Actual Final Post

So my plan to shoot a documentary for the group AFI fell through because communications between us failed. I sent an email about three to four weeks ago to be able to come in and shoot one for them to be able to use but since I never got a response I stopped pursuing. Though I will take this opportunity to just reflect on the year I guess. I have learned a whole lot about the process of literature because it isn't just a once and done thing it is a continual process that takes time and effort to really connect with the text and also with the world around you. It has showed me that one of the best marks of a scholar is patience and perseverance. Those two attributes are what separate the studious from the lazy. Those two attributes take a meager understanding of a text and move it to a place where the understanding is so deep that it begins to affect the person to the point of a change in their life. I know all these texts this semester had a hand in shaping me, however small, into a better person. Its the type of thing where while reading the truth agrees with who you are and you begin to take on that truth and in the meantime you realize that there are bits of you that need to be left behind. A good example is the section on nature, I used to appreciate nature but never on the scale that I do now because of literature showing me the beauty of all the things that God has created. So after all the times where you thought that I didn't enjoy the class or get anything out of it I just wanna say thank you. I actually can say that I learned something and it has changed me.

Such a Sad Somber End

1. I am choosing the final chapter from C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed. The final chapter is the part of the book where Lewis comes to most of his conclusions about grief. He realizes that as he writes down all the things he is going through as he is stricken with grief that grief is not a state but a process. He realizes that he is coming back to the same thoughts that he has had not too long ago and explains that what he has written before is beginning to come back into his mind. From there he shoots off in many directions as his thoughts begin to swirl around and pop up onto the page.
2. At first this seems as a way to see into what Lewis is thinking during his time of grief. Almost as if it is a new type of biography genre and it is Lewis writing a completely open autobiography. Then you can see it as a way to help you through grief when you get to the point that you need it to. So when you are in the same place as Lewis was you can pick up this nice read and get an emotional experience out of his pain enough to kick you out of yours. It can easily be viewed as something that has more of an inward look to Lewis and Lewis alone. He hides his purpose behind a lot of vivid imagery and in questions that are like life's imponderables. My reasoning behind interpreting this is because I feel no matter who you are you need to be able to have an experience with grief and Lewis does a great job with it. Also the professor said I needed to interpret a text we read.
3. I think the biggest thing that Lewis is trying to get across is that grief is something that every person will experience at some point and time in their life and that you need to understand what exactly it entails. He takes a more spiritual approach to the whole take on being at a place where it seems as though God doesn't belong. Most people yell at God or take out their anger on him because they believe that it is God's fault. Though Lewis does that in the beginning part of the book in this chapter it is as if his journey, or process as he puts it, is nearing an end and he is beginning to see the daylight and he takes the daylight that he is beginning to see and applies it to what he has written before. He takes on his final leg of grief as a sort of entry into a new direction of grief. He views the process as less of a level to level or stage to stage and a hand in hand walk with something that was created to change you in a phenomenal way if you were only able to realize that instead of grief standing in front of you yelling but next to you and is gently talking you into submission. TO appreciate what you have while you have it and not when you have lost it.
4. My main reason behind using and reusing the whole grief as a process is because on the very first page of the fourth chapter Lewis says that sorrow is less of a state and more of a process. That sets up the theme for the entire chapter. My reasoning behind describing grief as a friend that is next to you comes from a part that actually started off sounding like it would be a difficult passage to understand and slowly transitioned to a passage that was simpler than you once thought just like I stated above. This part is from a dream that Lewis had in which there is a man in total darkness who hears a noise. The noise is either interpreted as something far off or as a friend who is close by chuckling. He ends the whole story by saying that people may actually be completely wrong as to the situation that they are actually in. Which shows that people are unable to see what the worth of something is until it is taken. So grief is a way of them seeing what they had missed for so long yet people never realize that grief is also something that should be understood for what it is worth and is easily and almost always overlooked. Yet Lewis has a great way of making sure that what needs to be seen is actually seen. Another great example of that is when Lewis talks of enjoying praise while at the same time enjoying what you are praising. I find all those to be great ways of backing my interpretation.
5. The greatest thing I got from this story taking all the interpretations into account was that the life of a human is marred by so many things that we never take into account the importance of the things that mar us. That so often we focus on the things that highlight our life that we refuse to accept the beauty of the highlighter. That without the dark line that defines us we are unable to exist on the pages of life. Its not about accepting the darkness or even embracing the darkness but its about realizing that darkness has something for us too and we should get what we can from it. Lewis by showing us the darkness inside him opened up two doors for those who are reading, a door filled with light that he is walking towards and a door filled with darkness that he came from and he wants us to watch his journey from one to another.

