Symbolism

To be honest symbolism is something I often hunt for when I’m reading literature. So often I try to find the significance of the text and sometimes I even feel as if I spend too much time on a particular section, word, or phrase of the text in order to draw some kind of meaning from what it is saying. I feel that many of the text we’ve read in class have such deeper meanings to them than what we give them credit for. Sometimes it’s hard to think that the basics that we discuss about a text is the overall meaning of what the author meant when he or she decided to write that material. In a poem like “The Traveling Onion,” it’s hard to conclude that all the poet is talking about is the literal onion that we so happen to forget about after we chop it up and throw it in our meals, it’s also hard to just take the text as it is after reading a line in the poem that says “I could kneel and praise all small forgotten miracles.” I honestly believe that this line in the poem goes far beyond the literal meaning. This poem “The Traveling Onion” I truly believe that the poet is using the onion to symbolize how we take things for granted, how we focus so much on the big things in our life and how we complain about how much problem we have or we just focus on the negatives of a every situation and we don’t take time to realize that without these small onions that we have in our lives that we would not have make it as far as we are today. Maybe sometimes I over think literature, but I think if you just focus on the big picture and don’t focus on these small pixels that make up this picture, then you can never fully appreciate that picture.

The Garden, "En robe de parade"

Of all the text we have read during this semester, one that stands out to me the most is the poem “The Garden, En robe de parade.” There are many reasons why I find this poem so intriguing and captivating, I am not sure if somehow deep down inside of me I’m able to relate to the intense agony of this poem, or is it the great deal of sympathy I feel for the women described in the poem. However, I just feel like I’m able to understand this poem in more than just a sophistication level, but I feel I’m able to connect with author in such of a way that I’m able to visualize every word in the poem in some kind of way, shape, or form.
For a person just glancing at this poem, it will be very difficult to comprehend the actual significance or imagery of the poem. Honestly, I probably read this poem between 10 to 15 times and I still don’t think I have a complete understanding of what the original meanings of this poem are, I can only go by my opinions of what I believe this poem is talking about. This poem can be easily misunderstood if you don’t take time to do a research on some of the things that is talked about. The first stanza of the poem says “Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall she walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, and she is dying piecemeal of a sort of emotional anemia.” This stanza of the poem have such great imagery, you can almost imagine the skein of loose silk blown against a wall. However, the first couple of times I read this stanza I had no idea of what the meanings of it was, so I took time to read it over and then took some time to actually research some of the words I was having trouble with. Kensington Gardens troubled me; I had no idea of where it was at or any kind of background on this place. After some research I discovered that it was actually once a private garden, it was considered one of the Royal Parks of London, and this is a very big place, it covers around 275 acres. You’re probably wondering why I needed to know the information about Kensington Gardens. Well, I strongly feel that when you have an idea of what a story or a poem is talking about, then you are most likely to get a better understanding of what the significance of the text is. My understanding of just the first two lines of the poem indicates to me that this lady that is described to be “like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall” is a person of higher class and the fact that she is walking in a path in Kensington Gardens automatically gave me this image of a wealthy women.
The poem then goes on to say, “she is dying piecemeal of a sort of emotional anemia.” After reading this line of the stanza many times, I started to get this vivid picture of the poet observing this women and I could almost imagine the look on his face or the pain inside of him at that moment when he sees this lady in such distress. “Emotional anemia” is used to describe the emotions of this lady. After reading this line I took some time to reflect on what it really means to have that type of emotional pain. This line of the poem troubled me a lot, I just could not begin to understand how much a person had to be going through that could cause them to be in that stage.
The next stanza states that “ roundabout there is a rabble of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They shall inherit the earth.” I had the hardest time with this stanza of all the rest of the poem. What threw me off the most is that these stanzas, for the most part, just don’t seem to have any kind of connection with the first one, it just don’t seem like it was suppose to be there. However, I concluded that maybe this line is basically the author expressing his anger about a these kids that he sees around him, running around or maybe he had a bad experience with a group of kids and he wants to express how mad he is that these same kids that are filthy and sturdy are the same ones who will one day inherit the earth, so I believe the author is just expressing his anger of the matter.
The final stanza of the poem says “In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like someone to speak to her, and is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.” Though the most depressing part of the poem, I also find this stanza to be the most interesting part of the poem as a whole. The imagery in this section is incredible. The author of the poem is able to view this lady and I’m not sure if they knew each other before this, but the author is able to see that this lady is going through a hard time just by the way she looks. My interpretation of this stanza is that I strongly believe that this lady is very suicidal, I believe that she is going through some kind of emotional decay at home and she is not sure of how to deal with it. The line that speaks of her boredom and how exquisite and excessive it is, push me to think that whatever the conflict that is going on in her life it is something that has been going on for a while, so long that she is bored of it and she is simply tired of it. I feel that the author really want to approach this lady and tell her that everything will be ok, however he is not sure of how to approach her and let her know that everything will be ok. Sometime in life I think we get to these intersections and we have no idea of where we are going and we just want someone to direct us to the right path and we sometime fail to realize that the right path is through God.

