Come to My Party!!

If you're reading this, you have most likely already received my 40th birthday "party" invitation... or one is on its way soon to your e-mailbox. I’ve been contemplating the landmark not-so-old age of 40 for months now, wanting to do something special, big, exhilarating, personal... something with meaning. I brainstormed ideas from movies to food to scavenger hunts to costume parties. But something was always missing. And then last week, a fully formed idea burst into my head (much like Athena from the brain of Zeus) -- a "virtual party" wherein friends and maybe even friends of friends all buy presents for... children on the other side of the world who need a school. I've loved school all my life, so much that I've spent the last 20 years either studying education or teaching. The idea thrilled me immediately.

I checked out my two favorite charities and found that Samaritan's Purse could build or renovate a school in a poverty-stricken area for $8000. "That's a LOT of money!" I thought. "I can never raise THAT much money!" And then, this verse was thrust into my mind: "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!" (Ephesians 3:20-21). So who's to say what can and can't be done? What I will do is try. Let's build a school!!

If you would care to donate, please know that your gift is tax deductible. You will write a check to Samaritan's Purse, deliver it to me, and I will collect and mail all contributions, with an earmark for our school project. If your name and address are on your check, you will receive a tax receipt in the mail. I will not post my address on this site, as most people reading this can either deliver checks via my workplace, my husband's workplace, or our church. Otherwise, I suspect you already have our address. If someone forwarded you a link to this blog, then that person can provide you with contact information.

My 40th birthday is Thursday March 13th. If you aren't able to put a check in my hand by that date, please let me know it's on the way. I hope to gather, count, and mail all checks by the following Monday, the 17th, Saint Patrick's Day. So I guess we'll call St. Pat's day our "deadline."

I hope to be able to provide more information at a later date about the actual results of my little birthday project. I'm in touch with the folks at Samaritan's Purse and am exploring the possibility of knowing an exact price and location of a specific school. That is my ultimate wish, but it depends firstly on the amount of money we are able to collect. Check this blogspot later to see if there are follow-up posts. If so, I'll edit this one with a "P.S." so you'll know where to look.

Finally, one more word about Samaritan's Purse. It was founded in 1970 and taken over in 1973 by Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son. Its goal is to follow the Biblical example of the Good Samaritan throughout the world. I chose this organization because they are in the business of providing help and HOPE to suffering people. It is my humble opinion that hope is incomplete without Jesus. Samaritan's Purse delivers food, shelter, medecine, education, and Jesus' message of hope to hurting people. The organization is ranked highly among America's best and most trustworthy charities. So let's get to work building a school!!

Oscar Weekend, Day Three, Part Three

Evening Pay-Per-View: LA VIE EN ROSE
Reaction: Eh. Great acting but otherwise your typical bio-pic. Singing is stupendous, but the nonlinear storytelling was frustrating to me.
Nutshell: French songstress Edith Piaf overcomes a life of abandonment to become one of the greatest vocal artists of the century.
Analysis: Standard themes of rags to riches. The best parts are when she's a small girl and then a young woman singing on street corners. The actress who portrays Piaf (Marion Cotillard) from teen to old woman is fantastic. Unbelievable tranformations, from plucky street singer to glamorous songstress to sickly and decrepit older woman. She's an excellent pick for Oscar.

Oscar Weekend, Day Three, Part Two

This Afternoon: THE SAVAGES

Reaction: Enjoyed it very much. Tired of blogging for today. Will not write much.

Nutshell: Sister and brother in their 40's must put their aging and demented father, who had abandoned and mistreated them as children, in a nursing home. Sis is having an affair with a married man, and bro watches his Polish girlfriend of three years get deported because he's not ready for marriage. Both are frustrated writers.

Analysis: A soft, mournful, witty, gentle, hopeful movie. Characterized not so much by plot but by the actors' performances and the sometimes lyric, sometimes snappy script. Laura Linney nominated for best actress and Tamara Jenkins nominated for best screenplay. Linney was wonderful but the role wasn't spectacular enough for the Oscar.

God in it: Like everything else I've seen this weekend, but much brighter and gentler, I saw love shine through chaos. Wendy and John (Linney and Hoffman) are emotionally inept because of the trauma of their childhood, but they have not lost their tenderness or openness to redemption. As they go together through the drama of loss, they find courage in each other's humanness. By the end, they've taken bold steps towards healing. The last scene is priceless.

