Snow White and the Huntsman and the Value of Women

SPOILERS-I discuss the movie in full so if you haven’t seen it yet and plan to, maybe read this later.

I’ve read a review of Snow White and the Huntsman that described it as a missed opportunity, and I think as so often happens for somebody who gets paid to critique for a living, the reviewer missed the point. Sometimes we can get so preoccupied with acting performances and special effects that we overlook the actual messages of a film. For me this movie should be applauded for the way that it touches on how women both desire to be valued and how they ought to be valued by others: as a whole person.

As in the original fairy tale, Snow White and the wicked Queen, here named Ravenna, are constantly contrasted to one another throughout the movie. Some back-story is provided for Ravenna, in a flashback we are shown her mother putting a spell on her and telling her that her beauty is what will protect her. The situation is clearly a desperate one, and a marauding King takes Ravenna, who looks eleven or twelve at the time, and his men continue to burn her village to the ground. Earlier in the film on her wedding night as a prelude to her murdering Snow White’s father she says a king ruined her once, and goes on to monologue about how she replaced his queen, an old woman. She then speaks hatefully, though we gather somewhat accurately from her past experiences that men cast women aside once their beauty fades, and uses this as her justification to place all men in the same category and murder them indiscriminately to reinforce her power. Following the fairy tale’s theme, the Queen then goes on to obsessively, and at times even fearfully maintain her beauty which is directly linked to the source of her power.

Even though her beauty is her best weapon in her arsenal, her speech reveals a desire to be valued for more than her beauty because she doesn’t praise men’s fickleness, she bitterly regrets it. When Ravenna reaches her most manic heights and demands praise from her magic mirror, but interestingly enough the mirror changes shape into a hooded form, and the voice that she seeks to hear praise from is a man’s voice. At a different point in the film she is talking a milk bath and privately demands of her brother “Am I not merciful?” again looking for male approval in a different context other than her looks.

This speaks truthfully of the desire of all women, even those who have been seriously screwed up like the Queen, to be valued by men for more than one feature of their person. In Ravenna’s case, her mother’s message that she only had value or power through her beauty, in fact that her beauty was her only salvation, was then further reinforced by the mistreatment of men (abduction, rape) to the point where she has become monstrous. This is the self-saving princess in the worst form, one who is ruthless, callous, and angry at all men. And I have seen a form of this in my female friends when they have been hurt or mistreated by men they have relationships with. When the relationship ends, if the man they were with did not express their value, or focused on only one part of their personality as beautiful, these women become angry, even open man-haters for any period of time from a week to several years. And I for one feel sorry for Ravenna as I do for one of my dear friends when this happens, although she is responsible for every one of her evil actions she deserved better than the lie her mother gave her and to be valued so poorly by men.

Snow White is given a diametrically opposite message about her own beauty from her mother than the one Ravenna received. Her mother tells her that she is beautiful because of what is in her, and touches her chest indicating her heart or soul. This idea that the inner person shapes the outward beauty of a woman is common enough in fairy tales, but Snow White’s internalizing this truth is what allows her to be lovely in the midst of truly horrific circumstances. While in prison she expresses faith by saying the Lord’s Prayer; this private expression of her spirituality speaking again of that cultivation of her inner self and a life that is deeper than her surroundings. It is this understanding that beings are more complex than their behavior might show is what allows her to play with a child, turn an aggressive troll away with gentleness, and commiserate and dance with dwarves that had previously threatened her life. It is why when she enters sanctuary in a fairyland that all mythical beasts and creatures note her: she is a valuable and beautiful person because of who she is- kind, curious, and forgiving.

The prophesying old dwarf urges the Huntsman “you have eyes but do not see” to value Snow White at more than face value. And ultimately it is his understanding of her value, not romantic love that brings her back from the dead. Snow White does have a romantic love interest, the prince charming of the movie, in her boyhood friend William. William does love her loyally, but once Snow White has eaten the apple it is not his kiss of romantic love that brings her back. Instead, when Snow White is lying dead it is the huntsman enrapt in great sorrow who addresses her and at last reveals himself. He tells her that when he returned from war he was angry and expresses disgust at his own base character, but his wife Sarah (a name that means princess) loved him in spite of his emotional wounds and saw through his behavior his real, best self. He describes her love for him as unmerited favor, a balm to his troubled soul, and explains how it gave him the desire to be a better person. The Huntsman goes on to say that Snow White reminded him of his wife because she too was lovely, and awoke that same desire in him to do what is right. Now that that loveliness has been taken from the world a second time, he recognizes what a grievous loss it is, and kisses Snow White goodbye telling her she can be “a Queen in heaven.” It is from this kiss, that Snow White is resurrected.

Why does this matter? The fairytale trope is that true love’s kiss is what can awaken a person from death; therefore in this kiss the movie defines true love. True love is valuing a person for all that they are, beautiful, kind, brave, innocent, forgiving: their whole person, and recognizes that if they are taken then something deeply valuable has been robbed from the world. It is the expression of that value that awakens Snow White to rise and lead her people in battle for good so that the land can be healed.

Pretty beautiful huh?

So what can we take with us from this movie? Men need to value women dearly and seek to know them wholly and not focus on any one aspect of their personality. Women need to understand that their worth must be born of more than physical beauty or political power and if we want to inspire by and lead by loveliness we need to work on cultivating that inner person for our own happy ever afters.

~Geek Girl

Thanks to my Mom and Dad for the discussions that lead to this. Geek-On!

5 Reasons Why the Force and the Holy Spirit are Not the Same Thing

Hello Folks,
So it’s been a while-but I am glad to be back. I hope that you enjoy my latest foray into the powerful subjects of Science Fiction and Spirituality:

Some Quick Clarifications/Qualifications

I love Star Wars. Okay I should qualify that. I love Episodes 4, 5 and 6 of Star Wars. I saw them first on Laser Disc in the 80’s and I have some pristine VHS copies of them which do not include any new explosions, music (which makes it impossible to hear Carrie Fisher’s laughter at the end of Episode 6), a computer animated cities, Hutts, or unnecessary laser shots (yes Greedo, I am glaring at you). Star Wars is an epic Science Fiction joy, a fantastic story arc with beloved characters and snappy dialogue that I still LOVE to watch. I have 3 light sabers in the back of my car currently, you know-just in case.