Waiting for Godot

I can truly understand why some people would be confused by the play “Waiting for Godot”. However, I feel like this play or story has so many meanings, I feel as if the author tries to get people to think, but the moral of the story is so obvious. I personally think the story of “Waiting for Godot” is constructed around hope, a lot like our Christian belief system. Even from the title you can draw some connection to the Christian faith and God, the title is waiting for “GODot” and if you take some time to look the first three letter of Godot’s name clearly spells out God, so it’s obvious the writer of the story is basing the story of the Christian belief. In addition to, I feel as if the two main characters in the story Vladimir and Estragon represents us as Christians and the tree is a representation of the world, we live our life as Christians waiting for God on a day to day basis, like Vladimir and Estragon we have no idea if God is real or how does he look like, but we wait on his return. We wait by this tree and many different obstacles comes our way, we sometime feel like quitting and to just go home, we sometimes face things that are so tragic that we become spiritually suicidal, however we stick around base on a young boy with a message that indicates that GODot is real and he may not come today but there is a good chance that he will be here tomorrow and we as Christians cannot make the mistake of going home and leaving the tree of the Christian faith because tomorrow GODot just may come and we will be no where to be found. I may be completely wrong about my translation of this story, but I honestly feel as if that is exactly what the author is trying to say.

Confusing Poets

Poets are very artistic individuals. So when the question rises of, do poets purposely write their poems in attempt to confuse their audience? I would have to answer "no," simply because I feel that most writers write to express their thoughts and emotions in ways that distinguish them from other poets. In every kind of art, rather music, poetry, painting, acting, and many other forms of arts, I feel that people seek for originality and we as the audience don't want to see the same things from every artist, because that would then become very redundant and for some reason our human minds can’t seem to appreciate things that we see on a regular basis or things we hear too often. So I don't think poets strive to make their writings as difficult or confusing as possible I honestly think they try to be more different than other poets. Most people strive for individuality and I strongly believe that is what makes us as people so unique. Though we were created equally in the image of God, the Lord also makes us our own person, though we may have similar ideas however, no two individuals think the same. The fact that we as people don’t think the same is what I believe constitute our uniqueness and that is why poets express their poems in ways that truly define their feelings. I also believe people find different meanings in poetry based on their ability to connect with the poem. I feel if the person is able to draw some kind of personal connection to the subject of the poem, they are then less likely to be confused with the poem, and another beautiful thing about poetry is that we have the ability to translate it in whatever way we want. The Bible for example is full of poetry however; people have found so many different meanings to writings of these poets that we now have so many different denominations based on the translation of the biblical poems.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along

During the last class session we watched the film Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along. It was a pretty good film for the most part. However, a few times during the film, the actors almost appeared as if they were trying a little too hard. During the film it was hard to differentiate between if the writer was trying to demonstrate sadness or if he was just trying to win a few good laughs. During the film Dr. horrible has this big crush on this girl that he frequently sees at the laundry mat name Penny, but he never gets to talk to her. So when he finally gets the chance to make a good impression on her, he was so busy worrying about his evil plan to steal the van, that he blew it and his plan pretty much backfire and he almost ran her over with that same van and to add insult to injury, his worst enemy Captain Hammer comes to save Penny’s life and then she finally falls in love with him. Though Captain Hammer was supposed to be the hero in the film and the good guy, he appeared to be very egocentric and acted as if he was bully. The way the writer wrote this film you begin to fall in love with Dr. Horrible, even though he is portrayed as the villain. Me personally I wanted Dr. Horrible to achieve out of this hatred I grew to have for Captain Hammer as the film continued, I was cheering for the bad guy. I found a lot of different scenes to be funny in the film, one that stood out was when Penny was introducing captain Hammer to Dr. Horrible in the laundry mat and Captain Horrible made this comment about his hammer and he came back to verify to Dr. Horrible exactly what he meant by his hammer.

