Living in the City of Ember

The prudent sees danger and hides himself,

but the simple go on and suffer for it. 

                                            Proverbs 27:12 

“The other night

I had a dream;

It was a world full of kings and queens

But it was cold,

Dark as the night;

We were the fire on the moonlit skies.

We weren't divided,

We were the same,

And we were free

But we all wore chains.

We couldn't see it,

But we created

A place between truth and overrated.

If I could just see it all

Just like a fly on the wall

Would I be able to accept what I can't control?

And would I share what I saw?

Or just sit back and ignore
Like nothing ever happened...

"...We had a plan to build a wall;

A great divide that would never fall,

To separate us

From all the pain,

And keep our skeletons locked away.

And brick by brick

We built it so thick

That it blacked out the sky and all the sunlight,

And one by one

We all became numb —

We were making the bullets to a broken gun.

If I could just see it all,

Just like a fly on the wall,

Would I be able to accept what I can't control?

And would I share what I saw?

Or just sit back and ignore,

Like nothing never happened,

And I haven't seen you before?

I'm on the run from a thief

I let into my head. 

...I don't think I need you anymore;

Take your words, and your lies and just beat it.

...I wanna live, I wanna be the change;

We can all be kings and queens

If we can just learn to believe,

If we can just learn to believe."

                                (‘Fly On The Wall’ — Thousand Foot Krutch)

  Years ago, a dear friend of mine introduced me to the movie City of Ember.  I did remember seeing the trailer for it way back when one of the Narnia movies was coming out, but the trailer wasn’t super fantastic...and I honestly didn’t care much about anything but watching my all-time favorite books coming to life on screen, however imperfectly, so I wasn’t paying much attention to any trailers. Ha.

  But once this friend shared the movie with me, I was attached.  This has seriously become one of my favorite movies ever.  I love the action adventure aspect, the costume and set design, the filming style, the fact that the filmmakers didn't turn the friendship of the main characters into a romance (whew!), the storyline, the soundtrack (which I weirdly love to listen to on repeat while gardening...), the adorable giant moth, that ending couple of sequences, the decrepit instruction sheet at the interlocking clear Generator key pieces...
  I wrote a quick post about it some years ago that you can find HERE.  (...please pardon the pictures that have disappeared... I need to go back and fix those...in all my spare time. Ha ha.)

  Well, as you're probably all aware, earlier this year, the world went...a lot more crazy than it already is.  And you probably thought, like I did, that as crazy as it was, we'd still be well past all of it in a month or two.  And...umm... Nope.  And so I'm guessing that you've been doing a lot of thinking and even more praying during these months, like I have.

  I'm not a dystopian fiction person, and I seriously dislike when people take whatever is currently beating down on the world and spin a doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-world tale of fear out of it.  Honestly, we can't even presume to say that it's "never been this bad before"; I mean really, remember the description of the days of Noah, when "the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5)?!  Yeah, mankind is always sinning and finding ways to turn from our Creator, but we can't be making crazy claims like that.  It may be the worst you've seen in your lifetime, and we absolutely DO need to get on our knees and repent and help our generations clean our hearts, but beyond that is God's call.  ...And that's really a thought process to follow for another time.

  All that said, I do believe that fiction (along with history itself) is one of the strongest methods of warning, with the most impactful wakeup calls available to us.

  Lately it’s been striking to me how very much living in our world looks unsettlingly like the way the City of Ember functions.  Organized to a fault, fearful, insisting that the state alone knows best, foolishly leaning on and looking for long-lost human pillars of society to save us from a fundamentally broken world, and from ourselves.
  Just think about that Pledge the school children in Ember recite by heart day in and day out:

"...Beyond Ember, the Darkness goes on forever in all directions.  

Ours is the only light in a dark world."

  How paralyzing that kind of fear-planting thought is! (and how close to "ours is the only light" is that terrible new age advice we hear all the time: "seek truth/wisdom inside yourself"...)

  Ember is waiting, half in the dark, for the clock to wind down.  Branding the only ones brave enough to venture out and take risks as “crazy”, labeling them the “rebels” and “zealots” and “lawbreakers” (inventing or twisting laws as they need to prove it) for acknowledging that human wisdom can only go so far, and that we have to find the way Out in order to live.  While we let the real troublemakers roam free, skulking in shadows, stealing and back-scratching for the elite who pretend to share and understand the plight of the common man. 

  Frequently it’s only the youth who take the chance on getting Out...with desperate hope of Somewhere better; uncommon wisdom and faith planted deep in young souls by parents and mentors, who've hinted and encourage them to find the Instructions and understand them for themselves.  And then to use them. 