Martyrdom

I found a certain part to be very interesting. The whole paragraph where the child talks about becoming a martyr. The line "She could stand to be shot but not burned in oil. She didn't know if she could stand to be burned in oil or not." I agree with her because I think the whole point of martyrdom is that we are not prepared for it in any way. If we were prepared for martyrdom then it would just be an arranged death. About a week or so ago I was talking with a friend about this topic and he was telling me how his dad interpreted it. That in the scriptures it speaks of God giving you the strength for the moment to be able to withstand the pressure and pain that is all around you at the time of your persecution. Now the next part where they send in lions after her and the lions are then converted so that they do not harm her and then they try to douse her in oil and burn her but that fails too is an example of glorifying martyrdom. Is it wrong to glorify what has happened in the past as being able to be your future? Is it wrong to imagine your own plan of how you will die for what you believe in? Isn't the whole point of going through this to go along with God's purpose and not your own? Too often I see people who are afraid of martyrdom and that is not okay in my head. I thoroughly believe that if you cannot see yourself dying for Christ then you are first of all not truly in love with Him and two you have no faith that through the time of pain and suffering God will not leave you there alone and he will be the one who helps you get through the whole ordeal.

Omelas?

Well isn't this just totally crazy and confusing. So I have decided taking this monster of a short story as a whole is a very bad idea because I want to create the least amount of pain possible for my feeble brain. My first point is a great quote "This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain." I love this quote for a few reasons. The first reason being the fact that I like to fancy myself as an artist and to hear this makes me think. Does an artist always need to display pain in order for it to be artistic? Is evil the only thing that makes art artsy? Can good art show the good nature of humanity instead of focusing on the bad tendencies that humans have? To answer my own question, yes it can.

"A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners." This I put here simply because it reminds me of the Fourth of July. It is a holiday that has a lot of red and blue, and in my family the smell of what is cooking is usually marvelous for any holiday. I just got really excited for the upcoming parties at my house and I am so ready for the beginning of a summer filled with barbeque and friends.

Now as a whole I am unable to fully comprehend the direction of this short story or if it even has a direction. I just feel like this is another one of those stories you read and know that there is something more to it. I chose those two quotes because they both were something that I could grasp and understand. I can safely say this is the most confusing story of the year and I am ready to get with other people to find out how they viewed it. If I could share my thoughts of the story as a whole I would say that this exemplifies the American Dream. That at the expense of the few who are required to suffer those who ignore and turn the other way are allowed to enjoy the amenities of life.

Wings Could be a Curse

A very old man with enormous wings is an amazing story. I have no idea what the writers intent was but I do know that it would make a wonderful short film. The vivid imagery that was shown throughout the entire story. The look of the apparent angel, the look of the hose based upon the situation with the crabs, the chicken coop and the ocean. That all makes for a wonderful mind cinematography set. Well I believe one of the biggest things is the immediate front that is put up by the representative of the church. Instead of the priest or father showing the creature love he condemns its existence and begins to call it out in front of others. Yet when he gets behind closed doors he can't sleep because the presence of this creature has rocked his faith. After going through this class for a second time I have found that the way to approach these situations is not the way the father did but with an open mind that is ready to dialogue and not stay so stagnant but be open to the fact that through learning more you inevitably become changed for the better. That is what I thought of the priest.

Now with the angel creature I believe that people miss the point by delving specifically into what he looks like and less into who he is. Who is he? Where does he come from? What is it he is saying? What does he like to eat? All these take away from the mystery of this mysterious angel creature that is located in a chicken coop. You can get past the outer whuch offers no substance to a person and dive into the inner being. He has something to show to evryone, one through the use of patience in the times of abuse and ridicule. The second being the application of miracles, the things he did were not exactly the miracles the people were looking for. Though it reminds me of a certain thing I recentlt read that talks about darkness being a gift.

Circle B

I went to see Othello and it was almost three hours long!

Circle B was a fun experience for me because ever since I was little I have loved the outdoors. Then it was our chance to take time in a class to go outside and begin to regain a connection with the world around us and it pretty much lifted my spirits. That week I had hit a spiritual plateau and was unable to break through into the presence of God the same way as I was a week earlier and that started affecting the way that I lived and the way I treated those around me. It was beginning to be unpleasant and I could tell. Then after Circle B I saw what I had been missing and it was a grasp on what God looked like. I had been so focused on changing who I was to become a better man that I slowly began to lose focus of who God was and focused more on who I was. Then my life became one categorized by pride, bitterness, and quick degrading remarks. The moment that we stepped into the tram and were transported away from the world that had become to influence me I felt like I was able to get closer to God. To be completely honest the reading of the text had little if any impact on me the entre trip. I actually got more out of the quiet time we had to enjoy the picture God painted for us and the opportunity to help free the ground of an invasive species. The coolest thing ws the bald eagle we got to see because it embodies so much power and at the same time has a sense of tenderness for its young. Then the rising up like eagles comes to mind and i can see how it shows that God will not only empower us but take care of and protect us, because he said He will rise us up on wings like eagles, not give us wings of eagles.

