The Reader

I was watching The Reader and the character of Ralph Fiennes was someone that I found an interesting study. He was a very young teenager (I think 15) when he had an intense love affair for a summer with a woman who was around 35. He never could tell anyone about this relationship and that resulted in him being very closed and not even allowing himself to open up to the women that he got married to or physically close with. I could see how this secret and the fear of being found out made him put on a false front.
Then our pastor was talking about how fear will produce hypocrisy and I can really see the connection. Hypocrisy is like being an actor on the old Greek stage where they used masks on sticks and held them up to their face. This play-acting, this 'putting on a face' is hypocrisy. The fear can be a multitude of things and not just the fear of discovery. The fear can be what people may think, how I might be judged, the fear that noone will understand and there will be no compassion or unconditional love.

I take a step into the light
And quickly back away.
To be exposed would cost so much
Its a price I cannot pay.

There was a time of utter joy
Of love and sweet caress
Its left a bird inside my heart
And there 't will always nest.

I seek to find my life's content
A peace within without
There comes no such benevolence
And this is just another bout.

Others want so much more of me
They chase me with their claws
Wanting to draw my own life's blood
And pour it in their maws.

I know they seek to hurt me not
I give them only silence in return
It is my story and mine alone
To reveal it I would burn.

So...these folk who seem to be hypocrites, do we have the right to try and force them out into the open? To criticize them? To label and demoralize them? I think we ought to be more patient and understanding. Some people are born into sensible families but others have to fight to survive and everyone has a story and we sometimes need to let that story unfold the way it is supposed to. In the time that they need to work it out.

Mature Theme

My daughter left the TV on and something was playing on the enlightened 'SLICE' channel. It had gone to a commercial break and when it returned the warning was that the contents of the show were of a "mature theme." I was busy in the kitchen and was not watching it, but I was picking things up and noticed a lot of bitchy women, mostly blond wannabes, with faces that were expressionless from all the Botox and language that sounded like it was a bunch of 14 year old chicks. I believe I caught the dialogue where one woman said she was "going to cause a lot of drama." I don't get why these shows have any appeal and as far as I'm concerned, there should be a warning alright; it should say "Warning: immature theme and subject matter." Who would want to attach their good name and reputation to such a lot of sleaze and foolishness?

My dad

Kenneth Peter Hatlen March 1, 1928-October 15, 1977. My dad was 49 years old when he was killed in a traffic accident with my 13 year old brother (Kenneth Robert Hatlen). I was 22 at the time.
My dad was a huge man who worked hard physically and had hard hands, shoulders that were thick and always had a twinkle in his eye. He was the kind of man who taught me that men with a gruff exterior were usually just putting on a show. He had his faults, but I want to dwell here on the things that matter to me.
As a little girl, I remember him always making me feel like I was special to him. I don't remember him saying "I love you" but I knew he did love me and I always felt like he made an effort to be my dad and I felt like he looked at me like I mattered to him. He would wake up some occasional Saturdays and say "It's a Melora day." I heard it more than once because I remember thinking, in my childish brain, that that was my nickname 'Melora-day'. I went hunting with him, fishing with him, followed him around outside, helped him diagnose mechanical problems with the lawnmower, tried to imitate his bird calls and whistles, went on trips to Edmonton to pick up supplies for his painting business and went to eat at the Legion near Fort Road and 118 Ave for lunch more than once. He always told me stories and tried to get me to tell round-robin stories with him on the drives back.
I remember when I told him I bought tickets to a football game and did he want to go? He was so excited and off we went to Edmonton. The Esks weren't doing so good, it was raining at Clark Stadium and we left before the end of the 4th quarter and Dad suggested we go out for supper. We went to a nice steak house on the corner of 142 St. and Stony Plain Road and the first thing Dad did was pick up all the 'peripheral' silverware and stick it in the extra wine glass and hand it to the waiter and said, "won't be needing these." That's the way he was-no frills.
I was allowed to use his van while the family went on a vacation to Spain and I wasn't supposed to, but I made a trip to Red Deer with it. On the way back, near Leduc, the motor went in it. I had to hitchhike home, borrow $1200.00, hitchhike back to Leduc and get the van home before they got home! My dad was upset, shocked that I'd taken care of it, shocked that I went where I wasn't supposed to go with it and, I didn't know until after he died that he kept that receipt for the new motor on the wall in his 'paint shop' for over 4 years! I don't know why exactly, but there again, what I did mattered to him.
I just miss him so much. He would always put his arm around me and I loved his hands. I was driving the other day with my hands on the steering wheel and I was suddenly struck with the thought of my dad's big, strong hands and I missed him with an aching like it was yesterday. I never even got to say good-bye.

Pressurized People

I look around me and everywhere I see them - people blowing off steam because the pressure is more than the pot can bear. They do it on Dr. Phil, Maury and, definitely, Jerry Springer. They do it on the roads, in grocery stores, in the mall(look out Christmastime!) and have temper tantrums that their children would've got a spanking for 25 years ago. Some take it to the gym and run until the pressure is left panting on the floor, deflated. Some try really hard to transfer their pressure on to other people-especially in traffic! I know the moron (who REALLY wanted to go faster than me so I almost couldn't make my turn yesterday) hasn't hit the reading level yet whereby he might read this. Everyone makes mistakes when they drive-the insurance rates bear testimony. Getting angry never does any good and if it really "makes you feel better" then it is really hard to tell that the getting angry brought relief of any kind. My sister hit a deer once-two weeks after my dad and brother were killed in an auto accident-and people were yelling at her while she could only helplessly stand there and cry. Where is our humanity? Our demonstrations of all those negative emotions just tear us up. There has to come a time where we are more polite with each other, where we count to 10 before we talk, where we try to see the world through someone else's eyes or walk a mile in someone else's moccasins. I know that if the person who so rudely gave me the finger was looking me in the eye, it wouldn't happen. Its the freedom of being a rude uncaring person safe in their own little box that causes people to do things like that. I'm not going to change people but I have found a lovely little place down in Florida where life is lived much mellower and I will spend more time there as the years go by. Its too bad we're such hopeless cases.

Judging

I know that I judge things all the time. I am a people watcher and I look at the things people do, the way they dress, if they smoke or have children, how they behave-it all fascinates me and I do tend to put them in their "appropriate" boxes. On the other hand, if they wanted to talk to me or needed my help, all my presuppositions would melt away and I would definitely give them a fair chance to get to REALLY know them. Once I get to know someone I relate to them from my paradigm-being a Christian, I examine myself very closely and make sure I'm relating the love of Christ in whatever manner that I deal with my friends and family. I cannot write people off. Sometimes I do need to step back, let time pass and re-evaluate my relationship with some but I can never just GIVE UP on a person. I love every single person-even if they hurt me. I can say that with all sincerity because God loves them. He doesn't want a single soul to perish into everlasting punishment and I feel that as a follower of Jesus Christ and a person that has needed to be forgiven of many things, I cannot give up on anyone-even if I can judge that they have done bad things and they may or may not have asked for forgiveness. I have been challenged as to why I would be so magnanimous with someone that has hurt someone I know or how I can defend someone who has wronged me but, even though the charges levelled against that person may be accurate and the judgement is sound, I must disagree. My heart tells me that love and forgiveness must go hand-in-hand. I can judge these things, too but I want to win them over and I am in no position to condemn. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."