Smart Movies with Caroline: Les Miserables Ain't Miserable!

"Les Miserables was the WORST play ever! Everyone dies and then they sing all the time while they die. Yuck!" my mom told me after seeing the theater version of  Les Mis. She still refuses to watch the movie with me! LAME.

And what about my sister Melissa, who saw Les Mis with Mom? To answer that, she showed me this meme the other day:

I had no opinions on Les Mis until my boyfriend Andy's sister Anna encouraged me to see the new movie version with her. Since she and I tend to have really similar tastes in movies and books, I decided to give it a chance. 

Three hours later, Anna and I left the theater sobbing, red-eyed and for the rest of the day drove the other Hazeltons nuts with our "Meh remember when Jean Valjean blah blah blah? THAT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL!" shrieks all day. I loved Les Mis so much I drug Andy to see it again for Valentine's Day. That dummy laughed hysterically when I cried quietly during "I Dreamed a Dream." Hmph.

But what makes Les Miserables beautiful instead of miserable like we cognate-noticing folk might assume? For me, Les Mis takes the cake on its themes. 

Redemption. Jean Valjean is a convicted thief. Serving a  19 year jail term, he was known nothing more than "24601," his prisoner number. Released on probation, no one will give him a day's work and he finds himself dying of starvation until a priest has compassion on him and gives him food and shelter. Still a thief, 24601 steals the church's silver. Instead being sent back to jail after his capture by the guards, the priest insists that he gave Valjean the silver as gift. Shocked, the priest tells Valjean to take the silver and to use it to turn his life around.

Valjean does so and more. Years later when the story returns, he's the mayor of a town with a  purpose of rescuing those who have fallen.  He saves Fantine, a woman whose affair left her as a single, struggling mom who resorts to prostitution to care for her child Cosette. He redeems Cosette from her orphan status upon Fantine's death and saves her lover from death in a sewer. He even forgives Javert, his mortal enemy.

Love. "To love another person is to see the face of God." When we see at the end of the movie all of the people  that Valjean has helped through the love the priest showed him long ago with the silver, we see how sacrificial love's chain reaction originates from God's flawless love.

Hope. " I love Les Mis because it's real. Life is full of pain and rarely goes the way we want it to. We never move forward, like boats in a harbor.

For the poor of France, their short-lived revolution ends in blood soaked streets and "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables." For Fantine who once had hope, "Life has killed the dream I dreamed." 

Yet when this world fails us, when this world kills our dreams, there is a "world beyond the barricade that you long to see." Our mistakes have left us 24601s but God's redemption has re-birthed us into Jean Valjeans. 

And that's the truth. We spend our life here as les miserables, meaning the wretched ones, but when tomorrow comes we will cross the barricade into God's presence forever. 

Baker County High School Lunch Days

Lunch. 

It's one of those things I'll remember the most about Baker County High School. I sit here in my apartment now, mentally smelling yet again burnt pizza and Mom's PBJs. Chances are if you ate lunch with me, I just thought about you. And if you're a student I will teach in the future, I just thought about you and hoped you'd feel welcome to come to Srta. Rambo's room to chill during lunch. Because I see the people who changed my life each year. And each year flashes through my mind. 

Freshman year.

It was 11:05 and I was hiding in the bathroom stall. Only ten more minutes of lunch remained. 

I was a lonely freshman girl and was baffled by the hundreds of students I saw in the BCHS cafeteria. Out of the 750 students who had Lunch A, I knew one fellow freshy..but  he was a jerky wrestler. Yeah...no.

I tried making friends, but no one was friendly. So I resorted to sitting by myself, but then a upperclassmen group of mean girls decided it'd be fun to make fun of the terrified freshman girl sitting all alone. They did it one day, then they did it a week later, and then they started doing it every day around 11 on their way out the cafeteria to play hackeysack.

I'd rather hide in a bathroom reeking of weed and hairspray than be made fun of. And so I sat in the stall.

Sooner or later I realized how pathetic that was, and I spotted my church friend, Gil sitting with two of his friends-Corryn and Rebecca. Meekly asking if I could sit with them, they greeted me with kindness and enthusiasm. I felt at home.

One lunch came when  Corryn and Rebecca weren't there. Awkwardly sitting alone, I saw the group of goth girls starting to approach me with their cruel-hearted smirks and shouts of "HEY GIRL!"-even before 11:05. I was so alone, so scared that I just couldn't take it that day. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a pretty, kind looking girl who was also sitting alone. I jumped into her booth before my own set of Mean Girls could even screech at me.

