In the past few days, two different pop culture icons have made me squeeze my baby tightly - Disney and...Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Specifically, the movie "Up," and the television episode "The Body." I personally do not understand why Buffy only won one Emmy, and for best make up design at that. Joss Whedon is brilliant, and the episode about the death of Buffy's mother really makes you think about death and life. It is well acted, well directed, and completely sucks you in to the world of the characters. Jonathan and I watched the episode after dinner Sunday night, and when it ended, I felt the need to go wake up Jon and hug him. I restrained myself, though, because waking a baby up in the middle of the night is one of those crazy things you just don't do : ) Then today I watched 'Up' for the first time because I wanted something in the background while I was doing work and Jon was napping. Hah! I ended up just sitting on the couch, watching the movie. Like "The Body," the movie made me think about what I'm doing with my life, what I am really impacting.
The pastor in the church we have been attending in San Marcos is currently focusing on God's covenants. In this world of uncertainty, God's promises are rocks we can cling to. He will be our God, and we will be His people. When I die, my soul will go to be with Him. In "The Body," Dawn (Buffy's little sister) is obsessed with seeing Joyce's body. She wants to see her mother. But Buffy reminds Dawn that Joyce is not there; it is just a dead body void of their mother. Despite my faith, thinking about death and how it affects our loved ones still pretty much took my breath away. Needless to say, I prayed an extra prayer for my baby and thanked God for blessing me so much with this amazing life. I want to give him a meaningful life, one in which he will leave this world better than it was before he entered it. I want him to have a beautiful relationship with God and with everyone that he encounters. I want the same for myself, and I really wondered today what am I doing that will leave an impact. Is my life just washing dishes, doing laundry, and baking cookies? Those are the activities I have done today. How am I living out my faith daily? How am I impacting my family, my community, my sphere of influence?
Who knew that watching TV and a movie would bring about such deep thoughts?
1 comment:
WOW, you're already to "The Body"! You've made a lot of Buffy progress since we last talked about it...
That episode crushed me; to this day I have never watched it without crying. At the end, when Dawn is reaching out to Joyce and Buffy says, "It's not her. She's gone," and Dawn says, "Where'd she go?"... *cut to black* I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. I can't think of any other television show (or movie, for that matter) that dealt with death in such a visceral and real way. I remember after the episode aired, there were people who were furious that there was a vampire in the morgue because it broke the realism of it. But for me, that vampire was a welcome reminder that this was "just" television.
Great blog entry on a difficult subject. And the nerd in me just wants to say that if you can get through "Forever" then "Intervention" is next, and that episode deserves accolades and awards for an entirely different reason. :)
(And because it's me, of course I have reduced the entirety of your introspective and wide-ranging blog entry to my own personal reaction to that episode of Buffy... :))
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