It's a kind of magic

(Rég írtam a blogra - de most kihagyom a magyarázkodós részt, és in medias res folytatom:)

 Ti még nem tudjátok, de 2014 sok változást hozott nekem, elsősorban életmódi, meg szokásbeli változásokat, de lehet Obama kedvenc szava, a VÁLTOZÁS még nem áll meg itt. Ezt a szót egyébként én is szeretem, sokszor koptattam feleslegesen, ez talán most nem megy hiába.

Kicsit sokat futottam, kevésbé ésszel, ami miatt megrándult a térdem, és a bal szemem kötőhártya-gyulladást kapott - ezek a hírek a hétre (a két dolog között nincs összefüggés, bárhogy keresem). A lábra van Fastum gélem, a szememre antibiotikus szemcseppem, szóval I guess I die another day, de ami nehéz, hogy rábírjam magam a pihenésre.

Filmekkel bilincselem magam az ágyhoz, ráadásul hosszúakkal: ma megnéztem a Djangot, az Iron Sky-t, éppen most a 2 Hobbit van műsoron (ha nem bírok aludni, még egy About Time is befigyel). A hosszú filmek nem éppen az én műfajom (nem véletlen szeretem a 21 perces sitcomokat), de most rászántam magam - egyébként is azokból a helyzetekből tanulunk, ami nem olyan kényelmes nekünk, és 27 évesen épp ideje megértenem a fantasy filmeket.

Eleinte sopánkodtam, meg türelmetlenkedtem, de a 4. órában be kell lássam, hogy a Hobbit, legyen bármilyen vontatott szerkesztésű - valahol mélyen nagyon vonzó, egy olyan világ, amibe most én is szívesen tartoznék. Utálok a szobában, nem történik velem semmi - inkább lennék abban a világban. Most még játszom a gondolattal amíg a 2. rész véget ér, aztán elalszom, és remélem, ezzel álmodom...

#MyThoughtsOn The Tree Of Life

The Tree Of Life is a touching movie that tries none less than raising the great questions of life: why we live, what is the purpose of us and what is our place in the universe. I would probably fail to grasp the deep meanings of the film so don't even try: I just like to highlight some key messages the story gave to me.

The most obvious to notice are the references to Christian teachings: the opening quote from the Bible (Job 38: 4,7: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?….When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?) sets the mood and all through the movie we have no doubt that it would keep the religious perspective. But not in a usual way: the obvious religious characters of institutional religion fail to explain the questions raised. It is easy to see in the convo when one son dies in the family and a Christian priest tries to comfort the mother for her loss by saying:

FATHER HAYNES 

He is in God's hands, now. 

MRS O'BRIEN 

He was in God's hands the whole time, wasn't he?

Just as another churchgoer's words of 'You still have two sons' seem unsuccessful in easing the pain of the mother. I often experienced similar religious advice failing the same way, too. Spiritual journey of ours is so intimate that it is hard to understand by an outside viewer and though they may have kind purposes in comforting with the Word, it often feels cliche to me... and reductive. Sometimes it would be better not to say anything, just be there for the other. I think Church could get closer to people if instead of telling them what to do would start to be there for them and show them how to do.

The second thing I noticed was that the director surely likes structures: unusual structured buildings captured in different angles, golden ratio as church interior and unusal cuts all suggest that we see the story through somebody's eye who surely believes everything is structured and in order. Far from postmodern, every scene of the film has a meaning and they are all part of the big picture. This idea resonates with my views again: I also believe the same and often get mesmerized by the structural beauty of a building or a sunflower.

Getting deeper and deeper in the movie, the father and mother figure became two fighting forces - nature and grace. As the mother put it:

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
The nuns taught us* there were two ways through life - the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.

Nature and Grace are the possible ways to choose from, one option is embodied by the father and the other by the mother. I let you choose which one is which:

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.

[...] 

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.

Here's the casting: the father figure represents the way of Nature and the mother figure promotes Grace, so we are the children who have to choose from the two ways. I am not sure whether the film suggests you should choose grace over nature, it is a question the film leaves open, I guess. Anway, I like the idea to put that eternal question into a metaphoric surrounding of a family. While watching, I myself often got reminded how my mother really represented grace by her unconditional love towards me and often thought about my father too who kept pushing me into being stronger.

It is not what happens to the characters that is important but what happens inside the viewer. The long animations capturing the genesis of life helped me slow down and think about my role in the universe. Much more like that, I travelled a thousand miles through this movie keeping this in mind:

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
The nuns taught us* that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.

__________________
* If these nuns taught Mrs O'Brien so much wisdom, I think I'll have no problem with my children attending Catholic school :) - that's for those having doubts that current change in Hungarian education policy is malevolent.

Blue Valentine and blind trust

I think there is shortage in quality romantic films that make you think about love. Blue Valentine is an exception for sure. It is not about how you can find love but what it feels like when you are losing it. And as we tend to appreciate things when they are gone, this film is up for teaching you a hard but important lesson of love and life, that is: it does not always turn out the way we have wanted to.

