This, That, and The Other

This

I love Dane Cook. He is so freaking hysterical. We’re talking make-me-wet-my-pants funny. I haven’t bothered with his movies yet. They look pretty stupid and have gotten bad reviews, so….it’s my belief that some people are better off doing stand up comedy. Anyhoo, the first time I ever saw or heard of him he was on The Tonight Show on, like, Veteran’s Day or something, and he was wearing the uniforms of the different military branches cut and sewn together to make one uniform. His whole spot on Jay was just so darn funny, that I was instantly a fan.

Until this morning. Now, it’s not that I don’t like him anymore. I’m just really, really, really disappointed. I heard on the radio that he’s going to be in P-Town on tour, so Hubby and I thought we’d buy some tickets when we got to work this morning. Uh, no thanks. The CHEAPEST tickets in the house were $30. The Rose Garden ain’t no small place. That’s where the Blazers play the likes of the Lakers and the Britney’s of the world perform. I’m thinking I don’t want to pay $30 to sit in the nosebleed section and watch him on the Jumbotron. Might as well watch him on DVD at home. I suppose if he can sell out at those prices, then I can’t blame him. And he’s funny and all, but we’re not talking about an Eddie Murphy or Robin Williams. Oh, well, what-ev.

That

Last night I watched The First 48. It’s one of my faves. (I’m pretty much an A&E whore.) In case you aren’t familiar, this show follows real detectives in Memphis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Cincinatti, Miami, Minneapolis and Dallas during a homicide investigation, the theory being that if a suspect isn’t identified in the first 48 hours, their chances of solving it decrease dramatically.

Most of the time, it’s punks killing other punks. Losers killing other losers. But some times, it’s someone doing something completely heinous to someone that simply didn’t deserve it or put themselves in a dangerous position. Basically, this guy comes home from work (the late shift) and finds his girlfriend and her 10 year old son dead. The 16 month old daughter that they had together was in her crib unharmed. Turns out, these two teenagers who were friends of the family killed her because she wouldn’t give them the car and then killed her son because they didn’t want any witnesses.

Oh, boy, I cried over that one. Cried and cried and cried. In fact, if I wasn’t at work right now, I’d probably cry a little more. Just thinking about how frightened that little boy must have been made me sick to my stomach. And then reading yesterday about what the horrible things that sick twisted freak-show did to Sandra Cantu before stuffing her in a suitcase… Seriously, it just makes me absolutely ill to think about how much evil there is in the world, and not that I just want to protect my OWN child from it, but that no child should EVER have to experience that sort of fear. And the people that do those things? They just can’t be human, I’d like to think that they are anomalies that don’t have souls.

But I know that isn’t true. That human beings do bad things, and even those who do can be redeemed in the end. It was a criminal who truly BELIEVED in Jesus at the end. Even his own disciples didn’t really BELIEVE they way they were meant to, not until he broke free from the grave.

It was a criminal, who may have done unspeakable things to other people, who believed in the miracle of Jesus AS HE WAS DYING and asked to be remembered in heaven. And what did Jesus tell him? “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43).

So, even as I feel all this anger for the people who do these sorts of things, I also know – and HOPE! – that in the end, they are redeemed like the thief on the cross and that I can be redeemed from my hatred.

The Other

Not going to end on a serious note, of course….

This morning on the drive in I decided to start a revolution. See, I was admiring the pretty pink and white blooms on the weeds in the grass and realized…. Exactly WHO decided that weeds were bad and everything else was good? Doesn’t it stand to reason that if something thrives no matter the conditions and can come back despite all the forces against it…isn’t that something we should ADMIRE?!?!

I think God must have been trying to make things easy on us and what do we do? Decide that’s not quite good enough and spend time planting, weeding, watering, fertilizing, transplanting, and potting.

So, I’m beginning the revolution today. I’m not going to fight them anymore. You can join me if you want. If not, feel free to pluck, pull, and prune, while I sit back with an ice cold drink and enjoy my weeds.