Braveheart...and Collateral

The last time I watched Braveheart all the way through was a few years ago...until yesterday. I finally dusted it off my DVD rack. Strange since it was one of my favorite films of all time. Watching it again reminded me of why I love the movie so much in the first place. As Robert the Bruce's father says in one scene- "Uncompromising men are easy to admire." For all you Braveheart lovers out there, just a quick note that while it is based on a true story, many characters, events, and details where fictionalized or altered to fit the movie story better. Despite that, it's still obviously a great movie.

The action scenes are still exciting, from the first revenge battle sequence to the Battle of Stirling. The dramatic scenes still work amazingly well, particularly the ones with no words and filled with stares and looks. I was just reading through all the goofs on imdb and was surprised to see so many. I don't care though. It's still a great film. I'd probably watch it more often if it wasn't 3 hours long.

The last time I watched it in its entirety was really late at night with some friends during a visit to Iowa a few years ago. There's a girl I know there named Jaime who absolutely loves the film, even more than I do. She can pretty much quote the whole thing. I miss those Iowa friends. I haven't seem a lot of them in awhile, especially Jaime.

Another movie of note is Collateral. It's probably my favorite movie with Tom Cruise because his assassin character is so well developed and he sheds a lot of the personality that you see in most of his other films. It's also directed by Michael Mann, which almost automatically means that it's good.

to God be the glory

This post is dedicated to Zach Blickens, a friend of mine who is a youth pastor and worship pastor at River of Life in Cedar Rapids, IA. You can find more info about him and his wife's ministry here.

Last Thursday, I heard a message on Daniel 2. Daniel is a great example of a young leader. Many people of faith can benefit by taking his example of leadership. In this chapter, King Nebuchadnezzar can't sleep due to repeated dreams that keep him awake. He demanded his magicians, scorcerors, and "dream experts" to not only interpret the dream, but first tell him what the dream was. If they can't, they will be put to death. Well this was impossible and they said no man can do this. Daniel and his three close friends- Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah- got wrapped up in this, too. They came together and fervently prayed to God for wisdom. God granted them the mystery of the king's dream and Daniel ended up telling the king his dream in great detail.

I encourage you to read about the dream and the whole chapter. There are many points to be made, but the one I want to bring up is how Daniel gave the glory to God. First, when he received the mystery of the king's dream, he praised God. Then, standing before the king, he gave God full credit for being able to relay the king's dream and its interpretation. In addition to that, he gave credit to his friends twice in the chapter for their accountability to him. After all, they prayed fervently to God with Daniel and ate the vegetables and water diet with him in the previous chapter.

Now why do I dedicate this blog to Zach? Because he always praises God for gifts that he and others have, good things that happen in his life and those around him, and probably even the bad things sometimes too. He doesn't take credit at all when he receives compliments because he knows that everything good comes from God. So when I try to be more like that, I think of Daniel's character in these few chapters, and Zach too.

weekend in Iowa

So I finally got to visit some friends in Iowa again. It's been several months, especially if you don't include my "stopping by on the way home from the twin cities" back in December. I arrived early afternoon on Saturday and got to hang out with Lori, Amanda, and her son Jacob at Coldstone. I was hoping Ellen would be working at the time but she was out on a retreat this past weekend. Afterwards, I had a long, boring time to kill before going to the last night of the Glory Days conference the Midwest Prayer Center was holding but I just hung out and read some books. That night I went to the conference, which was held at River of Life church.

On Sunday morning, some of Amber's cats were playing around a little too hard and one of them broke the window screen and fell out the window!!! I tell ya, it was not a good day. By the time Amber realized what happened her cat, Justice, was already gone hiding somewhere. So we didn't quite make it to church that morning. If you know Amber at all, you know that her cats are very important to her, so it was a very emotional time for her. But I'm happy to say that Justice returned home late that night.

Angie and Robyn decided to come by later that morning, and he walked around the neighborhood a bit to look for Justice and talk to some neighbors. Then we ate at Cici's Pizza, a pizza buffet place and it was packed! Not too bad though for a pizza buffet. Afterwards, we went back to Amber's place and then finally got in touch with Sara. I stopped by to hang out with her and her brother, Patrick, before meeting up with Amanda and Jacob to visit Cornell again. They had a music/art benefit for Darfur refugees. It was pretty fun. And I got to meet up with Brandon and Catherine Quehl-Engel again.

I went to hang out with Sara and Patrick again that night and I got to have a long talk with Sara, which was great, because I don't get to see her or talk to her that much. I finally went back to Amber's at 1am, where her and Kara were patiently waiting to hang out! Then on Monday morning, it was back to Chicago. Pretty fun weekend.