300

I loved this movie. It was what I was hoping for.

It didn't pretend to be something it wasn't or couldn't deliver (don't you hate that?). In other words, it was honest to what it was.

It hit all the right buttons. It had father and son, sacrifice, the underdogs, a commitment to death. They fought like there was something greater at stake than just themselves.

And Kimg Leonadis was a king you wanted to follow, or the kind of man you wanted to be.

And yes, I get that it was 'just' a movie, and that it's based on a comic book (sorry, graphic novel) which was based on history and so that gives it more room to interpret the facts. But do you think I care?

I enoyed it. Period. But it made me think about ideas like honour, duty, fear, hope and glory. And what those things mean for me as a Christian. And how would my conversation with my son differ from Leonadis' conversation with his - if at all?

If you have seen it, care to comment?

Scott

PS: It is rated high for it's violence and a sex scene so view at your discression.

Testify!

A few weeks ago I was finding pictures of gospel preachers for a talk one of my leaders was giving. I found some pretty interesting characters (of course, I'm not sure if any of them were genuine gospel men, but it was all about perception anyway, so we were safe).

But I came across this guy. I think it is posed, but the 12 string makes me think. (If you were going to do a funny picture shoot, you would just grab any crappy 6 string lying around - why a 12 string, unless it is real!)

Now I gotta be honest, I've got no great thing to say here, I just thought it was a cool picture! Maybe you want to leave a comment, or a caption?

Scott

OK, so it's Thursday night last week. I'm running with the club and we have just conquered a particulary nasty hill. We get to the top and our wobbly legs force us to walk for a few moments. And as we do, the guy next to me (not a Christian) says to everyone and no one inparticular;

'Man, that was spiritual!'

I don't say anything, I am just trying to suck oxygen into my lungs.

Without wanting to be too harsh on the guy, my take on him is that he is a trendy coffee and book store kind of guy, opinionated and inner city-ish, but without the clout to back it up. He may be a bit of a poser.

So it is kind of a 'cool meets interllectual' thing to say, right?

I take it that he meant running up the hill was so bloody hard and painful that it took him to the transcedant (or at least that he was suggesting that it was the kind of experience that could do that sort of thing).

But as we ran down the other side I thought to myself that actually, he is spot on. It was spiritual, but not in the way he meant it.

"For everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is recieved with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer." 2 Tim 4:4-5

Even big, sweaty hills (at twilight on a summers evening).

It occured to me however that a few sentences later appears a verse that he really needed to hear;

"For physical training is of some value but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."

Scott

I'm feeling pretty tough

In 32 days I'm running the Two Oceans Marathon, 'The most beautiful marathon in the world'. It's only going to be half as beautiful for me cause I'm only doing the half (acute pain, permanant damage and expensive hospitalization are not where I'm at right now).

So I thought I'd pick up some longer runs to get some k's under my belt.

On Saturday morning I run with Denzil and Leights and they took me. Man, did they take me! Now remember, I'm training for the 21kms. We ran almost 30! I've never run that far before in one go.

The bad news was that there was pain.

The good news was that I made it, I recovered quickly, I have broken the mental barrier and I got inspired.

So right now, even though compared to the others I'm still a newbie, I feel pretty tough.

Scott