Just Rambling...

I haven't been writing on my blog as much as I have in the past. I suppose there are several reasons for that, but one of the main ones is that over the past year or so, I began to see that I kept saying a lot of the same things over and over again. For a preacher in a pulpit, that works just fine. Recycled sermons are the lifeblood of a pastor's Sunday mornings. But when your sermons are written out and published online for posterity to ponder on, it doesn't work quite as well.

Looking back over where I was when I started this journey to where I am now, I know that I'm not the same person I was in many, very important ways. I'd like to think that the gray in my hair and beard reflects some wisdom I've acquired along the way and not just poor genetics and a stressful life.

I have been writing lately, just not anything of real spiritual or philosophical import. Instead I've been working on my fiction writing with both fan fiction and original stuff that I've been posting online on various sites as well. I actually started writing fiction first when I was nine with a one page short story called “The Fury of Samod” on a manual typewriter which my mom used. This was before we had our first “real” computer back in 1984, a Tandy 1000EX with 256 KB of RAM, no hard drive, and less than VGA graphics. I think it might have had a 286 processor? Maybe? I wrote different short stories up through high school on that old computer, and then later used one just like it in college. While everyone else was getting acquainted with Windows 3.1 and '95, I was still using DOS on a floppy and a text based word processor for all of my papers with a Dot Matrix printer, but I digress.

As I've been writing and publishing my work online, I've actually been getting people dowinloading and reading it. They've even liked it! No, it's not the NY Times Bestseller list, but a few hundred people over the last few months is still a few hundred people more than were reading it while it just sat gathering digital dust on my hard drive.

As I've been working on my latest fan fiction project, “Xena: Warrior Princess – Crossroads,” it occurred to me, this is another audience for me to try and reach with what I understand the path of Jesus Christ to be. More to the point, it's an audience that probably wouldn't bother reading my blog, or anyone else's for that matter if it's openly theological or spiritual. But they do like reading about The Legend of Zelda, or Xena, or Star Trek, or a number of the same TV shows, movies, and video game stories I've been using as spiritual illustrations for years now. No, I can't be blatant about it, but I can sneak in ideas and concepts here and there.

My latest project is a little more blatantly Christian than normal, although it will still probably have my more conservative brothers and sisters screaming at me. That's okay. Because in the last week since I began posting chapters, it's been getting an average of ten views a day from around the world. That's at least ninety people now that I've had a chance to introduce Jesus and what He taught to in a non threatening way.

So maybe I still am rambling just as much as I used to. It's just that these days my rambles have a lot more heros, villains, and dragons to slay in them.

A Ramble About Xena

Recently, I've been indulging in an old favorite series of mine, Xena: Warrior Princess. For those who don't know the series, Xena is a spin-off from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys set in a fantasy world based on Greek Mythology. The title character Xena is a woman who was previously a terrible warlord bent on conquering everyone she could. She is converted to the good side of things by Hercules and then spends the rest of her life repentant trying to redeem herself by fighting against the forces and powers she had been previously allied with. She travels with a young woman named Gabrielle who becomes Xena's best friend and moral compass, as well as the chronicler of her story.

This particular television show is infamous both for its popularity, and its controversy surrounding the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, which throughout the series grows more and more explicitly homosexual (though I don't believe any actual “sexual” scenes were ever shot between the two women, but I haven't yet actually seen every episode). Oddly enough though, this is one of the more realistic aspects of ancient Greek culture that the show deals with.

I think it was the concept of the main character that always intrigued me. Here is a woman who is deeply contrite and almost desperate for redemption. She is constantly having her past thrown back in her face no matter how hard she tries to get away from it, and she seems to always be facing the temptation to say, “to heck with it,” and return to that past in anger. In reality, Xena was a complicated character, and Lucy Lawless played those complications believably, allowing for a good blend of both drama and comedy.

I just recently watched some of the later episodes that were intended to parallel the beginnings of Christianity, and intended to use elements from tradition “Christian” mythology. In my opinion, there are two ways to view these episodes. The first is heretical and blasphemous, and a good argument could be made for that. However, theological orthodoxy was never the intention of either the Hercules or Xena series. And to judge the story lines on that basis is both unfair and pointless. The second way however opens up the potential for some profound, Christian, truths being expressed through metaphor in a way that they rarely are to an audience that may otherwise never bother to hear them.