Lake Bonny Park

My trip to Lake Bonny Park was very nice. The day was very windy and it was overcast throughout the whole time I was there, however I still enjoyed myself. I went there by myself so I didn’t have anyone to distract me from interaction with nature. I started this moment with nature by walking around the park and looking for anything out of the ordinary, so for the first 15 to 20 minutes I pretty much just observe everything, while also being very aware of my surrounding and watching out for snakes and gators. While observing I saw a few different types of butterflies, some were yellow some were blue and some were other colors, they were very pretty, I tried taking some pictures from my phone, but they were too fast so I couldn’t get a focus on them.
Throughout the time I was at the park, I took a few different pictures of things I thought that was interesting, some turned out pretty good and some didn’t really turn out that great. I took about 20 minutes just to meditate on some of the things that is going on in my life, I mostly thought about my plans for after I graduate in the spring and I thought about some of my relationships and what I can do to make them better. I also took time to write a poem, I would post it on this blog, but it’s not that good.
The whole time I was there I was pretty much by myself so it gave me time to do some of things that I wanted to do. It’s been a long time since I had a long conversation with God, so I felt like that was my opportunity so I took about 10 to 15 minutes just to pray to God and just thank him for all that he has brought me through this year, I also took time to listen to what God had to say. This trip to Lake Bonny Park was really nice; I got the opportunity to connect with nature on a complete different level, while taking time to have a really good conversation with God.

Praying

During the last class session we read the poem “praying” by Mary Oliver and I completely agree with this poem from the first line all the way till the last one. In the poem it basically says that prayer do not have to be a novel, it could be just “a few words patch together.” I think we as Christians sometimes think that we have to say so much to God so he can understand everything we mean, to the last detail. In doing this I think we fail to acknowledge how great God is, he already knows what we want or what we need, even before we realize it. Another line in the poem that really stuck out to me was when she said, “this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks,” I think we as Christians are very guilty of that, we sometime take prayer, especially when we are praying out loud, as some kind of contest, we try to use these big words in order to impress our peers, it seems as if sometimes we are seeking some kind of compliment from the people around us, as if we are waiting for someone to let us know that was great prayer. Another line of the poem that really spoke to me was when she said “a silence, in which another voice may speak,” this line is basically telling me that prayer is not just speaking to God. Sometimes we just need to silence our voices and listen to what God has to say to us. I have known for a while now, that a conversation requires both speaking and listening, so if we are not listening to what God is trying to tell us, the conversation “prayer” cannot work. I’m not trying to criticize people that prays out loud or that prays for a very long time, I just hope that we have the right motive behind our prayers.

The Planet

During the last class session we talked mainly about nature, we read the poem “ State of the Planet” by Robert Hass, and many of different lines from the poem stuck out to me, some of them was very confusing, but some were very interesting and got me really thinking. In the poem the poet uses the line, “As sensitive to temperature as skin is to a lover’s touch,” to describe the planet, I didn’t only find this line to be very beautiful, but also very factual. I think we sometime take for granted how perfectly well placed our planet is, we sometime don’t understand that if our planet was even a inch away or a inch closer to the sun that we would either freeze to death or burn to death. Another line in the poem says, “it must be a gift of evolution that human’s can’t sustain wonder.” This line of the poem really stuck out to me because it is so true, we as people on this planet don’t enjoy the wonder of the planet that God created for us, we some time forget that prior to Adam and Eve that this planet was created as a paradise and even post to Adam and Eve God never destroyed the world that he created. Today, we seem to be fascinated by different types of technology and we disregard different wonders, such as the rain forest and nature as a whole. It’s hard to say that technology as a whole is a bad thing, because a lot of good things come from technology, but I think it would be safe to say that we could be more careful about how we use technology and we can try to be more careful in the process, without abusing nature and the beauty of our planet.

