Same Kind of Different as Me - movie

Same Kind of Different as Me - movie, 2018
quote:
Mr. Ron, I was captive in the devil's prison. That was easy for Miss Debbie to see. But I got to tell you: Many folks had seen me behind the bars in that prison for more than thirty years, and they just walked on by. Kept their keys in their pocket and left me locked up.
Now I ain't tryin to run them other folks down, 'cause I was not a nice fella-dangerous-and prob'ly just as happy to stay in prison.
But Miss Debbie was different--she seen me behind them bars and reached way down in her pocket and pulled out the keys God gave her and used one to unlock the prison door and set me free.
Denver Moore, Same Kind of Different as Me

Encouragement from Jane Seymour's Mother: Keep an Open Heart

In 1972, Seymour revealed a bigshot producer, who asked her to visit his home to watch a screen test for a role, allegedly assaulted her. Seymour claimed he put his hand on her leg “in the wrong place,” prompting her to do “the British cross the leg, move down the couch routine,” all while convincing herself he would stop. However, the producer allegedly pressed on. The star, who described herself as being terrified and shaken, asked him to call her a cab.
“He put me in a car and said, ‘If anyone knows you ever came here, if you ever tell anyone, ever, I’ll guarantee you never work again anywhere on the planet,’” she recalled. “And he had that power. I got in the cab and cried, terrified…
The only reason I’ve ever told that story is that women should have a choice… I was put in a situation where I couldn’t show what I could do. And I’m a person who, when something bad happens, I get over it and move forward.”
However, Seymour did have a tough time coping with the incident. The actress said she quit acting and went back to England. “I got fat,” she explained. “I baked bread and ate a whole loaf every morning and did needlepoint. I decided I wasn’t going to do this anymore. I wasn’t prepared to do what had to be done.”
However, when Seymour was given the chance to appear on stage for “A Doll’s House,” she took the chance – and the rest is history.
“People say, ‘You’re like a phoenix.’ No, I just had a strong role model in my mother,” she said. “Everyone will have challenges. Your natural instinct is to close up your heart and let it eat you up. Do something to help someone else. It will heal you. You’ll be like a magnet when you do that. Light to firefly.”
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/02/21/jane-seymour-poses-for-playboy-recalls-how-almost-quit-acting-after-being-sexually-harassed.html

“My one purpose in life . . . "

“My one purpose in life is to help people find a personal relationship with God, which I believe comes from knowing Christ.”
~ Rev. Billy Graham (1918-2018)

Rev. Billy Graham's Ability to Inspire People to Follow Jesus

Rev. Billy Graham's Ability to Inspire People to Follow Jesus
quote (my emphasis added):
[Graham biographer] William Martin observed that the forces gathered and unleashed at the Berlin, Lausanne, and Amsterdam meetings [international meetings initiated by Graham] constitute a third worldwide ecumenical movement, every bit as important as the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The amazing thing about the evangelical movement is that it is sustained not by a single organizational entity, but by multiple parachurch organizations, independent of each other but dreaming a common dream. Graham’s genius was his ability to inspire people not to follow him, but to strike out on their own, following Jesus by proclaiming the gospel in their own way; and then to call them together, to inspire and equip thousands more to do the same thing. We may never see his like again.

quoted from:
How a Humble Evangelist Changed Christianity As We Know It
Churches were divided. Leadership was concentrated in the denominations. Believers eschewed cultural influence. Liberal modernism was on the move. Then God made Billy Graham.
Michael S. Hamilton
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/billy-graham/how-humble-evangelist-billy-graham-changed-christianity.html

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. . . .

Good, better, best.
Never let it rest.
'Til your good is better
and your better is best.

