Monday, May 4, 2009

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.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

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?