Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Innocence of Bambi

Bad things keep happening.  We shouldn't be surprised.  Jesus will be coming back, and it will get a whole lot worse.  But living in such a nation where the majority of it's populace thinks that they know best or how to fix things the right way, you'd think that things would be a bit better.  A little less horrific.

I'm tired.  I'm tired of poverty and abortion talks and gay rights and bombings and ignorance and selfishness and shallowness.  I'm tired of all the conflicting opinions.  I'm tired of fear and pain and death. I'm tired of all the sin in this world, and the sin in my own life.

The brightest part of my day was when I was at Wal-Mart.  I needed more Sunkist and I also just wanted to get away from everything on campus.  I wandered a while, and I heard all the usual.  Whiney kids and exhausted adults.  Poor people and wealthy people and people of every race, ethnicity, and size. I was beginning to think that Wal-Mart was the last place to go to get away from the 'world' when this little baby boy smiled at me in the pop aisle.  It was the sweetest, most joyous smile I had seen in the longest time.  And it made me so sad.  He has no idea.

I did want this to somehow relate to Disney, and it does.  Look at Bambi.  His joyous innocence is so huge throughout the movie.  One of my favorite moments is when he meets Flower.  Bambi doesn't know that Flower is a skunk.  He just knows that this little black creature is something new in this world he's been born into.  Flower is just another someone that he will get to know.  He sees the butterflies and the water and the clover with a new, excited innocence that I sorely miss.

I saw Bambi in this little boy.  He doesn't know that one day he'll be faced with all sorts of questions in life, and there will be people demanding an answer.  Each opinion will sound more and more correct.  Experiences will cloud his vision and life will cese to be the happy land of bright colors and warm blankets.

I've been bombarded with these things over the last week, besides serious health problems back home.  I watched this film called "Skin" for my Human Relations class, and it rocked me.  I hate how race played such a huge problem for such a long time.  I wish that race was the main part of the story.  Have you ever heard of the 'power of a single story?' There's so much more going on in every single person's life.  And I hate that these struggles and problems are overshadowed by politics.  I did a film analysis over it, and I wrote:
Here I am trying to figure out what to do with my time this summer, and here she is thinking she’ll never see her mother again.  These students may be the same.  They may have been taken from their parents, and wondering if they’ll ever see them again.  It makes me think of simple school things, like lunch conversations.  Here this young child will have to listen to a more privileged student, whatever their color, talking of their meaningless struggles like picking out the prettiest prom dress, while the other is wondering how many more hours of work they’ll have to put in at home to make their father happy.  It doesn’t even have to do with race.  I can see my sister right now in my head, sitting at lunch and listen to her friends talk of dates to prom and what they’ll wear, and she’s worrying about our dying grandfather and our broken mother that hasn’t worked in over a month because of her back pain.  She’s thinking of the homework she has to do and the practices she has to attend while pretending that she’s fine for her family’s sake.  There’s so much more to what’s going on in student’s lives! All of these movies and readings and quotes all seem to come back to that ‘power of a single story’ idea.  I just hope that when I’m a teacher, I can look past any type of barriers, whether it’s parentage or color or culture, and know what struggles they’ve faced and have yet to see.
It's not that things like the bombings aren't important to me.  I looked through the pictures and my heart cried for all the unnecessary pain that the people have been going through.  But these things happen every day in third world countries, and where are the tears for them? I hate that this is happening.  Pray for Boston, but also pray for the world! In Criminal Justice, my professor brought up the case against the abortionist doctor.  I looked up an article (in class but eh) and I almost cried out in class at the horror of it all.  He broke the backs of just born babies and threw their bodies in a closet. What kind of horror is this?! But Facebook posts are NOT going to change these laws and decisions. And quite frankly, I'm sick if seeing them.  I love the people who post them dearly, but I still don't want to see the posts.  Go DO something about it! Please!

I have two gay friends that I love, and one of them is practically the male version of me as far as Disney goes, but I am not going to spend my life fighting for them to have the right to marry, even though I do love them.  Marriage isn't a life or death thing.  Even though I hate the whole separation of church and state thing, I think that we need to separarte the whole idea of same sex marriage and Christianity and politics.  Making it illegal isn't stopping anyone from being gay or lesbian.  A law doesn't change what they believe.  David didn't change his mind about praying to his God when a law forbid him to.  A law won't stop people from being gay, and I think that some people thing that it will.  There are some gun laws, but does that stop school shootings? No.  You know what will? Hearts. If people only cared like they were supposed too! Dr. Hiigel, one of our Theology professors told a friend of mine how LBGT people could be used for the glory of God.  Send the gay men to free women from the sex trade! Think of that? Doesn't that idea have so much potential for good?! I think about all of the children in schools that don't know where their next meal is coming from, and whether or not they will get to keep their home. Will their mother be deported?  Will they have to go into foster care? We need people that CARE! I think of my grandpa in hospice care.  Thank God for nurses that are there for that.  Ackley is such an amazing place for these kind of people.  Grandpa always has visitors from so many different people that love him.  Could people do that for my mom? Stop asking her when her surgery is and just ask her if there's anything you can do for her.  Let her know that you care, and that you hate to see her hurting.  Even though there is no blood and there are no signs of physical pain, please know that there are plenty of unseen tears that show it clearly.  She probably wouldn't like me writing about this.  Mom likes to show the world that she's tough, and she is. She's taught me so much, and I don't think words can express how grateful I am for her, but a heartfelt word always means something.

Please think before you speak to someone.  Everyone has a story.  I see my young, white professor teaching me Human Relations, and I think that she has no idea, but then on my paper, she lets me know that her father died when she was roughly in college. She hasn't had an easy life either, no matter what her smile tells me in class.  I see all the ugly comments people make online.  I spend way too much time reading eonline articles and Yahoo articles.  The comments are the worst.  The language and the way they treat absolute strangers is absolutely disgusting. Those are real people.  They live lives and pay taxes and take their kids to school.  They may drive a car or use a Mac or take college classes.  They may be 13 years old and think that the world should bow down to them.  They may type so badly that you think all they're doing is hitting their head on the keyboard until it looks good.  But they're still all just people.  The celebrities in the news are people too.  They eat food, they drive cars, they wear clothes.  They probably had some sort of schooling. They have moms and dads and maybe siblings.  Who cares that Selena Gomez broke up with Justin Bieber? She must have had reasons.  Who cares that he threw up on stage at a concert? People get sick.  Who cares that Beyonce and her husband visited Cuba? People visit there all the time.  There is enough darkness and cruelty in the world without having to rip down people that are just living their lives! Who cares that Taylor Swift dated a bunch of guys?  So did probably the majority of girls in your class, and you probably know more truthful stories about them than anything thats been written online.  We are all people with feelings and minds.

God calls us to love one another.  Can we all do that please? And maybe more people will have the innocence of Bambi, without ignorance.

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