  In our world, the way Out is very, very real and more than assured — provided we follow the Instructions and don’t presume to know better.  Jesus has provided us an actual, Forever-Exit from the once beautiful City of Ember that’s crumbling around us. 

  But we usually show masterful skill at ignorance instead — keeping our heads down and doing just the opposite.  Wearing our thousandth-time-patched threadbare clothes, trying to be important and to gain a few pitiful, desperately old and rusted cans of things we’ve never tasted to hoard a little comfort for ourselves.  What a sorry picture we make. 

  Let's watch or re-watch this insightful adventure story again, friends.  Yes, it's fiction.  But that just means it has a very real chance of sneaking past our blind spots and hardened corners in our hearts, and really telling us something.
  Then let's be sure we're spending real time in the Instructions (and really, the Love letter) we've been given by our very real Exit; let the Word of God prove that it so truly is "living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12).

  We have answers.  And that nagging in our hearts is right; there IS something out there, something much greater than "Darkness [that] goes on forever in all directions".

  We escape to the sunrise, to the air and the light in the end, if we follow the Instructions.
  If we remember the Signs and do them in order.
  If we wake up that something Took-ish inside us, and push through the adventure.
  There's been a great Lion alongside us always, that half the time we do not remember, or see, or that we often fear.  But He's been between us and the edge the whole time.

  Here we follow what's been laid out for us, we push on and don't get distracted by trying to be comfortable in the crumbling City of Ember we were always meant to leave.  And then at the end, we come out into Sunrise, and actual Life in Eternity.  Not fear.  Enormous Hope.

“O the sweet air of Narnia!  

An hour's life there is better than a thousand years in Calorman.”

                                         (—C.S. Lewis, ‘The Horse and His Boy’)

(pictures and quotes always belong to their original owners.  They are only here to inspire.  All other thoughts are my own.)

Biblical heroes - who is yours?

  A thought for you to ponder today...

                      Who is your Biblical hero?

  Now wait, before you answer — don't just pull out the name of the one you liked best years and years ago in Sunday school.  Who is your Biblical hero now??  And more to the point: why?

  I'm not thinking about this because it's an interesting question.  I really think every Christ-follower should have a Biblical hero; and who that ends up being may change a few times as you and your faith grow.

                                                 
  When I was younger, I probably would have said my hero was Esther.  Because...she has an amazing story, and she became queen, and she saved her people, and she's one of the heroes girls are supposed to choose from, and... stuff like that.  Sure, many of those reasons are legitimate, and some I'd even keep today; seriously, Esther was an amazing woman.  She'd still rank among my top 10 in Scripture.

                                 

  But the person in the Bible I was really most inspired by at that time was Joseph.  His story was riveting.  And despite everything, despite a whirlwind of terrifying situations and seemingly hopeless outcomes that stretched over many years, he didn't push God away, or turn to bitterness, strain for desperate self-promotion, or turn to pride when his life finally began to take an upward turn.

  Joseph is a fantastic example of how our God refines us like silver.  Silver naturally has impurities that need to be removed. (*cough*...young Joseph's little ongoing thing with prideful bragging and such... *cough*)  The silversmith has to take extreme care, holding the silver over the flames at just the right distance to achieve the perfect heat; too hot, and the silver will burn and be unusable, but too cool, and the silver will remain unchanged and retain its impurities.

  ...But God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted any more than you can take.

                                                                                     1 Corinthians 10:13b

  As the silver slowly softens and liquefies, the impurities float to the surface where they can be carefully removed.  All the while, the silversmith watches with rapped attention, until at last, instead of cloudy grey, he can see his own reflection in the now-pure silver.  And so it is with us;  slowly, slowly being refined while under fire until we reach Eternity and finally reflect our Maker.

  I'm still very inspired by Joseph.  I always will be.  But since my late teens, another set of Biblical heroes has been seriously impacting and inspiring me.

  Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

                                                 

  Yeah, a lot of things about being a teen or young adult (or any age, really) in America are hard today.  But none of us has faced what Daniel and his friends were thrown into;  captured in their early teens and taken to be indoctrinated -literally- in a culture that was completely hostile to their faith.

  Yet instead of raving angrily, or trying to escape and run home on their own strength, or taking the easy rout of giving in totally, or "blending in" and going along with the Babylonian culture "but not really meaning it" (however that kind of argument is supposed to be better), they held their ground.  For year after year after year.  All their lives.  And God honored and used and blessed them mightily for it.  They were diplomatic when they had to resist, they honored authority, they were diligent and excellent in the skills and gifts God had given them, and they were unshakeable in their faith and convictions.  Even when it meant they would be thrown to ravenous lions or tossed in a molten furnace.

