Don't Listen to the Strawberry-Scented Bear: Why I Cried at Toy Story 3

I sincerely hope you watched Toy Story 3 this Christmas. If you haven’t seen it at all then, well, I weep for you. I also potentially ruin it for you, so if you’re planning to do the sensible thing and watch it soon, look away now.

Well then, if you’ve got this far I’ll assume that either you’d already seen it, or you took the frankly ingenious step of interrupting your reading of this blog to get it off Netflix and watch it straight away. If so, I applaud you. Anyway, here’s a blog about why I love that film so much, and why I personally have cried with happiness all three times I’ve watched it. It’s probably going to feel a bit ridiculous occasionally, but I reckon there must be something quite profound going on to make me cry this much, so bear with me…

Toy Story 3 is all about where the toys' loyalties lie, and who they’re going to believe. (See? I told you it would sound mildly ridiculous. Moving on though...) Woody says that Andy, their kid, really does love them and didn’t throw them away; Lotso the strawberry scented bear says Andy did throw them away, and good thing too because they’re better off without him. Now this is something I can relate to – and in fact so could many many people throughout history – asking the question: has God forgotten us? Are we better off without him?

And it’s really funny how well the film fits as a metaphor for the big question of life – do we believe that we belong to Andy (God)? Is his name really written on the bottom of our boots? Or not?

Lotso says so much of the stuff which that thing inside of us keeps telling us: 'You belong to yourself here at sunnyside, you're the master of your own destiny, you can have anything you want, get played with all the time, you don't need Andy at all.'

And the toys like the sound of this. So do we, to be honest. Rex runs with his stumpy little T-Rex legs right in front of the door, desperate for joy, for fulfilment.

And then he gets trampled on.

Because in Lotso’s world, the world where they belong to themselves and are the masters of their own destinies, no one cares about them. They get chewed and trodden on and used as paintbrushes and hammers and sat on and tangled up and thrown around because no one cares for them. No one knows who they are or how they’re meant to be played with.

But even once they realise that it’s not always shiny in Sunnyside, they can’t get out. In fact, Lotso tells them there’s nowhere for them to go. Their kid doesn’t want them. The only way out is the trash heap. And there’s this scene where they’ve almost escaped and then Lotso is standing on the big bin with the lorry approaching and it makes my spine tingle every time because Lotso is telling all the lies that the thing in our heads tells us.

“You’re a piece of plastic! You were made to be thrown away!” he says. You’re meaningless and worthless. “Ain’t one kid ever loved a toy really!” No one loves you. You’re not worthy of love, you don’t deserve it. How could anyone love you? You’re just an animal, you live and you die and none of it matters. You think somebody really loves you? You think you really mean something to them? “Don’t be such a baby.” See things as they really are. “We’re all just trash, waitin’ to be thrown away! That’s all a toy is!”

And then the big baby toy picks him up and throws him in the bin. Because all those things are lies. They are not true. We are not worthless, we are not unloved, we are not just waiting to be thrown away.

And now for the bit that really makes me weep, in the best possible way. All the way through the film, it’s seemed like Andy doesn’t love them, like he doesn’t care about them, like if they stay loyal to him, they’ll end up rusty and old in a dusty attic with nothing to do and no one to play with. But they decide that either way, they are Andy’s toys. They choose to stick with the one who wrote his name on their boots. They say, “We’re Andy’s toys. We’ll be there for him.” And then, the final scene happens…

Andy takes them to Bonnie’s house, and he starts getting them out of the box. He starts talking: “This is Jessie -- the roughest, toughest cowgirl in the whole West…” And as I watched the film for the third time, I started crying - again - and one thought went through my head:

‘He knows us by name.’

As Andy goes through all of the toys and plays with them, and tells Bonnie who they are, and why he loves them so much, I was just smiling and tears were rolling down my face because God knows us like that. He loves us like that. Jesus talks about it in John chapter 10 – we belong to him, and he made us, and he knows each of us by name, and he knows every little thing that he loves about us.

Lotso was wrong. They are not just trash waiting to be thrown away. They are Andy’s toys. They are special, they are cherished, and they are always, and forever, loved.

