Nate and I went to see Star Wars yesterday afternoon. My flight got in around 11 and I picked Nate up from school and we went to the 1:30 showing. We loved the movie, and whispered back and forth throughout the whole thing about the stuff we noticed. It was great to get the closure on everything and have the things come back around to an end-point in the story.

On the way home, Nate and I had a couple of great discussion about the movie. A little background on the discussion: Since our kids were little, we've tried to teach the idea from Proverbs 4:23 "Above all things, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do." We've tried to teach the kids to look at what they do, say, watch, read, listen to and hang out with in this context. Nate and I had a great conversation about the gradual decline of Anakin Skywalker in the movie as he slowly gives into one small step across the line at a time. We then talked about how Sidius was like the snake in the garden, tempting Luke with power and the belief that the Jedi Council did not have his best interest in mind. Cool abstract thinking for an 8 year old.

As we talked, Nate through out there, "Dad, Jesus wasn't perfect." I responded quickly with "Sure he was. What makes you say that." Nate replied back, "No he wasn't, he did things that were wrong, like ditching his parents to teach at the temple and throwing the tables around in the temple." We talked about these for a while, and he stuck to his point. We agreed we'd go look the stories up in the bible and try and understand them better. I'd proud that he's such an independent thinker on this stuff, not satisfied with easy answers on his faith and willing to go dig deeper at an 8 year old level. I'd rather have a critical thinker who owns his faith than a puppet who can recite all of the bible verses but doesn't process what he believes to make it his own.