*****
I was telling a co-worker about this show I picked up called The Walking Dead. You may have heard about it, maybe not. Anyway, I get creeped out by zombies way bad, but still they are a fascinating concept and for some reason the thought of the violent undead rising to try to gnaw on me just seems almost a little bit possible, and maybe that's why it is so unnerving...anyway...enough about my psyche.
I was telling her about the show, and how I thought I would grab my dinner and go get caught up on the episode I had missed. Well, that didn't work out. I had to put my dinner down or pause the show and watch something else until I was done eating. I put my dinner down because the show is completely absorbing and I MUST watch more.
So then she says to me, and I quote: “ Yeah, was it you that said that Christ was the first zombie?”
WHAT???...as in WTF??? REALLY???--my brain shrieked and recoiled from the sentence that my ears delivered to it.
Now, I'm not a perfect person. I laugh at dirty jokes and I use adult words, sometimes I dance the line with my laughter, my words and my thoughts, and sometimes the things I think aren't always full of flowers and kindness, I can be dark and ornery in my thoughts just like anyone, but I do draw my own set of lines around what is o.k. and what isn't. Jesus is off limits for off-color jokes or for certain imaginings. It makes me uncomfortable because I believe what I believe strongly with no question. I don't require others to believe the same or to even understand it or agree with it, but I maintain my own standards around it for myself, so certain ideas or thoughts smack of blasphemy or sacrilege to me.
(Blasphemy: irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable & Sacrilege: gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing)
Now, if you know me and Jesus, you know that's just something that, not only would I not say it, it would never cross my mind as a thought. Like I said...I may say adult words, but I don't think of God in terms of Zombiehood.
My immediate reply...
T: “Absolutely not. Who even comes up with that sentence??? Seriously?? AND He was not a zombie. He was not the reanimated dead.”
Now, I'm not saying there isn't dark humor or derangement in the sentence and that I didn't laugh at the ridiculousness of the thought that it was *me* that said it, because it caught me off guard to the extreme and elicited a "Hah!" out of me.
My friend, laughed and said "Yeah, I didn't think it was you. I think it was this other girl I know. She's really weird."
O.k....and I thank you that the first weirdo girl you thought of who might have compared Jesus to zombies was me...
Nice.
Sheeeeeesh.
*****
During the course of this same conversation...only a few moments later...
*****
I was also talking to this same friend about excellent movies. She was telling me she liked Chick Flicks, and our conversation meandered onto other excellent movies and I told her about Jane Eyre, the one with Orson Welles and Olivia de Havilland, and also that I saw previews for a new release sometime this Spring that looked spooktacular, dark and delicious. She said she thought Jane Eyre sounded interesting but that...
My Friend: “My husband told me Jane Eyre was too girly.”
T: Sputtering…“Jane Eyre is not too girly. It’s a Gothic novel that is well reflected in flavor in the movie. It’s all death and madness. Too girly…what are you kidding me??”
The story of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is definitely not a girly-girl kind of tale, and though the movie skims the surface of the story, occasionally delving deeper as possible, as most movies do, the book is stellar. In fact, in remembering and researching, my interest is renewed and I'm going to read it again.
Jane Eyre is orphaned as a baby and suffered some pretty heinous experiences at the hands of those who should have loved her the most and taken care of her. One of the very few who befriended and loved her dies from a Typhus epidemic in Jane's arms, and this is as a little girl.
Through the course of her childhood she is abused by relatives and other members of society she comes into contact with, with the occasional kindness exhibited towards her by a stalwart few.
There is a lot more of that before things start looking up, but by then she's in a house with a crazy woman wandering the halls at night--but I'll say no more. It is an intricate social study, combined with Gothic imagery and a tale of humanity that continues today in similar forms, just like it always has through the ages. Kindness, meanness, love, hate, spirituality, self-righteousness, insanity, deceit, forgiveness, rage and joy can all be found within the pages of this tale.
Jane Eyre is not for the faint of heart or the light of mind. It is an outstanding, human and haunted work. Whether you decide to watch the movie or enjoy all of the Bronte-ness of the book, it is well worth the effort and I highly recommend it.
Here is the trailer for the version coming out this year, which is at the top of my list of movies to see.
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