Mary and Bonny

I went to Lake Bonny park for around two hours because I went twice.

Wind

The ripples are commanded, come ashore

they obey

The trees heed to the same master

swaying calmly

The reeds are bent in reverent praise

by force

The clouds glide gracefully across the sky

without care

The wind is their master

He rules

Peace

Its not the silence that calms me

because silence in and of itself is impossible

its the attempt to get there that opens my eyes

by eyes I mean ears

allowing me to take an appreciation of life

life being found in other creatures

chirps and cheeps

water lapping upon the shore

trees rustling as the air moves

the sound of nature playing their fourth movement

seemingly for anyone who will take the time to listen

After first reading the Messsenger poem I was caught up as to what a phoebe and a delphinium were. They are flowers and the whole time I thought that they were types of Greek or Roman gods. But alas there is no deeper meaning hidden there that ended up eluding me. I do like the way she defines her work. She says "that her work is loving the world" which I believe should be the work of ever believer in the world. We are told by Christ to love our neighbors as ourselves. So then she is not only doing what is necessary for her but for everyone.

Her next poem is one that I like the most out of the entire set. Being from a northern state where snow is a reality this is a great depiction of the way that things really are. The sky when it turns gray but the light is amplified by the snow that is falling and is already on the ground. The wind is still as the snow falls softly and silently. True peace is achieved in the winter when the snow is falling because everything is searching for a warm place or hiding silently from the cold. then when you get inside you begin to just stomp your feet and shake all the snow that may have not melted off of yourself.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the last one because of its simplicity and its complicated message that it contains. Is it saying that any darkness that we receive is for our good? Is it only the darkness from the people we love that can really help us understand that darkness is a gift? This reminds me of the scripture that says something to the effect of wounds from a friend are safer than kisses from the enemy. I guess its the idea behind the giving. If someone truly loves you then the darkness they bring will end up in your ultimate benefit.

References of Cool

I like the references in the end of the second stanza, "Most of the ancient groves are gone, sacred to Kuan Yin and Artemis." They fit so perfectly with the chaos that is described before because Kuan Yin, also known as Guan Yin, is the East Asian goddess who "hears the sounds or cries of the World" and Artemis is the Greek goddess of the wildland, the both of them have a connection to the affairs of the Earth and the reference fits in well with the whole idea that the Earth is going through traumatic times and those two are connected and feel it which attaches the pain of the Earth through the wishes of gods.

The connection that the author makes between Lucretius and today is pretty cool how he weaves them together, "An artist in Chicago-think of a great trading city in Dacia or Thracia." That is the way that the author keeps a running dialogue with someone who is gone in a sense because he relates our trading city to today and it opens up the discussion to a new viewpoint for another person to jump in and continue the conversation that is being had in that specific section between the author and Lucretius.

My favorite thing in this entire poem hands down is the section that is long and drawn out, "The book will tell her that the gleaming appliance that kept her milk cold in the night required chlorofluorocarbons." This is one of the greatest images I think I have imagined in my head in the fact that instead of simply using the word refrigerator the author chose instead to take an artistic way of painting a refrigerator as a bad thing and he is able to tell the reader what it is and at the same time get the point across that he is talking to someone who has no idea what he is talking about. I wish I could do that with these blog posts.

Poem About the Spirit

So often we box in the Spirit and tell others they can't be used

But doesn't that box the spirit in to prevent our fears from coming true?

That the person who is imperfect in our eyes

Can't be used by God because their faith is their disguise

Both the person who refuses to believe and the one who is wrong can't be used

That is our fears bursting through

I once heard perfect love casted out all fear

But you can tell that perfect love is nowhere near

We take those we don't like to see in our lives

Then we wall them in and keep them locked up inside

The world was created by a living God whose image we were created in

I know why we box them out and its cuz our sin

Pride

God uses the broken and rarely the secure

Jealousy

God always gives those who give, more

Fear

God uses what we don't understand to show us the way

Foolishness

God always gives those who talk the least the most to say

I guess its a realization that those who have it altogether really don't

And that those who don't have it, are altogether

Its a step away from being complete which is a hard process

But then again nothing in life is easy.