And this blog is not meant to be derisive of those films. This is blog is not meant to be a hater-fest on the Force either, and if it reads that way to you please recognize that although I prefer the Holy Spirit to the force for reasons that will become evident (namely #5) I do think “the Force” is conceptually cool.

I don’t think it’s a sin to jokingly say “May the Force Be With You” to friends. As for watching the movies themselves, they maybe stumbling blocks to some believers and fine for others, only you can seek the Lord to know where you have liberty and where you don’t.

What had started to bug me is that Christians and non-Christians alike making two things equivalent to each other which are in fact very different. The reasons for these comparisons are understandable because the two do share some similarities:

Christians hold a belief in the Holy Spirit as the 3rd person in the Godhead (the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) through faith. One of the very first references to The Force comes a few scenes into Episode 4, when an imperial military officer is deriding Vader for his belief in “old religion” a lack of faith that Vader finds disturbing. Han Solo is established early on as someone who doesn’t believe in the force; in contrast, Luke becomes a true believer with his faith in the force at the climax of Episode 4 when he turns off his targeting computer but uses the force to take the shot that takes out the Death Star.

Another similarity between the Force and the Holy Spirit, is that both supposedly give humans superhuman abilities and knowledge. With the Force the Jedi or Sith have the abilities to manipulate physical objects without touching them, to defy the laws of physics other ways (such as super-human speed or levitation), to anticipate actions without sensory data, to calm or clear the heart and mind of disturbing emotions such as anger or fear, to impose your own will on the weaker minded, and in some cases to see into the future. With the Holy Spirit, the Christian or Christians have the abilities to overcome the sinful nature of their flesh, providing them with a supernatural love for others, joy, peace, patience, longsuffering, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, allowing them to forgive in impossible circumstances, to discern spiritual things, and even in some cases having a gift of knowledge (a supernatural access to knowledge or insight about a person or situation that a Christian had no possible way of knowing) and to prophesy (which can include descriptions of future events).

Despite these similarities the Holy Spirit and The Force are two distinct and different concepts. And I respect the Holy Spirit’s person too much to just let that go, the same way I wouldn’t keep calling someone by the wrong name when I could easily learn his or her real one.

#1 The Force is not a Person and the Holy Spirit is.

In A New Hope Obi Wan Kenobi describes the Force as:
“An energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”

I am going to stick to the movies for any information about the Force because they are most strictly cannon.

The Force does not have a will of its own-it is for the people who use it to determine how they will use it and do so in the enforcement of their own will upon others. It does have a light side and a dark side

Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force (Episode 4 and Episode 6), but I would argue that he isn’t personifying the force in this statement. He speaks of the draw of that dark side, but not as if the dark side was seeking to gain or recruit Anakin Skywalker. If you look at Anakin’s fall into the dark side, it is much more comparable to drug use or any other addiction, in that he begins simply by giving in to fear and anger, and then after he commits genocide against the Sandpeople in the power of the dark side (Episode 2) he’s become more and more beholden to that power. But the dark side of the Force doesn’t want him anymore than a beer wants to be held in the hand of an alcoholic.

There are a few references to the Force having it’s own will, Qui Gon Jinn speaks of finding Anakin as being “the will of the force” (Episode 1) and later in the same movie he tells Anakin that midichlorians continually speak to people “telling us the will of the force.” But how this idea of the force having its own will reconciles with its having a dark side and a light side is problematic, because if the force is indeed dualistic, it must therefore have two existing wills in constant conflict with one another.

What I would argue is the only major canonical argument for the force being sentient is the immaculate conception of Anakin Skywalker (Episode 1) implying the force produced him as an act of its own will. This is problematic because which side of the force was enacting it’s will by bringing about this pregnancy: the light side or the dark side? And if the Force has a will, why does this will continually remain subject to the wills of its users-either for good or evil? Because it has a super passive personality? I would contend that determining the personality of the force is very difficult using evidence from the movies.

Finally, the majority of references to the force in the movies don’t describe the force in a relational way; Obi Wan does not have a relationship with the Force the same way he has a relationship with Luke, another person. And the pronoun used almost exclusively to describe the force is “it” which is not a personal pronoun.

In contrast, the Holy Spirit is only described in the Bible, by name, by title, or by the personal pronouns of “He” and “Him.”

When Jesus is talking to his disciples about his imminent departure from earth speaks of the Holy Spirit in John 14: 16-17 saying “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you will know Him, for He dwells with you.”

The word Helper here, sometimes translated comforter, encourager, or advocate, in the Greek version of the New Testament is the word “parakletos” meaning “one who comes alongside to help.” A person can come along side you to help you with something, this description indicates sentience and more specifically that the Holy Spirit is a person.

Other evidence the Holy Spirit is a person includes:
He has a mind/intelligence because He searches the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-16).
He can be lied to (Acts 5:1-11 focus on verse 3).
He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30).
He prays for Christians indicating He loves them (Romans 8:26).
He convicts Christians and Non-Christians of the truth regarding their sin and their need for Jesus indicating that he loves them (John 16:8-10)

#2 The Force is Impersonal, the Holy Spirit is Personal.

With my previous heading you are probably asking- aren’t these the same thing? But bear with me.

With the Force what we’ve basically got is a mystical power source that can help a person who has accesses it to accomplish super-human feats and have supernatural knowledge. So the Force is mystical and also impersonal. For example, anyone who was “listening” could have gotten the same message relayed to them about Alderaan being destroyed before the facts came out (Episode 4), the Force did not specifically intend it for Obi-Wan.

This is not to say that the Force isn’t utilized regarding personal issues since it apparently works very closely in sync with a person’s emotions. Yoda initially refuses to accept Anakin for training as a Jedi because he senses much fear in him and fear is the path to the dark side of the Force: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering” (Episode 1). When Yoda is training Luke he tells him that the way to tell the good side from the bad side of the Force is through feelings and that he will know the good side when he feels “calm, at peace, passive” (Episode 5). Qui Gon Jinn tells Anakin “feel don’t think, use your instincts” (Episode 1), whereas Obi Wan warns Luke when he is going to face Vader again to “bury his feeling deep down” because they can be used to serve the Emperor (Episode 6). The general idea seems to be that those who are on the light side of the Force use it to control personal emotions, whereas those on the dark side use the Force to amplify emotions. But again, the Force is being used as a tool, it is not relational.

The force can also be used to infringe upon someone’s free will and manipulate that person if he or she is weaker minded: more classically referred to as a Jedi Mind Trick and used throughout the movies.