I found the story arc of Xena's archenemy, Calisto, to be one of the more profound ones. Calisto was a little girl when Xena's army attacked her village and burned it, killing Calisto's parents in the process. This set the little girl on a path of anger and vengeance that drove her to the edge of insanity, and then through the series shoved her off the edge as she became a worse warlord than Xena. Ultimately, Calisto is condemned to Hell as a demon. After Xena and Gabrielle are crucified by Caesar and his legions, they die and are carried to heaven by angels, though Gabrielle is captured by Calisto and her demons in order to draw Xena down to Hell. In the process of trying to rescue Gabrielle, Xena (having been made an Archangel) goes into Hell to help the other angels free her friend. Gabrielle is rescued, but Xena fights the demon Calisto. After Calisto rages at her because of the death of her parents which caused all of it, Xena, out of deep compassion and forgiveness, gives up her own place in heaven to redeem the soul of Calisto, her worst enemy, from Hell taking her place in the process. Can anyone really not see the metaphor for Christ in this?

This theme of redeeming love continues in the series with Ares, the god of war, whose character's relationship with Xena is similar to an abusive ex-husband or ex-boyfriend. When Xena gives birth to a daughter, there is a prophecy by the fates that her birth will herald the end of the Greek gods. Many years later, her daughter (having taken the warlord path her mother first took and then becoming repentant) is baptized into the “cult of Eli” (the Xena series' version of early Christianity, also persecuted by the Romans), and then like St. Paul who first persecuted Christians and then received a call from Christ, so her daughter receives a call from Eli to be his messenger.

The Greek gods try to kill the girl, first as an infant, and then later as an adult. Xena is given the power by Heaven to kill gods in response, and she becomes her daughter's protector against them, slaying them one by one as they try to kill her daughter. Finally, there are only four remaining gods after she takes the fight to Mount Olympus; Athena, Artemis, Ares, and Aphrodite. Artemis is slain with her own arrows by Xena. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, because she has attempted to help Xena and her friends is allowed to escape. Ares is engaged by Xena and is down but not killed. Xena's daughter and her friend Gabrielle are mortally wounded and dying. And then the battle comes down to Athena and Xena.

One interesting thing I learned about Ares is that, for all of his abusive behavior, he did actually care about or love Xena. And out of his love for her, in this moment when she is about to be killed by Athena, in order to save her, he gives up his immortality to restore her daughter and Gabrielle which enables Xena to end Athena. Ares, the Greek god of offensive war, sacrifices his own immortality out of love for her. In a later episode, as he is going insane she allows him to nearly drown her to use his grief to bring him back to reality. As he realizes what he's done, he dives into freezing cold water to retrieve her body (which Gabrielle is able to resuscitate). In so doing, through her act of self sacrifice, she is able to start Ares on the path to his own redemption, and possibly to him finding peace later on as a mortal farmer. There's a profound metaphor there as well.

These themes of redemption by forgiveness, love, and self-sacrifice run through this series and the teachings of Christ where He taught to love one's enemies and to forgive those who have wronged you are, in the later episodes, played out in story after story, adventure after adventure as Xena constantly puts her life, and even her eternal soul on the line for those who had been her enemies, and had hurt her and those she loves deeply until she finally sacrifices her mortal existence completely in the final episodes.

I think this, more than anything else, is why I liked Xena and still do. In these things, the character of Xena ultimate follows what Jesus taught better than most who actually profess to follow Him.

A Ramble About the "Beast-People"

One of my favorite computer game and book series is the Myst collection of games and books, which taken together tell an expansive story of an ancient, fallen civilization, the D'ni; a secret, powerful Art of creating links to the worlds described in great Books; and the intrigue and pain of the last family to carry the legacy of this lost civilization and their unsuccessful attempts to rebuild it.

In one of the books, Myst: The Book of D'ni, the main protagonist of the series, Atrus, discovers an ancient Descriptive Book which leads him and his followers to a separate branch of that lost civilization, the Terahnee, one which never fell from the plague which swept the D'ni. As they get to know and be amazed and dazzled by the wonders and art of this civilization, they uncover a dark secret about this seemingly perfect world.

They employ a class of slaves which they refer to as the bahro, which in the D'ni language means “beast-people.” These people are stolen from their families in the other worlds to which the Terahnee link through their books, brought to their world, castrated, their wills are broken through torture and discipline, and then forced to serve the Terahnee mostly out of sight, only appearing through a system of extensive tunnels that run throughout their cities and town to perform their duties and then leave again as quickly as possible. The Terahnee also refer to them as the “unseen,” and there are severe consequences if anything happens that forces a Terahnee person to acknowledge their existence publicly or privately.