-Nate Fleming

It is something that just came to my mind and I shared it through this blog about how we treat the mentally handicapped when it comes to the Holy Spirit. I felt that essay by Steven M. Fetke "The Spirit of God Hovered."

End Well

I am a big fan of how a movie ends. If it has this long story that seems to make no sense but then at the end there is this one scene that ties it all together I am a lover. Book of Eli does an ending that no one would expect but it makes sense when you go back and watch it. I Robot takes an unexpected twist, Push has an end that will knock your socks off, Precious has an ending that is open ended. I am a huge fan of how something ends because that affects how you view its beginning and its middle. Same with books that are able to twist the end in such a way that it opens up a new viewpoint of the story that was otherwise left unknown. I say all this to come to a conclusion that this drama can fall into the same category as those aforementioned pieces of art. The whole play the characters begin to take shape and form into people that are rarely understood and often outcast, to become people that are in the spotlight and their nuances laid out in the open for all to see. It has a way of going through and painting them to be people with a disability that we are unable to understand because we feel like we have never been there. Though the moment you get to the ending when Jack says that he is leaving in the scene where they all flip out about it you start to get a glimpse of the motivations of the characters. The characters are all driven by want of relationship solidarity. It shows in the end when Jack, instead of being a caretaker, becomes a friend to Arnold and you hear the train announcer announce the stops to Russia. It is almost as if the writer is saying that this is what Arnold wanted the entire time, friendship, and the author shows that by telling the audience that he ended up going to Russia. Russia is a foreign land for him and so is his friendship with Jack.

This Is Great

At first I thought that this was distasteful. You are not able to make a comedy involving the mentally handicapped. The reason being is that if you want the audience to laugh then its all too easy to just go for the easy laughs and make fun of the people you are acting as or writing in there. Though the more I read it the more I discovered that what I heard about comedy is true. Its funny no matter what. That caused me to reflect on how I approach something that is so near and dear to who I am as a person and to the craft that I have spent years attempting to perfect and am still trying to work out. I often resort to degrading the people I am trying to make laugh. I am beginning to realize that comedy has so much more of a potential to become another art form and slowly is working its way in that direction. I look at art and art does not degrade a person. It has a way of lifting you up or taking you to a low but does not outright attack a person. So with that applied to my craft I realize that though it is easier to degrade someone in the name of comedy. I have been inspired to take what I do to a new level, to make my enjoyment of humor an escape to those of everyday life, to become the reason a person smiles breaking a chain of frowns. To fulfill the potential that God himself has set before me to move away from the juvenile comedy as a way of laughter through the degradation of a creation made in his image and more towards an escape from the reality that the person I am with is currently in, to a new and happier place and even if for a second it was long enough for me to have changed that person's outlook on that moment and changes the glass which they look through to one that is lighter.

Artistic Expression

I really loved the idea behind artistic expression in this story. That sometimes artists draw upon their own misfortune and their own turmoil to produce such artful work. I was just talking to someone about that the other day. They said that they knew a man who was able to make great films that had a great story and all the technical aspects were great but in order for him to write the proper story he needed to take time to wallow in his own sadness about the way that life treated him. His stories then reflected the way that he chose to view life in the fact that every movie he made had a sad ending. A good example would be that in a movie about a guy falling in love with a girl, the guy gets the short end of the stick when the girl says she doesn't love him back. Then at the end of the movie he has the chance to choose to be with her and then the screen fades to black. Throughout the movie you can see periods of what the filmmaker may have gone through in his life and it becomes a movie that is a projection of the pain that the filmmaker feels. Like music in its artistry it is true that most of the good stuff comes from the creator being in some form of pain. Its also funny that drugs are so closely associated with those who participate in the arts. The more I think about it the more I realize why. It is because the arts are made to free everyday people from their chains and to allow them to experience life to the fullest. That is what most artists believe that drugs do for them, because they stimulate the mind into places that they are unable to reach on their own. Overall I loved the whole portrayal of a struggling artist.

Serenity

At first I was a little apprehensive about going to a cemetery to read a book about grief. It was an awkward concept to go to a place where people who have walked the earth before you are currently underneath you. Then I decided to deviate from the book for a little and try to take in my atmosphere first. I looked around at the different tombstones examining the life instead of the death. A lot is contained on a tombstone that is there for one to discover about the life that was that is currently underneath. One example would be a tombstone that was very ornate. It was well polished making it shine and glimmer. It was massive and on the front was a picture of the man who lay beneath. This man's life was marked with wealth and success. It was evident in the tombstone that was erected in his honor. Then there were a couple that told of a tragic story. There was a family ploy where all the family was buried together and off to one side there were two tombstones that looked as if they were cradles and they contained the remains of two children who had died at the same time since their graves were marked with the date of the deaths of the two children. See the picture that is attached. The more I looked at the history of all the people the more I began to connect with the book that we are required to read. It made the words leap off the pages and the depth of all his pain became more real to me. In the story his words have begun to take on a life of its own. This man as he unloads his pain in the form of writing I am able to now feel it with both my mind and my heart and it makes sense to me.