The Garden

The first time we read the poem “The Garden”, En robe de parade, it was a somewhat confusing, I honestly did not know what to think. During the lectio part of the lectio divina, certain words such as “emotional anemia” stood out to me, this stood out to me because I have never heard someone use anemia as an adjective to describe a person’s emotion and to think that a person is in that bad of shape emotionally really got me thinking. During the mediatio part of the lectio divina, many questions started to come to mind, my first question was, was this lady this poet describing suicidal? It appeared to me that this lady was going through some really hard times or some sort of depression stage, it appears that this lady was so disconnected from this world, the first line of the poem describe as “Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall,” this indicates to me that she is walking carelessly, that she don’t really care about anything at this point in her life. The poet also states that “she is a dying piecemeal of a sort of emotional anemia,” this says to me that he is able to see her emotions through her physical appearance. The poet then goes to say that “her boredom is exquisite and excessive,” this line of the poem is telling me that lady is basically fed up with life, that she is not enjoying life, that she is bored of life. Or maybe there is some kind of conflict that she is facing at home, maybe she is having problems with her husband and whatever the problem is, it has become so excessive to the point that she is tired of it. The poet also states that “she would like some one to speak to her,” so he can tell that she just wants a person to come up to her and say that everything will be ok, sometime we as people just need that, when we face certain dilemmas in our life we just need someone to tell us not to worry and that it all will be ok. Professor Corrigan had a good point, he says that maybe the poet is feeling the same way the women is feeling, possibly that is why he knows so much about her. However, I just think that he has been in that stage of life before and that he knows how she is feeling because he once felt like that too. In the oratio part of lectio divina, my prayer was basically me giving praises and thinking God for I know him and when life gets hard, I know that I can pray to him and he always let me know everything will be ok.

Enemy of the People

To begin with, I want to say, job well done to Jeremy King my fellow classmate. The production, Enemy of the People was so well put together, I honestly was very surprise of good it was. The characters did a very good job of staying true to who they were trying to be. The summary of the play is basically about a doctor that had suspicions about "The Springs," in which is a water supply that his town basically makes the money from. The doctor sends a sample of the water to a lab to get tested and the results come back that indeed the water from the springs is contaminated and it has some kind of bacteria in the water which can have major effect on the people that drinks it and if the people continued it would most likely turn out to be an epidemic. The concept of the play pretty much revolves around this letter the doctor receives. During the time the doctor receives this letter a couple of guys from the local news paper was around and he shared to them what the letter had said and they were all excited about how interested the people of the town would be about the news. However, not everyone would be so happy to hear that the doctor had discovered that the water from the springs was polluted, a person that tried to suppress this news story from reaching the people was the mayor of the town, and the doctors own brother. The mayor’s reason for not wanting this news to get out was basically that it would have major impact on the people of the town in such negative ways, that the town as a whole would basically go into poverty, he said the people would be taxed for the fixing of the water in the springs and it would take up to two years before the renovation would be completed. The people obviously did not want that to happen, so the mayor pretties much made the doctor out to be an enemy of the people. His whole family was ridiculed by the people of the town, he lost his job, his daughter lost her job, even his sons got beat up at school. So the doctor’s father-in-law purchased stock from the water company in attempt to make the doctor continue to get the company to change the water and because the doctor is fed up with all of the harassment he says he is going to make the people see.
The end.
That basically sums up the play,” Enemy of the People,” it was a really good production, I might even go to the next one.