This film won't give you the comforting illusion that when you do things right, you'll get what you deserve, no. It rather serves as an exclamation mark for every brave adventurer who still have the courage to love - I mean real love - to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part.

I believe the intention of the filmmakers with this exclamation mark was not to scare everyone but to emphasise the importance of being careful, sober and cautiously aware when love knocks on your frontdoor. As not being a lovechild, I've learnt this lesson long ago - this film was an effective revision, though.

See some lines that sum up the message:

CINDY

What did it feel like when you fell in love? 

GRAMMA

Oh... oh dear, I don't think I found it

CINDY

Even with grandpa?

GRAMMA 

Maybe a little, in the beginning. He didn't really have any regard for me as a person. You gotta be careful with that. You gotta be careful with the person you fall in love is worth it... to you.

CINDY

I never want to be like my parents. I know they must've loved each other at one time right? To just get it all out of the way before they had me. How do you trust your feelings when they can just disappear like that?

GRAMMA 

I think the only way you can find out is to have the feeling. You're a good person. You have the right to say I do trust. I do trust myself.

If not for the message, watch it for Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling delivering excellent acting. Or for the several symbolic scenes all worthy to talk about but I skip them all to keep the focus on the most important one:
Trust? You can never surely trust in your feelings, especially when it comes to love. You have to be careful and brave at the same time: careful to choose and brave to dare to go trust blind with your choice.

And be humble in accepting the ending, happy or not.

New theme for the blog

I did a minor facelift for this blog. Although the previous style was much more stylish for me (remember the wooden background with twitter-blue short notecards for every blogpost), but this one is much more practical:

•  It can be viewed via mobile as well
• I can connect comments to G+ posts
• I can mention G+ users like +Tímea Szögedi and +Judit Keresztes 
• and I am easier to get in touch with the G+ follow button on the right.

Let's hope all this parcticality will encourage me to write more.
Stay in touch, folks.

#MyThoughtsOn Trouble with the Curve

Today I watched Trouble with the Curve. I chose this movie because I always liked baseball-related stories – I think that a game that is so strongly attached to American Culture can only be fascinating.

Trouble with the Curve proved me right: this film is about old and new, about the old times when baseball was the king, when it was considered sport and art at the same time, when it was more about the spirit, less about the money, when not computer statistics decided upon talent but highly devoted eyes of an expert.

Our baseball-fanatic devoted eye (Gus Luden played by Clint Eastwood) is about to lose his sight and his scouting contract in the same period of his life (dark clouds, innit?). What could only help is family – that Gus also lacks of. Actually he has a pretty successful daughter (Mickey, played by Amy Adams) but their relationship is somewhat cold. Gus lost his wife when his daughter was only six. Soon after this, Gus decided to leave his daughter and let her uncle raise her up instead of him.

Well, this family part of the story is what I like the most: the film suggests that family is such a bond that cannot be cut off, even when your family got messy because of a tragic death of a loved one or when you work thousand miles apart. When trouble comes, you can cling to family and not just by bowing down at your wife’s tomb and quoting Johnny Cash’s You Are My Sunshine, but a long-time no-see daughter can just as well turn up to clean the mess in your eyes and get back you on track.

At one point of the film, you realise that actually it is not losing the eye sight that is the problem: a long-damaged father-daughter relationship needs to be mended, scars need to be healed. The emphasis is on this string of the story so much that you even forget to keep your fingers crossed for Mickey and Johnny (which is fine, this touch makes the film different).

Although I have got to admit I enjoy their dialogue maybe too much in the part when Mickey (the daughter) enters the pub and Johnny (played by Justin Suit-and-Tie Timberlake) asks for a date. The Dad is there, giving Johnny some backwind:

JOHNNY: You can buy me a drink if you want [...]
MICKEY: I don’t feel so right, right now.
GUS: Get out.
MICKEY: What?
GUS: Go. What did you do? Go out. Meet some people. Have some fun, you hang around here.
MICKEY: Thank you, I meet plenty of people.
GUS: You are single, aren’t you?
MICKEY: Yes, I am still single, very single.
JOHNNY: Maybe you are emotionally unavailable.
MICKEY: Emotionally unavailable? Who are you, Dr Phil?
JOHNNY: Hey, that is quality television!
MICKEY: And by the way, if I am emotionally unavailable, [turning to Johnny] which I’m not, thank you very much, [turning back to her father] it would be because of you.
GUS: Just go with him, Jesus Christ.
JOHNNY: We’re gotta get a camera crew following you guys around. The Kardashians are nothing with the two of you. Poor Bruce.
GUS: Come on, just the two of you – get out.

Finally they do get out and that is when Johnny turns out to be pretty similar to Mickey’s dad: a baseball fanatic who lost his job (was a baseball player) because of a body-disfunction (his left arm got injured) – this is what makes his presence legitimate in the story.

His restart is a message to Gus. Johnny became a scouter after his retirement from his baseball career. When thinking about signing a young prospect, Johnny gets the advice from Gus that the young player might perform well  now, but he has got trouble with the curve - so his hand is hurt and could not handle the pressure of being a professional player (Alanis Morrisette would at this point wonder if it is ironic or not).

