Thursday, December 9, 2010

Interpretaion "special post"

In the course of life, each and every single man and woman faces grief. Someone does not have to die for someone to grieve. Grief can involve losing a best friend, failing a test, or even going bankrupt. To be quite honest, when someone is hurting, these words will rarely come out of our mouths; “Well this isn’t too bad, there are always people in starving countries that are worse off than I.” Relatively, on the other hand, lament souls tend to focus on themselves using phrases and sayings like “Why is this happening to me?” “I don’t deserve this!” Yet, property, as well as values, can be restored, but a life cannot be restored. Therefore, it could be argued that the greatest personal grief to be experienced in life is death of loved ones.  Grief Observed, written by C.S. Lewis would agree. A Grief Observed is a collection of C. S. Lewis’s reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, Joy Gresham, in 1960. The book is put togther from the four notebooks which Lewis used to vent and explore his grief. He illustrates the everyday trials of his life without Joy and explores fundamental questions of faith. A big part of Lewis’s life was taken away when his other half died. According to the information in the bible, when a man and woman are united in marriage they become “one flesh.” If one of the individuals making up that “one flesh” were to die, then in it should seen that half of the married person will be harmed. Therefore one could argue that the married person who was yet still alive is actually dead. Immediately, Lewis began to “lose it”, so to speak, retreating from other people, which is very typical for a bereaved person who is mourning the loss of a loved. Lewis, like many who have lost a loved one, turned away from others, hiding from everyone and everything, yet at the same time screaming on the inside for someone to comfort him. Lewis knew that he needed some extra comfort, but would rather feel sorry for himself than get up to find a support. Lewis compares himself to the image of the “dog-tired” man who, on a cold night, desires an extra blanket yet would “rather lie there shivering than get up and find one” (page 4). Eventually, Lewis’ excuse against seeking solace turns from laziness to fear.
What chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers H. and I offered and all the false hope we had. Not hope raised merely by our own wishful thinking, hopes encouraged, even forced upon us, by false diagnosis, by x-ray photographs, by strange remissions, by one temporary recovery that might have ranked as a miracle. Step by step we were ‘led up the garden path.’ Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture.” (page 30) To be quite honest, I have to re-read all of Lewis’s works because he is such a complex writer. This has to be one of my favorite quotes in the entire book. I can admit that I am a very slow reader, but when I first read this part of the book I did not understand what Lewis was fully trying to say. I always knew C.S Lewis to be an awesome writer and man of God, so I didn’t want to really believe what he was saying about God. I then had to realize that every single person not his entire earth has to go through some sort of grief when they are going through a tough situation, because as humans we are built off of our emotions. When I finally realized that Lewis is human just as we are I could connect more and more to this passage and what is was portraying. Time after time Lewis and his wife Joy would pray to God and ask Him for healing. When Joy seemed to be alright everything was great, but then she became sick again and died. Lewis began to feel such a betrayal from God wondering why He would take the love of His life away from Him. We all question God, but we don’t merely question Him we yell in anger and bitter emotion to God, which made me realize something. How does God feel when we lose our faith? How does He feel when we have anger and animosity towards Him? Can we hurt God by our little feelings? I believe that we can hurt God’s feelings after blaming Him over and over for every little situation, but then we, as Christians, have to sit down and realize that we do not dictate life. We simply just live it according to God’s will. We cannot control anything, only our Creator can. I am not saying that it is bad to pray, all I believe is that if God has a plan then it does not matter what we want or what we do, it is still going to be fulfilled no matter how we feel or will feel about it.
This story was about C.S Lewis grieving over the loss of his dearly and beloved wife H. I have to say that even though Lewis did not intend for this to be a novel, I believe that it will help people now and in the future when they begin to deal with a loss of a loved one. It is ok to mourn over the loss of someone you love, but it is not ok to blame God for every single thing. Of course we will sometimes in our life, but we shouldn’t do it all the time. I’m sure we don’t blame God when something good happens, so why do we always do it when something bad happens? It’s because we are miserable! We do not understand why our loving God, the One who created and loves us unconditionally, would put us in a situation like this. The bible also says that God will not put anything on us that is too hard to bear. In all, this does mean that He cares whether we want to believe it or not, God cares! Eventually Lewis got a grip on his grieving and began to live life again. Why? Because our Creator knew that he could get through a rough time like this one.

