I am often surprised at how Studio Ghibli manages to hit it on the nose. Today as I re-watched Spirited Away for the first time since blockbuster rentals shut down, I was again amazed at how they make a pointed relation between the characters and we everyday humans who cannot turn into dragons. In the movie Haku (the secondary main cheractor) becomes sick and (through a magical medicine) ends up coughing out a black slug. When the slug comes out the old man that is there says how no one knew where the boy had come from, he had just showed up one day, but claimed he could never go home. Then the witch got ahold of him and made him her henchman, after that his skin turned pale and his eyes grew steely. Isn’t that just like us? How often have we wondered from our home? From our God, And found ourselves feeling we could never go back? How often have we been taken by evil and had a black slug planted in us, the slug could have many names; hate, jealousy, pride, guilt, shame, so on and so on. Suddenly we are controlled by a witch who yanks us about and forces us to do their will, but we tell ourselves that we can’t go home. How badly we need the healing medicine of Jesus’ love to wrench the slug out of our hearts so we can be free again. He is waiting for us to come to Him and ask for him to heal us, but we have to be the ones to turn to him. Jesus isn’t afraid of your black slugs. He isn’t disgusted by what they have made you do. He loves you. He wants you back home. Turn to Him and go home.
Month: June 2020
DAD!
A little girl walks down the street, skipping and humming as she makes her way to Church where her father, (the Pastor) is preparing to give his sermon. It’s a big day for her. Today she sings a solo at the Church about God as our Father. She has new stockings under her best dress and her mom has curled her hair. As she skips her shoe catches in a crack and she falls, tearing her new stockings and getting fresh blood down her dress. She sucks back a cry and stands up. Then falls again. Her shoe is broken. Now she cries. Loud and clear. Suddenly two arms lift her up and she sees her daddy, out of breath from running and now getting blood and dirt on his tie. He carries her to the Church. Cleans her wounds and puts on new bandages and then smiles at her. “You were late so I came to find you. Next time you decide to battle the sidewalk wait for me so I can help you.”
The little girl laughs and her dad places her on the floor, and they walk into the Sanctuary, five minutes late. People tap their watches and scowl but the little girl’s dad just takes her to the pulpit so she can begin her song and the service can start.
God is that dad. He comes running when we fall, he lifts us up and cleans our wounds, then he walks beside us on our path that he has set us to. People grumble sometimes and cast us looks, but God just keeps on pulling us forward to where we need to be.
Happy Father’s Day!
Thank you God for always being my dad and taking care of me. Amen
Clusters
One day God sat with thousands of tiny flowers that could never survive on their own. He mused and considered as he touched the tiny petals wondering what to do next. He lifted two of the flowers and saw their stems sticking together. In a flurry of imagination God began gathering the flowers together and attaching them to the stems he had set aside as individual stems for the individual flowers, now they were packed with flower clusters. God pulled the flower cluster close and found pleasure in the scent of the combined flowers. Then he attached the cluster to another cluster and another until he had a bush, then he smiled because it was good.
‘Just like these flowers need each other to survive, so do my children. I hope they see this bush and get the message.’ God smiled and sent the lilac to us.
Carried in the cross 