I am not going to tell you if Gus was right, but I hint that the script is full of these kinds of symbolic meanings. In the beginning of the film, the company thought they needed a new blood in scouting and in the end they get their new blood, but in a different way they have expected. Mickey’s mobile phone that is always in her hands get dropped into trash at the end – this also holds a message , just as the last lines of Gus saying he may try to do things differently (Mickey’s answer hit it, too “You already did”).



So, my instincts did not fail when I chose this movie. Before watching it, I had no idea what trouble with the curve would mean. But after seeing it, I find that I have quite a few experiences, too, with having some trouble with certain curves. I don’t know much about baseball, but I know I have a keen interest in topics film-makers attach to it: family, traditional values and thinking, old and new emerging, true talent and spirit – good stuff we can all learn about. And these are the kind of stories I like.

as different from you as the east from the west

One of the daily devotionals I follow is 'Pocket Devotions'.  In today's edition I was reminded how important it is to meet with people of different style, world view, etc. I wish that all of my Christian mates are reminded to celebrate each others differences, and we will be blessed.

About a month or two from now I met a Christian guy who is so different from me, and getting to know him turned into a real blessing. So the recipe is good, you should give it a try as well:

"The next time you have a chance, develop a relationship with a Christian brother or sister who is as different from you as the east from the west -- you will be blessed!"

I copy the whole text here as there is no public link I can share it with you:

Day 494: Blessed By Our Differences


Romans 1:8b

...for all of you...

Thoughts for Today:

This can be a hard one. Paul didn't say as I might, "And I thank God for Rob, Ty, Jack and John...and not so much for the rest of you [just kidding]." Rather he said, "I thank God for all of you." In Romans 12:4-5, Paul deals with the body of Christ -- that's all of us: "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."


Clearly Paul really got it -- he understood that our differences should be celebrated not criticized or ridiculed. In his letter to the church at Corinth Paul writes, "If the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?" (1 Corinthians 12:16-17).


The challenge is not as much to philosophically understand this concept as it is in the difficulty of application. Why? Because we have a tendency to choose team members the same way we do our friends -- based upon what we have in common, not our differences. Imagine how poor a basketball team would be if it were made up only of players who could dribble and shoot from the perimeter. Who would rebound? Think about it related to our own physical bodies -- some parts like the eyes, may get a little more recognition than the kidneys, but try living without kidneys -- you wouldn't last very long no matter how well you could see. The same is true in the body of Christ -- and Paul understood this with crystal clarity -- it's why he thanked God for ALL of you!

Questions to Ponder:

Look around you: Who is in your small group? Who attends your Bible study? Do they look, think and act just like you? I hope not because some of my greatest growth as a Christian has been because of my relationships with people not in my economic bracket, who weren't raised like me, who were much older, or conversely much younger. The next time you have a chance, develop a relationship with a Christian brother or sister who is as different from you as the east from the west -- you will be blessed!

Our limitations

Recently I have come up with a really interesting tweet from a Christian opinion leader:

Most of us have no idea what our limitations are, because we haven't pushed ourselves hard enough to discover them. (via @energy_project)
— Justin Wise (@JustinWise) July 2, 2012

I think I belong to those who have no idea about the limitations of mine. I somehow was not challenged enough in my life. I wonder how I can make up for this missing experience. I hope life will brings me the adventures I need to become a better person.

From wandering to walk the walk

It is Canada Day in the luckier part of the earth, and I am also in the mood of celebration. Although my soul just as honestly feasts the Canadian spirit, it is also into some kind of self-celebration. I have achieved some great things in the past few months that are worthy for recognition: 2 MA degrees, writing app. 200 pages in 5 weeks' time, worked my butt off in a call center, and stayed true to myself. I have come through so many things and I think it has served for my advantage.

Still, life can give you the greatest dissatisfaction in time when there are so many things to acknowledge. After the hardest times of my life came the deepest thoughts - questioning myself, my directions in life, my realtions with others, my values and qualities are currently being examined in my life. I do lot of walks at night (that is the only time of the day that is bearable this time of year) - like the hermit, I am wandering in the dark, searching for the ways out of my labirinth.

I think it is high time I stopped wandering and start to walk the walk instead. My lacking things made me feel that I need to evolve in so many ways. I need to have a better command of English and Hungarian, I need to deepen my knowledge in theology and the wisdom of life and I need to stay open and ready to be challenged in many ways.

So it's time to change, time to be wide awake.

Read: The Story Girl

The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Story Girl is a special novel for me reminding me of my childhood happiness and the innocence of the human nature. Sure it is not an exciting novel with action, buut it is a one that brings back memories and conveys the feelings of long-lost merriness of our possible best time ever: our childhood.

The fact that it has been filmed in a series 'Road To Avonlea' just makes it all the better.

I think I never forget about this book and that it reminded me of one big truth:
'When you know things you have to go by facts. But when you just dream about things there’s nothing can hold you down."

View all my reviews