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The Lost Art of Sacrifice

sac·ri·fice [sak-ruh-fahys] noun, verb,-ficed, -fic·ing.

–noun

1. the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.

2. the person, animal, or thing so offered.

3. the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.

4. the thing so surrendered or devoted.

5. a loss incurred in selling something below its value.

6. Also called sacrifice bunt, sacrifice hit. Baseball. a bunt made when there are fewer than two players out, not resulting in a double play, that advances the base runner nearest home without an error being committed if there is an attempt to put the runner out, and that results in either the batter's being put out at first base, reaching first on an error made in the attempt for the put-out, or being safe because of an attempt to put out another runner.

–verb (used with object)

7. to make a sacrifice or offering of.

8. to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.

9. to dispose of (goods, property, etc.) regardless of profit.

10 Baseball. to cause the advance of (a base runner) by a sacrifice.

–verb (used without object)

11. Baseball. to make a sacrifice: He sacrificed with two on and none out.

12. to offer or make a sacrifice.

Origin:
1225–75; (n.) ME <>sacrificium, equiv. to sacri- (comb. form of sacer holy) + -fic-, comb. form of facere to make, do¹ + -ium -ium;(v.) ME sacrifisen, deriv. of the n.

—Related forms

sac·ri·fice·a·ble, adjective

sac·ri·fic·er, noun

non·sac·ri·fice, noun

non·sac·ri·fic·ing, adjective

pre·sac·ri·fice, noun, verb,-ficed, -fic·ing.

su·per·sac·ri·fice, noun, verb (used with object),-ficed, -fic·ing.

un·sac·ri·fice·a·ble, adjective

un·sac·ri·ficed, adjective

un·sac·ri·fic·ing, adjective

well-sac·ri·ficed, adjective

—Synonyms
8. relinquish, forgo, renounce.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sacrifice recently, and how it really applies to humans. Generally people today don’t truly understand what sacrifice is. It’s a wordy that’s bandied around when two people are fighting in order to gain a leg up in the argument or to throw a guilt trip. But really what is sacrifice?

Biblically sacrificing was begun in the Garden of Eden. You know the story. Adam and Eve eat what they are told not to, hide from God and make clothes out of leaves to hide their nakedness, from themselves and God. This would have worked beautifully if they hadn’t introduced death into the world. We all know what happens to leaves after you take them off the tree. Crunchy clothes. YAY! (Sarcasm by the way) God say this and made them clothes of animal skins. Animals had to die for those clothes to be made, and thus the very first sacrifice was made. Now, knowing what we know of what was required of the followers of early Judaism in the realm of animal sacrificing for the atonement of sins, we can safely assume that of all the perfect creatures that God made in an unblemished world, He chose the most perfect of the perfect (is that possible? For the sake of this post; Yes, Yes it is.)

After this first sacrifice God required a sacrifice to atone for the sins of humanity, which were to fit certain rules. There were different kinds of sacrifices (different animals, grain) the common thing about all sacrifices is that it had to be the best of your belongings. The best, unblemished lambs, bulls, doves, grain, et cetera.

So at the very beginning, (even in other religions that called for sacrifices, it was always called for the best of what you owned to be sacrificed) Sacrifice was knowingly, willingly giving up the best for

Sacrificing was the action of thinking outside of yourself. Of looking at the greater good, and saying, what’s one spotless, perfect lamb that would sell well or feed my family in comparison with the Presence and favor of the Creator of the universe?

Somewhere along the way we’ve lost what the spirit of sacrifice is. We make token gestures, “sacrificing” that old wardrobe, or furniture to goodwill or a family in need. But then we go and by better for ourselves. TRUE sacrifice would be buying the nice clothes and the better furniture and giving THAT to goodwill or a family in need. But that’s two difficult because we are selfish creatures.

I guess it boils down to, sacrifice, TRUE sacrifice is an act of love and devotion. The early Jewish people sacrifice because of their love and devotion for the Lord. We sacrifice our hopes, desires, and dreams, so that those we love can achieve something. So that they can have something they have always wanted. The funny thing is, that when done for the right reasons, it doesn’t feel like the best we own is being stripped, it’s a joyful experience of giving up something that turned out to be not nearly as important as what we gained. The happiness and joy of someone we care about.

