Clarification, Movies, and the Relief of Poe (in which, to my great dismay, I learn that I would rather read Poe than watch a romantic comedy...)

I thought I would give a Puritan-esque title. I had a longer one composed in my head, but Blogger cut me off.

Clarification

In the previous post, I was not meaning to insinuate that my parents are like Jesus. Nor was I trying to necessarily draw a parallel between going home and approaching the throne of God. (Although, that parallel can and should be drawn, that just wasn't my point.) I don't think of God as someone who has cheez-its waiting for me. (Although, he has saved me for himself, which means he is giving me something infinitely better than cheez-its.) I was just saying, it is possible to have your eyes filled with someone else so much, that you might forget all else.
Jesus is (according to that passage):

• Divine in power (which is really, really powerful!)
• Like us in temptation, so able to empathize and know what our life was like
• Perfect, having overcome every temptation
• Seated in the heavens (Ithink that is what it means when it says "passed through the heavens"... correct me if I'm wrong.

I was just saying that, if I am exhausted with my sin and my shame and loaded with discouragement... I need to get over myself. Sin needs to be seen, but it should make the power of Christ's work more magnificent. It is an opportunity to see who he is more... it shoud make you move towards him faster.

Movies

I watched two movies this weekend. I never do that. Essentially, they were romantic comedies... and they were really... annoying. Are people ever crueler or more self-seeking than in romantic comedies? If they meant the movies to be absurd, I would just laugh on... but the writers actually try to make it look like these are real people dealing with real issues. They try to make them our heroes. Yet, in the name of self-discovery and the pursuit of their own happiness, they just tear people up. As a society, I think romantic comedies are our attempt to justify and rationalize... ourselves.

Poe

Today I was reading one of Poe's short stories with a student at work. Poe is not a long-time favorite with me. It is hard for me to discern that he believes in anything other than the dark. Anyway, in this particular story, the narrator was in the midst of carving out a live cat's eyeball, and then hanging it from a tree in the yard with a noose, when he made the most illucidating statements about his motives. This was no moment of insanity. He had been presented with a moral code, a law, and at his basest instinct all he wanted to do was break it. (Alcoholism had something to do with this.) He knew it was wrong, he just thought he would be happiest if he did the wrong thing. He grossed me out, but at least he was honest. Put him next to the shallowest character of love and hilarity that we can find in the cinema world... and they ought to be embarrassed. Because he, actually, is a truer mirror of humanity...

That was all too opinionated and wordy... but I'm a little too lazy to fix it tonight.

Also, I'm no lit expert. So... if you have a lot of Poe knowledge... well, please correct me.

P.S. If you are thinking of defending romantic comedies as a genre, it should be noted that most of us (myself included) spend quite a bit of energy and time trying to make our lives look like such stories. Nevermind that they are silly, most of us would don't mind being silly if we look nice are happy and well situated in the end... for that reason, I think it is ok to be critical of the message. I even think it is ok that I threw a few things at the tv. I haven't done that since watching Jaws ten years ago. Talk about a frustrating movie...