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.