Dream World

Djibouti; family friends.

It happened to us in Africa where, just for a moment, we saw the real world ...

When you do, it can trigger stress; a thoughtful response is difficult.

• Denial: "I can't seem to face what I saw - it's fading like a troubling dream."
• Anger: "The rich are so materialistic. How selfish and spoiled!"
• Retreat: "The trip rattled me badly, but I'm getting back to normal."
• Advance: "I came, I saw, I'm learning - I can't return to the dream world."

... it's a shock that refuses to connect comfortably to anything we know. It's hard to process what we see. Many folks never do.

Marilyn with the kids

With one of our teens
and her cousins.

Marilyn went with me to Africa; it took her most of the subsequent year to assimilate what she'd seen. It hurt deeply to think about it for more than a few minutes at a time. It hurt a lot.

It will happen to us in Africa.  Or Asia or eastern Europe or here at home when we encounter the real world.  Up to the challenge?  Can we get outside the box?

P.S.  All the real fun is in the real world.

~ 1 Peter 1:1-9

Charlize Theron - does she have a chance?

Charlize Theron is a cutie.  "I'm single and I need to find a man!" It was on CNN as a soundbite from an upcoming interview.

My wife and I looked at each other and laughed because it was funny, the way she'd said it.  Then we both felt a little sad for her and the odd world where she lives.  Does she have a chance of finding the joy of a healthy marriage?  After all, a healthy marriage is about the biggest blessing anyone can have, but not every attempt succeeds.

The actress lives in the world of wealth and celebrity, a difficult one in which values and worth are oddly skewed.  She lives with nosy people and intrusive media looking at anything and everything, and she's forced to live walled off from the world.  She can't run to the store, you know, not like we do.  She can't just go to church with regular folks, she can't stop at Starbucks for a coffee with an acquaintance.  Ever seen how a celeb is treated when they show up in public?

"You have to do it at somebody's house," Theron said of dating. "Because then somebody is going to see you (out) for coffee with somebody."

You can't help but wonder, how difficult is it for famous folks to have a real life?  Do they even get an opportunity to understand and enjoy the other 99.99% of humanity? How far from 'real' do they have to live?

We sincerely wish her well.  Does she have a chance?  Sure she does.

The secret ...?    It seems perhaps to have a focal point.

Marriage is like a found treasure if the two become one. 
      It founders (as in shipwreck) when they don't. 

Two becoming one - chasing that particular goal is a choice for both.  It brings a lot of change and growing up, and it goes on for decades.  The largest component of success is perhaps that one piece.

At the start, there's little chance we will come unselfishly to marriage.  Singleness is naturally self-serving, and learning to think otherwise is a radical change.  It takes a few years, perhaps, just to get that one well begun. 

Johnny Depp in France, probably, somewhere

It's a volatile upheaval, and we can make the changes if we're willing.  Even in a world like Hollywood, I suppose.  We all hope for miracles.

P.S.  Celebrity can be overcome, my wife tells me.  She says Johnny Depp took his family to some distant place in France to live where it isn't worth the paparazzi's time to go.  Hmmm.  Clever.

Whitehouse Gray

That  $615,000,000,000,000 elephant is still in the room (and still too big to fail).

Derivatives in the marketplace have grown larger than the entire world's production; $600+ trillion.  Is that so bad?

Despite the worldwide crash which they caused, financial institutions continue without effective restraint or oversight. Brought to you by the President, Congress, JP Morgan Chase and other such business-wise folks, they've dragged us all blindfolded into the casino marketplace.

"Political leaders and financial regulators were asleep at the wheel in the 1990s and 2000s as the ‘shadow banking’ system established its hold on the global economy.”   (shadow as in unregulated and unmonitored)

In the absence of reasonable regulation, financial institutions ushered us down the collective drain.  Worthless investments were knowingly sold to victims and the risk was knowingly passed on to others.

We've made little progress against such practices since then.  Wall Street along with the rest of the financial industry, with their willingness to destroy the livelihood of nations, are now perhaps the greatest and most immediate threat humanity faces.

‘Person of Interest’

Here's an interesting fellow with some surprises in his personal life.

‘Person of Interest’ is a well written show with a clever premise.

Jim Caviezel plays the lead.

(Early on, folks in the business told him he should change is name because nobody would be able to pronounce his real one.) 

Jim Caviezel, the star of the blockbuster film The Passion of the Christ, told an interviewer that he had been challenged by a friend who was not pro-life to live up to his professed pro-life convictions and adopt a disabled child. The friend told Caviezel that if he did that, then he would change to the pro-life position.

When Caviezel and his wife, Kerri, went to China to adopt not one, but eventually two orphans suffering from brain tumors, the friend reneged on the deal. Caviezel, however, said, "It didn't matter to me because the joy that we had from (Bo) - he’s like our own."

The couple’s first child, Bo, had been abandoned on a train, grew up in an orphanage until he was five and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. The Caviezels nursed Bo through his surgeries and he remains today at the center of the family.

"We took the harder road," the actor said. "That is what faith is to me; it’s action."  They eventually adopted a third orphaned child. 

What are some of the things you find most rewarding about being a dad?

"The other day my little girl jumped in my lap, put her hand on my face, and whispered in my ear, "Papa, I love you so much." It pulls on your heartstrings. When you come home and the kids run to you, come up and grab your leg. We have a little thing. They stand on my feet and I walk them into the kitchen and we just laugh"

~ Interview by Hilary White

(It's always a pleasure to find an actor who doesn't fit the entertainment industry model of shallow living, isn't it.)