One way the Holy Spirit is personal, is his respect for your personhood, or your free will. Unlike the Force, the Holy Spirit will not ever use a Jedi mind trick upon you to make you act outside of your own will. Evidence for this respect are:

Paul urges Christians to “walk in in the Spirit” implying they have a choice in the matter (Galatians 5:16).
Paul describes Israel as resisting the Holy Spirit indicating a person doesn’t have to listen to Him (Acts 7:51).
The spirit of a person (or will) is recognized as separate from the will of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11)
People can be lead by the Spirit, which indicates choice and not compulsion (you choose to follow a leader) (Romans 8:14).
Jesus appeals to the churches to hear what the Spirit says to them- He wouldn’t ask Christians to hear unless they had a choice not to listen (Revelation 2:7)

It is easy to get freaked out by such scriptures as (John 14:17) and 1 Corinthians 3:16 which describe the Holy Spirit as dwelling inside Christians, and to conclude that this would translate into an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to control or possess you much in the way demonic spirits can possess a person. But these scriptures (above) directly refute this idea. Remember the word Helper used in John 14: 16 is parakletos “to come alongside” and just in case we don’t read greek Jesus goes on to say the Spirit “dwells with you and will be in you” in verse 17.

One of my favorite ways that the Holy Spirit is personal is that he is our advocate in prayer, even when we ourselves are beyond words. He knows me personally on a deeper spiritual level that I can’t share with other human beings. There have been some times in my life when I’ve been in such intense grief or fear that there was nothing I could say when I tried to pray. Other times I feel like a blind idiot because a situation facing me is so beyond me that I think no matter what I pray I have no way of measuring if I am asking for the best thing. That’s when this scripture is so encouraging to me:

“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27).

The Holy Spirit is our advocate before God in prayer, and He prays for us with a spiritual wisdom and personal tenderness that transcends language. He prays for Christians in accordance with God’s will, which leads us to our next point of contrast:

#3 The Force does Your Will, the Holy Spirit does God’s Will.

I don’t really think I need to give a lot of examples of how the Force is utilized to do the will of Jedi and Sith alike in the Star Wars movies. To have access to that kind of power is in short, stinkin’ cool. Who wouldn’t like to be able to lift cars or even coffee mugs through sheer will power? How many of us can honestly say we haven’t been in horrifically annoying conversations that we longed to escape via a Jedi mind trick? This is why the Force is such a satisfying fantasy concept-we all want to use it.

Moreover the ideas that something mystical defies the supposed superiority of technology (aka Luke vs. the Death Star) and that there is a Spiritual level to the universe that can’t be seen by the naked eye are ideas that humans have harkened after for centuries. The idea the unseen is more powerful and enduring than what is seen, that the natural world is just a shadow of a spiritual realm haunts us because it is true (2 Corinthians 4:18). But how a person utilizes this knowledge in accordance with the choices they make is where Star Wars and the Bible part ways.

The Holy Spirit is unlike the force because it does not perform our own will, it performs the will of God (see verse 27 above). The Holy Spirit does this several ways:

He testifies of the truth (John 14:17)
He convicts (convinces) the world (all people) of their sin, of God’s righteousness, and the judgment we deserve that is born by Jesus on our behalf (John 16: 8-10)
>He helps Christians supernaturally recall the words of Jesus (John 14:26) which is why the Bible, though penned by some many authors, has agreeing accounts of Christ.
He reveals the deep things of God to Christians and gives them the mind of Christ (indicates God’s will to them) (1 Corinthians 2: 10-16).
>He gives spiritual gifts to Christians individually in accordance with His (God’s) will (1 Corinthians 12:1-11)
He helps Christians supernaturally accomplish the will of God that we can’t accomplish in our own strength (Galatians 5:16-25)

By the way, this supernaturally accomplishing the will of God includes resisting adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath (extreme anger), selfish ambitions, dividing people from each other, heresy (lies about God), envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries and the like. It also includes Christians being empowered to have and give to others supernatural love, joy, and peace, to endure suffering for a long time, to be kind, to be good, to be faithful, gentle, and to exercise self control in circumstances where it seems improbable if not impossible to do so.

If this last description sounds similar to the Jedi’s own precepts that’s because it is. The difference is that while the Jedi must learn to utilize the force in his or her own strength to do good, the Holy Spirit works to do good simply because it is the will of God, and supernaturally works that good in the life of a Christian. Where a Christian’s personal responsibility comes in, is that she or he must actually pray and submit their own will to the will of God in order for the Spirit of God to be able to work in them.

#4 The Force is for the Chosen Few, the Holy Spirit is for All.

Yes I know some of you are already cringing, but I have to bring up the M word: Midi-chlorians. Yup, you and I can both be sorry that Lucas ever introduced them, but there it is: they are in Episode 1 and therefore they are cannon.

In Episode 1, Qui Gon Jinn tests Anakin Skywalker’s blood and finds his midi-chlorian count is higher than your average Jedi’s. He explains to Anakin that “without midi-chorians life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the force” (Episode 1). Further dialogue in the movies go on to explain that where there are midi-cholorians present, that person has a greater ability to sense and use the force.

While pursing Luke, his identity still unknown, Darth Vader remarks “The force is strong with this one” (Episode 4). And in The Return of the Jedi as Luke slowly introduces Leia to the idea that they are brother and sister he says “the force runs strong in my family.” And so an idea that had been hinted at, that a person could be genetically predisposed to use the force was at last solidified or explained through midi-chlorians.

I would like to submit that midi-chlorians is among the most reviled ideas among Star Wars fans along with the “Han Shot First” controversy and the sadly inexcusable existence of Jar-Jar Binks. And here’s why: what the introduction of midi-chlorians essentially does is to take the Force, which was previously accessible by all through faith, and limit it to those who are gifted through biology. They take something that is mystical, and make it scientific, and to be honest somewhat elitist.

The Holy Spirit don’t play that way, Yo.

The Holy Spirit speaks to Christians and non-Christians alike.

Jesus explains about the Holy Spirit:
“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin because they do not believe in Me, of righteousness because I go to my Father and you will see Me no more; of judgment because the ruler of this world is being judged” (John 16: 8-10).

