LOST - Season Premiere This Week!!

We are some serious lost fans! Here is a little recap to get you all up to speed.

I'm Loving This CD

I'm loving this Michael Buble CD, Call Me Irresponsible. I got it for Kendra for Christmas - and we fight over it constantly. Kaitlyn even loves it. This is the video for my personal favorite song called "Lost". It is so awesome. I dare you to listen to it and see if you don't love it too! Be sure to turn the Fine Tunes player at the top of the left sidebar off first!

Awesome!

Crawling Out From Under the Rock

Not having cable television for most of the last 14 years (except for a few months in our apartment last summer) has its advantages. Everything we want to watch is available on DVD! We had a great time watching episode after episode of LOST. It was very sad when we caught up even though we built toward the season finale with great anticipation! We have been watching some episodes of I Love Lucy, Quantum Leap, etc. We get them all from Netflix. It is so awesome to be able to just get any show you want. There were others that weren't as exciting - like Family Ties with Michael J. Fox - which had way more sexual implications when I watched it with my children than I had remembered - as did --- are you ready for this??? Mork & Mindy! Gross. I was just a kid - and all of that stuff flew right over my head. I am not saying we would never watch them - but likely just opt for more of the other stuff. Yesterday we started watching the first season of Gilmore Girls - and it was awesome. We watched all FOUR episodes - yep we vegged for a few hours and just watched TV! I can't wait to get the next disc!!! What are you watchin'?

Hey LOST addicts?

What's up with THAT ending?
There is a neat cluster of posts linked at Rocks in My Dryer. If you haven't seen the finale yet, this post may be a spoiler.
My family and I just started watching LOST a couple of months ago based on a recommendation by my friend Karen. We generally don't watch television, but for some reason this show hooked us! Travis came home last night, we had a quick dinner of BLT's and watched the last two episodes of LOST so that we would be ready for the finale. We were all so bummed. To kill two birds with one stone, here are my 13 thoughts about LOST!

• Nobody in my family understands why Charlie had to die. Although he shut the door to the room he was in to prevent the entire place from flooding, and to save Desmond, Desmond still had to go out the way he came in. Why didn't Charlie just go out the door and swim out together? Is it possible the door only shuts tight from the inside? Still the question remains, why not just dive in and go out the way they came? We were all really irritated that it seemed Charlie just submitted to his death without trying to survive.
  
• Obviously Ben was right about the "ship" that was off shore that they were contacting with the satellite phone. There was something amiss. However, it would appear from the (as Karen called it) "flash forward" that they were indeed rescued. What did Ben know about what would happen? What did Locke know? Why did he kill Naomi - the girl that parachuted in with the phone?
• There was a lot of gruesome killing on these last few episodes. Very cold blooded. It provided some good opportunities to talk about revenge. The best lesson was about Sawyer - that even though he finally killed the man he held responsible for all of his pain, he wasn't any less miserable.
  
• Who is on the good side? Who is on the bad side? Is Locke evil now that he seems to have joined the "others"? Can we trust Juliet now that she has confided in them, and betrayed Ben?
• Why did Jack kiss Juliet with an obvious gesture beyond friendship, and then say he loved Kate? I almost glossed over this - just thinking about situations where you can be torn between two people - but my girls didn't and I am so glad that they saw this as a chink in Prince Charming's armor.
• If the show is called "LOST" and they are rescued, doesn't the show end here? I mean I imagine they can continue on with the lives of the characters as they re-acclimate into their old lives, but the show would change so much that it wouldn't be the same.
• Was Walt dead or alive?
• If it was a "flash forward", why did Jack refer to his dead father, saying "Get my father down here and see if I'm drunker than he is"?
• Also, did anyone get the idea that they may be in some sort of secular after-life kind of place? Purgatory? What was up with Naomi saying that all their bodies had been found in the plane? They have certainly encountered apparitions of dead people on the island - but they seemed separate from the rest of them. Locke's dad (if you can call him that! I really loathe that man!) referred to it as hell. I have this unformed thought stream - thinking about how the "Others" only seemed to snatch the good people at the beginning and wondering how that all plays in together.
• What is up with Kate and Sawyer? It appears that she loves Jack, and is using Sawyer. I have started to think of them as a cute couple, however, I am liking Kate's character less and less. Who was the him that Kate had to get back to? We know it wasn't Jack.
  
• I was devastated to see the sequences of Jack "off" the island were a "flash forward" and not a flashback. I would have thought the island changed him for the better.
  
• Hurley rides in a VW van and saves the day. Did anybody see that coming?
• I can't wait for next season!!!!
  

Anyway - I am sure there will be more ramblings about LOST. I enjoyed it - but the ending TOTALLY left me scratching my head! (No mosquito bites there - in case you're wondering!) What are YOUR thoughts?

