You're Making My Life a Garden

God is making my life beautiful. The funny thing is, I usually think that I have to tangibly see the beauty to know that he's making it fresh and pure. To see the goodness, that I'm becoming more perfect, that life is getting easier and that temptation is being crowded out by a desire to be good and love God above all else.

All of those things are definitely beautiful, and they're the fruits of following God in how you live. Yet I think that God is shaping me and growing me and making my life more pure even when I can't see Him doing it. It's like he's there invisibly, helping me in those moments where I could trip and fall and standing me up straight. He's the reminders to think the best of people, and to shut up if I haven't anything good to say, or to pay attention in Mass.

These things are tiny. They're even rare, at times in my life. But they're proof that God is real and that He loves me. That even when I'm a jerk, He's not going to give up on me.

That's a wonderful comfort. I'm loved. It's the most special thing to be.

-Tina

I'll be out of my mind...

I would be, rather, if the BBC didn't make such smashingly fantastic TV shows.


Right now, BBC Merlin is my very favorite. I haven't got time to write a full review, but the show tells the story of the great sorcerer Merlin as a young man in Camelot. Using magic is against the law, and for a guy with a natural talent for it, that is a bit of a problem. The creator of the law is the king in town: Uther. He's Arthur's dad (not dead in this reworking of the legend, though Arthur is a young man) and he believes magic to be evil. Is it because he believed the old religion to be wrong, or perhaps because of something rooted deeper?

It's just such a great show. I feel as though movies and TV today barely ever make a distinction between right and wrong. It's so chock full of relativity, and those who are shown to believe that truth exists are depicted in most TV shows as ridiculous or intolerant.

That drives me NUTS. My french teacher seems to share the common opinion that truth is abstract and relative. Luckily, she doesn't grade my papers with a bias for her own beliefs.

So when BBC Merlin actually speaks (blatantly) of doing the right thing, of choosing a higher good (such as knowing and acting on the fact that a good end does NOT justify a bad means), and actually speaking of this as laudable, I'm so glad! I'm so grateful for good TV shows like this.

It's not perfect. Not by any means. Not safe, necessarily. But it IS good.

Let's spend the afternoon in a cold hot air balloon!

I just babysat my niece and nephew. As they are such close relations and more like a brother and sister than niece and nephew, I have license to be a bit snarky when I'm babysitting them. Or so I tell myself. And I let them play alone and am not completely attentive to them all the time.

This afternoon was a bit different, because I played with both of them for a good part of it.

I was pulled at from both sides. My niece wanted me to be her "Baby" and "My dear", and my nephew wanted me to be a fellow magician and a clown with him. It was quite difficult to find the balance.

Just so I won't forget it, I'm going to write what happened between me and Sophia (my niece) as I was pretending to be her "Dear" at bedtime:

"Mama! Mama!" I say as my niece walks away from me at bedtime.

She doesn't respond and has neglected to pull up the covers, so I pull them over myself.

This brings her running back. "No, no, my deaw! (how she says "dear") You go under the covows!"

"I am going under the covers!"

"No, not like that!"

"Fine, then I won't have covers," I say grumpishly.

She runs away to see her mama, and I lay pretending to sleep. Then I wake up. "Mama, mama! I want you to snuggle me!"

Sophia runs back and slaps her hands over my mouth. "SHH, SHH! You wanna heow (hear) a stowey? (story)"

"Yes, mama!"

"Okay, okay. So theyoh (there) was a little giwohl (girl) and hehw (her) name was Tina and she was walking down the stweet and hehw (her) mama came and said, 'It's time fow bed!", so Tina went to bed and hehw mama didn't snuggle her or do anything and the baby went to bed and stopped cwying."

Then she pats me and runs away again.

How is THAT for a message to me? Be quiet and go to bed!

And then I decided I didn't want bedtime anymore and tried to get up and she pounced on me and put me back to bed again, forcibly!

How's that for a three-year-old mother? She's quite the kid!