~ St. Jerome
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/st_jerome_389605

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."
~ George Carlin
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_carlin_383122

Synesthesia

quote from a book review:
"Red Sparrow's unique ability to discern the nature of people by seeing their emotions in colors (through synesthesia).[2]"

[2] "'Red Sparrow', a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews". The Washington Post. October 14, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sparrow_(book)


Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.[3][4][5][6] People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme-color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored.[7][8] In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise).[9][10] Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia


‘Red Sparrow,’ a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews
quote from a book review:
Unbeknown to most, Dominika is gifted with a form of synesthesia that enables her to see emotions as colors — a condition that aids her immensely as she assesses the motives of both friend and foe. Several of her own comrades in the service, for example, are suffused with “the familiar yellow of treachery and betrayal.” One character’s evil manifests itself as “parabolas of black . . . like bat wings.”
Dominika is ultimately targeted against Nate, of course, as a means of discovering the identity of the mole within her own ranks. His aura is deep purple, “warm and honest and safe,” but he has his own designs on this comely young agent.
“Red Sparrow” may sound like some hodgepodge of the fantastic (seeing emotions?) and the prurient (“an Upper Volga Kama Sutra”) amid a series of spy vs. spy shenanigans. But the novel is far more grounded. . . .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/red-sparrow-a-fantastic-new-spy-thriller-by-former-cia-operative-jason-matthews/2013/10/15/3f7f9672-cc50-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

Bill Gates Memorized the Sermon on the Mount

Bill Gates in Confirmation Class
The Gates family attended the University Congregational Church, where the Reverend Dale Turner was pastor. Each year Turner promised to buy dinner at Seattle’s 606-foot-tall Space Needle restaurant for all those in the confirmation class who memorized the Sermon on the Mount.
Although 31 others stuttered and stammered their way through chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Book of Matthew, Turner was astounded when Bill learned the passages on a family car trip to the coast and then delivered a flawless recitation.

“I needed only to go to his home that day to know that he was something special. I couldn’t imagine how an 11-year-old boy could have a mind like that. And my subsequent questioning of him revealed a deep understanding of the passage,” Turner said.

Turner conceded that Gates probably didn’t learn the verses for their spiritual value, but because he loved a challenge.
p. 3-4, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998

Bill Gates in High School
Like all teenagers, Gates and his friends looked for ways to seize power from their teachers:

“The greatest scam we discovered was that by getting the job doing high school scheduling, we could decide exactly what boys and girls were in our classes, and that was an incredible reward. It really motivated us to learn how to write interesting software.”

During the summer Gates and Allen earned approximately $5,000 in computer time by programming class schedules.
p. 12, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998

"they come . . . to learn about themselves not me"

In Shirley MacLaine's New Movie, She Has 'The Last Word'
March 3, 20174:30 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
www.npr.org/2017/03/03/518391642/in-shirley-maclaines-new-movie-she-has-the-last-word
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST

Shirley MacLaine agrees that she's played a lot of sharp-tongued, difficult-to-be-around women, and that's true of her latest role in the movie, The Last Word. In her latest role, she's a woman obsessed with designing her own obituary. MacLaine talks about how she approaches acting and dodges what she wants written in her own obituary.

SHAPIRO: Shirley MacLaine told me when she does live question and answer events at theaters around the country, people almost never want to know about her Hollywood roles.
MACLAINE: No. They ask about reincarnation and UFOs and how to find one's center and how to meditate. It's all about the stuff in my books.
SHAPIRO: How could they not ask about - I don't know - "Terms Of Endearment," "Steel Magnolias," your years with the Rat Pack or on and on and on - "Sweet Charity," going all the way back to Broadway.
MACLAINE: Ari, can I call you that?
SHAPIRO: Please.
MACLAINE: They're interested in themselves. And they come to the different places that I speak to learn about themselves not me. I consider that a great compliment.

"Getting to Know 'the Other' Doesn't Work"

The Galli Report email
Feb. 9, 2018
Mark Galli
Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today

Getting to Know 'the Other' Doesn't Work
There is a very common solution regarding people who harbor prejudice or resentment against those of another race, class, religion, or ethnicity. The solution hinges on the idea that we suspect others if we don’t really know them. If we could view them less as an “other” and more as a neighbor, as part and parcel of our common life together—then we’d all be able to get along with one another.
The only problem is that it doesn’t work. This is shown in some detail in Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz by Omer Bartov. A book review on Smithsonian.com begins,

There’s a common misconception about genocide that’s bothered Omer Bartov for a long time. “We tend to talk about genocide as something that calls for dehumanization,” says the Brown University professor of European history. “We think of it as a process where you have to detach yourself from the victims, to distance yourself from them as much as you can, and to create a system of detachment.” The reality of mass murder, he says, is far more intimate. …
“You can take a society in which people had lived together for centuries, and that very proximity, that very relationship between neighbors can have a dynamic of violence and self-justification,” Bartov says.