A little late

This I posted late because when I first read this story I knew there was a lot to it but I didn't catch on but the more time I took to dwell on this passage the more I realized that this story is as deep as I thought it was and I related it to the onion story. The onion story is this short explanation of the history of the onion and where it came from and based solely upon the observations of one person who writes a poem about something that they realized about a fact of life that they decided to share with the world. Then when it was shared with all the world they found that there is more to the story than they let on. When we discussed the story of the onion in class in a dialogical manner everyone had a different viewpoint on it. Some thought it delve into the nature of humanity, others found a deep spirituality, and the select few found absolutely nothing. Just like C.S. Lewis decided to dialogue with himself on the essence of grief and at times he gets nothing out of his situation and at other times he is diving deep into the recesses of humanity and connecting it with spirituality. So the time I took to look at this story other than jumping in right away in a haste to be outright against this story allowed for me to take a chance on this story and fully understand what I was reading and one my response has been one of an open mind to what this story means on a deeper level and on a more surface level. That is how I was able to draw a connection between the poem of the history of the onion and the story by C.S. Lewis a grief observed.

Vivid Imagery

Some of the vivid imagery I get from the first page begins to remind me of a time lapse camera. As ignore someone set a camera there for a long period of time and got footage of the life power of this once lush land that turned into a desolate wasteland that is void of life and happy colors. Now it is a land of grays and washed out earth tones that create a sense of depression in the viewer. Than not too much later there is a massive fire that engulfs all the land. So since everything has dried up and begun to wither away, the screen, which is where I envision the existence of the images in my head, is now lit up brightly with vibrant reds, oranges, yellows and tinges of blue on the tips to signify a bright powerful flame that encompasses a vast area. The next thing I see is a line of trumpets creating a path gore they are standing on either side with their trumpets raised and the flag hanging far below. They are blasting for the return of the king almost like in the end scene of the third installment of the Lord Of the Rings series. The king returns and all are fearful for they know their misdeeds. Then the next part of darkness is almost like a thick blanket of a deep dense fog that covers the ensure land and slowly reps over a mountain side to begin to enshroud the town. Now the next part is exactly like the battle scene from the third installment of The Lord Of The Rings. The battle scene where the army of The undead swarm over the battlefield and slowly decimate the opposing army in a fast and overpowering manner. Its almost as if this is sort of parallel to the book of Joel. Another reason to back it up is that there is a passage that talks about the armies that come front the different cardinal directions and fight in a battle scene where the army of the supernatural, which is the undead, come and wipe out. This is almost mind boggling to come across such a cool parallel in something that I found boring the first time I read it. But now I am able to see the action unfold and relayed it to something I am deeply fond of. The Lord of The Rings.

Book of Joel

When I read this aloud a few lines popped into my head as being especially beautiful. The first of which is "Awake, drunkards, and weep; and wail all you wine drinkers, on account of the sweet wine that is cut off from your mouth." The alliteration of all the w's inside and outside of each word adds a flow to the poem that makes it leap off the page and feels very smooth. The next one that I thought was great was "The vine dries up and the fig tree fails; The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field dry up." That one just paints such a morbid and desolate picture in my head that I can vividly see and I love words that form images in a person's mind. A few more good ones that pain great pictures in my head are "As the dawn is spread over the mountains." "A fire consumes before them and behind them a flame burns the land is like the garden of Eden before them but a desolate wilderness behind them." I especially like the beauty of the reference to the garden of Eden because it places in your mind the image of a garden of perfection and the contrast to a great wilderness behind gives this great image of you standing on the border and seeing that this is the rift between two worlds that you are standing on. "Return to me with all your heart, and with fasting weeping and mourning." That is just the epitome of being humble. The way that God straigh up says that He wants us to make ourselves less and to repent and come back its like a lover would say to one who has left them. That they would want an outward show of an inward change in their heart for what they have done and the manner in which they left.

