Flying solo

My WH is gone for a few days on a business trip. Again. This is the third time in four weeks that he has had to travel to get his project tested and ready for reality. It looks like he will be gone next week, too. However, I really have no reason to complain now that my kids are older and can help me out and, in these travels, he has at least stayed in the same time zone, rather than traveling halfway around the world, as was required of him in his old job. Whenever he is gone, I have taken the opportunity to watch movies that he wouldn't want to see, like romantic comedies or sappy dramas. Lately, however, I have watched documentaries when he is gone. Last time, I watched "Which Way Home," about a couple of boys who are barely teenagers illegally crossing the Guatemala border into Mexico and riding on the tops of trains to try and reach America, the Land of Hope and Opportunity. I watched it because immigration is a huge issue in my neck of the woods. Last night, I watched "The Spill" because my cousin worked on it as a researcher. It was about British Petroleum (BP) and examined their corporate culture during a time time that they experienced four disasters in six years. It was well done, of course, because my cousin worked on it ;-). If you get the chance, watch those films. Both of these films were made available to me on Netflix instant access which will be making cable obsolete pretty soon.

I also tend to stay up too late , either watching movies or surfing the net or reading. Last night was no exception as I went to IMBD to view some upcoming movies to see if there were any that I really wanted to see. One preview caught my attention because of one line. The movie is called "Limitless" and it is roughly the same storyline as "Flowers for Algernon" for those of you who read that in school. The line that caught my ear was this: "How many of us ever know what it is like to become the perfect version of ourselves?" Isn't that the same theme in most superhero stories--ordinary people receiving extrodinary powers through radiation (Spiderman, Ginormica in "Monsters vs. Aliens), a ring (The Green Hornet), scientific experimentation (The Hulk, Captain America), really cool toys (Megamind, The Green Hornet, Batman) or otherworldy parentage (Percy Jackson, Harry Potter)? Everyone wants to be better than they really are, which is why we have a huge section of self improvement books in the bookstores and surgical/drug enhancement tools to help us in that goal. However, this is worldly thinking and is totally against the gospel message. Phillipians 2: 6-8 sums up the anti-superhero plan of Jesus pretty well:

He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death--and the worst kind of death at that--a crucifixion (The Message).

This isn't a new concept, I guess. Just a great reminder as I get ready to celebrate the beautiful, scandelous night of Good Friday and the joyous, victorious Easter that Jesus died so that I could become a child of God, with the superhuman power of prayer, forgiveness, grace and the love of God, which surpasses all human understanding.