There’s a scene in A Knights Tale that I think of sometimes when I think of sacrifice:

William is telling Jocelyn that he loves her and that to prove his love he is going to win this tournament for her. Jocelyn rolls her eyes, and tells him “If you love me, you will give up your pride and you will lose the match.” Of course Will, says he won’t do it, and that’s she’s mad and rails against losing. Will tells her that he will not lose. She simply replies; “then you do not love me.” Of course Will does end up taking blow after blow and losing, but upon seeing that he truly does love her, she no longer wants him to lose. It wasn’t that Jocelyn wanted him to lose, so much as show that He was willing to sacrifice the best of his personal desires and wants because he loved her.

I like to think that William realized two things; A) He truly loved Jocelyn enough to do whatever it took to make her his, and B) that he realized that the momentary and fleeting victory in the Tournament was paltry in comparison to life with Jocelyn. And to think, his pride almost lost him the love of his life.

In the end that is all sacrifice is. Sometimes we really do have to lose (and not just be willing to lose, or start to lose) in order to gain. It’s one of those paradoxes of life that doesn’t really make sense until you experience it, and then it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Are you willing to lose what you hold dear and love, in order to gain something infinitely better than a momentary victory?

How College Stole My Creativity and Imagination

I love to read. Anyone who knows me knows what a gross understatement that is. Maybe this will help you grasp how much I am a bibliophile. When I was little, my idea of heaven was the library from Beauty and the Beast, but bigger. To a ten year old me, heaven was nothing but a giant library that I could spend eternity reading in. One of the reasons I love to read is the ability to connect with the characters. And on stories that I really connect with, I have always been able to create a spinoff story involving.. well, me of course. Most nights it was how I put myself to sleep; imagining myself in ancient England, Ireland, Greece, Hungry or maybe a futuristic planet, or the wild wild west or anywhere else my imagination wanted to take me. (if anyone said Middle Earth, they’d be right, I have an entire story involving a certain female addition that would have made the books, not better b/c Tolkien was a Master, but.. different.)

Beyond that, I have a group of friends that like to occasionally (usually over the summer) like to collaborate on stories. We come up with a general plot and then we all take a character and play with different off shoots of how the story could play out. It helps build creativity and keeps the writer in all of us sharp.

Having made you aware of the entire back story I feel important to the explanation of the title I shall begin.

I graduated at the beginning of May 2010. The summer before several of my story friends started talking about doing a new story over the summer of 2009, we talked about it, but it didn’t come to fruition. Which I didn’t cry about, I felt absolutely drained and not at all capable of coming up with any sort of basic plot, let alone an plot devices or twists to enhance a story.

And of course there was Campaigns class, which was the last “real” class I had to pass to graduate. I did pass it, though I could have done better and put together a better campaign. Several reason and changes I could have done to do better in that class. However a large part of it I’ve come to realize is that I don’t think I had the creative power to come up with anything without the help of my team. (Particularly Mr. Coode and Mr. Patterson)

Over the course of College Career (five years), the University sucked out all of my creative juices (ok…. That and maybe you know the working full time). All of my creativity was put into trying to write exactly what my professors wanted to hear, to get the grade to graduate, to figure out exactly what was going to be on each test so I didn’t overload my brain and meltdown from the class load. (minus Ph.T’s class. She’s fun and I love her and hers was only the good kind of stress. IF anything I let her down in that class and that I am truly sorry about cause she is probably the only teacher at the University that I actually cared whether I let her down or not.)

So I was thinking about it the other day, because the issue of doing a group story was brought up again, and I realized that I couldn’t write a story or character background if I was payed to. Then I realized… I hadn’t had a truly original story line in at least two years. It really made me depressed. I missed that side of myself. I missed lying in my bed at night thinking up new adventures and people, just to fall asleep and dream the rest of the story.