-Tina

My life be like...

It's good, that's for sure. I lost sight of it all the time, but yep, there it is when I bother myself to actually look.

I filmed a MOVIE this past weekend. Yes, my friends. It was an honest-to-goodness short film. How do you differ between a home movie and our awesomeness of a film? Regard the list:

• We had a camera that's actually HD and not crappy and uses little tapes
• We had a boom (a BOOM, I tell you!) and external sound equipment which sounds SO nice
• We hired actors (we didn't pay them, but they weren't just, say, my mom) and they actually came
• We didn't know the actors before they came (except one, but that was a change in plans--more on that later)
• I bought lunch for my workers and did not send them home to get lunch, or tell them to bring lunch
• We had an actual location, not just my house
• I was working with a director! AAAAH!

And on the list goes! It was such an experience, and I never want to forget it. I usually get so stressed out about these things. I even forget to breathe properly (if you want to reference an old post of mine) and hyperventilate. This time it was different. I think it was because I had an awesome, most splendid director who has been a part of/worked on the crew of what I define as REAL films before. She was so helpful, and I'd like to think we helped each other, too.

Filming was crazy, of course. The actor we hired (whom we didn't know) came to location, found the doors locked (she was supposed to call us to have us let her in, cause we were there) and turned around and went home. This would be fine, except for she lived an hour away. We didn't have a cell phone number with which to contact her, and by the time we did the runaround through my director's mom to get it, she was 45 minutes away. And she couldn't come back.

MAJOR setback! We had location and an actor for this ONE DAY. Our other actor wasn't coming. Solution? Get your friend who was supposed to do continuity for the day to play the part! Crazy lines memorization and lots of frenzy ensues.

It worked out well, though, and the director and I were really surprised at HOW well. It was one of those instances where we were basically, "God, this is yours. We give it to you; it'll work out the way you want it to."

I loved filming, every minute. Being a producer this time around was great. Five hours filming for a five minute film was great. And doing post production this week? That is and will be great too.

I'd love prayers anyhow, though! This is a big business, it is, it is!

-Tina, Producer extraordinaire! :D

If I die young

What if I did? You know, I can say that "I could die tomorrow", but it never hits home for real. What if I was just gone? I'm only seventeen, and death seems so far away from me, like it's reserved for the old. I don't really think about it.

"If I die young,

Bury me in satin,

Lay me down on a bed of roses.

Sink me in the river

At dawn,

Send me away with the words

of a love song"

Life is precious. Strange, but I barely ever think of that life as extending after death. Yes, I believe that life should be preserved here on earth and that the right that babies and impaired people have to life should be protected. Yet death-- it's not so bad, is it? When you die, it's not a state of being. It's like a tunnel. Once your body dies, you-- not those around you-- will go through that door and I think that it won't be a long, extended ordeal. You'll go into a new state of being, a different kind of life.

"Lord, make me a rainbow;

I'll shine down on my mother"

I'm not obsessed with death, as you may have concluded from seeing that this and my last post are concerned with it. I've just heard a song by The Band Perry written from the perspective of one who could die and am reading a thought-provoking book called Choosing to See about how death affects those left behind. These things bring it more into my mind; the idea that I could be gone from here soon.

Gone. What if I was never on earth any more? I don't suppose I would mind, if I was in Heaven. The real question is if I think I've lived well and completely for God; if I would go to Heaven. Those who are Protestant, don't think I'm depressed about this. I'm trusting in God totally here. I'm not drawing it up that my works are the only things that give me my salvation. I believe that God had given me the way to get to Heaven by his death and it's my day-to-day living that presents me with choices, over and over, on whether to accept his gift or not.

What a gift. Yet if I die, did I truly do my best to accept it? I'd like to think so, but thinking of dying young makes me believe that every day counts. I want to live my life to the fullest and be completely for my God so that I'll get to Heaven and be filled as full of joy as possible. You know, people seem to say alot that if they knew such-and-so was going to die, they would have lived differently. I want to live differently today. It's gonna be hard, but I'm going to try anyways.

