One more final Les Miserables post I promise. Most likely. Maybe.

"Les Miserables" is an example of these two facts:

1. Emotions like Love, Joy and even Sadness, when acted out in their proper place, are glorious reminders of what it means to be alive.

1. Audiences, people, are moved by themes of Redemption.  Mankind responds, voluntary or not, to Spiritual things.

What is it about Les Miserables?

If I could only take 5 dvds to a desert island because it was a desert island with wall sockets, one of them would be Les Mis.  Its hit me in a way that few things do.

What is it about it?

2 quick thoughts:

Emotions. Les Mis reminds me that emotions, even the unpleasant ones, bring a kind of  flavor to our lives.

Sadness over a broken relationship, for example, is rough. Yet (stay with me) recently I feel this sort of beauty in the fact that I get to feel an emotion that is real and honest.

Those are the words. Real and Honest. Its almost like how I've heard people say that pain reminds them that they are alive?  These are emotions that only people can feel.

There's something perhaps therapeutic about feeling real, healthy emotions.

Are you rolling your eyes right now? Hmm I feel like two years ago, I would have too.

(2nd thought)

Substance. The best kind.

Les Mis skillfilly and unapologetically  uses Biblical and Judeo Christian themes in its story (themes that I imagine are in the original novel) .

Redemption. The Passion of Christ. Sacrifice. Courage. Liberty. Grace vs, the Law. Salvation. Love (not strictly the romantic kind). These themes are told in creative ways and add to the rich texture of the story.

Maybe , just maybe, these are themes that people respond to because they are themes that people want more of in their life.

To end, here's Jean Valjean

"The day begins...
And now lets see
What this new world
Will do for me!

Truth

Just to be upfront, 

I believe that Truth is found in the person of

Jesus Christ, 

the savior of the world.  

This may

or may not 

cause you to disagree

on several points 

with me.  

Either way, lets talk about how this affects our world.

What Social Media Shouldn’t be

So I’m trying my hand at this thing that the cool kids do called tweeting (I have no idea if it’s even cool or not and I think I’m ok with that. I think).  In any case, I like the idea of trying to express thoughts and stories that impact others and it seems like the new outlets for social media are the way to do that in the current age. 

I had this thought a while back about how millennials (my generation) seem to be a generation of commentators.  There are a lot of people my age and younger who make a living and spend a lot of their time writing and talking about other people, their lives and their content. 

I realized that what concerns me about some millennial commentators, and even some no millennial ones, is the Snarkiness.  I don’t like snarkiness. I think that’s a word even though Microsoft Word is telling me it isn’t a word.  

Snarkiness is that sort of cocky, sometimes mean spirited cynical attitude that can make it easy to spout off whatever comment you want about whoever who want without thinking about the effects of those comments.

I like the idea of thoughtful comments.

 Don’t get me wrong: I'm all about sarcasm and satire and biting humor. Yet even if we are making light of or making a sarcastic comment about someone who perhaps is making questionable choices (Cough KANYE –KANYE WEST cough!) those comments can still be used to say something greater and perhaps even reach the person we are satirizing. Biting humor also serves to show a viewer just how ridiculous or serious something is.

At the end of the day what I’m not fond of this idea that people can just say whatever they want and others just need to deal with it; this “nothing is sacred anymore” idea. 

There are sacred things and I have to believe there is always room to make talk and ideas and humor into something that is meaningful and without cynacism.

And of course, truth is a major concern when attempting to do so.

Thanks,

Christopher

This is Real Life

Dont you dare judge me,

Trying -

Would love to have a space for Comics, Drawings, Stories, Pictures and Substantial Talk.

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