My Good Friend

Growing up, I've acquainted many different people of different lifestyles and backgrounds. A portion of these individuals has grown to be very good friends of mine, while the other portion remain in this bubble I refer to as "associates." ever since I was younger I always happened to make friends with people that were in some way, shape, or form similar to me; whether it was same interest in a particular sport or teams, same religious background, same cultural background, or even the same taste in genres of music. I'm a very outgoing person, not the type that constantly annoys people to the point that you just want to rip their heads off, all because of how outgoing they are, but I consider myself as the type that can easily have a solid conversation with just about anyone. My personality easily reflects the people I consider as friends. For example, I have a few friends that are pure southern, deer hunting, truck driving country boys; however I also have friends that are the complete opposite. I’m talking about guys that have 24inch rims on their Cadillac, dreads down their backs and are considered as pure “Gangsters.”
Out of all of the people that I have encountered in life and that I considered good friends of mine, one that stands out more than the rest is a guy that I sometimes have trouble understanding. I remember many different occasions in-which I took time to study this guy and it always seems that, no matter how much time I took out of my day to attempt to understand this guy, I just could not get a complete understanding of who he is. Out of all the people that know, this guy was definitely the most complicated. I don't want to call him a fake, but it almost seems as if this guy would put on different faces for different situations and different people. I remember just last year, he would go to school and he would always have glowing smile on his face as he walked from class to class. One day some random guy approached him and introduced himself and said, “I see you just about every day and you always seem so happy, I really don’t mean to be rude or to get in your business, but why are you always so happy?” This question seem to troubled my friend, he gazed into space as if he was searching for a answer that would be something close to what the guy asking him the question wanted to hear, so he took a few seconds to answer and finally he said “it’s good to be alive,” and he immediately walked away. What he forgot to tell this guy is how many times he contemplated suicide and how much he sometimes hated himself because of the person that he was. Telling people what they wanted to hear and doing things to make other people happy was something my friend struggled with, he would be so focus on pleasing other people that he would never figure out what really makes him happy. At the age of sixteen he realizes that he had a problem with depression. However, he was so worried about how his family and friends would view him, that he never seeks any kind of psychological help or ever took time to confront his problem before it could escalate. During the time he was facing the depression issue, he would have these dreams about death and how he would get so close to dying and all of the sudden he would startle out of his sleep and begin to cry. One of the dreams that stands out to him is a dream that seems all too real to even be considered a dream, during this dream, as my friend was awakened by the strong aroma of his mother cooking breakfast, he opened his dark-brown eyes and in attempt to get out of his bed, it appeared as if a force was holding him down, he would scream but his voice could not even be heard by his own ear, he screamed, he tried to fight this force, and he cried but nothing seemed to be working, the only thought going through his mind at that time, for some reason was the thought of him going to hell, he finally decided to scream “in the name of Jesus, Lord please let me up.” He immediately got up and couldn’t register if this was truly a dream because it all seemed too real and too vivid. That same week my friend had another dream and this time he was walking through an alley and some random guy walked behind him and shot him three times on the back and as my friend was laying there dying he blacked out and woke up. My friend started having different dreams of the similar theme for a month straight after the dreams took place. During this time he also contemplated suicide several times. He would drink alcohol to the point that he had to get his stomach pumped two times in one month because of alcohol poisoning. He got addicted to different kinds of prescription pills, such as morphine, xanax, oxycodone and many other drugs. His parents finally got tired of him and kicked him out of their house when he was just seventeen. Unable to take care of him-self, he finally moved in with his sister and despite how much damaged drugs and alcohol had done to his life, he just would not stop. During the summer of his eighteenth birthday a good friend of his invited him to attend church and because he remembers lying to this guy so many times about going to church with him, he finally decided to give this church thing a try. During that church service the preacher really touched his life, he almost felt as if the preacher was directly preaching to him. That same day he gave his heart to God and from that moment on he started taking steps to improve his life. However, even though he stopped the drinking and the drugs, his biggest battle was with himself, because he had trouble finding his identity, he had a problem of understand his purpose and who he was as a person.

Days went on after my friend was asked why he looked so happy, so he finally decided to talk to go to his pastor and explain to him his situation and how he truly felt about the person he was and the pastor started to mentor him and giving him different advice of how to cope with life in and of itself.

THE END.

Fire Fall

Tonight I finally got an opportunity to go to Fire Fall and it was amazing. I got a chance to finally hear the great Erwin Mcmanus speak and he is truly an amazing speaker. Fire Fall started with worship and that was really awesome. This years Fire Fall was a little different than the ones I've attended in the past, this year I think the presentation as a whole was more in-depth, the theme of Fire Fall was all throughout the school and as you walk to the gymnasium, everything said " What If?" and the pool was used to baptize the people whom decided to take that step. Also there was a section that was dedicated for people to journal, there was another section for the students to tell their stories in front of the camera, and also there was a section to post your dreams.
Erwin Mcmanus style of preaching is a little different than many other preachers I've heard in the past, he reminds me so much of Roosevelt Hunter, a great preacher that used to preach at Southeastern, but recently passed in August of this year. But they have so much in common, their tones, their ability to keep the audience interested, and their story telling abilities. Mcmanus told this story about how his son went to a Christian Camp one year and after returning from this camp, he was tucking him into bed and after praying Mcmanus turned off the light and was about to go out, but his son got scared and told him to leave the light on, long story short, his son was scared from the stories about demons that was told to him at camp, so he asked Mcmanus to prat that God would keep him safe, but Mcmanus said no, he will pray that he God makes him so intimidating that when he walks into a room all the demons will flea. what I got from that story is that so many times we ask God to get rid of our obstacles and our challenges, when we really should be asking God for strength to be able to face these obstacles and challenges so when they come again next time, we are already prepared.