As I've been working for an event security company, and riding the public transportation, I've gotten to know and see a great many of the people that, like the bahro, are willingly unseen by those people they serve every day. Many of these people work two or three “part-time” jobs, at full time hours, at minimum wage, because the cost of living in Southern California is so high, they can't afford rent, food, or utilities without doing this. They sleep when they have a day off from one job. Many of them share small apartments between two or more families in order to just have a roof over their heads. Virtually all of them are a hair's breadth from homelessness, and it doesn't take much to snap the hair keeping them safe.

When people look at Southern California, all they see is the glamor, the entertainment industry, the movie stars, the concerts, the theme parks. But the millions of tourists who come through don't see the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of minimum wage workers who make it all happen, unless they have to interact with them to make a purchase, or suffer the indignity of submitting to a security screening. They're not meant to in the same way that those people coming of the Interstate 5 freeway to Disneyland aren't meant to see the dilapidated apartments and houses of the predominantly low-income residents who live within walking distance of the theme park. The freeway exits are specifically devised to avoid those areas of town. The signs won't even let you right turn down the street to get there.

Growing up here, I didn't really see these people either. My culture and society conditioned me to not see the Hispanics on the street corner that work twelve hour days for what amounts to birdseed. I was conditioned to not really see the worker at McDonald's or Burger King as anything more than a flesh and blood fast food ATM. The people who ran the rides, attractions, and manned the concession stands at Disneyland were just as much a part of the ride as the animatronics. They were always there, but you didn't talk to them, you didn't know them, and you didn't see them a second time if you saw them at all.

Our culture and society in this Southern Californian civilization dehumanizes the majority of its population into unseen, biological background mechanisms in order to provide a playground for the wealthy. When a member of this “unseen” class of people falls behind in some way, they are mercilessly thrown to the side and become homeless statistics, begging on the streets just to feed themselves and no one who has the power to do anything about it sees or cares. For this reason our social services are overwhelmed to the point that even housing assistance is more of a myth than a help, as the waiting lists are often two or three years long.

The practice of the Christian Faith is lovingkindness and compassion. We cannot afford to not “see” anyone because of who they are or where they work, neither can we afford to dehumanize someone into just a part of the background machinery. We will answer for it to our Lord if we do. “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it also to Me.”

No human being should be treated as an unseen beast of burden. It flies in the face of everything Jesus Christ and His Apostles taught.

A Ramble About Minding Your Own Business

I wish I could say that I've been pursuing a more openly spiritual path of study and contemplation lately, but in reality I've just been busy working as an event security guard and have recently started work with the Garden Grove School District. I've also been trying to assist where it is appropriate, and where I am able, with the services at the Lutheran Church my family and I became members of this past September, though I received a reminder in the past week that I need to be careful so as not to overstep my bounderies..

To be honest, I think I'm doing good when I can get through all of my prayers for everybody on my list in the morning, although I get unpleasant reminders when I don't pray for the people on my list in the morning by the reports of the disastrous days they've had.

In one of the rare moments when I've really just been able to sit down and a Scripture has jumped out at me, this passage has come to light repeatedly over the past month, Romans 14 (WEB), especially the first several verses:

“Now accept one who is weak in faith, but not for disputes over opinions. One man has faith to eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Don’t let him who eats despise him who doesn’t eat. Don’t let him who doesn’t eat judge him who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you who judge another’s servant? To his own lord he stands or falls. Yes, he will be made to stand, for God has power to make him stand.”

“One man esteems one day as more important. Another esteems every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks. He who doesn’t eat, to the Lord he doesn’t eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

“But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written,

“‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘to me every knee will bow.
Every tongue will confess to God.’”

So then each one of us will give account of himself to God. Therefore let’s not judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother’s way, or an occasion for falling. I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself; except that to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if because of food your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don’t destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Then don’t let your good be slandered, for the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then, let us follow after things which make for peace, and things by which we may build one another up. Don’t overthrow God’s work for food’s sake. All things indeed are clean, however it is evil for that man who creates a stumbling block by eating. It is good to not eat meat, drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles, is offended, or is made weak.

Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who doesn’t judge himself in that which he approves.

But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it isn’t of faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.”