The good news is, I had a break through today, and had the idea of a beginning structure of a story. And that is a great feeling.

So college may not have permanently stolen my creativity, but it definitely forced a sabbatical.

Every Leading Lady is somebodies Best Friend.

One of my friends wrote a blog the other day. (you can find it here) She wrote about the differences between leading ladies and the best friend in movies. It is a very good post and thought provoking about whether it is better to be the leading lady of our lives or the best friend. She concludes that it is better to be the best friend.

She comes to this conclusion by weighing the differences between the leading lady and the best friend.

Let's examine the quintessential leading lady role for a moment, shall we? In the movies, the leading lady typically follows these rules:

1.) She likes an amazing guy, but...
2.) ...there is always some sort of problem with her relationship with said amazing guy.
3.) She goes through an incredibly rough period, generally towards the end of the film just before the happy ending. This can involve heartbreak, the loss of a job, the death of a dear friend/family member, jail time, ect.
4.) She goes through a TON of drama and sad music before she finally manages to land aforementioned amazing guy.
5.) She can be somewhat of a drama queen and thinks that the entire world revolves around her.

Some examples of this kind of leading lady would be: Bella Swan in "Twilight," Jane in "27 Dresses," Cameron Diaz in "The Holiday," Mary Fiori in "The Wedding Planner," and Rose in "Titanic."

Now, let's examine the quintessential best friend role. In the movies, the best friend typically follows THESE rules:

1.) She is very often the comic relief, meaning she gets the wittiest lines.
2.) Most of the time, she is either married or in a stable relationship with an amazing guy. Usually the best friend's amazing guy isn't quite as handsome or as witty as the leading lady's amazing guy, but I reiterate, STABLE RELATIONSHIP. Low drama, and he's home at night when she gets there.
3.) She doesn't usually go through a really sad time just before the ending. Instead, she is there for her best friend, the leading lady, through thick and thin, further endearing her to the audience because of her selflessness and comic relief.
4.) She is allowed to have a quirky sense of fashion.
5.) She is often exceptional in some way, like as a fashion maven or a cook or having superior guy crushing skills.

Some examples of this kind of best friend would be: the girls in P.S. I Love You, particularly Lisa Kudrow's character, Sookie in "Gilmore Girls," Angela Weber in "Twilight, Paulette in "Legally Blonde," and Penelope Garcia in "Criminal Minds."

In many ways she is right. Why would we want to be the leading lady instead of the best friend? ( aside from the fact that in our own lives we are always the leading lady, no matter how we act.) Whether it’s better to live life as a best friend, or a leading lady is not really what I started thinking about. I was reading this post, and thinking about some other things in my life, and I started thinking about how the best friend becomes the best friend. Best friends couldn’t and didn’t start out being the quirky, stable, confident, rock for the leading lady, or for themselves.

Nobody starts out making all the right decisions all the time. So the best friend couldn’t have started out as the seemingly put together best friend. Take Nick and Nora, for example. Her best friend, Caroline, is hardly the put together best friend who has everything going for her. In fact I would argue that Nora is the best friend AND the leading lady. Nora Is always there for Caroline, always taking care of her, and worrying over her, but she is not the stereotypical leading best friend either. She falls for this amazing guy, who is not a great looker. Instead Nick is an awkward musicophillac, who perfectly complements Nora. In the world of best friends, it would seem that they fall madly in love virtually instantly, and continue on in a stable, “normal” relationship that in the future will be used to help get the leading lady through a difficult time. Of course this isn’t the case because Nora is also the leading lady. She has ex trouble, both her own and Nick’s (though mostly Nick’s)

If you were to look at the best friend’s life before she is immortalized as the best friend, you’d find a leading lady who is struggling to figure things out on her own; making the same mistakes that Diaz and Winslet make in The Holiday, or Jane in 27 Dresses, or Gigi in He’s Just Not That into You.