Monday, December 6, 2010

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

I have to say that this story was quite interesting. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings has a particular writing style that could be interpreted as "magical realism". This story was so out of the ordinary that I did not even know which parts to believe. The short novel begins with a rainy day. Pelayo and Elisenda are the main characters in the story (husband and wife). Their newborn baby has caught a fever and it had been raining for three days. They then find a very old man that has wings on him that look buzzard wings and they looked half plucked. They have no idea of what this creature could be, but their neighbor walks by and seems to have an idea that this man with wings is an angel. The couple begins to think that the angel is coming to take their very sick baby, so they "locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop". The couple then begins to show this disturbing yet interesting man to the rest of the town and they charge people to see the old man with wings. The couple is now very rich and they live in a mansion, while the old man is still living in the coop. While the old man with wings is kept in the cage he begins to get sick and he catches a fever and begins to loose his wings. After this was happening the town encountered a new attraction. This was a young girl that turned into a tarantula because she disobeyed her parents. After this happened Pelayo and Elisenda began to loose their customers. Years past and the old man with wings was very patient in waiting to get ready and feel better then he eventually got his wings back, felt better and left and flew into the sunset.
I think that there could be many different morals in this story as a whole, but one that stuck out to me the most was when the couple received blessings, and yet they still treated the old man like dirt keeping him in the chicken coop. When God gives us blessings do we just sit on them and think that we did it all by ourselves, or do we thank Him and give Him our ten percent like we are supposed to? Blessings can either help you or hinder you and in this case it really hindered the couple/

Monday, November 29, 2010

Helping hands!

Last Wednesday me and a couple of others from class skipped the double credit chapels and went to help at the mental disability facility. I really enjoyed the time at the facility. I really enjoyed making arts and crafts with the people there. It was very exciting and I would love to go there again! We made cards for Thanksgiving and it was a blast! The people there are so friendly and loving. I met this really nice lady that showed me pictures of her grand children and her children, and she had to be one of the sweetest people that I have ever met. I can honestly say that most of the people at the disability place have a very sweet spirit. They are really nice to others and they love God, which really amazed me because we look at them like something is wrong with them, but in all even "regular" people can be pretty intense. I just now understand that God only see's the heart. He does not care what we look like or how He created us because He made us the way we are for a reason, and that reason is to glorify Him. I'm glad that I can finally grasp what God really cares about, and that is our hearts. Our entire lives we try to satisfy other people and try to look a particular way to fit in. Why should that matter? How is that going to help us get into Heaven? Well, it's not! Mentally disabled people do not really have much to worry or even stress about and this is a huge blessing! I would love to spend my life just worrying and doing God's business instead of worrying what I am going to wear tomorrow or what store has the best black Friday sales. We need to get out priorities in order, and fast!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

"A Temple of the Holy Ghost"

     When I began to read this story I was a little confused. I didn't know how to interpret anything because the author was throwing names around, after i read over the beginning more and more I began to get a better understanding of what the characters were actually saying and doing. the story began with the author narrating about two girls that called each other Temple One and temple Two. From there I knew instantly that this was going to be a religious text. Although they called each other "temple" they began to laugh and they laughed so hard that they began to turn red and they looked uglier than they looked normally, so I sought to believe that they were not taking any of this seriously. Then the story said that they were wearing "brown convent" uniforms, which probably meant that they attended a private Christian school, which is probably where they heard about the "temple". After I realized that they did know a little bit about God i assumed that they were smart young girls that could afford to go to a private Christian school, but I was totally wrong. The book says that they were fourteen years old, and they were not very "bright" and then it proceeded to say that the reasoning behind them being sent to a convent is because they weren't very smart at all. Then when I read on i saw that they had a younger sister that was smarter than them and instantly I noticed that they could be mentally disabled. i mean they laugh a lot even when a person says something serious and their little sister is smarter than they are. The author also explains that they are not very bright multiple times. i began to notice that the baby sister was very critical and not very understanding of her two older disabled sisters, or anyone for that matter especially the "Church of God" people. She was very mean and harsh and rarely had something nice to say. in the end she noticed how crude she really was and I believe that she wanted all of those negative emotions to wear off when she was in the presence of God.