Jesus said explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount, “Don't judge so that you won't be judged. Don't condemn, so that you won't be condemned.” Jesus also said at the end of the Gospel of John, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.”

The practice which Jesus and His Apostles taught is a practice of self-regulation, not the attempt to regulate the behavior of others. In a nutshell, Jesus explicitly told His followers, and St. Paul expanded on it, to mind their own business regarding another person's relationship with and obedience to Him.

All too often we make the mistake that the path of discipleship He lays out for one of us is the right path for all of us. It isn't. He will instruct one of us to do things on his journey, and send him down paths that would be counterproductive for another of us. He doesn't ask us to understand, He just asks us to trust Him and not judge each other's path. It is our personal obedience to Him that matters. Not necessarily what that obedience looks like.

I don't agree with all of the beliefs or practices of the average Baptist, or Pentecostal for that matter. The truth is, I really think most denominations are way too far afield from the original practice and teachings of the Church and don't resemble it at all. But, God works through the teachings and practice of each one to speak to people and bring them closer to Himself. Do I think it's the best way? No, but then the relationship of “that guy over there” with God is really none of my business unless either he or God somehow make it my business. If God has told him to do something that doesn't make sense to me or doesn't jive with my understanding of the faith, who am I to question it? I am responsible for the light I have been given, not the light “that guy over there” has been given.

Does that mean we can't hold our own opinions or debate them? No, but it does mean that we can't attempt to force our opinions on others attempting to follow him to the best of their ability. One example of this is the “homosexual Christian.” For me, this is a contradiction in terms, but that is my opinion. It is not the opinion of a friend who happens to be a homosexual and a professing, church going Christian. I can point to all the bible verses I want trying to correct the behavior, but the bottom line is that it's not my behavior to correct. This friend must give their own account to Christ at the Bema Seat just like I must.

The word for “Lord” in Greek literally means “owner.” Fundamentally, I must answer for my actions and decisions to only one person, my Owner. My own journey of faith, while it intersects with others, remains mine and mine alone. Only I can answer for me, and I can answer for myself alone. Either my actions have given evidence of my faith in Christ or they haven't, and it is only by His mercy that I will stand or fall, as I cannot do anything but fall without His mercy. He and I both know the foolishness of my trying to stand on my own merits.

I know I can be the worst about this at times, and I can be quite vocal about it, especially on Facebook, and especially where other pastors are concerned if I think they're being dishonest or teaching something other than what Jesus taught. I know that St. Paul openly criticized and rebuked other Christians and other Christian leaders when they weren't doing what he understood that they should be doing. So there's a line there which needs to be understood so as not to cross it, and I'm not always certain I understand where it is in my own attempts to do what I understand the Lord wanting me to do.

The only person's behavior and practice we must truly be concerned with is our own. Jesus also said, “Why are you concerned about the speck of wood in your brother's eye, but completely ignoring the log in your own eye?” If we do not bind ourselves with the practice of the faith first, why should anyone else want to be bound by it?

A Ramble About Rekall

I recently watched the remake of Total Recall. The original with Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of those movies that I saw as a kid at the drive in (when there still was one in Westminster, CA) with my mom, who still happens to be a sci-fi buff and is the reason why I became one as well.

For those not in the know, the premise of the remake is that a master double agent, Carl Hauser, has his memories erased and rewritten by a corrupt future government in the attempt to root out the leader of an opposition cell. Their plans go askew when his new persona, Douglas Quaid (a lowly factory worker), is dissatisfied by his job and goes to a business called “Rekall” to have more exciting memories implanted in his brain. This sets off alarms at Rekall when they attempt to do the memory implantation and find out what happened. From there on it's one long constant chase as he eventually finds the aforementioned cell leader, named Matthias, who it turns out is something of a gentleman philosopher.

In the dialogue of their meeting, something profound is said:

Quaid: “I want to remember.”

Matthias: “Why?”

Quaid: “So I can be myself. Be who I was.”

Matthias: “It is each man's quest to find out who he truly is. But the answer to that lies in the present not in the past.”

Quaid: “But the past tells us who we've become.”

Matthias: “The past is a construct of the mind. It blinds us. It fools us into believing it. But the heart wants to live in the present. Look there. You'll find your answers.”

As I turned this dialogue over and over in my own mind, it kept reminding me of a simple truth. It isn't who we were that God's judgment is based on. It's who we are in each and every moment. It isn't what we've done in the past which matters, but what we do and say right here and right now, in this moment of time. It is who we are at the moment of death (and therefore resurrection) or living transfiguration which matters to God.