Pain in the Brain

I had to read this story a few more than three times to even try to begin to understand what The Colonel meant in any way at all. So upon the fourth or fifth tine reading this story I worked up the courage to begin to take apart the layers that this story has. The first part that I wanna take a stab at is the line that is "The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house". That line in my opinion means that the man had a belief in a higher being than himself but one that he did not fully understand so he said that it was swung bare on its black cord to portray that or it could be imagery of a very chilling night. It seems as though the house was fortified as well because he speaks of the glass shards that are in the walls and the bars that are over the windows. It seems as though he is in some sort of house that is on the frontlines of a battle. I also want to point out that some thing that I noticed was the tv was in English on one of the shows and that wouldn’t have been pointed out unless the writer had a purpose for it. Though I am unable to find any other purpose other than to show that this is not somewhere where they would normally be watching an English tv show. The further I got the more it sounded as if this was the story of a man who was taken captive somewhere because of the reference to his friend saying to him “with his eyes” to not say anything, and the only instance where this would occur is when one is captured and they are in front of an opposing Colonel. That also began to click together all the imagery. The pistol, the English tv show, the dark imagery of the moon, and the reference to the rights of the people.

A Page

“No.” said Paige, “That stuff can’t be believed by any rational thought.”

“But what I have been saying is that it is faith. It’s not about knowing for sure or even throwing logic out the window.” Elijah said with a sort of passion he had never felt before.

“You can’t expect me to really believe that there is a world we can’t see,” she laughed, “I really think those movies are getting to your head.”

Elijah and Paige were on a date in a coffee shop. They had been dating for two years while every month they ran into another large argument. It was always around the basis of religion and things that were more than the two of them could explain alone.

“Well since you don’t believe in angels do you believe in God?” asked Elijah.

“I acknowledge the fact that it is a higher being but I wouldn’t say God necessarily.” Paige replied.

“Then if there is no God what is morality, or better yet truth based on. Wouldn’t the negligence of a God mean the relative morality and truth of each individual?” Elijah said with a bout of confidence.

After a few years of teaching from one of Elijah’s mentors he had brought it upon himself to be the new savior of the world. He had plans that would make Billy Graham feel like he had done an inadequate job. Elijah’s whole life was laid before him and he knew that God had chosen him to become someone great in this world and Elijah had every intention of sending that glory back to the one that had endowed him with his gifts. After all, his name meant “My God is the Lord”.

“Yes that makes truth relative and it is essentially up to the person to choose the morality of their decision.” Paige replied.

“Then where would that place absolute truth? I mean seeing as truth is relative absolute truth must be known by someone?” Elijah retorted.

“I don’t think there are absolutes.” Paige said slowly as her gears began to turn.

“Let me get this straight,” said Elijah, “you don’t believe there are absolutes?”

“Well I don’t think anyone can know the absolute truth.” Paige said as her usually happy demeanor began to change to one that was not so enthused.

“Then there is no truth if there is nothing to base it off of.” Elijah said matter of factly.

Paige said back, with a hint of anger, “No I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that there might be absolute truth but no one is able to know it.”

Nick sat staring at his iced vanilla latte. He never was one for coffee but it had always been Paige’s favorite thing. He knew that because they had been best friends ever since they could remember, but it wasn’t until two years ago that Paige had gotten the guts to ask Elijah out. He was the lead scorer on the soccer team and she was the brightest in the quiz bowl club. They decided to give it a go since the feeling was mutual and they have been dating ever since.

“There is no absolute truth is what you are saying?”He asked.

“No I’m saying that there might be absolute truth. I don’t deal in absolutes because I don’t believe in absolutes.” She replied.

“That is ridiculous,” he chuckled, “that means that there is no truth.”

“Truth is relative to who you are. I literally just said that.” She said almost as if there were a chip on her shoulder.

In fact there was. She was raised with Christian beliefs and probably knew the Bible better than Elijah could ever hope to. Yet the simple fact that she was born a logical person and one with an I.Q. equivalent to most of the Ivy League honors students she couldn’t bring herself to believe the things her grandmother read to her as a child. So to sit here listening to Elijah rant about what she should think made her begin to lose her patience with this man.

Elijah stared into her eyes. Slowly working up the courage to take things a step further, as his mouth opened Paige knew this wasn’t going to be good. “So if truth is relative and there are no absolutes…”

“There may be absolutes” Paige said “saying there are no absolutes, is an absolute.”

“Okay there may be no absolutes” Elijah paused slightly “then do you love me?”

The moment it left his mouth Elijah felt the power shift. Paige looked as if Elijah had physically hit her. There was silence for almost two straight minutes. It was almost as if that question took the noise right out of the already quiet coffee shop.

“Yes I love you.” She said knowing that she was cornered.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Elijah retorted with a smug grin.