"Hi, I'm Caroline." My cheeks blushed as red as my hair.

"I'm Le'priesh." She gave a sweet, warm smile.

And that's how I met my best friend when I was 15. I never ate alone again.

Sophomore year.

I never really had a brother. I do have a brother, but his disability prevents me from being able to talk to him or communicate with him. For that reason, I never learned about "dude things" most sisters learn from their bros, thus making me super naive.

Looking for somewhere to sit that first week of school, I spotted the senior boys from youth group. Josh waved at me, so I thought they wouldn't mind if I sat with them just for one day. But I ended up sitting with them every day that year.

Hanging at that Jesus and testosterone-filled table was a highlight of that year, cuz I gained a pack full of big brothers who loved their "little sister" to death! Kyle Stone, Evan Ward, Timmy Mason, Dane Unklebach, Josh Trippet, and all of your various manly friends, y'all meant the world to me when I was 16 (and still do!!) Because of y'all looking out for me, I went from being the freshman hiding in the bathroom during lunch to having a pack full of friends I couldn't wait to talk to each day.

And I can't help but laugh at those memories now!! There was that  day Josh paid me a dollar to eat a rotten banana, the time Evan showed up to school in dreadlocks and yelled strange things at the kid Melissa was trying to get me to go to prom with, all of the donuts Dane brought us from his parents' shop, the many concerned looks we got from Mr. Jacobs, and when I FORCED all of you to be in the skit I was making for church (heh). I. Love. You. Boys.

Junior year.

By junior year everyone had basically turned into the person they were destined to be for life. For most of Baker County, that usually means you get your high school diploma, cheer for Gator football (yuck), and make babies. The end. 

Well, Carissa Ward, Danielle Cole, Rachel Davis and I wanted more than this, so we had to stick together. We were lunch buddies. A pack. We were the smart girls. Danielle and Rachel would quiz me on Spanish note cards each day over burnt pizza. We were the good girls-our biggest drama was Mrs. Mann telling us to pull up our shirts up once-but even then she did so kindly because we were good kids! We discussed boys-Danielle, remember how much we laughed nervously when I got asked out to the military ball? Rachel, remember the many talks about that one boy? Even at graduation, we were still a pack..here is Rachel and I!

Soon Amber (who reminded me much of myself as a freshman) and Krista joined our lunch pack of giggling goody two shoes. And we were set. And we were happy. 

Senior year.

I don't even know where to begin. I had so many awesome lunch packs.

Like there was Amber from last year, who made great company! There's a reason I kept bringing my nasty burnt pizza tray over to where we sat the last year with you, cuz you were awesome! Sorry I spilled chocolate milk all over my books and your books that one time heh ;)

If I needed to laugh after a long day, Wyatt Milton, Lindsey Roberts, Taryn Stevens, Trista Burnham and Katie Demers never stopped to make me crack up! I will never forget the time we were all obsessed with flicking the water bottle cap and then it landed right in front of Mr. Hill-the man who signed my paycheck as the student front office receptionist!! He nicely asked me about the "fun we were having "later that day at work.  I wanted to kill you, Wyatt!!!!!

Outside I could find Carissa Ward, Heather Cales, Hannah Jackson and Katie and Kristen Higens. One day for Character Day on  Homecoming Week Carissa and Heather were Mario and Luligio, and I was the tooth fairy! We were so cool that Heather convinced us to take our picture with Mrs. Payne (the other administrator who signed my paycheck!!)

Another senior year memory comes after this. Shortly after we took that picture they announced senior superlative at a pep rally. Not only was I one of the Titan Twelve (a leadership award given to 12 outstanding seniors annually at BCHS) but I also won Class Friendliest!! Um, I was the girl who spent the first nine weeks of lunch freshman year hiding in the bathroom stall!!! I know it was my decision in high school to follow Jesus and the incredible people I ate lunch with who changed me.

High school lunches will never end for me. This August, I will be a certified K-12 Spanish teacher (thanks to Rachel and Danielle helping me with Spanish flash cards for Senor long ago!!) and will hopefully be teaching Spanish at a high school in the fall. And you know what? I hope to have a TON of students who eat lunch in my classroom everyday. 

Because I know what it's like to be a lonely freshman hiding in a bathroom stall. I know what it's like to have people love you and accept you and to blossom as a result. But most of all, I know my teacher "lunch pack"-my students who eat with me- will change me, just like my BCHS lunch packs did.