Ugghh

Sometimes I wish I had not a compassionate bone in my body. It would make being mad a lot easier.

Taken

Josh and I went out to watch the movie Taken tonight. Basically the premise behind the movie is that a man's daughter goes traveling to Paris with a friend and is kidnapped by an Albanian mob group to be sold into the sex trade. Luckily for her, her father is somewhat of a James Bond type and does anything (and everything) possible to hunt her down and kill her captors. Aside from the necessary steep death toll and convenient invincibility of the main character required in North American produced action movie, the film was really good. I know that because there are several things that have resonated with me.

Number one. If this movie were a little less thriller and a little less...movie..it would be a great sermon. Daughter refuses the advise of her father, makes a stupid move, gets in trouble, and father does everything he can to get her back. Remind you of another such story? There was this one section in the movie that I love. The father had just seen his daughter stripped down in a bidding room getting sold to eligible sex owners. He made a silly move and got caught by the head of the group in charge of selling her. He manages to kill everyone in the room and comes face to face with the head dude, shoots him twice in his extremities, and as he is getting ready to shoot the last bullet into his heart the man in charge says, "Please understand, it was all business. It wasn't personal." Father looks back at the dude and says, in a very James Bondesque fashion, "It was all personal to me." Think about it. I'm sure you can connect the dots in this section so I'm going to move to the next.

Number two. Holy. wow. I've been wearing a blindfold for the past 20 years of my life and someone just ripped it off. Tell me that this world is an awful place and I will agree. Tell me that bad things happen to good people everyday and I will agree again. Tell me that I am incredibly lucky to live in the country that I live in and your reply will be a resounding yes. Yet I watched this movie tonight and I feel as though a new dimension has been added to each of my responses to the above questions. I just don't understand how things like this can happen in our world where the worst person that I personally know is someone who has cheated on an exam 25 years ago. I want to know that there is a hope for people who have been trafficked. Men who are sold into work in sweat shops, women who are sold into the sex trade, children who have been forced to become child soldiers. Is there a hope? I'd like to think so. Heck, I'd like to step out of my comfortable little world where the worst thing I've had lately is no milk for my morning tea to help create hope. Want to join me?

Plants

I think my love bamboo is dying. I've been feeding him responsibly, he's sitting on a comfortable ledge, and he has sunlight and a nice view in front of him. Maybe I need to start reading to him.

I'm going to make a garden this summer with sweet peas, carrots, onions, garlic, flowers, etc. I'm going to grow those plants like they're my children and then I'm going to make yummy food from them that will taste so good because they've been grown through my efforts and love. Maybe I'll sing to them too.

I bought biodegradable earth friendly laundry detergent yesterday and it brought me great joy and excitement. I might have a mini garden in my house next year on a windowsill.

I think I'm turning into a hippy.