WHY WAKE UP? . . .

My alarm went off this morning -- yes, I know I don't have a job to go to in the morning, so there really is no reason to set the alarm, especially given that I wake up at the same (early) hour every morning no matter how sleep-deprived I might be anyway, but I just hate the thought of sleeping late "just because I can" and then letting the morning go to waste and have nothing to show for my precious and once-in-a-lifetime freedom -- and so the first thing I heard at 7:45 a.m. was: "Amman, Jordan." I never reacted so quickly in the morning before, whipping my arm around from the other side of the bed and slamming my hand -- all five fingers of it -- onto the snooze button. I wasn't going to sleep any more; I just needed to turn the radio off fast.

(Really, I should just reset the alarm tuning to a music station, or even that ear-splitting beeping, but I'm addicted to 880AM.)

After a happy Wednesday day and night, it was such an awful way to wake up the next morning, this morning. To instantly be taken from sweet slumber into the reality of hatred, death and destruction ... it's just too much. I know, I know, look at me sitting here in my safe, quiet, clean home, complaining about "it being too much." I know that I don't know what "too much" is. And I also know that if I had even a small glimpse of "too much," I wouldn't know what to do. My soul would crumple up -- thousands of times smaller than after 9/11 -- and would never recover.

But it's still too much. I look at my beloved anklebiters around me every week at church, and think, "what will we tell them about their world as they get older? How will we explain all this to them? How can we bring them into such a world and raise them into such peril?" And the greater questions I ask myself daily, "How am I to trust the Lord in times like these? How am I to tell people of His goodness and mercy when everything we do to each other indicates that such things don't exist? How long, how long, how much longer until He comes and restores?"

I'm a big sucker for the news. I check my news sites several times daily -- even more, now that I don't have a United States government Internet firewall and monitoring system to watch out for. But I'm going to have to rethink this addiction of mine. Not because I want to ignore -- heck, no! (I couldn't harden myself against this world even if I wanted to, and I definitely do not want to.) Just because ... the weight of the rock in my stomach gets heavier and heavier with every death, every bombing, every man-woman-child murdered, every martyr sacrificing his or herself, every proclamation of hatred, every promise of revenge. It's just too much.

***

SHIFTING GEARS . . .

After a totally dry cinema season -- it's gotta be damn good for me to drag my lazy self to the movie theatre -- I find myself suddenly intrigued by a whole slew of upcoming films.

Pride and Prejudice speaks for itself, although I'm not a big fan of anyone but Jennifer Ehle playing Elizabeth Bennett (in the 6-hour BBC version, omigosh-you-have-to-go-buy-it-and-watch-it-now-even-if-you-are-a-man). Still, despite Keira Knightley, I can't help myself -- anything Jane Austen, and I'm there.

The Break-Up is not by any stretch of the imagination a quality film, methinks. But I think Jennifer Aniston is sweet, and I'm half-seriously in love with Vince Vaughn. I don't mind giving them my money, I really don't.

Walk the Line conjures up memories of Appa singing Johnny Cash tunes to me, which I always thought was strange as a child, because I would ask myself, "how does Appa know Johnny Cash songs if Johnny Cash is an American country singer and Appa grew up in Korea which has no American country singing sensations?" Ah well, let us save these difficult questions for another day. I'm a sucker for biopics and a bigger sucker for things that tweak my childhood memory.

Rent goes without saying. Saw it on Broadway with Wonger -- with JOEY FATONE in the cast, no less, and yes, he did the N*Sync "Bye, Bye, Bye" dance in the scene where he dances on the table in the bar. Oh, jeez. But the original cast, including Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, and my beloved Jesse Martin? HOW CAN I NOT?!?!?!? I shall also pride myself on being able to sing along with the movie, so if you come with me to watch it, be prepared.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was the first C.S. Lewis book I ever read, before I knew him as a Christian author. As a Christian theologian and author, he stands with the cream of the crop. As a fantasy writer ... he changed my world-view. The special effects look exceedingly cheesy, but I must go anyway.

The Family Stone, only because it has a killer cast and SARAH JESSICA PARKER. Really, sadly, that's enough for me.

Syriana, because MY GOODNESS HAVE YOU SEEN THE TRAILER?!?!?!?. That, and the chilling line: "corruption keeps us safe and warm!" Brrrr ... anything that makes me shiver that much, I have to pay attention to.

Brokeback Mountain is about gay cowboys. BUT NO IT'S NOT. It's about so much more, and it's the only trailer I can remember in the last few years that MADE ME CRY.

Memoirs of a Geisha makes me wary merely because I normally don't enjoy movies adapted from books I've read and thoroughly enjoyed (BBC's "Pride and Prejudice" is an obvious exception -- they really outdid themselves, those chaps). But the trailer took my breath away, and anything done by the director of Chicago, and starring Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh?? Why would I NOT watch this?