Polk Museum

The trip to the Polk museum was very interesting to me. I remember when I was in elementary school and taking trips to the museum, however back then I didn't really understand art, I didn't understand some of the things these poets wrote about, I didn't quiet understand the paintings that was considered art, but I felt like I could probably do that with my eye closed. What was really interesting to me on this trip was the fact that, until this trip I completely forgot if we even had a museum of art in Polk County.
My favorite part of the trip were the displays in the second floor display room. the photographs of people of these different regions of the world, it was very interesting to see how some of the richer and poorer peoples in the world live. On one of the photographs, this families wish was to get a second pair of close to wear, this touch me a lot because I feel sometimes I take my life for granted, for I sometimes have a hard time of finding close to wear but it's not because I don't have anything else, it's usually because I have so much close in the closet so it's hard to pick out one, so to see that a family is struggling to get another set of close to wear was very touching. I also saw a photographs of this family in Haiti struggling to eat a meal and they basically eat the same thing everyday and many times they skip meals. I'm originally from Haiti, so Haiti as nation in general I'm very passionate about, I have plans of hopefully one day starting some kind of mission work there, so seeing that photograph was more of a motivator to me, so I can continue to find ways to help people over there and to start taking steps to becoming a missionary.

Confidence is Beautiful

She wakes up every morning and takes care of her hygienic duties.

Before she goes to sleep,

every night she takes time to choose what she will be wearing the next day;

She takes care of every physical of her life;

She walks into a room and everyone stares,

both man and women are fascinated by her;

her aroma, so distinctive, so appealing;

her hair, so long, so black;

her skin, so soft, so tan;

her smile, so incredible;

who cares that she has a slight weight problem;

who cares that she's not as thin as some of these models;

who cares that she is not a size zero or a one;

who cares?

she don't;

she walks with such confidence;

she takes pride of her size seven figure;

she loves every single sing about her;

her beauty, is her confidence.

The Traveling Onion

During last class session, we got into a deep conversation about a poem on a "Traveling Onion." The first time I read this poem, honestly, I just thought to myself and was astonished of how much dept this writer showed on a poem about an onion. Many parts of the poem I laughed, because of the god-like characteristics the poet illustrated, however towards the end I agreed with the poet, she is right, the onion is only here to serve others.

originally I thought the poet was just defending the onion and that she is mad that the onion gets forgotten and that she didn't agree that people sometimes scold the onion for making them cry, but they don't take time to notice that their killing something so small and showing no remorse and while eating all these other foods, they talk about how good the other foods are, but never mention anything about the onion.

After reading this poem a final time, I started seeing this onion in a complete different way, maybe the poet wasn't talking about an onion at all, maybe this onion is a representation of the Lords Mercy. The poem talks about how far the onion has come to get in her stew today, but can we think of how far that the Lords mercy has come to be with us today, after all the time we turn our back on God, after all of our sin, the Lords Mercy will never leave us, though we may forget about him, he is forever here to serve us. in the poem it says that " I would never scold the onion for causing tears," so many times when things starts to get rough in our life, we turn to God to blame and to put him at fault for our problems, sometime I think we just need to reflect and thank God for all that he do, because honestly things can always get worse.

Lectio Divina

The class session on Tuesday was very interesting. The whole idea of meditating on the literature was a different experience in and of itself, the most interesting part to me during the Lectio Divina "Sacred Reading" was listening to what everyone was getting out of the story, it seem like everyone had a different idea of what the words of the author was saying and it seem as if each person found different thoughts or reflections that stood out or was significant to him or her.

During the class we read a few pages from the story "Sonny's Blues," in which is a story of two brothers who come to understand each other. More specifically, it depicts, through its two main characters, the two sides of the African-American experience. The author brings these characters into white society but they still feel the pain of institutional racism and the limits placed upon opportunity. Sonny has never tried to assimilate and must find an outlet for the deep pain and suffering that his status as an outsider confers upon him. Sonny channels his suffering into music, especially bebop jazz and the blues, forms developed by African-American musicians, The story also has a few biblical implications. Many of the story stood out to me, but like most stories some things stuck out more than other such as on page 42 it says "The woman with the tambourine, whose voice dominated the air, whose face was bright with joy, was divided by very little from the women who stood watching her, a cigarette between her heavy, chapped lips, her hair a cuckoo's nest, her face scarred and swollen from many beatings, and her black eyes glittering like coal. perhaps they both knew this, which was why, when, as rarely, they addressed each other, they addressed each other as Sister." This passage sticks out to me for many reasons, but mostly because it shows that we as people are not better than the next person, no matter what the circumstance is and no matter is going on in their life, they are still your sisters and brothers through Christ our Lord.