There is also that fact, that when we are going through a rough patch, trying to make things work with an amazing guy, or make that perfect job exactly what we want it, we (as the leading lady) tend to view the support and camaraderie of the best friend’s character through rose coloured glasses. Just because her life seems all polished and put together, doesn’t mean it is. We just can’t always see it because our own problems are in the way, or because as the best friend who loves and cares for the leading lady, they downplay their own troubles until a more appropriate time. Even if we know that things aren’t perfect in our best friend’s life, we tend to remember them as a more perfect, put together person, because they offered us solace, friendship, advice, and the occasional murder offer during our trials and tribulations. Nobody wants to think of the rock that kept us together and sane during the hiccups that interrupt our own lives, as a collection of pebbles that is just sturdy enough to support us to shore. Of course the irony is, that in real life, this rock shaky pebble helps us to shore, and then we get to turn around and be their shaky pebble rock to help them to shore.

Every Best Friend starts out as a Leading Lady. It’s after the movie ends, and she has suffered the drama that she can reflect and learn and grow into the best friend for someone else'S leading lady.

New Blog

Hey all,

I've switched my blog to a new site that allows for easier updating of a lot of RANDOM (but still cool stuff)

New address is:

http://wanderingaj.tumblr.com/

8 reasons to love sororities

Wait what?

Hang on I need to check my temperature. I must be sick. I tease and rail mercilessly against sororities.

Nope I'm good. No fevers.

But this isn't your typical sorority. The only dues you HAVE to pay is in time.

I'm talking about the Facebook App Game Sorority Life. Now, before you run off, let me say I was forced to play this game for a class (curses T! curses! :D) In and off it's self it's pretty much like Vampire Wars, Mafia Wars. Bloodlines, Castle age, Robin Hood, in how the game works. How you level up et cetera.

But this one differs in the people that play it. Largely women, most seem to be playing it just for fun. Not to demolish and entire army to be mob boss or anything else. Thought to say that everyone gets along is far from the truth. It is competitive, but the players have set up their own rues of conduct in order for the game to be fun and more of a social event for them to partake in.

One such example of PLAYER imposed rules of etiquette is no slapping. Slapping is considered cowardly and back handed and massively frowned upon. Not leaving a note when you steal someones boyfriend, also a big no no!

However, on the flip side, it is probably the only place real or fake that i have seen that girls are asking other girls to steal their boyfriends.... odd I know.

But oddly enough there is a nice thing to love about this particular sorority is that a lot of the people playing this game really do care about connecting with other people.

The Broadcast message boards are always hopping with talk of peoples lives, and people that you only added to your house because you needed more friends in the game for something will always comment or give advice or be that virtual shoulder to cry on.

Prime Example:

Today I had a rough day. I didn't sleep much, had a paper to write, have a boooooring, really weird, highly incestuous book to finish for school, and i had to work an 8hr shift with other people who were having a bad day. (oh also... lost an hour of my night for writing said paper because of daylight saving time.) My day wasn't to bad until work time. By the time I got home, I was ready to veg out, watch a little TV, talk to one of my best friends, and generally do nothing. Unfortunately for me, I had to spend 15 minutes fixing my internet, nothing good on TV, and my best friend was elsewhere. (she has a life, and I'm ok with it.) So I got on to sorority life to veg and for class and I found this note:

You are such an amazing person, do not let anyone tell you differently. Love you, hope you have a great day, even though we lost and hour. Day light savings, lol".

Now, She doesn't know me personally, and I'm sure she probably wrote that on everyone's wall. But the fact that she took the time to write it once and to copy and paste it means a lot in this day and age. Not to mention it brightened my day, which I'm positive was the purpose.

Never underestimate the power of a sorority (even if it is fake).

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

So my amazing and wonderfully awesome professor, affectionately (and sometimes by some not so affectionately) known as Dr. T. gave me her copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (PPZ). She informed after I read I can keep it, and encouraged me to pass it on. Which I plan to do, but only after making her sign it. After I read it I will sign it and pass it on, asking the person I give it to to pass it on and sign it and so on. I wrote the link to my blog in it and I encourage people to get on and post about it. I'm actually very curious to see were the book ends up.

Any way, class is getting ready to start and I have to go, but I'll write more later, probably. :D