  ...If you do not stand firm in faith, you will not stand at all.

                                                                            Isaiah 7:9b

  Their courage and wisdom in such hostile conditions spurs me on to learn to be unwavering and wise and faithful in any situations I come up against.  With that kind of inspiration, I have no excuses.  And a million fears are quieted.

                                             

  So then—  who is your Biblical hero?  How about Paul?  Or Timothy?  Or Noah?  Or a guy named Benaiah, one of David's Mighty Men, who actually chased a lion into a pit and killed it - how about him?  Or what about any number of the un-named but nonetheless important people who appear all throughout Scripture — is one of them your hero?

  I'd like to submit to you that you need to find a person in Scripture who inspires you;  you need more than fictional story characters to call you out and inspire you to greatness.  You need real people who actually lived, too.  I think that's one reason the Bible is full of them; to urge us on.  Otherwise we get stuck thinking it'll be fine to live out our lives just "holding down the fort" and being a good person.  Sorry, not going to fly.

  'God is our Refuge, our Shield.  But He is also our Banner — the God who goes before us, the God who fights for us!

Jesus didn't die to keep you safe.  He died to make you dangerous!

...So do what you were destined to do.  Chase the lion! '

                                                                            —Mark Batterson, 'Chase The Lion'

  I want to challenge you to find yourself a Biblical hero this year if you don't have one already.  And not just one you pull out of a hat.  Find one that lights a fire in your soul because of who they are, what they did, and what God did on their behalf.

  And if you already do have a Biblical hero, read their story again in the coming months.  Take some time, even just a half an hour, and define what it is that inspires you about them.

  I know I need to do this more often myself, with all different characters in Scripture — to help me keep my eyes on the 'further up and further in', beyond the comfortable, dangerous rut of seeing only the 'now'.  That's one of the ways we become dangerous salt and light against the enemy, one of the ways we learn how to (as wordsmith N.D. Wilson puts it)  'pollute the shadows.'

  So friends, let's find us some real heroes to emulate.

  "And did they tell you stories 'bout the Saints of old,

stories about their faith?

They say stories like that make a boy grow bold,

stories like that make a man walk straight."

                                                           (—Rich Mullins)

(As always, all quotes and images belong to their original owners -- they are displayed here for inspiration only.)

Upcoming 'Noah' movie --a warning

  Well, well.  I've been keeping an eye on this film for a while now, since I first heard it existed.  (which wasn't nearly as long as anyone who keeps up with what their favorite actors will be appearing in next...  I don't know that I've ever watched a film for the actors involved in it...  I like to watch for the story the film tells -- but that's a subject for another post.  :) )




  Studying the real, historical Flood of Noah, as described in God's Word, is one of my passions in life since I was 10 years old, and I have been blessed with the opportunity to teach some semester-length classes on the subject this last year -- so this coming film has a huge baring on something I very much love to talk and learn about.  I can't tell you how many people have asked me what I think or what I've heard about the movie, due to their simply knowing that I am very interested in the subject.


  All that to say, what I have learned of the film's content leads me to be sure I give a warning to anyone assuming that it will be an epic retelling of the Biblical account on screen, or at least hoping it will be a 'decent Hollywood film' that might open doors of conversation on the Bible with unbelieving friends.
  It is not even close.  Its masquerading as something loosely based on a portion of Scripture is what makes it so dangerous.  The fact vs. fiction of a real, historical account, the reason for the destruction, the science behind the Flood, the people involved, and the very character of God will be called into question by anyone who has never heard the correct answers and casually goes to be 'entertained' by this movie.


  Certainly you have the choice to go and see the film as you decide for yourself -- but be aware of what exactly you are going to see, and enter the theater with your mind and heart guarded for war.  Film is no easy, innocent ground to tread.  And it is never neutral.


  Take a look at these overviews of some of the content below, and remember that
                  Hollywood only speaks in dollar signs $$$
...so answer them in the same way.






---------------
(partial article, from WND.com)


  'In the biblical account of Noah and his famous Ark, God is so grieved by wickedness, corruption, violence and evil in the world that he resolves to destroy all the earth’s creatures by flood, yet spares Noah because, Genesis explains, he “found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”


  The major Hollywood film “Noah” scheduled for release March 28 and starring the Academy Award-winning Russell Crowe as the famous Ark-builder, however, tells a very different story.
      