It’s soppy I know, but I really do believe that it’s true about us. So I suppose what I’m really trying to say here is simply this:

Don’t listen to the strawberry scented bear. Listen to Andy.

Yuri the Spaceman and Hamlet the Prince

Here's a little poem-y video I made about Christmas. Thanks to my brother for the nifty camera work, and to Andy Mort (Atlum Schema) for the music!

A Seasonally Inappropriate Blog

This is not going to be a seasonally appropriate blog. It’s not very Christmassy at all– instead it’s about what was probably the most profound and beautiful thing I’ve witnessed this term. Anyway, you’ll see what I mean later, and in the meantime I implore you to bear with my unseasonality.

 A guy called Bill Hybels tells a true story about a dad he knew. This dad’s son was going to prison, for a crime that he did in fact commit. He was guilty and he was going to prison for seven years. And this dad didn’t really know what to do, but he remembered reading Psalm 34 – and the bit in that psalm which says this:

“GOD is close to the broken-hearted,
        and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

And he stitched this verse into a piece of fabric so that his son would be allowed to hang it in his cell and read it every day. And the son did it, and he saw this verse every day. And over time he really started to think about it. He had a huge weight of guilt and shame about what he had done. But as he read the verse over and over again he realised that it didn’t mention anything at all about how a person comes to be broken-hearted. It doesn’t say that God is close to “the broken-hearted who have come to this point through no fault of their own” – it just says he is close to the broken-hearted. Full stop. Whatever the pain is – if it’s innocent and inescapable, or self-inflicted and wrapped up in guilt, if it’s coming from one devastating event, or if it’s been around forever and it feels like it’s never going to end, if it’s diagnosable or impossible to explain or both, or if it seems like it’s just a silly thing and it shouldn’t hurt this much – God is close to you. It might not feel like it and you might not even like the idea very much, but he is close to you. And this truth grabbed hold of this son in prison, and he knew it was about him - even him. And he came through those seven years and he was transformed; something melted and something was born inside of him; and he came out of prison devoted to the God who - he knew now - was devoted to him.

God is devoted to you. That’s quite a strange sentence to write, but I believe, and the bible says, and Jesus proves, that it’s true. Whoever you are and however much you feel like a mess, or however much you think you’re a legend: God is devoted to you. And when you are broken-hearted, he is right there with you.

And more than that, he really likes you. A guy called Don Miller writes about the time his friend first read one of the accounts of Jesus’ life, and when she’d finished it, this was what she said to him:

“I found Jesus very disturbing, very straightforward. He wasn't diplomatic, and yet I felt like if I met Him, He would really like me. Don, I can't explain how freeing that was, to realize that if I met Jesus, He would like me.”

One of the bits of the bible that I really love, that slaps me on the shoulder and says hello, is Mark 10 verse 21. This guy has come to Jesus, and he’s asking all the wrong questions and saying all the wrong things; he’s arrogant and in fact he ends up walking away and rejecting Jesus. But there’s this moment, where Mark just writes this:

“Jesus looked at him, and loved him.”

This love is, to be frank, completely unprovoked. There’s no good reason for it. Jesus just looks at him, and he loves him. And what you get from reading about what Jesus did and said, and how he died, is that actually, if you met him, he would like you. When he looks at you, he loves you.

And this brings us to the reason I’m writing this. This term, I have been privileged to see a friend of mine gradually get hold of this truth. This friend has received the reality of it bit by bit – like the bud of a flower slowly, slowly opening up as the frost thaws - but I’m telling you: it is a glorious thing to realise that God is close to you, that he likes you.

But now, here’s the thing that makes my heart ache as I type: I can see somebody reading this, and thinking ‘Yeah that’s really beautiful, it’s lovely that Mike believes that God loves me’ and then just leaving it at that. And what I’ve seen this term has made it more obvious to me than ever that that’s like someone telling you you’ve won the lottery and you just saying ‘Oh thanks mate that’s epic!’ and then never bothering to claim your prize. The second line of that bit in Psalm 34 is just as true as the first: “GOD is close to the broken-hearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” He saves us, rescues us from our brokenness. If you don’t feel like you are in any way broken, if you look in the mirror and look right into yourself and everything you think and do and feel and don’t think that there’s anything you would like to be changed, to be restored or renewed – well then I’ll write a blog for you another day. But if you do see something, if you do feel like there are bits that are broken, however big or small, then I’m writing for you, I’m telling you that God wants to rescue you.

