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.