She looked around to try and find a reason to leave the table. He had made logical sense since the first word he had spoken about God six years ago. Even when he didn’t he took the time to make sure that he did and would come back to present what he found. That’s what she loved about him, his will to persevere and to succeed no matter what the circumstances. He was her dream but right now he was making her hate him. That made her think, since she felt hatred towards him now does that make love not an absolute but yet another emotion?

“Love can’t be an absolute.” Paige said.

Elijah seemed thrown off. “Why not?” he asked not ready for what he was about to hear next.

“Because right now I don’t feel love towards you, because the questions you are asking are not that of love but out of a heart that only has pride and wants to be right more than it wants to be understanding.”

The tables had turned so quickly. It caused Elijah to regret not praying for the Lord’s help before he put himself into this conversation with Paige.

“So your love is based on how you feel and not what love is.” Elijah said almost zombielike.

“I’m not saying I don’t love you but that right now I don’t feel any towards you.” Paige said not realizing the impact that sentence had on the heart of the man seated across from her.

“Wow. I don’t know what to say.” Elijah spoke slowly with a glazed look in his eyes as he stared out the window.

“Wait that came out wrong it’s not that I don’t love you but-” she stopped cut off by Elijah’s raised hand.

“Tell me now what is love?” Elijah asked.

A slight pause as Paige looked into Elijah’s eyes seeing the hurt that she had apparently caused.

“I don’t know.” Paige said.

Elijah looked at her as one tear fell down his face. He slowly grabbed his coat and walked past her squeezing her shoulder as he always does when he goes home. Started his car and drove away.

Sanjeev

Sanjeev is definitely of the business personality. He makes sure that he has everything in place. On page 137 it says "Sanjeev was organizing his engineering texts from MIT in alphabetical order on a bookshelf." That shows that he is very particular about the things in his life and he knows where each of them belong. Then there is the passage that further expounds upon his oddity. "he would walk each evening across the Mass. Avenue bridge to order Mughlai chicken with spinach from his favorite Indian restaurant on the other side of the Charles and return to his dorm to write out clean copies of his problem sheets." Yet another example of his need to have order in his life and a sense of control over the many areas that he lives in. He tries to keep everything in order and neat.

He also tries to box people into categories that in his mind keep them to something easy and explainable. The quote "he was further puzzled that Twinkle, who normally displayed good taste, was so charmed." This was taken after the fact that Twinkle had began to take a liking to the many different Christian objects that they found throughout the house. Sanjeev, and his categorization of her as a Hindu who did not like Christian paraphernalia, was unable to find a reason as to why she broke the mold. He was unable to control her thoughts and actions and therefore began to question the situation he was in. Later on the author goes into what Sanjeev looks like and they talk about the plumpness of his cheeks and the length of his eyelashes and he was worried because he thought that the many things that were odd on his face would detract from his distinguished looks. So all in all I would say that he is a man of control. Yet not to fall in the same situation as Sanjeev I know that people have the ability to change and he showed that occasionally throughout the text.

Realationships

I read This Blessed House by Jhumpa Lahiri on Saturday let it sink in on Sunday then came back and went through it again today and the more I think of it and the realism of the relationship in the story the more I really enjoy it. I love the descriptions of each of the religious relics that they find in the house and the impact that it makes on Twinkle who is the main girl. The way that she is lit up and intrigued by the story behind each of the different items she finds and turning her house from a house to a home through the use of adventure. The contrast between her and Sanjeev as him being a man of things needing to be set out and in order and her as a carefree live as you go person is a great story build.

The biggest reason that this story was so good for me is because I could easily visualize the situation that the both of them were in. As I read I got captivated by the tension and the care that was between the two characters. The addition of each Christian item in a household that is now a Hindu household is great in a symbolic way of showing conversion in someone's life. How you start with something small that you find to be an interesting thing and you go throughout life searching for more and you slowly find things that are better and better. Just like life when we begin a relationship with Christ and as we live our lives searching for the different facets that make up the God we believe in and find the different aspects that make up the God we believe in. I absolutely loved this story and to those who see this other than my professor I reccommend you look into it.

Darkness

The interesting thing I noticed in the writing of Professor Corrigan was about the relationship between hope and despair that was actually stated by Cornel West. "Despair and hope are inseparable." That means that neither of the two can exist without the other. That hope relies on despair to do its job and despair relies on hope to be its solution. Then as I contemplated heaven and the fact that there will be no sadness or mourning the thought of hope is also gone as well. Then I thought of other dependent things like darkness depends on light to not be able to reach. Hate depends on love to be misconstrued and fractured. Anger depends on joy to lose its memory. Yet each of these three will be in heaven, light, joy, and love. So that then made me think why is hope so dependent on despair and the other three are fine. Its because hope is a reaction and not an action. Love, joy and light are all things that remain and their opposites are there only as an outcome of the lack of action. Hope is reacting to a circumstance or merely fighting off the inevitable in the mental scape. I believe hope is a remedy and not a solution. The only solution is something that is an action, something that instead of being merely as a defensive tool is an offensive tool and helps to gain ground. I understand that sometimes the road is complicated when we choose to shine a light or display love or even exude joy. But when we do we unconsciously cause their opponents hate, anger and darkness to lose ground in other persons lives by them jumping a little at us to cause destruction. So by taking action we unwittingly free others and build a resistance inside ourselves. Don't let hope be your last resort but merely your wake up call.