There is a lot more going on in this verse and I’m not going to go into all of it-I’m just going to touch on some of it. Specifically what the Holy Spirit will speak to a non Christian about are these 3 things: that all human beings are sinners, that our only righteousness before God is through Jesus, and that Satan (the ruler) is being judged by God, just as all sinners will face judgment unless they accept Jesus as their savior. In other words, the Holy Spirit will speak God’s truth to a non-Christian’s heart to appeal to them and convince them of their need to come into a relationship with God through Jesus.

It is true that when Jesus describes the Holy Spirit in John 14: 17 He calls Him “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him,” and since the term “the world” is typically used to refer to non-Christians in the Bible they may think this means the Holy Spirit is not for them. However, what Jesus is talking about here is the inability of a person who is focused on the things of the world to understand or accept spiritual things.

This is idea is comes up again in connection with the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2:13-14, where Paul explains that the mysteries of God that he has been writing about weren’t from man’s wisdom (or worldly education) but had been taught to him and other Christians by the Holy Spirit. He explains “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can they know them because they are spiritually discerned.”

Jesus spoke about this very thing to Nicodemus in John 3:1-21, when He explains to him that to be able to see the kingdom of God and to understand spiritual things a person must be born again, not physically but spiritually. Jesus goes on to explain that to become born of the Spirit a person must believe in Him, and alludes to his own upcoming death as a means for whomsoever believes in Jesus to have eternal life.

If a non-Christian prays and asks for the Holy Spirit to show them the truth, or help them understand a part of the Bible they don’t understand, the Holy Spirit is going to honor this prayer (Jeremiah 29: 12-13). If God only listened to the prayers of Christians, how could anyone ever become a Christian? Every Christian, myself included, didn’t know Jesus at one time in their life but chose to believe in Him.

We also know this is true because of what happens when the Holy Spirit first shows up in the book of Acts: Peter who is filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4) lays the gospel out before a huge crowd of non-Christians, and it describes them as “being cut to the heart” so they ask what they can do to be reconciled to God. Peter responds: “Repent, and let everyone of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38). That idea of being cut to the heart by the truth-that is evidence of the Holy Spirit working on the hearts of the listeners who weren’t Christians when they heard Peter speak.

It is true that only Christians who have repented and accepted Jesus as their savior get to have the Holy Spirit empower them to lead supernaturally good lives. And the Holy Spirit won't empower a non-christian to live a good life apart from Christ, because His whole purpose is to bring humans into a living relationship with Jesus.

But here’s the good news-ANYONE may become a Christian! In fact, it is God’s desire that everyone comes into a personal relationship with Jesus, shown by the following:

Jesus died for all (2 Corinthians 5: 14-15, John 3:16)
Jesus wants to gather all things (including people) to Him (Ephesians 1:10)
Jesus sends the Holy Spirit specifically to appeal to the hearts of non-Christians by sharing testify of the truth to them (John 16:8-10, Acts 2:37).

Not everyone can become a Jedi, but anyone may become a Christian. And not all Christians lead constantly supernaturally good lives, we are still as flawed as anybody else. What we do have is access to a means to living a victorious good life when we choose to submit ourselves to the will of God and the Holy Spirit.

#5 The Force is Epic Fantasy, the Holy Spirit is Real.

Now I know this last point may be controversial, and I know there are groups out there (some living in California) who do believe the force exists in our world. I have yet to see any of them in action, manipulating matter or people throughout our galaxy. So I am going to argue here that the Force is not real, it is fiction, in fact I am going to argue it is fantasy.

Even though Star Wars is Science Fiction, I believe that the “the Force” with all its laudable features is really fantasy on an Epic scale, and the best kind too, because it draws us into a world that mirrors our own and shows us what we know to be true. Anger and fear can corrupt, and as Anakin proves, no person is unsusceptible to them or to the desire to cheat death. Likewise we all want to be Luke Skywalker: both powerful and good- destroying the Death Star, being amazed as Yoda lifts our X wing from the swamp, finding redemption for our Father, using the Force to see his humanity in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

The Holy Spirit is not fiction; He is both stranger and better than fiction. He reveals to us the truth, from the evil condition of our own hearts, to the readily available and boundless love of God. He desires that we come into a relationship with Himself and with God the Father and God the Son. He desires to come alongside us in our pain, our sorrows, our conflicts, and our fears, that we through trust in him might be able to supernaturally overcome them. He also desires to dwell in us, God in us working to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

The Holy Spirit exceeds my greatest imaginings; He goes beyond my best fantasy because it is promised:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man,
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Bibliography:
All scriptures used from the New King James Version of the Bible. Search several versions of the bible at: Blue Letter Bible.Org

My movie quotes and other extemporaneous information regarding Star Wars came from the online wiki Wookiepedia: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

I also used the Word Study Greek-English New Testament edited by Paul R. McReynolds which can be ordered on Amazon and is surprisingly easy to use.

Until next time, may the Spirit meet with you!

~GeekGirl

Update/ Some Star Wars Stuff

Hello There, GeekGirl Here,

So I know it's August and still no compare and contrast article between The Force and The Holy Spirit. Just wanted to let you know this is in process, but it is gonna take a while considering I had forgotten how painfully bad episodes 1-3 are and now I have to watch them.

Some observations on that regaurd:
1. Endless detailed animations and bad writing does not a good movie make.
2. Ewan McGregor can make even the worst dialogue good via excellent facial expressions. (Obi wan has been taught well).
3. Don't wear a backless dress and then tell a guy that how he's looking at you makes you uncomfortable.
4. I liked Yoda better when he was a Muppet. (Somebody make a T-shirt of that PLEASE!!)
5. Apparently you can forget that sandstorms are dangerous in the midst of saying they are.
6. Did Qui-Gon just do a Jedi equivalent of a Vulcan nerve pinch on Jar Jar? REALLY?!?
7. The chase through the city in Episode 2-after a female suspect-and through a pane of glass? Blade Runner anyone?
8. "You want to go home and re-think your life." And my recurring thought is if only Lucas had gone home and re-thought this dialogue. All of it.
9. Midiclorians because you know, we didn't want the Force to actually be Mystical or anything.
and finally
10. Jar Jar Binks, for the love of God, why?

Did I mention I have thus far only watched Episodes 1 and 2?

Yeah.

Let's just say that this re-affirms my policy for when I have kids someday. I am not going to tell them that Episodes 1-3 exist. I am not going to lie, I am just going to show them Episodes 4-6 when I show them Star Wars.