A Road Trip

This past weekend was pretty tough, we had three soccer games within the past five days and we lost all of them, even though we were much better than a couple of those teams, we still lost. It really hurts to loose and I personally hate loosing but the most important thing is our ability to bounce back from these lost and learn from every mistake we made and to make sure those mistakes does not replicate it selves. An important quote our coach always says is that " Winning does not matter, unless you win the right games." for example: my freshmen year in college we started the season very bad and we just could not win for some reason, but when it came down to the regional championship and the national championship we won all of those games, which then made us the national champions. So if a team win every game during its season and loose the national championship game, then all of those wins meant nothing. I take this quote into other areas of my life, I see it as if I'm going through some kind of obstacles in life and it just seems like I continue to fail and I keep loosing these battles however, it is my ability to bounce back from these battles and to keep praying to God and when I win that place into Heaven, that win will mean more than any other wins or lost that I've had in life.

Joel: Reading by the Lake

I found this space between a couple of cars, in front of the lake, the sky was blue, the sun was up, but there was an incredible, constant breeze coming in, the day was almost perfect. I started reading the book of Joel at first, but after reading the first couple of passages I didn't think I was getting the right feeling, so I started reading again and started to put a little more emotion to the words, but I still didn't think I was getting the right feeling out of the scripture, so I started again and this time I started putting my self in Joel's place and started visualizing his surrounding and started putting faces on the people he was speaking to, my vision started to be so vivid, it was almost as if I was there myself.
In-contrast to reading quietly, I feel that when reading aloud, in a quite setting you get so much out of the literature. After reading Joel the first couple of time quietly, I was surprise to see some of the new things that stuck out to me. before I mainly focused on the vision overall and I also focused on the tragic things that were to come, I completely missed or just did not acknowledge the whole part about repentance.

The Book of Joel

The book of Joel is very interesting. Maybe a little short, but I think the message is very clear. In the book Joel tells the elders to "Tell your sons about it, And let your sons tell their sons, And their sons the next generation," I think this is a clear implication that everything that he prophesied about was not something that were going to happen during that time period, but I honestly think that he was talking to our generation or an event that is yet to come. Joel says "For the day of the LORD is near," it amazes me how naive people are these days, if a generation ever had to worry about the coming of the Lord and how soon it will be, it is our generation. Just when we don't think things can get worse, it seems to always get worse. so this blog is going to be more of a prayer for our generation and the people of the world in hope that we can have more people be delivered from sin and saved under the blood of Jesus Christ.

Dear Lord,
Thank you for everything that you are and will continue to be, for you are the amazing God, the great "I Am," you're the same God that heals the sick, and give hope to the hopeless, for I will continue to praise you for all that that you are. right now I ask you to have your eyes over our generation, let your light shine into our lives, right now I rebuke any works of the devil in your wonderful name and lead us to a path of righteousness, while delivering us from evil. Right now I lift this great nation in your name, let your words ring from coast to coast and in every state and every levels of government. Everyone that is going through a difficult time, Lord take control of the situation and let them know that you are the way, the truth and the light. Lord take control of the entire world touch each and every individual in some kind of way. For you are the God above all. In your wonderful name. Amen

Walt Whitman and Cemetery

Honestly, Walt Whitman freaks me out. obviously, he is a brilliant writer and his poem " When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," is a great poem, but I just get freaked out by stuff like that. Towards the end of the poem he was pretty praising death, at first I honestly thought it was because I was in the cemetery that made the poem as creepy as I thought it was, but I went home and read over the poem again over the weekend and it still gave me chills.

The trip to the cemetery was a very interesting event. As long as I can remember I've been incredibly scared to walk in a cemetery, more than the fear for the cemetery in and of itself, I have always been terrified of the dead. I've been to two funerals so far and they were the most frightening experiences in my entire life. The first was of my aunt and we were really close, she pretty much raised me for a good portion of my childhood and she didn't have any kids so she pretty much treated me like I was her owns, she passed so long ago, but I still remember everything as if it just happened yesterday, I remember visiting her in the hospital the previous day and she was telling me how she was coming soon and she just looked like she was doing so well, but the following day she passed. I remember going to the funeral and having to see her lay in the casket "my memory is so vivid right now," I remember all the crying and all the dreams I use to have, after that moment I promised myself that I would never go to another funeral unless I have absolutely no choice. Last year I went to another funeral and this time it was my cousin and because of the situation she had a closed-casket funeral so that wasn't as bad, but I still had dreams about it and I couldn't sleep for days.
So this field trip to the cemetery was more to me than just a trip, it was an opportunity to face another one of my fears. It was difficult seeing some of the tombstones and to see the age that these people died, many of them were kids my age and some even younger, one of the more tragic things I saw when I saw a pair of tombstones of two brothers, one was 5 years-old and the other was 7 years-old and they died on the same day, I can only imagine what the family went through that day, the pain they must of felt of having to bury not one but two of their kids.

