Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

Is this the same Angelina Jolie that was in the movie Pushing Tin?

I just got an email with a link to a story about Angelina Jolie's movie where she will debut as the write and director. It's about the Balkan War which took place in the late nineties and forever changed countries like Bosnia.

This NPR online story is gripping with its reality and the fact that this happened in Eastern Europe.  I am also sobered by the fact that my daughter, son-in-law and grandson live there.

This movie--In The Land of Blood and Honey--sounds like a must see.  Read the story about Jolie's efforts.  I'm impressed.  Is this the same actress who appeared topless in Pushing Tin with John Cusack?  Her new effort sounds pretty serious.  I can't wait to learn more.

 

What are the consequences for us when politicians don't tell the truth?

How many of you just assume that a politician is going to lie and not tell you the truth at some point?

It's just assumed that politics and lying go hand in hand.  The two words seem to be synonyms.  Their efforts at untruth will run the continuum from just shading a fact to their favor to an outright lie.  Does anybody who is not in politics disagree with this statement?

What are the consequences for us as citizens when politicians and their statements are allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged?

 

There's a new book--How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think by Andy Andrews--that raises these questions for us during a transition time in our history where politicians dominate everything we do.  Their unchecked and unchallenged words have never had more potential for good or for harm.

 

In this small book, Andrews points to the Jewish Holacaust where more than 11 million were murdered where Germans refused to believe or acknowledge the truth of what was happening.  They were misled and they refused to acknowledge the truth as it was unwrapped for them.

As you watch CNN today or read news on the web and see what our political leaders are saying, ask yourself how you know what they are saying is the truth?  What can you do when you're not sure or when you know it's an outright lie or it's a fact that's shaded and turned?

Both parties and their partisans engage in these actions where the truth is played with or ignored.  

Why do we let it happen?  Would you rather be lied to or would you rather know the truth?

This guy from North Carolina helps me get my mojo back

For me, it has been hard to sift through all of the stuff happening in modern-day life and in our culture. I found my enthusiasm for the future slipping away drip by drip by drip.  This guy from North Carolina has helped me reset my compass to the true north. My son-in-law is from North Carolina and he's a pastor and a pretty neat guy.  But this is a different fellow.  Watch this short video clip where he lays it out clearly.  Thank-you God for Billy Graham.

We saw "The Descendants" with George Clooney in a packed mid-Michigan theater on New Year's Eve

Last night we went to see the Descendants at Celebration Theater in Lansing totally on word-of-mouth. That recommendation was from my son Justin who went with his wife Lauren on Friday night.

My reaction:  First, thing I noticed was that the theater where this movie was shown was packed mainly with folks who looked to be over sixty, some more so than others.  Lots of women were there who seemed to be drawn by George Clooney.  Second thing was the price of a cup of coffee at the theater which was $2.75.

As one who watched Clooney on ER back in the day when he was the young stud, I had very low expectations for this movie.  But as the movie started and as the story unfoled I found myself being drawn in by incredible acting with the amazing backdrop of Hawaii where Clooney plays a dad who was facing the death of his wife and the prospects of raising to young daughters, one a teenager and another approaching that point.  And he was rich.

He had let his relationship with his wife become stagnant through lack of attention and he had taken a backseat in his role as a dad.  All of a sudden this dad with millions of bucks and living in paradise was facing his own form of hell.

His wife who was laying in coma in a hospital bed after a boating accident had an affair with a real estate type was found to have chinks in her armor.  And Clooney's character had to face and deal with all this himself, with his daughters and friends.

I know it sounds like the plot seeds for a cheesy show involving a country singer, but this really worked. It was a story that transformed the theater into a real time look at this broken family's life.  

Academy Award potential?  I bet it gets more than one.  It was worth the seven bucks a ticket we spent on New Year's Eve.  Good story.  The acting was great.  I'd watch it again on DVD.

 

 

God answered my prayer by introducing me to a group of Christian guys in prison

I prayed that God would give me a group of Christian guys to hang out with.  I was looking for friends who would share a common belief in God and in Jesus Christ and wanted to live a life that reflected those values.  For much of my life that prayer went unanswered.

Growing up I found that church was not the place to find friends.  Most of the guys who were active in attending seemed more interested in the busyness of the church.  They ushered, maybe attended an adult Sunday School class and sat with their families during the services.  Before and after church, conversations centered around politics, sports and cars.

There were the guys who ushered every Sunday and who lit the candles on the altar.  They were interested mainly in that narrow sliver of their spiritual life.

But they were not interested in talking about their faith and how it applied to their everyday life. There was no sense of mission or purpose.

I found it hard to work in very secular environments and to maintain my faith in a God who loved me and who wanted me to reflect that love in my everyday life.  The distance between my God and me grew wider and wider.

Then through some incredible circumstances I ran into a guy named Ken.  I was in my forties.  We were in a Bible study together when I heard his story.  As a young newspaper reporter, I covered a crime he had committed.  For him, it was the beginning of a period that saw him going to prison as a teenager and getting out as a full-fledged man.  Inside a prison cell, he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior.

When I heard his story and remembered who he was I was truly amazed by the change in him.  I was also somewhat skeptical.  He and I spent the next couple of years having breakfast together once a week.  I spent a lot of time trying to determine if he was real.  And he was.

He was asked to share his story with guys in the prison where he did his time and he invited me to go with him.  

It was hard to say no to a friend and it was an attractive offer to do something that would provide fodder for coffeeshop conversation the next day.  

We went to a chapel service at one of the most challenged prisons in the state of Michigan.  I was expecting to find a bunch of knuckle-dragging guys who had a chromosome or two twisted the wrong way.  I found guys not unlike me, but who had sinned in a way that got them into prison.

It was the beginning of a life-changing journey that saw me going into prisons all over our state and making friends with guys who had numbers behind their names, rather than designations for college degrees earned or for professional certifications.

There were no pretenses in my prison experiences as we sang "Victory In Jesus."  We talked about everything involved in daily and eternal living.  And we looked to the Bible and to Jesus for the answers.

This was a key piece in my growing closer to God.