Which means someday I will get a phone call when they are over at somebody's house, all excited and hopeful, "Hey Mom? Did you know there's three MORE Star Wars movies? Can I watch them?"

My response, if they're old enough will be "Sure Honey, just don't expect them to be any good."

On a more positive note, I met a Junior Higher in the past week and I got to be wowed by his Star Wars knowledge, and to pass on to him the most important answer to the most important Star Wars question of all time:

Did Han Shoot First?

Now for you Non-Geeks out there you may not be familar with the HAN-SHOT-FIRST movement so here it is in a nutshell. In Episode 4 Star Wars: A New Hope, Han is about to go rev up the engines of the Millenium Falcon and beat it off of Tatooine, when this green bounty hunter Greebo stops him. In the exchange Greebo pretty clearly implies he's gonna kill Han, but Han shoots him first under the table-proving what a tough cool guy he is. In the newly enhanced versions of Episodes 4-6, Lucas added back in some footage that had been cut from the original theatrical version of the film. Some of this footage includes an extension of this scene where Greebo fires on Han first, misses hiting the wall, and then is shot by Han.

The reason this footage is so wrong is because thousands of young men grew up thinking, dare I say knowing, that Han Solo was the man, coolest of the cool and what they aspired to be (This is psychological phenomenon is evidenced in film by the main character looking in the reflection of a car in the movie 500 Days of Summer to behold a reflection of himself as Han Solo in a fantasy sequence). So what does any good Star Wars Fan, any self-respecting Geek do in the face of such footage.

Insist it is invalid.

How do we do that? We wear T-shirts that read: Han Shot First.

If you want in with any true Star Wars fan-this is the question you CANNOT get wrong and I have just given you the correct answer.

Finally, to tide you over, here's a fun take on the Star Wars films from Hank Green.



Also keep in mind I can vouch for the content of this video, it is appropriate and not at all gory despite the screen pic above. Keep in mind I haven't seen the rest of Hank's video blogs (over 200) and so I am only vouching for this one.

Until Next Time Dear Readers I Remain,

Geek Girl

Some Qualifications

Hello there, Geek Girl here,

So while I am working on my next blog-which is a several part series comparing and contrasting the Holy Spirit of Christendom to the Force of Star Wars, I have run one delay. You see I plan to work only from primary sources-the movies and the bible but unfortunately when my illustrious Dad transferred Star Wars Episode 4 from Laserdisc to DVD only the first half of the movie made it.

In the meantime I thought I would entertain you with a few qualifications for how I identify myself, as a Geek, Nerd, Dork, and a Christian. I will be prefacing each of these lists with my definition of what these terms are so that you can better understand my qualifications.

GEEK QUALIFICATIONS

Geek (n)

1. a person with specialized (obsessive) knowledge in a specific category that is not necessarily academic. 2. a person with technical knowledge of computers or other electronic devices (I.E. the IT).

1. I own the ring of power, a sword of Rohan, an ironman mask, evil scientist welding goggles, a tri-corder, and a sonic screwdriver complete with physic paper for, you know, varying circumstances.

2. I embroidered an Elvish shirt for the premier of The Two Towers (which initiated a first conversation with a now best friend).

3. I have made Rodney from Stargate Atlantis, a mythical Jackalope, a robot, and the eleventh doctor from Doctor Who out of felt (see pictures).

4. I own 87 Marvel/DC comic books I handpicked from an estate sale (including Stan Lee's unauthorized biography).

5. The first Halloween I could choose what I wanted to be I was SPIDERMAN.

6. In 2005, I dressed up and won "Best Human" at the Vacaville Middle Earth Festival (let me tell you after feeling sub-human all through high school this was quite a validation and honor).

7. My i-pod is named TARDIS and my black laptop is named SKARO.

8. At Comic Con in 2003 I ran up to the stage and slipped Sean Astin a floppy disk (remember those?!) containing ideas for Goonies 2 should it ever be made.

9. I have made a Harold Crick mug from memory and a Stargate plate (see pictures).

10. On Sept 22^nd, 2002 I attended a Bilbo Baggins Birthday celebration at a Marin County park near San Francisco.

11. My T-shirts collection consists of: 1 Star Trek Shirt, 1 Ninja Shirt, 1 Ninja Turtles Shirt (Turtley Awesome!), 1 Nintendo Shirt (Classically Trained), 2 Star Wars Shirts, 2 Lord of the Rings Shirts, 3 Zelda Shirts, 4 DC Superheroes shirts, and 4 Marvel Superheroes shirts.

12. One Halloween when I was going to Junior College I dressed up as Lola from the movie Lola Rent, put all my heavy textbooks in a black plastic bag, and sprinted to every class as if my boyfriend's life depended on it.

13. I own atomic socks, Ironman socks, Yoda socks, and hobbit socks (they are like the Tolkien inspired snuggie of the feet-see picture).

14. For a Shakespeare class final I co-wrote, directed, and acted in a student Film that basically was Star Wars meets Shakespeare including such speeches as "Once More to the Trench" "Alas poor Biggs," and the ever-popular Yoda monologue "To Be or Be Not, that is the Question, ehn?"

15. In 2003 I was made an official Goonie by Sean Astin (knighthood for geeks).

16. In 2004 I was handpicked out of the crowd at Comic Con to meet David Wenham and Billy Boyd of The Lord of the Rings movies to ask them a question for a website. My question: "With the books, and what the director wants, and what you want, how do you find your character's center?"

17. My Reboot, Stargate Atlantis, Superhero, Doctor Who, Narnian, Star Trek, and LOTR (including talking Treebeard) action figures all live and play together.

18. My cat is named for a Television character (you'll have to guess which one).

19. The decals on the back of my car are the Tardis, the White Tree of Gondor, and the Tri-Force! (see picture and thanks to Robot1001001).

20. In 2008 my sister and I threw a Sci-Fi Birthday party whose guests included Rose Tyler(myself), Be'llanna Torres, Marty McFly and Doc Brown, A Fan from Galaxy Quest, Tod the Wraith, Dr. Hodge, Sarah Jane Smith, two aliens whose names I can't type in this font, Vala, Col. Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and K-9.

21. I went to see The Fellowship of the Ring seven times. After that there was no stopping me from seeing movies multiple times in the Theatres.

22. I have more flare than you would believe. I am not even going to try to count it (see picture-now imagine 5 times what is shown and 20% is from DAMEcreations).

