Mara Wilson Writes Stuff (and makes me want to do it, too)

Remember this kid?

Yep, that’s Matilda. (Or as I would HOPE you know, actress Mara Wilson in her younger years.) Sometimes it feels like my sister and I grew up with Mara — Matilda was (and still is) one of our favourites, Mrs. Doubtfire is a classic and if you tell me you didn’t like it I have doubts about our long-term viability as friends (just kidding, kind of), and the remake of Miracle on 34th Street is my favourite Christmas movie.

Because I’m a huge geek with too much time on my hands (ha), I have this obsession with looking up “where are they now” types of things involving my fave childhood actors. (If I passed one of the kids from The Little Rascals on the streets today, I would absolutely know who they are.) So naturally when my bi-monthly viewing of Matilda came around, I Google’d Mara’s name while the movie ran in the background. And I found this woman.

 

Side note: Does anyone else think she looks a bit like Jena Malone? Anyways.

That’s Mara, all grown up. Despite what she says about herself on her blog, I think she’s just beautiful.

Being such a fan of her childhood work, I was curious not only about what she looks like now, but what she’s up to lately. I hadn’t seen her in any movies since Matilda (though she did do 2 others I haven’t seen), and it turns out there’s a good reason for that.

So as I’m reading through some of her blog entries (quietly crying inside that I probably won’t see her on the big screen anytime soon), my mind slowly started to focus on the entries I was reading. And something awesome happened.

I discovered an amazing writer. My mind goes through quite the process when I find an author I like. It’s pretty hard to impress me, so initially, no matter what I’m reading, it’s like “Catch me if you can … I dare you to give me a reason not to shut this book” (or in this case, close the tab). A lot of times, the author falls short. I give someone two pages to snag me, and if they can’t, the book is back on the shelf. (Maybe that’s not enough, but it’s usually a good test.)

If an author is good though, those two pages turn into four. Then the four becomes the entire first chapter. At that point, I start to notice I’ve been standing stock-still for a bit longer than is appropriate, and I usually end up buying the book.

It’s similar when I find Internet writers I love. I have what I call Mouse ADD — I literally can’t keep my computer mouse still for longer than 30 seconds. So usually it results in me navigating away from whatever I’m looking at. But reading Mara’s blog, the mouse only moved to scroll down the page. After literally two hours of reading, I had to stop only because I felt like I was going blind from staring at the screen for so long. And as I sat back to contemplate what I had read, I was struck by this intense urge to come over to my own blog and write something.

So Mara did a few things here:

1. She grabbed my attention, and kept it.
2. She kept me entertained for quite the lengthy period of time.
3. She gave me some things to sit back and contemplate.
4. She inspired me to write stuff of my own.

And when I think back to other authors I’ve come to love, they have all done those first three things, with varying degrees of the fourth thing. Which makes Mara Wilson another name to add to my faves.

It’s amazing that I went looking for her simply to see how adulthood has changed her appearance from the little 6-year-old I loved to watch in movies, and I found a beautiful young woman who is still so talented, but now it’s at more crafts than acting alone. I look at her blog and it doesn’t feel anymore like I’m reading Matilda’s blog. I’ve spent enough time on there now that I associate her writing with her — not a character she played a million years ago.

So here’s my little personal note to Mara — You’ve obviously made a big effort to focus your creativity on something that you love to do, and I just thought you would want to know that I came to your writing as a fan of your movies, and you’ve now made me into a fan of your writing as well. Good job — keep up the good work. 🙂

Alright, all of you — go write something. 😉

“Heaven Is For Real” – My Thoughts Post-Movie

If you’ve stepped into a bookstore at least once over the last four years, you’ve probably seen this book.

And you’ve probably heard that it has recently been made into a movie. It’s still in theatres, so if you find yourself wanting a good couple of hours at the movies, make it the next one that you go to see.

In the wake of the popularity of this new franchise (and I don’t say that negatively, but that’s exactly what it has become — a franchise), you see mixed opinions about it, and it seems that after experiencing this remarkable story (either through the book or the movie), everyone frantically turns to their pastor/church leader to grab their perspective on it, such as this guy:

This pastor is obviously incredibly convicted on the subject, but let me interject. I sat in the movie theatre tonight with two pastors who have been in ministry for over 30 years, and a soon-to-be ordained pastor friend of mine, who were just as fascinated and awestruck by the fantastic-ness of this story as I was.

David Platt (the guy in the video above) makes a point to charge pastors and leaders to show people the truth of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and I completely, absolutely agree with him. But in my heart, I cannot agree with the way in which Platt completely derails the entire story that is the basis behind “Heaven Is For Real”. Sure, he has some Scripture to back up his opinions, but there are just as many Scripture references that are to the contrary of what he is referencing.