  A copy of the movie’s script, obtained by WND, reveals God’s grief in “Noah” is less about murder and violence, more about abuse of natural resources.
  For example, in the movie’s pivotal early scene, when Noah’s wife asks him why the Creator is planning to destroy the world, Noah gets a vision of the pristine environment before mankind, a taste of the barren land after humanity’s crimes against the planet and responds, “Because it is dying already. At our hand, all he created is dying. … If we work to save it, perhaps he will too.”

Pivotal scene from script of "Noah"

  Moments in the film like this have several critics wondering just how much director Darren Aronofsky has twisted the scriptural account of Noah to fit his own agenda for the movie of the same name.


  Back in September 2008, Aronofsky gave SlashFilm.com a preview of his approach to the tale: “I think it’s really timely because it’s about environmental apocalypse, which is the biggest theme, for me, right now for what’s going on on this planet. So I think it’s got these big, big themes that connect with us. Noah was the first environmentalist.”


  Environmental themes in the film can be seen in a later scene as well, when Noah confronts the warlord Akkad with a message from the Creator: “We must change. We must treat the world with mercy so that the Creator will show us mercy.”
  “Mercy?” Akkad asks. “How do you mean?”
  “We must respect the ground,” Noah replies. “Respect the rivers and seas. Respect the other beasts of the Earth. Stop the slaughter, the rape, the carnage.”


  As WND reported, Ben Field, head of the film and TV department for Australia’s Hillsong Church, issued a warning to Christians who may be hoping “Noah” will bring the biblical hero to life: “If you’re expecting it to be word for word from the Bible, you’re in for a shock. … There can be an opportunity for Christians to take offense.”


  ...“The old adage that says the book is usually better than the movie is frequently true,” writes Larry Stone in the chapter titled “Noah Goes to Hollywood” in his new book, “Noah: The Real Story.”
  Stone also has written “The Story of the Bible” and “Women of the Bible.” He’s a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and University of Iowa School of Journalism, and as vice president of Thomas Nelson Publishers and president of Rutledge Hill Press has published more than a dozen New York Times bestsellers.


  In “Noah: The Real Story,” Stone points out some of the material from Aronofsky’s movie adaptation of “Noah” most contradictory to the scriptural account and most likely to offend Christian viewers.
  “The world of Aronofsky’s Noah is a bleak one,” Stone writes. “Noah decides the only reason God preserved him and his family is to make sure the animals on the Ark return to the earth safely. If mankind disappeared, ‘it would be a better world.’ His family should have no more births so that humans will eventually die out and then ‘the creatures of the earth, the world itself, shall be safe.’  But one of his daughters-in-law is pregnant. If it is a boy, Noah will let it live; but if it is a girl, it will be killed. The woman gives birth to twin girls and Noah sets out to kill them both while the animals on the Ark help pin down his family. But he’s too weak to carry out his task. ‘I can’t do it,’ he says to himself and to God. ‘I am sorry.’”

Scene from screenplay of "Noah"

  Brian Godawa is the screenwriter for the award-winning feature film, “To End All Wars,” starring Kiefer Sutherland, and author of “Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment.”


  In an October 2012 blog post, Godawa explains why the near murders upon the Ark in Aronofsky’s “Noah” are such an affront to the Jewish and Christian faiths:
  “The movie script for ‘Noah’ is deeply anti-biblical in its moral vision,” Godawa writes. “While the Bible commands mankind to ‘work and keep’ the garden of earth as its stewards, the sin that brought about the judgment of the Flood was not violence against the environment as depicted in the script; it was violence against God and his image in man. That’s no minor difference.
  “Also, at the end, when psycho Noah realizes that he cannot kill the baby girl to stop the human race, the reason is not because he realized he was too extreme against humans, but because he was too weak to follow through with God’s commands and his ‘higher cause’ of genocide,” Godawa continues. “This Humanistic worldview certainly tugs at the heartstrings of our hubris. Man’s weakness of compassion makes him superior to God.
  “Most of the last half of the script is a family killer thriller like ‘Sleeping With the Enemy,’ that asks the dark dramatic movie question, ‘Will Noah kill the child if it is a girl or not?’ Ancient sex-selection infanticide,” Godawa writes. “But in the end, he fails. … He is just too compassionate to carry out God’s cruel plan. Noah is more loving than God.”


  Stone insists there’s a greater and truer lesson behind the biblical account of Noah that Aronofsky’s version of the tale misses completely.
  “When Noah was warned of disaster, God told him how to survive the Great Flood,” Stone writes in “Noah: The Real Story.” “What can we do now to survive the end of the world? How can we taken action to save people, save plants, and save animals?
  “Noah’s secret on how to survive the end of the world is to watch, be ready, and choose now which side you are on … who you will believe and serve,” Stone writes.