NERD QUALIFICATIONS

Nerd (n)

1. a person who is socially removed or isolated from others .

2. a person with academic knowledge in a specific content area: e.g. Literature, Science, Mathematics.

    1. I had trouble making friends with people my own age from kindergarten through high school.

    2. In 5^th grade I completely withdrew, stopped talking or socially interacting at all during recess, instead opting to read The Little House on the Prairie series over and     over and over.

    3. I still experience social awkwardness attacks all the time at the age of 28.

    4. In high school I identified myself as "a loner" throughout freshman year and when I finally joined social groups they were the band kids and a circle proudly     known as "the poetry rejects."

    5. I have written short stories and poems since I was five and have been honored at a young author's fair and published four years in a row in my University's literary magazine, three times under my own name, once co-authoring, and once under a pseudonym (to make sure they liked my work and not me).

    6. I have a Bachelors in English with a Associates Degree in Behavioral and Social Sciences.

    7. My senior seminar was Transformation Myth and my "big paper" was on the transformational and complimentary power of masculinity and femininity in George Macdonald's fairy tale The Day Boy and the Night Girl (also published under the title The History of Photogen and Nycteris).

    8. I have read way too much to be listed.

    9. I am a high school English teacher-which means much of the following:

• I am in love with reading and believe it can show us the world and ourselves and can gradually cure selfishness and stupidity.
  
• I am in love with adjectives, verbs, adverbs, nouns, some prepositions, semicolons, assonance, alliteration, and essay structure.
  
• I believe that writing can bring self-discipline, clarity, self-realization, and truth into the world.
  

    10. I have books signed by Gary Soto, Jan Brett, Eric Carle, and Rosemary Wells, as well as 1 first edition Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

    11. I have more books than I should too many to count and too many for my shelves so they are stacked and on my desk, and in my trunk.

    12. I have made and wear T-shirts that read: Wesley Never Dies, The Enemy's Gate is Down, Read Books, and Halflings Rule.

    13. I am a walking talking dictionary of characters, plot lines, literary allusions, and imaginary geography.

    14. I sometimes compose haikus for all my pictures in a photo album on facebook (okay I only did that once, but I'm resolved to do it again!)

DORK QUALIFICATIONS

Dork (n)

1. a person with few social inhibitions

2. a person who is obviously farcical in their behavior

3. a person who lacks physical coordination

    1. Growing up my most frequent question to my sister was "can I hum it?"

    2. I tell the worst most puny, play-on-word jokes I can.

    3. I grin wildly, chuckle darkly, and compose spontaneous songs about life on a daily basis (ex: We are walking on the beach, but Tatooine's sands are out of reach).

    4. When walking, I frequently run into objects or people that are stationary.

    5. I can't clap on beat unless I really really concentrate.

    6. When I dance one of two things happen:

        A) pre-mature rigamortis sets in

        B) my arms and legs flail indistinctly in varying directions much like a 80's pop star having a seizure with no correlation to the music whatsoever

    7. I have never and never will be good at sports (except for Wii sports and even then really just the hola hoop game).

CHRISTIAN QUALIFICATIONS

Christian: (n)

1. a person who professes a belief in the teachings of Jesus Chirst
   

    Okay so here's one of the really astoundingly cool things about being a Christian, unlike being a Geek, Nerd, or Dork, none of my actions throughout my lifetime qualify me to be a Christian. I could tell you that I've been baptized, and I go to church, and read the bible, but these things don't make me a Christian anymore than hanging out in a garage makes me a car, or chillin' at used bookstores makes me a librarian ( I wish!). There is only one qualification contributed by me that makes me a Christian, and that is my ongoing belief in Jesus Christ as my savior. That's my qualification.

    Yet I couldn't even have that qualification if Christ had not first qualified me for a relationship with Him by dying for my sins on the cross. Just this last week I was talking to a non-Christian who said very humbly and honestly "I don't think I'm cut out to be a Christian," and my sister wisely and graciously pointed out- "Well, none of us are." We are not qualified to follow God by any of our actions, no matter how good or amazing or blessing to others these actions are, because we are separated from God by our sin. But we are all equally qualified, regardless of our past and current lives, to receive God 's grace. Grace goes beyond mercy because not only are you spared from the punishment or consequences you deserve, but you are also blessed by the one who has every right to judge you for your wrong.

    Here's a more concrete example. Imagine that your friend has a very rare golden-age comic book given to them by their grandfather that they absolutely love. I mean he reads it all the time, it is freaking precious him, he has all these memories of his grandpa associated with it and so on. Now you are frankly jealous of this comic. More than that, you really desire it for your own. Moreover maybe you'd like to see your friend who is very proud of it taken down a few notches; I mean he's just so annoying about it whenever it's mentioned, which is way more than any human being should mention anything.

    So one day you see that comic lying on your friend's dresser and you slip it into your backpack. You are stealing it, but you justify this to yourself by promising to return it once your friend has freaked out a bit, just to make a point. Or maybe you'll keep it just to make a point; I mean you could go either way. When you get home you go to take out the comic and you notice that your water bottle has leaked all over your backpack. Everything is soaked through, including the top half of your friend's comic, because the plastic wrapper was partially open and so water got in. You use a blow dryer, and you meticulously dry each page-but the ink is still completely wasted. You even look for the same comic online in the hopes that maybe you could make a switch, or at least offer this to your friend as a way of taking responsibility for your actions, but this particular golden age comic is so far out of your price range you know you can never afford it. Even if you could you realize it's not going to be the same because this comic, the one you ruined with your theft, was from his beloved and deceased Grandpa.

    So you go to your friend, present the comic, confess everything, offer to try to earn money your entire life to try to afford a replacement comic (which your friend and you both know you can never do) and wait for the axe to fall. The real consequences of your actions are that you deserve to lose your friend-you aren't qualified to remain friends with him after what you have done.

    If your friend forgives you of the destruction of the comic, that would be giving you mercy. But instead your friend not only forgives you, but he goes online and buys the same golden age comic you were looking at as a replacement and gives it to you to show you that he and you are still friends and always will be. Also your friend is not a millionaire either-he's working class like you and will most likely be paying for that comic the rest of his life but he does it anyway because he loves you. In addition to that, your friend says that you should start going to comic books stores together, and you do, and your friend continually buys you comics for no other reason than he loves you and wants you to enjoy them.