Tuscana Restaruante Reflection

The field trip to the Tuscana Restaruante was really nice, a little different, but really nice. I'm in a group of all guys so I would imagine that our conversation were different in appose to if we had a girl in our group. We discussed a few different materials, from "The Hobbit" to the good words of the bible. We had a few interesting conversations about life, books, movies, and video games.
one of the things we discussed was that reading the book is usually better than watching the movie of the book. we also talked about how people read for different reasons, for I read in hope of taking in what the author is writing about, for I try to fully understand the words and I try to break down every details, with the hope of finding something that will guide me spiritually. but, Tim in the other hand, reads for pleasure or to step out of reality and to step into a different character. What I realized after the field trip is that people take in literature in so many different ways, in-comparison to the bible, people take in scripture in so many different ways, depending on their intentions while reading the scriptures they will get whatever they want out of it.

Family is Love

My family means the world to me, When I think of love, true love, my family is the first thing that comes to mind. I've dated a girl that I truly thought that I was in love with, but after reflecting on this subject of what real love is this girl don't even come close to the kind of love that I have for my family. My family and I have been through so much together in the past couple of years. What brings me the most joy from my family are my nephews and nieces, since I don't have any kids myself, these kids are definitely my motivation. I have many days where I'm completely down and just hanging with these kids fills me up with such amazing joy. My youngest niece Selena is like my best friend, though she's only 4 years old, we hang out as if she as one of my peers. I also have Identical twin nephews and these two have such different personalities, Josiah is the cheerful one, he have fun with just about anybody, he will jump on you and just grab your face and give you this really big smile and all you can do is smile back at him and enjoy him. The other twin Isaiah is the serious one, he's one of those kids that don't enjoy people coming to his face and doing all the "googoo gaga " that older people do to babies, he don't like baby talk. These kids both two different personality but so much like me in so many ways, which brings me to another reason why I love my family so much, we are so much alike in so many ways, though I can relate to the younger people in my family, I get all of my morals from the older people like my mom, dad, and even sisters. True love to me is the kind of love that I have for my family, hopefully as I get older and begin a family of my own that kind of love can be passed on to them.

The Things They Carried

This is a Picture I took at southeastern last year, it shows how truly amazing God is.

Survival is often defined as a living or continuing longer than, or beyond the existence of, another person, thing, or event; an outliving. The story " The Things They Carried," demonstrate how important it is to be psychologically prepared as a soldier during war. This story don't only apply to wars between countries, but also the content can easily be applied to spiritual wars that many Christians faces.
In the story, "The Things They Carried," each of the soldiers did not only carry the items that

were essential to their ranking as a soldier, but also items that were a necessity for their psychological survival. The main character Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried with him these letters from this girl name Martha, even though he was not sure that she was in love with him, he had that bit of hope that she could be in-love with him instilled in his psyche, and that hope that he had stored, played a major role in his survival.
In life we as Christians go through these spiritual wars and sometimes we just feel as if we can not battle anymore, so we find these different items to carry with us in-order to survive and when we understand the idea of God's omni presence in our psychological understanding there is no war or battle to major for us to overcome.

Love

My idea of love: My nieces and nephews....

Literature

My earliest memories of literature are my Elementary years of school, when my teacher would sit the entire class down on a rug and we would have story time, from what I remember it was every Friday, we would have some kind of snack and either the teacher would read us a book or even listen to one of those books on tapes.
My most recent memory of literature is this journal thing I recently picked up. It really surprise me how much of a relief it is to pore out my thoughts and emotions in written form. Spiritually it has motivate me to get deeper into the words of God, but emotionally it makes dealing with different problems rather minor or major a lot less hectic. I feel as if I'm more honest and open with myself, which is something that I've felt for a long time now that I really struggle with.
The most significant text that I've read is probably my journal. It amazes me to see where I was in the beginning of the journal and to see where I am now brings me joy, and I feel like I'm progressing in life and that I'm not taking so many steps back. I usually take sometime maybe once a month or sometimes even more to look at what I wrote for that month and to see some of the obstacles and barriers that I've been through, taking that small portion of time to reflect is what really motivates me to keep moving.
Literature matters because it can sometime be journey, rather you're reading into the thoughts of someone else or illustrating your thoughts it's always an exercise for your mind.