Gwen Stacy's Never Coming Back

In 1965 Gwen Stacy died. She was held captive by the Green Goblin on top of the Washington Bridge. During a fight between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, Gwen was knocked off the top of the bridge. In his attempt to save her, Spider-Man slung one of his webs, catching her quickly. The abrupt stop snapped her neck. She died. Her death greatly affected Spider-Man, Mary Jane and so many others.

Over the years, Gwen Stacy clones have come and gone. In magical mythical cross overs and what if's she's appeared. In alternate realities she's been alive but soon after leaves. In effect, she is dead and is never coming back.

This is strange because many Marvel Universe characters always come back. The mutant Cypher with the passive power of translation was killed in 1989's epic saga The Fall of the Mutants. And he came back almost 20 years later.

So what does this have to do with Spiritual Musclehead? Well, it's Spiritual Sci-Fi Friday.

One of the interesting things about the Marvel Universe is that it has its own rules and ways of doing things. It operates certain set standards. In many ways, in order to understand the Marvel Universe and interpret it, you must use the Marvel Universe. In order to understand the importance of Gwen Stacy's death, you have to read comics in the Marvel Universe to understand the importance of it.

The same is true with another book called the Bible. Many people call it false, they say that it contradicts itself many times. And I will be honest, yes, if you just look at small areas, you see contradictions. But the same can be said of Wolverine where there are many, many contradictions. Take for example his claws. In the Captain America, Black Widow and Wolverine comic, Wolverine in the 1940's has no claws yet years later when Magento pulls out Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, he has bone claws. Total contradiction right? Yet reading the whole of the Marvel Universe, you understand the complexities that show why this happened and the reason behind it.

If you need to do this with the Marvel Universe, why can't it be done with the Bible. Even if you just see it as literature and not the inspired Word of God, you still have to use the in universe of the Bible to interpret the Bible. To do otherwise is unfaithful.

There is much more I could write about this, but that's for another Spiritual Sci-Fi Friday.

In the end, what's important is that we shouldn't discount something just because we think there are contradictions or problems in it. There are many problems with Gwen Stacy's death. Some have said that her abrupt death ended the Silver age of comics. Comics themselves were never again the same. They were allowed to deal with darker issues. Over the years, many people have asked, cried out, that they bring Gwen Stacy back. But to do so would break the rules of the Marvel Universe. She's never coming back.

The Bible is an in universe book made up of 66 smaller books and two divisions of Old and New or the Tahnak and the Gospels, History and Letters. To read one without being in Universe is to not fully understand it. Everything else is just fan fiction.

Back to the routine

How's that song go? "It's the most wonderful time of the year..." yeah, that one. I know, I know, it's not Christmas but it is the start of the school year out here in South Dakota. And my son started kindergarten this year. I don't know who's happier and more excited--he or I?

What's really cool is the fact that he's totally into transformers now. Yeah. That's right. I'm raising my son right. I've introduced him to the awesome that is Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. And today, he told his teacher "I like Transformers because my Daddy introduced me to them." No lie and no prompting from me.

Not only is my son returning to school but so is my wife. After a few years hiatus from teaching, she is now returning to school to teach part time. This means that my two-year old is in day care (which I think we all needed to tell the truth).

So what does this all mean? Structure!!! Yippee!! This is what someone like me with ADHLAS (Attention Deficit...Hey! Look! A Squirrel!) so needs and to tell the truth craves. I'm so happy to have structure back again. I even was able to hit the gym early this morning for the first time since...well, since summer started. And so now I'm working on getting back in the routine.

It also means that I'm starting to get back in the routine of watching LifeChurch.TV podcasts while I'm on the stationary bike. It means getting back into having that quiet time in my mornings with Bible and coffee.

I so need structure..to tell the truth, I'm shocked my Straterra kept me together this long without that much structure.

What about you? With the school kicking in, with things getting back into a routine, are you looking forward to it or dreading it?

It was going to be the best blog post ever!

I was so excited to have this great blog post last night. I could see it now. I would talk about how great it was that if finally did it. For the first time since the week before Christmas, I got up early, hit the gym and then got to work and was productive. I was thinking of how great it'd be because I'd also been keeping a log of my workouts--you know, how much I benched, how much I did as a curl or lat pull down. I even had downloaded a calorie counter app for my phone. Then I was going to talk about how I finally got into the groove of reading my Bible and praying and journaling. I downloaded the Youversion Bible app from Lifechurch onto my cellphone so I could read scripture anywhere. It was going to be a great blog post.

Then I hit snooze on my cell phone's alarm clock this morning at 6am. Well, in my tiredness, I actually hit the "dismiss" button instead. I woke up around 8. I finally hit the gym not out of wanting to be healthy but because of writer's block. I only breezed through my devotions this morning and only did a short prayer. And that app. Uninstalled it.

So much for the best blog post ever!

I try so hard to make sure that I that read my Bible. And I do an okay job at it. I really do. But I beat myself up when I don't read it enough. And I beat myself up when I don't pray enough. And I beat myself up when I don't journal. And I get frustrated when I don't go to the gym. My pick up stalled on my wife yesterday. I feel bad because I didn't do enough to take care of it so it wouldn't do that (not to mention it was like -15 yesterday...which probably didn't help). In my life, in my prayer life, in my spiritual life, in my emotional health, physical health and spiritual health, I know I need to not beat myself up.

It's good to know I'm not the only one. Two blogs that have been helpful as of late. The first being Living a Reckless Faith which I've been reading off an on now for a little bit. The other one I recently found Fat Girl Fit world.

In my messiness, I'm not alone. We have each other.

Paul said it best in Galatians 6:2 "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ". We're in it together.



Maybe tonight I'll finally hang my punching bag and go at that instead...I can beat that up instead of myself.