Jodi Speaks Her Mind

Coming home… in so many ways 8/30/2002

We are home now after a week away back in Virginia. We saw Steve’s youngest brother, Bob, get married to a wonderful girl named Suzy. Much blessings and happiness to you two!!

As many of you know, we are experiencing a difficult time of unemployment and it has really stretched our trust and faith. I was spending way too much time worrying and stressing rather than trusting and believing. But after some time away with folks who really care about us, I feel refreshed, renewed, and hopeful once again. So coming home to Arizona felt really good! I’m feeling much more like ME again.

Hopefully this will result in more regular postings to my site.

Oh, and I got a call last night about a job I applied for, and I now have an interview on Tuesday for it. Perhaps the tables are starting to turn for us…

I could definitely have skipped watching The Patriot 8/12/2002

…except for one thing and that was Heath Ledger, who I thought did an extraordinary job as the eldest son and true patriot of the family. Had they focused the story more around him, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. Mel Gibson was almost exactly the same as in Braveheart only without all the war paint. The fighting in the movie was much gorier than I anticipated. I mean I really didn’t need to see a guy’s leg and another guy’s head blown off by cannonballs. The historical part of the story was cool, though, I guess. I think if they had made it a bit less gory (what happened to leaving some stuff up to the imagination?) and they had cast someone other than Mel Gibson, it would have been a better movie. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mel Gibson and think he’s talented, but this role was nothing new to him and it showed.

Couple more movie reviews 8/7/2002

Tron was weird and pretty lame, but I guess it was cutting-edge when it came out in 1982. I guess after seeing The Matrix, it’s hard to see computer programs that can “die” because of things like matter or gravity. Come on folks - you think that’s air you’re breathing?

I will say that the original Dr. Dolittle was quite a lot of fun. A bit long, but very enjoyable as old style movies/musicals go. And the story was very different from the recent version that stars Eddie Murphy.

Tonight we’re watching The Patriot, which I resisted when it came out in theaters because I felt like I’d already seen it. Combine Ransom with Braveheart and you get the essence of The Patriot - at least as far as I could tell from the previews. I’ll let you know what I end up thinking about it afterwards.

Faith and the Ents

{Important note: If you’ve not read Tolkien’s The Two Towers then you probably won’t want to read this post, as I discuss specifics of the plot. If you plan to see the movie and don’t want anything spoiled from it you will NOT want to read on.}

So long as I’m talking about life impacting faith, I’ll share something else that has been really cool of late. I’m a little more than halfway through The Two Towers (Book 2 of the Lord of the Rings trilogy). I wanted to read the book prior to the movie, which comes out in December. Man, this book has been so awesome!

Sometimes in life it feels like you get to one of those tough places - "between a rock and a hard place" so to speak and it can sometimes seem like all means to escape that place are gone. I feel that way right now in a couple of areas of life and it can be pretty disheartening.

Still, though, this is what happens in The Two Towers… the enemy is growing in strength and power and is communicating between the two towers, Orthanc in Isengard and Barad-dur in Mordor. The orcs and uruk-hai are joined by other races the enemy has duped into serving him and their numbers are tremendous. The few remaining of the original Fellowship (of the Ring) - after a miraculous victory at Helm’s Deep with help from the Living Trees (without whom they would most surely have been defeated) - are heading up to Orthanc at Isengard to try to reason with Saruman. Just when you think that defeat is most likely, they arrive at Isengard to find that the entire region has been leveled - totally destroyed. The Ents and more of the Living Trees came and fought and won where other races would surely have failed given their numbers. The Forest won the battle that neither man, elf, hobbit, nor dwarf could have!

I feel like that is how God works sometimes. He is not limited to the resources that we enter into our calculations. He can move forests or mountains in order to accomplish His will if that is what is needed. I just loved having a visual picture to put with the idea. Brilliant!

Movies, movies, movies (and more to come)

So sorry for the silence, folks. I’m going to try to get back to posting again. We’ve been spending a lot of time watching movies of late. Mostly we rent movies or raid the collections of our friends. Finally, we went to the library and found that to be even better. New releases aren’t much of an option there, but you can catch up on all the older movies you missed. We’re going to finally watch The Cider House Rules and The Patriot as well as Tron and the original Dr. Dolittle (FUN!)

Yesterday we splurged though and went to an actual movie theater to see M. Night Shyamalan’s movie Signs. It was disappointing in some respects - I suppose mainly because our expectations were so high after The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, which is a huge fave in our house. Despite the disappointment, though, I definitely walked away with something from this movie. It is more about faith than it is about the plot events (which I’m leaving out so I don’t give anything away). Lately, my own faith has been shaken by life’s events and circumstances and only last week I reached the same conclusion that Graham Hess comes to in the movie. I won’t say anything for fear of spoiling it for anyone, but I guess this movie in itself was one of those conspiring events that all seem to be compelling you to a certain conclusion. And for me… right now… that rocked!