those cute minions..

We've all seen them. These guys are in-season, so they are everywhere: wallpaper, cakes. lanterns...

i'm no movie person but when my children were watching Despicable Me, and laughing; i had to go join them.

Sometimes, my family thinks i'm too austere and hard on a little 'entertainment'. But it is also clear to them that I am the 'crank-up-the-fun-o-meter' in the home person. It's clear that I love fun, funny, happy. So yes, they're a little mystified.

When i was a teen, i wanted so much to be fun and funny, at one point i had a notebook where i collected jokes. Thankfully, i'm not very persevering back then....or it may be me doing Comedy night!

So fun has always coursed in my vessels.

But, i-am-careful, even a tad skeptical of  'entertainment'. Why? Because as far as I am informed; this world is not neutral ground. Every inch is value-laden. There is no moral high ground; there's just ground; the ground of our being -- and whatever our religious persuasions; there are lines we won't cross, and evil is real.

So, i am alert. Darkness seems to have a way of winning the day without anyone noticing it. It creeps into our consciousness, comforts and culture slowly and persistently until we wake up and the world seemed changed! When did divorce, pre-marital sex, gun ownership, terrorism become common-place? While we were snoozing. Like the waves that lap slowly and changes the shoreline.

Today, we have to deal with so much violence within, between and among us.

Since most of us feed upon a popular media diet; we must ask what has been on the menu?

Have we become more accepting of evil, violence, fragmentation?
Are we unable now to resist because we have not built the muscles that can swim against the tide?

So what's the deal with Despicable Me?  i found it laugh-out loud funny. The minions were so clueless and adorable. The movie's quite clear subtext is what i surfaced with the kids:
Why was he bad? -- "coz his mom ignored him; he's an angry person"
Do people become bad and then good? -- "in their actions they can choose"
Who is your fav character, why? -- "the lil kids! they were powerful, they changed his life"

There's good stuff to be mined. {cultivating a questioning spirit not a cynical one is what we're after}
#We all impact others.
#We should seek to be well so badness doesn't root in us.

Then we revisit the Great Story...and we tracked to this: God is not after us being kinda good people. God is after our heart, for everything flows from it.

But i linger on.. we laugh at the exaggerated number of weapons used to defend one's fort. We are drawn to the possibility of love and dreams when the orphaned gals enter the scene. We weep quietly to find the bad guy grew up rejected. Those are serious themes!
Do we see threat all around and find it hard to trust?
Do we consider that life may turn out very differently because of...children?
Do we have roots of rejection that we need to pluck up and clear out?

Sadly, in a way, the 'heroes' of our imagination are the cutesy minions; the clueless ones. They are the ones who make the merchandise, and sing the music! The minions are cute; but let's be careful we don't end up minions serving changes that will take us down further.

"If we're spiritual beings, then it is the spirit of things that get to us & linger on to shape us"

~ jenni tweets ~

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