***

A little boy is trapped. He was taken hostage years and years ago – so long ago he can’t even remember what the world outside the compound is like. The men with the guns killed his mother a long time ago. It’s been so long it feels normal even though it doesn’t feel right. And he’s terrified every time another person comes into his little room. And it’s never going to end. Until one day the CIA get a lead, and discover that he’s being held in this compound. And in the dead of night navy SEALs storm the compound and he can hear guns and shouts and he is very scared. And then men, men he’s never seen before, come into his little room, holding guns, wearing body armour.

One man shouts: “OK let’s get you out of here, come on, let’s go!”

But the little boy just curls up, shaking with fear in the corner of the room. He doesn’t understand. He knows that the men with guns hurt him.

And the SEALs don’t know what to do. And then one man slowly puts his gun on the floor. And then he takes off his body armour. And then his shirt. Until, like the little boy, he is half naked and shivering slightly from the cold. And then he walks to where the little boy is curled up, and slowly lies down beside him. The other men watch, mesmerized. He comes close to the boy, curling around him and warming him. The other men would never do this. The boy realises this man is different. He thinks that he is kind. And the SEAL speaks softly to him:

“We are Americans like you. We’ve come to rescue you. Will you follow us?”

And then he stood up, and offered the boy his hand. 

***

The point is this: beautiful as it is that God is close to us, incredible as it is that in Jesus he became like us so we could know him and learn to trust him; a good rescuer doesn’t stay lying down in the dark and the cold. He stands up and offers us his hand. And some of the most amazing moments of my life are the ones when I have seen people take his hand, and start to get up and get out. Maybe it looks like being able to talk about things that were always too dark and too heavy to get off their chest. Maybe it looks like not being afraid anymore. Maybe it looks like laughing more. Maybe it looks like breaking up with someone who was not good to them but they thought they could not live without. Maybe it looks like breaking the habit that controls them. Maybe it looks like giving stuff away and discovering the different joy of that. I could keep going because it changes everything – it turns the world upside down and inside out and breathes a delightful and difficult new life into every little corner of everyday existence - but I’ll stop for now. All I can say is that in my own experience everything that’s changed, especially the things that seemed a massive sacrifice, turned out to be a road into a deeper joy.

All I’m saying is that He is close to you. And He’s offering you his hand. And right now, through these words as you read them, He’s speaking softly to you and saying, “Will you follow me?”

So now it’s time for the Christmassy part of this blog. PRESENTS! I borrowed that story of the navy SEAL and the quote earlier from a brilliant, brilliant book by Donald Miller, called ‘Blue Like Jazz’. It’s full name is ‘Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality’ and it’s great because it’s just this normal guy writing wittily and creatively about how he’s bumped into and wrapped his head around the love of God. I love it – and if you like this blog at all you probably will too, because basically I’m just trying to write like Don Miller. And I have decided that if you would like to think more about what Jesus is actually like, and what it would be like to take his hand and follow him, then this book would be an interesting, enjoyable place to start with that. So I’d like to get it for you. Feel free to use it as a present idea for your Granny or whatever, but if not, just send me a message or an email (mikehood1994@gmail.com) that says “I would like to read ‘Blue Like Jazz’ and this is my address...” and I would love to get it for you. I’m not joking about this, I’m definitely up for it – whether I don’t really know you at all or you are my own actual mother (although Mum, I think we have a copy at home). So go for it. Or if you don’t have time for a whole book, just message me anyway with what you’re thinking or if you’ve got questions about stuff. Who knows, maybe I’ll write a blog about it...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

 

Hecticallity

In the real world, when people say, “How are you doing?” you simply reply, “I’m good thanks”. In Cambridge, you say, “Yeah good thanks… busy.”