In Ezekiel 18:21-28 (ESV), God says pretty clearly,

“But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die.”

“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.”

Again and again in the Holy Scriptures this idea is reinforced. God is merciful and compassionate to all those who turn to Him for forgiveness and follow what He says no matter what they have done or who they might have been in the past. He doesn't care about the person you may have been as much as He cares about the person you are now. All the bad things you may have done are in the past. In the same way, all the good things you've done are in the past as well and don't count for the present (or the future for that matter).

Jesus said “Remain in Me.” He also said that the person who didn't remain in Him would dry up and eventually be burned with the rest of the dead foliage. This is a warning to all those who profess to follow Him. God doesn't remember laurels and gold stars any more than He remembers sins and transgressions. Don't rest on them. He's not concerned with a person who no longer exists. Church was this morning. This morning is in the past and is gone. Who are you right now? He's concerned with the person you are right now at this moment, not who you were in the pews several hours ago.

Are you remaining in Him at this moment? Are you obeying Him at this moment? Are you walking and acting by Grace through faith at this moment? If not, turn around. Draw close to Him and He will draw close to you.

A Ramble About Why God Permits Evil in the World

This is going to be a shorter Ramble than you might think. It is the number one problem of religious studies and the number one question of agnostics and atheists which causes even some of the hardiest believers to pause. “If there is a loving, good, all-powerful God, then why does He permit the evil and atrocities which happen in this world?”

There is a simple answer to this. He permits evil to exist in the world because to do otherwise would mean completely wiping the human race from existence. The human race is, as a species, insane in an otherwise sane and beautiful creation, and it doesn't take much pushing to bring out this insanity in the average person. Just take away the things, people, dreams, security, etc. which they have attached themselves to and it will bubble to the surface as we struggle to cope. It is this insanity which drives people to be selfish and without compassion. It is this selfishness which causes harm to ourselves, those around us, and the creation around us whether we see the immediate cause of the harm or not; and which causes us to blame everyone and everything else around us including God for the harm we do to ourselves. We, the insane human race, are the cause of evil in this world. The only way to totally eradicate evil is to totally eradicate the human race as we know it. In other words, evil is allowed to continue because of His mercy.

Furthermore, God respects our right to be individual beings with our own thoughts, feelings, memories, experiences, and choices. In order for us to continue to exist physically, and eradicate evil, He would have to completely reprogram every one of us into completely different people without each person's individual consent, and this is something He will not do. His compassion for us, His love and respect for us as individual persons dictate that He allow us to be the people we are and make our own choices whether they are selfish or compassionate and to bear the consequences of either. Just as He will not wipe the whole human race from existence Himself, so He will not wipe the individual psyche from existence and forcibly reprogram the individual human brain. That would be tantamount to murder because the unique psyche of the individual person would be lost forever. He asks us to cooperate with Him in being transformed by His Grace, but only with our consent and cooperation; never by force.

There has been one time in our distant past when He nearly did eradicate evil from the world. It's an event recorded in every human cultural memory. The great flood almost completely destroyed us, and yet He chose to stay His hand from our annihilation. There have been times when He has culled us and our inventiveness in order to keep us from destroying ourselves and the rest of creation faster than it could have been, but He has never completely destroyed us.

Ultimately, we will end up destroying ourselves and the habitat He created for us through the consequences of billions if not trillions of our selfish choices over the last tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years of human existence. Until that happens He will continue to prune and cull to stave it off until there is nothing left to prune and cull, and He will continue to offer us a way to cooperate with Him with the end result of our individual salvation from destruction at our own hands.

The just judgment of God is to let us stand or fall by the consequences of the choices we make. His mercy is when He does damage control to mitigate those consequences so we don't end up completely destroyed either individually or as a species. But if we refuse to cooperate with Him, He respects our choices and lets us fall on our own swords, tears in His eyes as he is forced to watch it.

The worst part about our insanity is how it affects Him. We blame Him. We curse Him. We deny His very existence. We bring harm and violence to His good creation, and inflict it on ourselves, each other, and the non-human innocents and He is forced to watch it all, to know exactly what it feels like every time it happens to everyone and everything it happens to. We inflict our evil on Him too, and He continues to love us and show compassion and mercy even as we are hurting Him mercilessly.