"Well, I've had just enough time"

-Tina

Speaking ill of the Dead

You've probably all heard it, whether it was in real life, the movies, or on tv. "Don't speak ill of the dead!"

People are reluctant to talk badly of someone when they've died, because, naturally, they can't defend themselves. They're dead.

But what if the person was a jerk? What if they were totally awful during their life? I feel as though people only say nice things about them once they're dead. It seems hypocritical. They were ready to speak their mind about them when they were alive. Must they load on this fake complimentery or imagined praise on the person when they are dead?

It's a difficult subject. What do you say? That you're alright that they died, cause they're in heaven now? They were awful! How do you say that? Then, it doesn't seem right to say, "Yeah, they're burning in Hell now. Good riddance." People would brand you as callous forever.

The best thing I can think to do is to just keep silent. Lying isn't worth it, even to honor the dead. Be truthful in all things. That doesn't mean say EXACTLY what is on your mind; just to know when to speak and when not to.

Will this be perfect? Will this suffice? Who knows? It's my best solution, but things like this are tricky.

AND: I know this is a really, really weird subject to write about on Christmas, but the thought occurred to me after we ate dinner. I may bring it up again.

Just to end the post on a good note, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

An Adventure!

"What? An adventure? Surely you jest!"

"Surely I don't!"

"But an adventure can't happen in our day and age!"

"Want to put money on that?"

It's true. I went on an adventure last weekend.

It was my first car trip all by my self-- and sheesh, I went 200 miles away from home? The destination?

chicago!

Yeah, man! I'm absolutely crazy, because you know what I did? I drove two-hundred miles to go see a movie with people that I have NEVER met in my LIFE!

I knew them in a way. I met them through a site called NarniaWeb, an awesome Narnia Movie News site and Discussion Forum that is the cleanest and most fun forum I've EVER been on. Seriously-- the people there are so nice! I know it's really hard to trust people on the internet, and most people would think I was nuts (and you're probably thinking it right now) that I voluntarily went (alone) to meet them in a strange city, but I did it anyways.

A little history, to clarify the extent of my nuttiness:

My parents, my sister, and I went to a "Lion" Party (play on "Line" party) for the Narnia movie Prince Caspian back in 2008. There we had arranged to meet a few NarniaWebbers (translation: people from NarniaWeb) and see the movie together and then go get lunch. It was a wonderful experience; the people were really nice and we had a really fun time discussing our lives, getting to know each other, and watching the movie.

Then, to make a long story short, we went with some different NarniaWebbers to a Lord of the Rings Movie Event in my city where a symphony played the movie score as the movie played on a big screen. My dad even asked them to stay at our house (which is typically considered NUTS) and it turned out great! The people were really, really nice, and I love them to pieces.

They came to a different Symphonic Event this past year, so basically, the stage was set for the lion party. Why? We had met many different NarniaWebbers on multiple occasions, and they were ALL great people. That gave me pretty good odds that people from the same site that had also seemed nice in their online persona would be good and nice and un-dangerous.

So I went! What an adventure! Even though we had had good odds before, would this time be the horror story?

No! Aside from getting lost twice on the way to Chicago, I had a perfectly marvelous time! All of the people there were really nice, especially the one who had organized the party. I single her out in particular because I was sitting next to her and got to actually talk to her for a while. It was really fun, too, that she had sisters that were my age! I'm hoping to see if I can get their e-mails or home addresses and be pen-pals with them; they were SUPER fun.

Well, that's my adventure! Crazy, wild, random, and totally awesome! You have to take risks to get places sometimes. I wasn't going in cold, but I never knew what would happen. Then and again, I was prepared, and not being stupid like getting in their car or going off alone with one of them from the group.

You always hear horror stories about web-stalkers, and I know that's true, but I've had some marvelous times with people I've met from online, and I'm very glad. :)

-Tina