Sunday, April 02, 2006
I've been contemplating off and on all day what to svithe about. The thought occurred to me, "General Conference!" but then I thought, "No, that's what everyone will svithe about. I want to be different. Besides, the brethren did such a good job, I'd hate to ruin it."
I remember my senior year in high school there was this guy in my seminary class who would write up his own parables when he was assigned devotional. He was so good at it, too! However, I am not so great a parablesser, but I
can make things relevant to life in general that you wouldn't generally read into. Or something. (Look, it's day 6 of migraine and my brain isn't working so well right now.) But mostly all I can give you today are some things I've thunk over for you to think yourself.
ANYway.... You may recall me making mention of
"The Princess Bride" a
few weeks ago. As I was watching it, I came across a scene that struck me as, well, generic to life. It comes shortly after the Sicilian keels over and Buttercup has (finally!) realized who "The Man in Black" is (dood, she must've
really loved him to recognize his voice so quick).
"I told you I would always come for you," Westley tells Buttercup. "Why didn't you wait for me?"
"Well..." she says, "you were dead."
"Death cannot stop true love! All it can do is delay it for a while," Westley tells her, and, while being rather... cheesey, you have to agree.
Another scene in the movie is where the two lovers are about to enter The Fire Swamp.
"We'll never succeed. We may as well die here," says the ever optimistic Buttercup.
"No, no. We have already succeeded," Westley assures her.
Apply this to life. We have already succeded. There is no reason to give up; the devil has no hold on us except for the bit of string we give him. We have bodies. We have our agency (don't call it free- it came at a price and I've always found this to be a pet-peeve when people refer to it as "free agency"). We need only do our best now to survive those things which the Fire Swamp throws out at us-- R.O.U.S's, lightning-quick sand, fire pits.... We can make it, and we
will make it else the devil wouldn't be striving so hard to make us give up.
And, PS: I ran across this (again) today and just can't resist sharing,"He who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time," Chinese Proverb
Yes, alright Theric. In regards to last week, Shakespeare may be the most quoted, but I've never been a huge fan of his so I found it within my rights to pretend that he isn't.Labels: Religion, Svithe
