Due to my being technologically challenged and not realising that one needs to switch tabs to 'February' on Google calendar, I screwed up my work availability and as such, have lots of free time this week. Perhaps it's a nice reminder to calm down with all the working to earn all the money and once again learn to live with a little, hey?
Last night with Emma I was keen on a DVD. A period drama, perhaps. I quite like those. And not because I'm madly in love with Mr. Darcy and the like (so get off my case) but because I secretly think I was born in the wrong era and would love to be living in a society that observed strict etiquette and in which courtships were the norm. Although all this propriety would probably forbid my loud laugh and constant "rock on" hand gestures, but anyway. Becoming Jane, I suggested, a biopic starring Anne Hathaway about Jane Austen (of course). Instead we come home with... Inglourious Basterds. Sigh. She was paying.
Tarantino is a sick man and I am way too squeamish. I felt odd watching the movie, not just because my legs get all tingly at the mere thought of a person being scalped, but because I didn't know how I felt exactly about Nazi Germany being satirised. It wasn't overt, just little things, like the characterisation of Hitler and his burning red face. I'm about to spoil it, but the film ends at a theatre showing a Nazi film and the theatre is filled with all of the key players of the war and the owner of the theatre, a Jewess, locks them all in and burns them to a cinder. It's odd that one would watch this, almost with triumphant satisfaction: they got what they deserved. It was awful, just awful. I didn't care that it wasn't based on fact (obviously) but the Holocaust was real, people died and the thirst for revenge was and probably still is in some hearts, very real. I don't even know what I'm really trying to convey but I couldn't ignore the reality of WWII and see this film as a comedy or as the ending to the war that everyone wished could have happened.
I can't comment with any authority whatsoever, I've never lost family members in such an atrocity, but sometimes I find myself thinking, what would I do if I were in their situation? The Jewess in the film, her whole family was murdered before her eyes and she wanted retribution. Could you say that the man who hunted and executed her family did not deserve death? What would I say? I don't think about what I would do. I first think: this is what Jesus did for me. I trust Jesus. I am a Christian. I am different. How does this affect the way I will react to any given situation? Ok this situation is extreme and completely hypothetical but I still think it's worth examining. God doesn't say trust me until... this happens and you can get away with it: hating, hurting, murdering. There are no loopholes.
It makes me stop and think, ok God, how much do I really trust you? How far am I willing to die to myself to become more like Jesus? Because I know what he would do, I know it because of what he's already done. Jesus would forgive even the men responsible for the Holocaust if they came to him with a repentant heart. And if that thought sickens me, then do I understand the gravity of sin, my own sin and the incredible scope of God's forgiveness? It's enough to turn over in your mind for... years.
I have the next few days to get started, at least.
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