Australia !

I would give this movie a rating of 10. Unfortunately, I am just getting around to writing about it since I did see this movie Thanksgiving Day where I did get both my mom and dad to go see it. (My own life has been weary and too fast. It is frustrating to be over loaded at work with layoffs and the fear of no job in the future. Mixed messages. So my thoughts go on whirling away without being able to jot them down and exhale through writing. I must remedy!)

This movie is full of tragedy and triumph. So it might be possible that you might need to bring a kleenx even though I did not shed a tear. I have decided that I did have tear leakage was because I have had enough crying over a man from down under. Why cry when here I could drink in all that this movie could give me and where I could delight in what Aussie knowledge I did know. See America is my home but Australia is a second most favorite place. You know you have places you would like to go see and then come home. You just want to experience it for a time. Then I believe there are places that you have love ones in where you want to experience a place because of them. You want to see what this place that has effected them even shaped them. This is what Australia is to me. I want to know and someday be able to experience this place as if I was there living. It would make me feel closer to him - to wear his shoes and travel his path a bit ... to understand.

I was most excited about knowing as much Australia as I did like the boab poison tree and Aussie words like digger (Aussie solder) etc. I even had heard about the Kimberly's before seeing the movie. I even knew where Darwin was on the Aussie map. I think I have always had an interest in Australia and it first began with words - I discovered an Aussie dictionary where I preceded to photocopy it so I could have a personal copy! Then I developed some friendships (even had a set up group date in college with the lone aussie there. Funny, I don't think we even talked to each other. However, now days I would know exactly what to say and he probably would run away thinking I was very much a crazy yank!) Now days I keep in touch with Australia or a certain place in Australia by a local paper there and by weather maps.

Here I am talking about everything but the movie! Well, the movie takes place in WWII. A British lady goes to Australia to bring her husband back home. She seems so prim and proper that you are surprised that she quickly feels the pain in others. Oh, how I love her grit! She is a fighter! Not the verbal kind but a fighter for what is right! Like our own history with the American Indians, Australia has history with the Aboriginal people. What I like most is that she fights for the underdog even if she is messy in her way. She throws out culture even though she is high bred. What is most important is the person. Well, through it all, she falls in love with Australia. Oh yes, there is a love story here! Got to have in an epic!

Baz Luhrnmanm - creator and director of Australia says, ''You cannot really possess anything; not land, not a person, not a child. All that you do possess at the end of your life is your story.'' There is truth here but there is more truth that is missing here. All that you possess at the end of your life is your story, but you have the choice to possess His Word and Everlasting Life. Having His Word keeps me going when I know I cannot keep a friendship with a fellow believer down under. Even when my story has an unraveling when he up and vanished is a big reminder that that stories do intertwine... and come undone. Own your story. Choose Everlasting Life. Own His Word. Because when you arrive on Heaven's Shore, God the Master Story Teller will show you your story and how it intertwined and affected other stories that you did not know like in "It's a Wonderful Life.''

sighs....