Month: December 2015

Star Wars VII: My Fan Theory


This past Christmas week my family gathered at my house, and Star War’s fan theory was the topic for most of the week, primarily the potential love interest. I never heard so much blah, blah, blah over who would end up with whom. I finally piped up and said what I thought. I sort of stunned them with my brilliance, but won them over with my theory.

So, my fan theory on the love interest of the new characters introduced to us in Star Wars VII.

It’s simple. Ray and Kylo Wren.

Fan Theory Point Number 1:

I’ll start with the pause. That moment when Kylo Wren took off his mask at Ray’s request. That moment lasted enough time for me to think: Oh, they’ll end up together. Not a big surprise. How many times has a good girl tried to save a bad boy and a bad boy tried to turn a good girl bad? Oldest plot line in the world.

Her expression summed it up. She expected a face twisted with evil, but instead she saw a young man with soft features and nice eyes. She looked surprised but also attracted. He takes his mask off for her and the audience is also caught off guard. This sort of blew the whole climatic bridge scene with his dad, Harrison Ford. As a movie go-er I would have preferred the big reveal during the bridge scene, but Kylo removing it for her just makes the whole moment thing a definite.

Fan Theory Point Number 2:

For a spoiled rotten villain who pitches temper tantrums and doesn’t mind mass murder and torture, his treatment of Ray is almost touching. He carries her like a damsel in distress. He does not allow her to be tortured (unlike Poe), and he is her interrogator. During the interrogation, he tries to connect with her, offering comforting words regarding the force. And finally, in their battle scene, for a guy who is trained in the force, whose family is practically the force, whose Uncle and Grandfather are famous in the force, he pretty much lets her win. Come on, there’s no way this guy couldn’t have destroyed her no matter how much the force was with her. He even offers to train her in the force.

Ray already has the makings of a girl who will go a long way towards helping a guy she’ll see as a victim of the dark side and not a convert. And Kylo Wren? He is already smitten. Done deal for him.

So, there is it. My fan theory. As my dad used to say, bad boys and good girls will always be drawn to each other.

(Some credit goes to my son, Joffrey Bagwell, who wrote a three page draft of the points I outlined above. Clearly, he is obsessed.)

 

Gather the Moments of Your Life


Gather the moments of your life.

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I mean this literally. Find something to gather with. I have so many gardening baskets, I’ll use one of those. For you, maybe it’s a tailgate basket. Or a big, beach bag. Or a grocery bag. It doesn’t matter. Take something, because this is important. It is important because it is your life, and it tells a story. I want you to see your beautiful story. I want you to see how beautiful you are. So, take whatever it is, and grab a notepad.

Walk through your home. What do you see? Pictures, books, journals, toys, a table, a chair? Notice it all. Pick it up, examine it. Let your mind go back to the day of significance. Open up photo journals, written journals. Read them again. Visit the places in your pictures one more time. Explore your life. And don’t forget your dreams. The ones that came true and the ones that didn’t.

Write the moments down. Or draw. Or scribble. This is important because you are important. Did you know that? That you have not been forgotten? I want to say this to you, you are not forgotten.

You matter. Write that down. Gather the importance of you.

Don’t censor this exercise. Fill the bag full of the moments encapsulated in pictures and memories and furniture and streets and toys and dishes and, oh, all of it. Tear each scribbled down moment off, and place it in your bag. And not just THAT moment. Don’t separate the magnificent from the mundane or the horrific from the glorious.

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My boss was the captain of Duke University’s football team during his college years. So, he should gather that, you’re thinking. Absolutely.  It counts because it is accomplishment, dedication, and hard work. Time invested. Gather it. Be thankful. Be proud.

But, gather these moments, too.

My College Son drives a local lady once a week to do errands. He doesn’t have time. College is consuming, Then there’s his job at the grocery store and his girlfriend. “Who else will do it, Mom, if I don’t?” I shrug. I see them sometimes, in his old Ford Escort. That goes in my moment’s basket. I hope it will go in his one day.

One of my moments is a coffee cup, a table and a Bible.

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Another moment is Jekyll Island. 608

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Gather the tragedies. None of us are without them. There are no words for some of this called life. Just tears. Maybe that slip of paper is just wet with tears. Place it in the bag.

Gather the sacred and the scared. See the letters? Not so different.

Gather the mundane.  You think only the exciting, the highlights, the obituary stuff counts as gathering material? Gather the everyday. Gather the days the unproductive days, the listless days, the bored, restless, aggravated days. The what’s for supper, piles of laundry, and dirty bathroom days.

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I’ll gather family too.

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Do this now, before the new year rolls in and you are examining your life under the lens of what’s not right. The lens of what needs doing, improving, and changing. Before the New Year’s resolutions, gather. Sit in the quiet of Advent, waiting and gathering.

Then, take those pieces of paper, written on, drawn on, scribbled on, laughed over, cried over, so hard to write, so wonderful to write, and place them all on a table. See the puzzle? The pieces of your life? See how beautifully they all fit together? See the perfect magic of each one? See the wonder and the see the sadness? Bring their torn, scared edges together. and like a puzzle, let them create a picture. Let them touch. Read the words as the journey of your life.

Read the story of your life.

Go gather, friend.