Popcorn status: Success! One short sugar-free low-fat latte. A+ to me.

Oscar Weekend, Day Three, Part One

This Morning: SWEENEY TODD

Reaction: Oh, the blood! the music! the artistry! the delicious Depp and Rickman!

Nutshell: Barber's Wife is raped by evil Judge who sends Barber away to prison on trumped up charges. Wife takes poison. Daughter "adopted" by Judge. Barber returns after 15 years for revenge. Starts killing people with his barber blade. His new pal the Pie Lady uses the bodies for meat. Lots of people dead in the end, including Judge, Wife, Barber, and Pie Lady. Daughter survives.

Analysis: This musical takes gruesome to new levels... a dirge for humanity, an ironic lullaby, a discordant love song. Sondheim plus Burton plus Depp plus Rickman plus Carter. Wow. But not easy to watch. Last night, I left a movie theatre because I couldn't take the gore. Today, although I turned my eyes away a few times, I was glued to my seat. I do appreciate a good tragedy, and in this genre you have to expect a lot of death. Classical tragedies lament human powerlessness, as we cower beneath fate and frailty. This time around, the tragic flaw is more like a tragic curse: that we all deserve to die. Several characters say it outright. The bad guys deserve it, and so do the rest. Which leads me to...

God in it: God's presence in this movie is best illustrated by His absence. I seem to be drawn to movies of chaos this weekend (or Oscar is). I have to say that the premise of this movie is in agreement with scripture. Death is not only inevitable, but deserved. The most interesting and horrific symbol of this occurs when all the fine innocent townfolk eagerly consume Mrs. Lovett's cannibal pies. The message is crystal clear: Humans devour each other. We call it love, but we really feed on each other to keep ourselves alive. And we teach our kids to do the same. It's all over this film. It would be unbearable if the movie didn't squeeze in a little hope through Anthony, the wide-eyed idealistic youth willing to risk it all for the love of Johanna. They are two of three characters to survive. The only other is Toby, who will no doubt continue life as a hungry, angry scoundrel. Characters like Sweeney are so doomed that they kill the ones they love the best. Only Anthony tapped into any heroism, but the story isn't really about him. It's all about Sweeney Todd, a symbol of hopeless, starved, victimized humanity. A dirge for the road we're all on -- save for the hope of a savior.

Final Note: I just checked out the official website (linked above) and it's fascinating. The makers of the film see it as a love story, and indeed that's a level I didn't think about much, being so overwhelmed with the darkness of it all (hard to avoid in a Burton film sometimes). But Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter strike a very moving and sexy counterpoint -- their eyes and voices are infectious and lovely. The love yearns and hopes but is never fulfilled. And, on a most interesting note, I found out that Anthony's last name is Hope.

Oscar Weekend, Day Two

Tonight: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Reaction: Watched 15 minutes, walked back to the box office, got a refund, went home.
Nutshell: Non-stop graphic murder. Unbearably offensive.
Popcorn: None. I'm back home eating sugar free jello.

Oscar Weekend, Day One

The husband and daughter are out of town for a few days, leaving me to a movie-priority weekend! I'm on an Oscar preparation mission. Trying to avoid popcorn along the way. Will post nightly on movie reactions and popcorn avoidance success.
Tonight: MICHAEL CLAYTON
Reaction: fantastic
Nutshell: Michael (George Clooney) is the "fixer" for a law firm that's defending a sinister agricultural company, and everything in his financial and professional life is on the line. His cohort in the firm has a moral epiphany and Michael gets caught in the middle.

Analysis: I love it when a film explores a single profound theme through multiple characters. In this one, everyone is drowning in chaos and they're up to their eyeballs in it. One character, Karen, "fixes" everything through careful plotting, planning, and murder. Michael's friend, Arthur, is so intoxicated by the possibility of redemption that he constructs a mad symphony of salvation for himself and everyone he's wronged... but the music is so loud that he doesn't hear the footsteps at his back. Michael plays out his role like a leading man should, piecing together the clues and bringing the chaos to justice.

