Thinking outloud

In the course of any given week there are a million things that float through my head. A lot of it just comes and goes and so I don't worry too much about it. As this week concludes, though, there are about 5 things still floating through my head.

1. In Pirates of the Caribbean (the first and best one), was Elizabeth Swan immortal from the time she met Will Turner on the crossing from England up until the time the gold medallion is taken from her? According to the rules that were established in the movie - those that posses the stolen Aztec gold are incapable of dying.
1B. How did Boostrap die if he was also immortal (being a member of the original crew)?

2. I wonder if it is possible to have more filtered stories of heroic acts. Firefighters, police officers, and soldiers doing heroic things - with a filter that didn't dive into their personal lives. One of the things that annoys me about professional sports and dramatic TV (i.e. Rescue Me or ER or Third Watch) is that we know so much about the players and performers. (Plus, of course there is so little heroism showed in modern day sports.). I would just like to read and see often in the news or on TV the heroic acts of those we walk the streets with.

3. The Bible Dictionary states: "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but are made conditional on us asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them."
On the one hand I look to God as being the great Santa. For several months i write letters to Santa asking for the new Star Wars Lego set. I tell him every time I see him at the mall (I even yell it from the second story out side Macy's "Hey Santa! It's Sean - we talked last week! Just wanted to remind you that I wanted the Millennium Falcon!")
However, come Christmas Morning I would get socks. Come January I would need the new warmer socks so I could play outside. His blessings were there despite my pleadings.
On the other hand I struggle with the point of prayer. If my will will never be granted and it is only His will that will be granted on his timeline - what is the point of me pleading with the Lord. If all I'm ever going to ask for is the things He won't give me and He won't give me things that I don't ask for - then really I'm never going to get out of this hole. The best way I can think of this is that He has Coke sitting there waiting for me - but if the only things I ever ask for is Pepsi, Rootbeer, Sprite or water - nothing will happen. He won't bless me with Coke because I didn't ask for it. He won't bless me with the others because that is not His will. And if it never occurs to me to ask for Coke we will never have a meeting of wills. Then what is the point to prayer but to guess what His will is?

4. What do you do with friends that aren't accepting to change? After 3 years of being apart from John, I returned to discover I had changed a lot, and so had he. We were different people - but we tried to keep the friendship going despite some glaring differences. One day while we were out grocery shopping I suggested Savemart and he was shocked. "I thought you said you would never shop there again." I asked when I said that. "5 years ago." was the response. I tried to relate that in that amount of time I have learned what is good and can get from Savemart. However, that experience has stood as an example of how people can change over time.
The reason this particular question has been in my head is because I'm in similar situation. Over the past 4 months I have grown closer to a friend. While I'm not the dog for her and she isn't the owner for me, right now we are good for each other. Over the last four months, a different friend has been away on an internship. She has not been around to watch as me and this other girl have grown tighter. At a recent event I was massaging the feet of the girl I've grown tighter with. Suddenly the girl who recently returned from her internship shouted out, "I thought you didn't massage feet! You told me you didn't massage feet!" Which is true. And 6 months earlier I didn't. But on that night, with that young lady, I did.
Since that time I've been worried about my friendship with my recently returned friend. In what other ways have I changed in the last 4 months that will cause discord in our friendship? Do I try to be the person I was 4 - 6 months ago or do I expect the friend to be adaptable.
With John it became clear that 3 years was just too long. We are still friends but much less than the friends we were when we were friends prior to my departure to the Lord's University in Idaho. I'm not sure I'm ready to see my friend of 4 months ago go the same way.

5. Josh just celebrated his 5 years of Photo A Day. On March 4th (or somewhere around there - never been all that good at math) I will celebrate my 1000th picture. I wonder if that is enough. In a recent post by Cindy about violin neglect, Cindy's Mom commented that there is a time and a season for all things. I wonder if 1000 pictures is a decent season.