God allows evil to continue because He loves us and cares about us, not because he doesn't. We're the ones who twist it around and blame Him for our own individual and collective evil.

A Ramble About Maleficent

I have known a great many women, at various stages of my life, who have been through abusive relationships and come out the worse for it. It has been my observation that women in general, no matter who it is, are protectors and nurturers by nature and it is only through pain and violence that this is twisted in them so that they become abusive and destructive.

I recently saw Maleficent, two or three times. I admit, I really liked this movie. It's a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story from the viewpoint of the villain, giving it a twist. Maleficent is, after all is said and done, the story of a woman abused by the man with whom she had a romantic relationship who finds redemption, forgiveness, and freedom in the love of her “goddaughter.”

In the movie, Maleficent starts as a little girl who befriends the boy who would grow to be the man, Stefan, who abuses her. We also see the imagery of horns and wings, symbolizing the capacity of this young girl to be either angelic, compassionate, and loving or demonic, angry, and vengeful. The two spend time together as they grow from pre-teen to adults over a period of several years.

But this young man has his own ambitions, and in order to achieve them he is willing to use their relationship to get close enough to her to kill her. But then, unable to go through with it, he saws her wings off while she is drugged to offer “proof” to a dying king that she has been killed. And then he leaves her damaged, angry, and in pain.

As she began the story with the potential to be either angel or demon, her wings are torn from her and she is literally an outcast from heaven through no fault of her own. Angry and bitter she lashes out at the man who hurt her by cursing the daughter, the product of Stefan's ambitions, he has with the woman who replaced her.

This unnamed woman is the daughter of the king whom the man married in order to become king himself. So she is also the incarnation of the man's ambitions. How many men throw their wives and loved ones away for the sake of their careers? It wasn't the woman he wanted as much as the kingship she represented, and, when he has what he wants from her, he throws her away too and leaves her to die from an unnamed illness while he himself descends into madness.

As the young princess grows up in seclusion, Maleficent finds herself caring for the girl throughout her life (because her three fairy “aunties” are completely inept), making sure she is fed and kept safe. A maternal bond forms between them and the girl's love and compassion becomes Maleficent's salvation as she begins to open up her heart again to let the girl in. Maleficent tries desperately and powerfully to revoke the curse she has placed on the girl, but as is so often the case in life, what she set in motion through her bitter desire for revenge against Stefan and his ambitions can't be undone so simply.

In turn Maleficent's maternal love for the princess she cursed becomes the girl's own salvation from that curse. In this story, the kiss of true love doesn't come from a prince Aurora met only once, but from the single motherly kiss on the forehead of her “godmother” who loved and cared for her all of her life.

In the final scenes, Maleficent is confronted by Stefan who is now completely out of his mind and obsessed with destroying her, surrounding himself with steel and iron which she can't touch or else she will be burned. He is completely oblivious and uncaring to the fact the Maleficent is the one who saved his daughter from the eternal sleep. She is surrounded by his iron-clad soldiers who are just waiting for him to deliver the death blow.

It is here also where it is the love of her “goddaughter” which saves Maleficent from murder at Stefan's hands, because it is Aurora who finds and releases Maleficent's wings which, sensing her presence in the castle, fly fast and furious to be rejoined with their owner. And then we see Maleficent made whole and rising like an avenging angel, no longer the villain, trying to protect Aurora from her father's madness. In the final scene is a struggle between Stefan and Maleficent at the top of the castle, and then they both topple off. Maleficent's wings, her angelic nature, catch her as he tries to drag her down with him, but Stefan continues his final plunge alone and dies. Maleficent, and also Aurora, are finally freed from the abuser.

As I think about this movie now, I can't help but think of all the women out there who have, like Maleficent, been abused by the men who had promised to love them. The women who are hurt, and angry, and who lash out at innocents trying to punish the men who hurt them. This is the cycle of abuse, and the only thing which breaks that cycle, as in the movie, is love, forgiveness, and compassion.

Maleficent, who was a protector and nurturer, was abused, and so in her pain she became an abuser instead of a protector. And it was only through the plight of a motherless, innocent girl who needed to be protected and nurtured that she was able to turn back from her destructive path to the light from the darkness. It was only through her choice to love this innocent girl who symbolized everything which had hurt her that she began to heal the damage which had been done to her and the damage which she had done in her bitterness.

After all is said and done, this is truly where healing from abuse must begin. Not with waiting for someone else to love you, but with the hard path of choosing to love in spite of the abuse.