God in it: The message here is that our chaos needs a savior. There's no sense in taking the reins by ourselves and being our own "fixers" because we are all totally inadequate alone. Some of us drunks, some of us lonely, some of us bankrupt, some of us nearly mad... things only get fixed when love comes into play. This film doesn't suggest there is a Heavenly Savior, but it's definitely on to something good. Michael's triumph couldn't have happened without his skeptical cop brother, his lowlife loser of a brother, and (more indirectly) his affable, book-reading son. In one scene, when he narrowly escapes a car bomb, one might ask if a Higher Power was looking down on him. There is a lot to ponder in the film from a Christian standpoint. Highly recommended.

Popcorn Status: Movie snacks by-passed, but quick cereal binge upon homecoming. Give self a C+.

A-Caucusing We Go

Today I attended the Democratic caucus meeting in support of Barack Obama. No Republican infiltration alarms went off as I entered the building. As I found my table, two of my neighbors (retired teachers from across the street) were there -- she for Hilary, he for Barack. Then I spotted our church minister of music walk by. A pregnant Muslim woman sat beside me. It was so crowded that it took an hour just to find chairs for everyone and reconfigure the building for some of the larger precincts with big turnouts.


Finally, a woman approached the microphone to tell us that we were here to take back America from the Republicans!! I fessed up to my friend Leona that I was actually undecided between Obama and McCain. But between Obama and Clinton, my opinions are rock solid. I determined that I would talk little and listen a lot, but as it turned out, there was no political discussion at the table at all. No one in our group was an undecided. On our first tally, the count was 9 for Clinton and 11 for Obama. We had 4 delegates for our precinct, and that meant that Clinton won 1.8 of them and Obama, 2.2. WHAT??? My silence turned into questions. Were we just turning in hypothetical delegates, wherein 1.8 of a person would just combine with 0.2 of another precinct's person to create two full hypothetical delegates? Or were we voting for 4 actual live human beings? There was disagreement. The fellow across the table (who looked eerily familiar, but I still can't figure out who he is) decided to make a mini-speech on behalf of Ms Clinton inviting one Obama supporter to break rank, giving us a 10-to-10 count and thereby eliminating the hypothetical 0.2 person. A woman two chairs away agreed to give up her Obama vote. Whoa Nellie, says I! What good does it do us to manipulate our tally so as to come out dead even? "If we're here to change America," I say, quoting the theme o' the day, "What good does it do for us to vote 2 against 2?" If we've got to send partial delegates, I want to hold on to the Obama lead! Viva the 2.2! Others counter me by saying that our votes will be added in to the big democratic pot. Somewhere inside, the part of me that still wants to remain silent, I'm thinking that every person's vote needs to count, and votes should be cast on principle, not charity. Then the precinct chairman gives out the verdict: we are to round to the nearest whole and elect actual whole people with actual full bodies to our four delegate positions. So, here we are back to the 2 and 2. No one else is interested in changing their vote. And thus, I watch the political process take a 9-to-11 and round it into a 2-to-2. Very interesting.

As this unfolds, I'm taking notes. I volunteered to write down the details of the "debates" and tallies when no one else jumped at the chance. So when it comes time to elect 2 delegates from among the Obama supporters, the eerily familiar man across the table nominates the chairman and the "secretary." That would be me. Very funny. Lifelong Republican gets elected to be a Democratic delegate. This is fun.

So I'll show up at the high school down the street on April 5th to carry the torch for Obama again. Technically, I'm free to change my mind. Also interesting. Delegates, in addition to remaining whole persons, can also be their own independently thinking persons. As a delegate elected to vote Barack, I could always decide at the last minute to vote Hillary. Fat chance of that though.

The truth is, I disagree with Obama on several issues. For one, the estate tax. I also have misgivings about a national health plan - but I've read his ideas on Obama.com, and if he can make it work, then I'm all for it. I just wonder whether a country that can't manage Medicaid or Medicare (or Social Security for that matter) can manage a national health plan. I took a free on-line issues test several weeks ago, and it turns out I agreed most with Romney. I used to think I agreed with George Bush. In the end, I don't think I mind going with someone I don't fully agree with. (If agreement were the goal, who among us could remain married?!)

Truth is, I like Obama. He seems to be a truth-teller. He's classy. He's not jaded. His ideas about politics favor grass-roots and non-profits. Lots of very different people like him. Oprah likes him. Todd Vick likes him. 11 out of 20 in my precinct like him. Looks like the state of Washington likes him... so far, he's way ahead in the early counts with a 2-to-1 lead.