Last week I was busy. I was directing a play and the performances were last weekend, and I had also ended up running a 24 hour prayer event which actually ended up being 38 hours. And I also had a bunch of people who I care about who I needed to spend time with. And an English degree to be getting on with. What’s funny is that I told you that partly because I’m proud of it, because a part of me thinks it’s cool to be busy. I’m in demand. I’m dynamic. Shut up Mike.

Now all the things I did last week were good things (as in the play and the event and stuff, not every single thing I actually did, many of them were not good, obviously…) but there was just too much of them. The word is hectic. Life was hectic. Even though everything fitted into my Google Calendar alright it didn’t quite fit into my head. I was waking up tired, and going to bed stressed. I kept saying that everything was under control but if we’re honest no one was convinced.

And as far as I can tell, that’s a pretty common feeling in this uni, in the western world really. Running on empty and on energy drinks. And it’s like when we get like this for a long time, when we’re fighting to keep all this stuff under control we start to lose control of ourselves a little bit. I remember the day we climbed to the top of Mount Mulanje, coming down, gradually getting more and more exhausted and losing the will to control my legs, and just going faster and faster down this slope until I was almost running. And it was stupid, and I slowed myself down, or I tried to, but my legs were just so tired they were going wild. And I think it feels like that sometimes with our whole lives – it did for me at times last week.

It’s not that fun, all this hecticallity. So what’s the answer? What is it that our aching bones and brains are begging us for?

To rest, maybe. It seems a little obvious. To be restored. To be renewed, to be refreshed. I love the word ‘refreshed’, I love the shape of it in your mouth.

But how? How to be refreshed? Sometimes we just need to sleep. Fairly early on this term I wrote down some of Psalm 127 and pinned it to my wall: it has this great bit that basically says, “Relax. Whatever you’re trying to do, if God’s up for it, it’ll work, and if he’s not it won’t, in the mean time, get some sleep.” And there’s a tiredness that really just needs to stop and sleep, and let our bodies do some restoration work on themselves.

But then there’s another type of rest. A rest that’s worth getting up at 3am for. All week I’ve been enjoying people’s astonishment at the fact that real people actually chose to wake up and go and pray in our prayer room between 3 and 4 in the morning. And it does seem ridiculous, in the 7^th week of an insanely intensive 8 week academic term, for these sleep deprived people to willingly deprive themselves of more to go and sit in a room and talk to God. It seems ridiculous unless you’ve ever felt the rest that’s better than sleep.

One of the things that Jesus said that I always come back to and has a tendency to melt some bit of my insides whenever I do is this: (a ‘yoke’ by the way is the wooden thing that attaches cattle to a cart or a plough, it’s the thing that ties you to the guy you’re working for…)

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

And then the same idea again in the most beautiful words is written down in John’s gospel, in chapter 7:

            “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me… rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

I’m writing this at half past midnight, and my eyelids are feeling pretty heavy. But I feel refreshed. I feel refreshed because tonight I went for a drink with a guy I’ve got to know recently and said he’d read my blog and was keen to chat about God. I went there keen to help him to get to know God better, to encourage him to discover Jesus. And then I turned up, and as He so often does and I so rarely admit, God had done the job without me. He told me his story, about how in the last year God basically planted this unshakeable desire in him for something bigger than his normal life of friends and having a good time, and somehow showed him this new way that he was being looked at, that his name was being spoken by something bigger than another person, and that he was being embraced by something huge and beautiful. And he knows Jesus, and he’s now finding himself with this longing to give the joy that he has found to the people that he loves. And I don’t think I stopped smiling for about two hours.

And my friends that prayed for an hour in the thing last week all told me it was brilliant. All told me that they loved it. And when I stop and think about it that is crazy. But being with God, fixing our gaze on who he is and what he’s done, is impossibly refreshing. When we drink deep, we find a river of life welling up within us.

I’m going to stop writing now, partly because sleep is good, and partly because really this rest is pretty impossible to describe. It’s like fresh mango on a hot day. All I can really do is tell you how beautiful it is, and ask you to try it. Drink deep, and sleep well everyone. Goodnight.