Lubby Dubby

This whole story on what love really is and the venture the man takes to try and define exactly what love is and understand how love operates reminded me of a time in my younger years when i set out to define love. I searched for nearly six months devouring the Bible and searching online for different texts that could encompass all that love is and bring about a definition that could be simplified and understood by the mind of a sixteen year old boy. As I searched I found that God was love. That was the simple definition that was found. God is love. That being too easy I found three different forms of love that together made an all encompassing love. Eros was the first part of that love and that is the physical shallow form of love that is applied to the outer aspects of a person and is purely for the feelings that one gets back. Eros is defined as intimate love and that is where you get your erotica books from. Philos is a deeper form of love that can be described as brotherly love which is the direct meaning of philos being brother. Hence Philadelphia being the city of love. The greatest form of love is Agape love which is shown in how a mother loves a child. That love never leaves and it is specifically in a mother loving a child and also in God in the way he has done so much for us. Agape is unconditional and neverending.

It wasn't until the reading of this story that a thought dawned on me. Love is contained in three parts just as God is. Jesus can be closely related to a brotherly love yet at the same time displays all three because He came to earth as our friend yet He was God. God the father can be seen as having Agape love yet being God is love and encompasses all three but when most people think of God he is thought of as unconditionally loving. The Holy Spirit is the pure form of Eros love in the respect that He is the most intimate of the three and He dwells within us giving us a love language to speak to our father above and our best friend proclaiming our love for them and at the same time the Spirit still encompasses all three forms of love. This story was great and I thoroughly enjoy the revelation that I have obtained from reading it.

Reading How to Read...

I actually remember learning about active reading last semester when we read that one book that I ended up forgetting the name of. In it it spoke of how to write but at the same time it taught how to read in order to properly respond to someone else's writings. It spoke of the same things like preliminary reading which is usually reading around what you are about to read and reading your text through a few times first. Then there is annotation where you tale different types of notes on your selected material and that involves writing sentences highlighting sentences and writing in the margins. This is the way that I have learned to actively read. Personally it is hard for me to actively read something when it is not something I am interested in. I usually read for a reason and once I have gotten what I need or if I am unable to find what I am looking for I stop.

So no I am unable to relate to that because I rarely ever read that way and I actually prefer it that way. The only time I read actively is when I read through a screenplay and that only comes once in a while. There is the occasional time when I read for fun ( but that is once in a very very very small while) and then I don't worry about reading actively because I am engaged in the story so I have no need to take notes of any kind. I never ever ever read the preliminary reading of anything because I never see a need. I read what I need to get out what I need and move on. No need to read anything else because I have already read through the parts I needed to and there is never a need for the stories I read (which usually have pictures) to have preliminary reading unless I am getting backstory.

Literature Has a Beginning?

My earliest memories of anything remotely related to literature were when I was around the age of two or three and my mom decided that then was a good time to get me to learn how to read and she would start with books from Dr. Seuss and the earliest I remember is the tongue twister book by the good Dr. and that used to be my favorite until I found cool dinosaur books and the good Dr. wasn't good enough. I never had nursery rhymes and those were the bedtime stories that my mom read and then would force me to read them to her. The most significant text I have read so far was an article on humor and religion and it was amazing. It was called Humor and Religion: Estranged Bedfellows. It was a great article and it was very informative on the way the church treats humor and the reasons why there is such a huge distrust of it.

Initial thoughts of this class are the same as the thoughts I had before, I still wonder if there is something wrong with Professor Corrigan and I can't place if its a good wrong or he is just crazy about English. I already know I will enjoy the class because the teaching method that was explained in his essay Literature Is a Thing You Do as Part of Life and the visual diagram that went with it (which is what made more sense to me visually) were exactly how I thought about how teachers teach now and how they should teach. This is a non traditional class and I am looking forward to it. Mainly because we get to take field trips in college and one of those field trips is to go eat at the restaurant on campus and I am not opposed to that in any way. I am ready to learn new things this year and this is a good class to start learning things in.