Seeking Jesus... Day 26 Thurs. Sept. 27, 2012

"Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it's contained."

      Today I watched the Hunger Games for the first time. I purchased it on DVD when it came out because it was on sale at Target, but I hadn't gotten around to watching it until today. I like watching movies. I have about 250 movies probably in my collection. And now with Netflix, I am able to watch so many more. I am intrigued by the movies that seem to captivate you and take you to another world that is much different from the one we live in. These are the movies that are typically set in different settings, often the future or some unrealistic setting but sometimes even the past. Movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Avatar that make you wish you could escape to there even if only for a moment. Or movies like True Grit that make you think in the past and wonder what it was like to live back then and if you truly could survive without a cell phone or any electricity. 

   I think I would put the Hunger Games in that category in the sense that the setting was so different and makes you think when you really begin to think about it.  The Hunger Games is a distant futuristic setting. If you've seen the movie and really thought about of the moving pieces then you have probably begin to see the complexity of the movie. It is a movie filled with action, romance, and young people, which teenagers will be attracted to this type of movie. It's also filled with this idea, that when I began to watch the movie, it seemed sick and uncomfortable to me. (I have not read the books nor did I know much about this series before I watched the movie today). The idea that children in a society were being forced to fight to the death every year was unsettling. I was talking to a camp friend about this tonight and the movie and he made a good point. This could be a good idea that society needed to hear in that, sometimes we can go too far in what we are willing to allow or subject ourselves to in an effort to have a good time or please ourselves. 

But, I don't want to focus this post on my personal biases or observations of the movie. Rather more the quote that I posted at the beginning of the blog. It is talking about hope and fear and you may recall it from the movie. It made me think about my own hopes and fears in my life. What do I hope for. What do I fear. There are things that I wish for, that list may be a little bit longer while the things that I truly hope for may be shorter. It also made me think of these personal hopes and fears. Are they driving factors in my life? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? That is something maybe that we all need to consider. Do the fears or hopes in our lives drive and dictate our lives and actions? Is that good or bad? Maybe we need to refocus or even let go...