On a lighter note, it reminds me of a line in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The line comes after one of the characters describes the Babel fish, which when placed in the ear could translate any language in the universe for the listener: “Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything.”

This brings to mind another pungent line. Ruth Graham was asked if she ever considered divorcing Billy. “I’ve never considered divorce,” she replied. “Murder, yes. But not divorce.”

Such are the humorous ways of dispelling our sometimes-naïve bromides about solving conflict. Intimacy is not the answer; sometimes it’s the problem. It’s just hard, really hard, figuring out how to get people to stop killing each other. I’m tempted offer the out-of-fashion answer, naïve in its simplicity and improbable in its execution this side of history: the transformation of the human heart by Jesus Christ.

"I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it"

A critic didn’t care much for Moody’s preaching style; he thought his evangelistic manner was thoughtless and insensitive.
Moody responded, “I don’t much like it either.” He then asked his critic, “How do you do it?”
When the man said he didn’t do it at all, Moody replied, “I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”

Dwight L. Moody was one of the most effective evangelists of his time.

"I’ve never considered divorce"

Ruth Graham was asked if she ever considered divorcing Billy.
“I’ve never considered divorce,” she replied. “Murder, yes. But not divorce.”

(Ruth was famous for her sense of humor)

Robert Redford's mother: "She came from Texas, and she carried that kind of robust, jocular goodwill."

Fox News 2/8/2018
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/robert-redford-names-his-biggest-regret/ar-BBISjHo

Before Robert Redford was a celebrated Hollywood actor, he was just a restless kid in Los Angeles who allegedly stole beer for all-night drinking parties and was a member of a high school gang. However, the “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” star said it was his mother, Martha Hart, who encouraged him to change his life for the better.
“[I] had a lot of criticism, but I didn’t have a lot of support,” Redford told audiences at the Sundance Film Festival Utah Women’s Leadership Celebration, as reported by Closer Weekly Thursday.
“Why do I feel this strong connection to women?” said the 81-year-old. “I think it probably has to do with my mom… The one person who stood behind me was my mother. She believed that all things considered, she just had faith that I had something in me that was going to turn out OK.”
The actor described his mother as “the strong member of the family” who “always had a smile [and] was very, very adventurous."
“She came from Texas, and she carried that kind of robust, jocular goodwill," he said. "She saw things in a positive light.”
However, the magazine added Hart wouldn't live to see her son achieve international success as a movie star, filmmaker and philanthropist. Hart died in 1955 at age 40. Redford was only 18 at the time.
“She had a hemorrhage tied to a blood disorder she got after losing twin girls at birth 10 years after I was born,” explained Redford. He went on to reveal that while his mother was warned by doctors about the dangers of another pregnancy after his own difficult birth, she was determined to pursue her own dreams.
“She wanted a family so badly, she got pregnant again,” said Redford, adding his mother's death “seemed so unfair.”
“I took [her] for granted because that’s the way kids were at that age,” Redford admitted. “My regret is that she passed away before I could thank her.”

"I have forgiven you for what you did to me and my kids, and you have no control over me anymore."

Amy's abusive ex-husband was continuing to call her cell phone:
quotes:
At some point, Amy said she'd simply had enough. . . .
"I was so angry and filled with hate, but I actually felt sorry for him, because I knew him as a person, and there is a legitimately good side of him, and he's had a horrible life as a child, which is not an excuse, but he doesn't know anything different.  So I said, 'I have forgiven you for what you did to me and my kids, and you have no control over me anymore.'  There was dead silence, and it felt like an eternity, and he hung up.  And I have never heard from him since then. When they know that they don't have control, they don't want you anymore."

Hoda Kotb with Jane Lorenzini. Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives, Chapter 1 - the life of Amy Barnes. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2013, page 18.