    That's what God's grace is-He loves us so much that even though we are sinners which qualified us for death and separation from Him during our time on earth and after death, He died in our place-paying the price for our sins so that we could continue to have a relationship with Him. And because He loves us, He continues to bless us whether we are good or evil (Mathew 5:45) just because His love for us is that encompassing and awesome.

    So what is my qualification for being a Christian- it's His grace and nothing I do.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith,

and that not of yourselves,

it is the gift of God,

not of works lest anyone should boast."

Ephesians 2:8-9

    And that is my favorite qualification of all time.

~GeekGirl

NEXT TIME: The Spirit vs. The Force or "Yep, we're talkin' midi-clorians people."

Geek Gospel #1: The Beast Below

As this is my first, "Geek Gospel" I will explain its purpose. Basically this is where I take a narrative of some genre that a geek would be familiar with (television, internet sketch, book, short story, comic, etc.) and I use it to illustrate some truth. I am using the second episode from the fifth series/season of DOCTOR WHO as an extended analogy explore how different people respond to God.

So here's my friendly reminder/disclaimer-No analogy is perfect, I am not calling this article or anything in it a literal gospel, and I am not assuming that the episode was written with this analogy in mind.

"The Beast Below," sees the eleventh Doctor taking new companion Amy Pond for her first bout in space. If you haven't seen the episode yet this is your SPOILERS warning (this episode is available on itunes and amazon on demand).

THE EPISODE

The start of this episode is prefaced with a foreshadowing poem recited in a recording of a child that goes as follows: "A horse and a man, above, below/One has a plan but both must go/Mile after mile, above, beneath/One has a smile and one has teeth/Though the man above might say hello/Expect no love from the Beast below."

    The Doctor and Amy encounter the Starship UK, a spaceship containing the entire nation of Great Britain. Sometime in the future the earth suffers such devastating solar flares that every country on earth is forced to evacuate into space. Built into the ship are some rather menacing monitoring devices called "smilers" that look like fortune telling booths at carnivals, with glossy wooden faces molded into a set expression.

    The smilers are not surprisingly the sadistic enforcers in a nation that the Doctor declares to be clearly "a police-state," and he and Amy split up to discover as it were what is rotten in the state of Britain. Amy is placed in a voting booth and is told by the person on screen that she will be shown the truth about the Starship UK which is her right as a citizen. Before her on the consul are two lit up buttons, one marked "PROTEST" and the other marked "FORGET" and she is given the option to either forget what she sees immediately after she learns the truth or to protest it. She watches, receives the information in sped-up time and finds her hand on the forget button in a matter of seconds (a neural device has already wiped the memory from her mind based on her choice). This matters because the Doctor and Amy learn that with the exception of a few dissenters who get flushed, the entire nation votes every five years to forget the truth that they know rather than live with it.

    Through another series of events the Doctor, Amy, and the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth the tenth, end up in the tower of London where the truth about Starship UK is revealed to all of them. The ship they are in could not possibly travel in space and they were the last nation on the earth beginning to burn from the solar flares. In the midst of crying children and agony, hope appeared to them "like a miracle" in the form of a Starwhale-which is exactly what it sounds like, a whale that can swim through space. It is an ancient creature, and its species was known for guiding first space travelers safely through asteroid belts. It is the last of its kind, and yet desperate to survive the British people captured it, built their ship around it, and now torture it by sending an electric impulse into the pain center of its brain to force it to move forward.

    Now that she knows the truth the Queen is given the option to press two buttons like those in the voting booth-to forget or to abdicate. If she chooses the second option the Starwhale will be released, the ship will break apart and her people will die in space. The Doctor decides to modify the electric pulse to make the Starwhale brain dead so the starship can continue it' voyage but the beast will suffer no more pain; an act he recognizes as murder. He does this because his only other alternatives are to let the Starwhale continue to be tortured, or release the Starwhale and let an entire nation of people die. But before the Doctor can finish his work Amy grabs the Queen's hand and makes her hit the abdicate button. Which results not in the Starwhale leaving but instead in the ship's speed doubling. Amy explains that the Starwhale didn't appear by chance, but rather came purposefully to earth, drawn by the suffering of their children to save them.

THE SMILERS AND THE VOTING BOOTHS

Let's start with the Smilers. These monsters, like any that are worth their salt, are only so terrifying to us because they resemble ourselves. They are in fact creations made by the builders of the Starship UK and they represent the duplicity of man-a smiling outward face and an inward capacity for violence that can emerge at any time. They represent the sin nature of man both symbolically and literally since the entire Starship's citizenry puts on a normal public face when, in fact, once they reach adulthood and vote they all have knowledge of the horrible exploitation of the Starwhale and by forgetting are consenting to it.

The voting booth, I would suggest, represents how a person reacts when confronted with their sin. Sin when looked at in honesty is emotionally disturbing because it recognizes the pain we cause others and that we are responsible for that pain. So ultimately what do we do? We can protest and face the consequences of our sin, or we can choose to forget our sin in order to go on with our daily lives.

    When we sin, we can harm others or ourselves, but ultimately we are sinning against God because we are harming His creation that He dearly loves. The Starwhale is a symbol of God in this analogy-ancient, benevolent, and self-sacrificing. Also the Starwhale is a literal salvation for the British people taking them from the eminent destruction of the solar flares and continuing to ensure their survival in space.

    The treatment of the Starwhale is also very telling of our treatment of God. Instead of recognizing the Starwhale's arrival as a response to their suffering and a voluntary savior, the humans see it as a source of power to serve their own ends. They capture it, build around it and manipulate it in order to go where they desire. The poem in the elevator built by the ships builders clearly identifies the man and beast roles they have assigned. The man is the one who smiles (again connection to the smilers) and who has the plan, but the poet warns "expect no love from the beat below" maintaining that the Starwhale has no valid will or capacity for love, it is a dumb beast and a power source and nothing more.

    And we can express the same attitudes towards God as we make Him over in the image we want him to be. God creates us and dies for us on the cross so that we can have salvation, but we don't want to meet God, we just want to utilize Him. All human beings, Christians included, are capable and guilty of this. We see God as the power source and we build our own concepts, our own beliefs and desires around him and pray for what we want to happen. We have already decided for ourselves what the best course of action is and we become angry with God when our lives do not go well under our own direction. But even as we do this, like the citizens of the Starship UK we are haunted by our guilt and the sense that something is terribly wrong with our lives.

