worship and just think for awhile. I couldn't help but be a little overwhelmed by how blessed my life is. And I can't shake the question of "why?" because it boils down to "because I love you." That is what blows my mind most about God; and that the same love extends to every other person in the 'verse.

A few things that contributed to this:
*My new home. We just moved and now have room to breathe, stretch, even grow.
*The family I share my home and my life with. It's a constant state of blessing and humbling.
*One of my friends who challenges me and gets how to encourage me choosing to support me (even if it is just for the sake of saying yes)
*New friends who turn out to be my kind of fun and quirky sharing their stage with me.
*The ebenezers I couldn't forget if I tried that constantly remind me that God cares about me and will take care of me no matter how badly I screw up.

SERENITY
So far I've seen this movie twice, and that is far from the final count. A continuation of the original TV series created by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel) called Firefly, it is future meets Western. You don't have to know anything about Firefly to be able to enjoy Serenity, but the payoff and character treatments in the movie are definitely more powerful if you've seen the Firefly episodes available on DVD and gotten to know these characters and their stories. Serenity is not your typical, predictable good vs. evil sci-fi hodown. No aliens, no figurehead enemy, plenty of wit, a dash of internal struggle, a satisfying amount of violence (as my mom says, "sometimes you need a little gore") and a surprising realism. If you don't mind thinking a bit, you'll also find more is being said than what can be gleaned from the surface dialogue. But don't worry, I'm not hear to tell you what or how to think.

I leave you with a quote from Joss Whedon:

"You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are. If there's any kind of fiction better than that, I don't know what it is."

Honestly, the first part of that quote makes me want to adopt a different attitutude toward hardship.