  ...Christian author C.S. Lewis, ...wrote, “God will invade … When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right, but … this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.
  “It will be too late then to choose your side … It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.” '
---------------


  And if all that that wasn't enough, take a look at these other facts about the filmmaker, and what he says about himself and his film;


---------------
(post by Eric Hovind on his CreationToday blog page)


  The new movie “Noah” will be hitting the screens this Friday, March 28th. I thought you could use a few facts to help you determine if you should go see this film that is claiming to be “inspired by the Biblical story”. Hopefully these facts, of which you may not be aware, will make you think twice before you give your money over to Paramount Pictures and the director of the movie, Darren Aronofsky.

Facts To Consider

1. Darren Aronofsky, the director of the film, is a “card carrying atheist” and open about it.
2. At the opening of the Noah Movie in Mexico, Darren Aronofsky said: ”It’s a very, very different movie. Anything you’re expecting, you’re f—ing wrong.”
3. Aronofsky also said: “I’m Godless. And so I’ve had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking, which is — ultimately what my God becomes.”
4. Aronofsky is not interested in the Biblical record, fossil record, or hundreds of cultural records that testify to the Flood being a true event. He summed up his view of the Biblical account like this: “I don’t think it’s a very religious story, I think it’s a great fable that’s part of so many different religions and spiritual practices. I just think it’s a great story that’s never been on film.”
5. Paramount Pictures is the funder for this movie. They also produced the Wolf of Wall Street which used the F word more than 500 times at an average of one every 21 seconds and blasphemed the name of God almost two dozen times.
6. Reason #1 in the article, “5 Reasons Why Atheists Should Look Forward To Noah” is “Darren Aronofsky is God.” The article concludes, “So get out there, enjoy the film and lap it up like the deity that you’ve always wanted to be!”
7. Critics are not so thrilled about the project saying, “Some have been bowled over by his epic take on the story of the ark, while most others find his movie messy and ill-conceived, with the result not quite coming together.”

  While these seven reasons don’t begin to cover the totally un-Biblical approach taken on this Historical Account, they are enough for me to say, “No, Thank You!” Hollywood only hears $$$$$$$, so if you don’t give it to them, they WILL listen!
  And, you have to wonder, is this atheist just seeing if he can make fun of the Bible and get Christians to pay for it?
---------------


  (for an even further look at the film, see this Answers In Genesis article )


---------------


  That said, I will not be going to see this film.


  But for those of you who, like myself, would love to see the real account of Noah and the Flood on the Big Screen in a God-honoring way, keep hoping and bringing it before our merciful, mighty God of the Bible.  It is one of my filmmaking goals and lifetime dreams to be a part of (or perhaps work up to directing/co-directing...) an epic film on the subject.


  Let's see together what God has in store for the real account of this story in the future!

A full-sized Noah's Ark is being built in Kentucky!

Oh wow.

I don't think there's really any other way to respond to this:  Answers In Genesis is building a life-size replica of Noah's Ark in Kentucky! 

  Ark Encounter

They've already purchased over 800 acres of land for the Ark Encounter -which will eventually include 8 other large Bible-themed exhibits as well. (a pre-Flood walled city, a float-through-history ride, live animals, and a 1st-century city, just to name a few)

The planning is well underway, and the Ark itself is scheduled to open in spring of 2014.

How exciting! I almost squealed when I found out about this project...  :P  (I only have a slight obsession with the Ark  :P  )  If at all possible, I'd love to go help with some of the building of this massive piece of history... We'll see, but I'm determined to try! And anyone who wants to join me is more than welcome to!  ;)

Just for fun...

Some of my favorite things to collect are quotes. Both the inspirational ones, & the silly ones.  So I thought I'd share a few of them with you all, along with some of those unanswered "deep" questions, like...

 

—If my home is my castle, then where are my servants?

 

 

—You can't have everything; where would you put it?

  

 

—One day I just let my mind wonder, and it didn't come back.

 

 

—I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it!

                                       (especially for all you CPers out there!  :P  )

  

 

—Why don't sheep shrink in the rain?

 

 

—I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.

 

 

—Why is "abbreviation" such a long word?

 

 

—I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges...

 

 

—Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

 

 

—What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

 

 

—With enough caffeine, I could rule the world.

 

 

—If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving.

 

 

And lastly, one of the questions that bothers me the most:

 

Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?    :P