“I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know — only God knows.” 2 Corinthians 12:2

This was described by Paul. Or take the entire book of Revelation, just packed full of John’s experiences of Heaven, and the Divine. But then again, this is the 21st century, the age of the Internet — where everyone is an expert and everyone has an opinion. Different pastors and commentators say different things — most, I am sure, after careful prayer and studying and being in the word. The entire premise of this story puzzled me, so I did the same — I prayed, I spent some time with my Bible, and then had conversations with people who were smarter than I am, people who have made it their life’s work to study the Bible and its validity and relevance.

Am I any closer to figuring out what I think about the whole thing? Not really. I know on the outside, it sounds like a crazy story, but then again, Jesus has a reputation for dealing in stuff that seems “crazy”, like raising people from the dead and walking on water and making five loaves of bread & two fish enough to feed a crowd of thousands. Is it so far outside the realm of what I know about Jesus to think that He would give this experience to a 4-year-old? Not really.

At the end of the day, I can’t tell you what’s real or not real — you have to decide for yourself, perhaps using the same methods I did. And maybe you’ll arrive at a different answer. But don’t leave those questions unasked.

I will say this to David Platt, though. True or untrue, passing fad or timeless story, fiction or non-fiction … the book is a best-seller, and the movie has beaten out “Captain America” at the box office. People are talking. People are asking questions they may not have ever asked before. People are seeking out the truth about Heaven and Jesus and their eternal realities. That, to me, is a ministry tool. And a powerful one. It’s being used by God for something big. Don’t be so quick to discredit it.

What I’ve Learned From Grey’s Anatomy

Just an FYI, this post could’ve just as easily been titled “HOLY CRAP, DID YOU SEE THAT SEASON PREMIERE?” That was a couple of the most tense, emotion-filled 2 hours I’ve had since…well, who are we kidding, since the season finale. I know, maybe that’s a little sad, but my life just isn’t that dramatic. I mean, yes, I get to wear navy blue scrubs every day, and sometimes I even get to wear a mask (but that’s only when germs are spewing out of me), but the only time my friends and I run through the halls in a panic is…well, never. Anyway.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, I won’t spoil anything. Repeat, there are NO SPOILER ALERTS contained in this post. That would be rude.

But of course, as with a lot of Grey’s episodes, there is the vexing question of whether or not to pull the plug, what does the patient want, who gets to make that call, etc. So often we encounter a scene in a hospital room, with one of those oh-so-handsome doctors standing bedside, asking a patient’s grief-stricken family whether or not the life support should be turned off. Inadvertently, someone will ALWAYS exclaim no (and why shouldn’t they, that’s the decent thing to say, and it’s how most people feel), and again inadvertently, some piece of paper will be produced, bearing the patient’s signature and those most-hated letters: DNR (Do Not Resuscitate…is it sad that I had to Google how to spell that?), or “No Extraordinary Measures”, meaning don’t prolong anything.

But since becoming a Grey’s fan, I’ve learned this about myself: THERE IS NO FREAKING WAY I AM EVER SIGNING A FORM LIKE THAT.

I mean it. If I’m crashing, save my life, McDreamy! Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand why some people make the DNR decision, I just ain’t one of them. Seriously, save my freaking life. All family members take note. You’ve been told. My forms should read PDR (Please DO Resuscitate) and “OH PLEASE, TAKE SOME EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES”.

But all kidding aside (although I’m not really kidding), tonight’s episode made me think. If you watch the show, you’ll be familiar with the fact that there’s always an opening and closing monologue, usually spoken by Meredith. Tonight though, it was done by one of the other characters, and this is what stood out to me the most:

We don’t get to decide how we die. But we do get to decide how we live.

That blew me away, because it is SO TRUE. Death can come slowly and painfully, or in an instant, in any number of different ways. It can be painless or incredibly painful. Unfortunately, we have no say in that. But we CAN decide how we live our lives, who we love, what we do with our limited and precious time here on earth.

So take a few minutes right now and ask yourself: Is this how I want to live? Is this what I want to be working on? Is this person who I want to be loving? Is this WHERE I want to be living? If the answer is no, TAKE SOME STEPS to change it! There is no better time than right now, because right now, this moment, is the only guarantee.

I’ve heard it said that “it is at the end of a man’s life when he realizes how important his decisions were in the beginning” (yeah yeah, same applies to the ladies). Don’t allow regret to seep in through the cracks. Just don’t. Only YOU have the power to do something about your situation.

That’s all, folks. Until next time…