Natural Law and Sin Nature

A couple of years ago I discovered the "Uncle Eric" books by Bluestocking Press. They are totally amazing. They have helped me understand politics, government, inflation, the economy, etc. The books take the perspective of juris naturalis - which means natural law. I think everyone should read them. The two standards for living under this natural law are this (in my words):

1. Do all that you have said you will do
2. Do not encroach on others or their property

I love these standards. I think they are excellent in that they basically reflect the core of the Ten commandments. The "Uncle Eric" books are not spiritual per se, but they do point to the governing law under which we all live - and a strict adherence to right and wrong. As a Christian, I believe wholeheartedly that this standard comes from God. He has it outlined in His word over and over again. The problem with living in accordance with natural law is this - the sin nature. Even if I abide by these principles, if others don't, there is a conflict. However, we know that the fallen world surrounds us and the sin nature is in us all. So there are none who can live perfectly under the governing of the natural law, apart from Christ.
I was thinking about this the other day when we were watching some episodes from the first season of LOST. (I do not typically watch much television but this one came recommended - thanks Karen!) A group of 40 some people survive a plane crash and are stranded on a deserted island. They go about making a "community" among themselves as the chances of being rescued appear slim. At one point they realize an intruder - someone who was on the island before they were - has infiltrated their community - and start taking inventory of who was on the plane - comparing personal information from each individual and comparing it to the flight manifest. Hurley, the self-appointed statistician, initiates this beginning form of "island government", and one of the other island members accuses him of imposing his own brand of the "Patriot Act". However, it was this check that was done that helped them find the intruder in their midst. The truth of the matter is that while often we are resistant to the restraints of government, and the privacy and freedoms that we have to give up, we all want to know about the other guy. It really made me think.

So while juris naturalis may indeed be an excellent standard to live by, as are the Ten Commandments, who can do it?

Blood and Gore, Get Lost, and I'm Tired

Yesterday at co-op, Kullen took a fall. He was sitting on a horizontal pole that was only about 18 inches off of the ground, but when he flipped backwards, he banged his head. I was inside the church where we meet, and suddenly another boy came running inside screaming, "He's bleeding". Kullen ran in behind him, and in slow motion I watched his hand come off the back of his head and it as FULL of blood. My new friend, Tina and I were in the bathroom with him, and six saturated wads of paper towels later, the bleeding finally stopped. It was such a small injury to have bled so badly - but I remembered a similar cut my brother got once on the elementary school playground that bled so badly I thought he was going to die. We escaped stitches - - - this time!

Today we had a day at the park scheduled. I got a bit of a late start, but it was raining, and I wondered if they would still have it. TWO HOURS later I found my way there - but it was worth it. The park was nice, and the weather was a little windy but comfortably cool, although overcast. I was so frustrated before we got there. It was my own fault, as I didn't print out the directions. Since I had read them, I thought I was alright, but I was very wrong. I stopped three times for directions - but nobody knew where this park was, or they didn't seem to know the name of any street, landmark, etc. that might have helped me get there. I used to live in the Blue Ridge Mountains where there were few street signs, and managed to give people fairly competent directions to get from one place to another. I have not had a good experience with directions since we got here.

Anyway, I'm tired - but that's a recap of things that have been going on since I last blogged. I have been having some deep thoughts lately - but those will have to wait for later. Have a super weekend!

He Knows the Way That I Take

After a time of really struggling with my quiet time routine, I recently jumped back into one of Beth Moore's studies - A Womans Heart-God's Dwelling Place. This morning the study was focused on Gold, Silver and Precious Stones. In it there was a verse - Job 23:10 that says But He knows the way I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold. I pondered this for a moment, and thought about the "way that I take". Sometimes I take the way of pride, jealousy, selfish ambition. At times, I have my feet on a path I know better than to be going down. If He knows the way I take, I wonder why He doesn't just abandon me here? But He never does. He is always on the right path, calling my name.
As I am writing this I am reminded of something that happened almost two years ago now. It was early March during the first signs of spring, my slightly insane friend Lizbeth and I decided to take our kids hiking - up and over our little peak of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I knew the trail - or so I thought because I had hiked it once in the opposite direction! Long story short, we started off in the morning, stopped and had a picnic lunch with our five children, and continued on through the afternoon. What we hadn't realized is that the direction we headed was predominately uphill. My friend's 4 year old daughter was tiring, and we began to take turns carrying her. We also followed some arrows that appeared to lead out of the trail and back to civilization. Lizbeth hiked ahead as I sat with the children because we were tiring of carrying her little one - and I realized my cell phone battery was almost dead, and it was fast approaching dark in the shadow of the trees, so reluctantly I called my husband, and a couple of friends. One of our friends just so happened to live at the top of the mountain, and we called her to cancel plans that Lizbeth had with her for that evening, because she obviously was NOT going to make it - and unbeknownst to us, she sent her husband out to look for us. (He was a very expereinced hiker, who was very familiar with that section of the Appalachain trail.) As dark closed in, we bundled the children between us and huddled underneath an emergency blanket, and sang songs to the Lord for what seemed like hours. Finally we saw a flashlight in the woods. It was our friend's husband.
That is how God loves us - and even when the way that I take is the wrong way - He doesn't only stand calling my name - He comes to find me - in the dark when I am unable to find my own way home. And even though He always knows where I am, I know if I can lift my voice to praise Him, He hears my need for Him to find me all the more!
......He knows the way that I take....