    As the Starwhale is being deliberately hurt by the humans who justify their actions in the name of survival, it literally suffers for hundreds of years and continues to love mankind. This is illustrated in the episode by the whale's refusal to eat the children and desire to interact with them (via tentacles). In the same way although we have and continue to hurt God by our refusal of Him and our sin against Him, He continues to love and give to us. Amy Pond marvels that all the years of suffering just made the Starwhale kind, and so we should marvel also at the nature of God, who describes himself in Exodus 34 as merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.

THREE RESPONSES TO THE STARWHALE

Choice to Forget (Agnostic)

    Those who realize the suffering we are causing God and others by our sin typically chose to forget. The nation of Britain in this episode does exactly that. What is scary is that although they choose as a society, ultimately it is an individual choice. Every citizen is alone in that voting booth, and it is between their conscience and themselves when they choose to forget. Forgetting the issue of God's existence, side-tabling it so that we can continue living our lives as they currently are, is a pretty fair definition of Agnosticism.

    The American Religious Identification Survey given in the U.S. in 2008 found that twelve percent of those surveyed considered themselves either agnostic or atheist. A similar BBC survey conducted in the UK and other nations in 2004 found that twenty-five percent of Britons never prayed, but thirty percent of all atheists surveyed (of all nations) admitted they prayed sometimes. This is the most recent and reliable data I could find that illustrates how many people today choose to be agnostic rather than commit to atheism or God. Going back to the episode, even characters we love and believe to have good hearts, such as Amy and Queen Elizabeth have chosen to be agnostic. But this choice is not without a price, as the entire nation and any who choose to forget go through their lives with subconscious guilt, shame, and a sense that something is not right. The good news is that all it takes is one decision to turn from an agnostic into a true believer (as Amy bravely demonstrates).

Choice to "Kill God" (Atheist)

    The Doctor represents that good party of intellectuals, perhaps educated more than the common citizen, who can't stand seeing the pain they are witnessing, so they choose to kill the idea of God. In the episode, the doctor chooses to "kill" the Starwhale by making it brain dead out of mercy; in contrast, I would submit that atheists "kill" God out of mercy towards themselves. Most professed atheists place the emphasis on the rationality of their beliefs, or how their minds and their thoughts lead them to their conclusions about life. But we can't divorce the emotional component from any belief, no matter how rationally we choose to live our lives because we are still human. Unless you are extremely callous, and here I would submit that atheists are not, it is very emotionally painful to live in a world with so much evil and suffering. And to live with the idea that a sovereign living God allows such suffering because He allows humans to exercise free will and all the consequences said will produces (murder, child-slavery etc) is incredibly difficult and painful.

    To look around us today and believe that God has a greater plan of redemption, and that He does and will champion the oppressed takes real faith in Him and His will. But the Doctor doesn't recognize the Starwhale as capable of goodwill towards men, or even necessarily a will of its own since he concludes if he releases it then it will flee like a dumb beast. So the atheist also refuses to consider how the will of God comes into play, or if they do consider it they judge it as "not good enough" since they would choose better for mankind. And that's what the kind-hearted atheist proceeds to do-enact his or her own will on every given situation as ethically as they possibly can. But as the Doctor's judgment call towards the Starwhale illustrates, our best can still be wrong. Acting as ethically as he can to preserve lives and to stop pain, the doctor is still by his own words, committing murder and losing his own soul/identity, as he declares that after he has finished he will have to "find a new name because I won't be the Doctor anymore."

Choice to Trust (Believer)

    The bible declares that "God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty" in I Corinthians 1:27. This means that salvation is made not for those who society considers strong or wise, but for the humble and powerless. No one is in a weaker position of power than Amy in this episode. The moment she understands what she consented to when she voted to forget (she recognizes her sin) she apologizes and repents. The Doctor then callously implies he shouldn't have expected better of her because she is after all "only human." Although badly delivered, there is truth in his statement, humans can fail, all humans can sin.

    What you don't know if you haven't seen the first episode of the series is that Amy is an "abandoned child." Her parents are gone from her life, she lives with an Aunt who ignores her, and the Doctor shows up when she is a child, promises to be back in 5 minutes and doesn't show for 12 years. Now in the second episode, her trust in the Doctor to accept and forgive her is disappointed again.

Yet it is her continuing childhood pain and her position of weakness that allows Amy to identify with the children present and to recognize the truth-the salvation the Starwhale offered all those years ago when it came to earth and still offers. She thinks of the fact that the Starwhale won't eat the children, and watches it playing with them (tentacles though a hole in the floor) while still in pain, and comes to the conclusion that the Starwhale does have a will and a heart that loves.

    Amy makes the choice that no other human (or timelord) has been able to make-to give up her own will and place herself entirely at the mercy of the Starwhale. And it is a big risk. Her trust has already been placed in others and devastatingly disappointed. But she looks at the nature of the Starwhale and takes the leap of faith. In turn, the Starwhale saves the citizens of the Starship UK, both literally preserving their lives and emotionally freeing them from the guilt of having to continue in their sin. The Doctor is also saved from sin, from having to commit the act of murder that would have taken his identity. Moreover, the speed of the ship doubles as soon as the Starwhale is released, why? Because its will is greater than theirs and it had the best in its heart for these people all along. God's heart towards you and I is the same.

THE CHALLENGE-WHO REPRESENTS YOU?

    Dear reader, consider: will you chose to forget the reality of your sin and a God who suffered for you and desires to save you? Will you Kill God by turning Him into a distant idea, or dinky supernatural power source meant to serve your own will and intellect? Or will you chose to abdicate the throne in your heart and give it to Him, trusting that He will save you and take your life in directions greater than you could ever imagine? (I Corinthians 2:9). What will you do with the Beast below? I will end my post with the poem that Amy recites in voice-over at the conclusion of the episode:

"In bed above we're deep asleep,

While greater love lies further deep,

This dream must end, this world must know,

We all depend on the Beast below."

Stargate-Atlantis Shout-Out

Hello There, Geek Girl Here,

So I'm working on a new blog entry-in the meantime, to tide you over, here's a little shout-out to you Stargate Atlantis fans that I made a few years ago.

Enjoy-

~GG

Voyage of the Dawn Treader Trailer

What's that Lucy? You're confused because Peter and Susan were in the trailer?

Well that makes two of us.

~Geek Girl