Monday, November 15, 2010

"Piss Christ"

This is the "piss Christ" a work of art that profeesor Corrigan shouwed in


 class by Andres Serrano.
             When I first saw this in class I was fine with the fact that Jesus was just on the cross, but when professor Corrigan told us what the name of the piece of art was I was really upset. "Piss Christ? Really? Why would someone create a work of crap like this," was my initial reaction. At the beginning of the discussion I was fine with the work of art because It kind of just looked like Jesus on a cross with like fire surrounding Him or maybe the presence of God shining on Him.  When I found out what the name of this was I immediately got extremely offensive. I thought that the author was an atheist and did not like Christianity at all. I believed that the person who drew this has a hard time in believing who Jesus actually is. Then the class began to discuss it, and I gained a better understanding of what this picture actually meant, and it made me realize how God truly feels.
            As humans we tend to want to do things our way, and if we don't get to do it "our way" then we throw a fit like a little 5 year old. And I'm not going to even lie because honestly I have to catch myself sometimes. As I grew up I was the baby girl, and I usually got the things that I wanted, maybe not right when I wanted it, but I usually got it eventually. When it come to God we act the same exact way. When He tells us to do something we should be ecstatic that God Almighty is even talking to us and giving us direction, but all some people think about are themselves and hat they want out of life. When doing so it is sort of like we are "pissing" on Christ. It's like we're saying forget what you say because I want to do it my way. When I gained this revelation I almost wanted to cry because I thought about God's feelings for a brief moment, and how He felt when we disobeyed Him. I mean aren't we supposed to be His children? Because some of us don't eve act like it. In all, don't "piss" on Christ! I know we aren't perfect and God knows that it is impossible for us to be, so just obey Him because I bet that would make Him happy :)

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

maybe next time..

My entire life I have been around mentally challenged people. For starters my two brothers are challenged, but they are very well off because God has truly blessed them! Just being around them for a long period of time made me think that they were normal because to me and a few others they are normal. They know how to hold a conversation, dial a number, and any other ordinary thing, but in our home I cant see them as anything other than normal. I remember the first time that I met some other mentally challenged people. My brother was in a bowling league for the Special Olympics, and I went to support him. I had no idea that there were people who act that way. I thought that my brothers conditions was how everyone else conditions were as well, but i was totally wrong! I met some people there that just scared me. Not to sound mean or anything but I was only about 14 years old and I had no idea how to act around them. Some of them were really loud, others were really quiet, and some of them just had loud dramatic episodes. I talked to a few of them because they had came up to me and asked me my name, and then one of them hit on me. Mentally handicapped or not my dad took the father role and made me sit down with him. I really love my brothers and yes at times they get on my nerves because they cannot do certain things and I have to do it, but I know in my heart that they truly appreciate all I do for them and I can really tell by the way they love me. I would have loved to have gone to AFI, but I guess there's a next time. This trip probably would have taught me a lot. By all of the stories that I heard I can tell that it really touched and moved people in many different ways. I just know by the things that I've heard about the trip i really want to go whether it's on my own time because I really want to care about something other than myself because that gets so boring. Caring about others is a lot more special than just going through your daily motions.

Monday, November 8, 2010

The Boys Next Door

When I was skimming over the Boys Next Door a couple days before class, I didn't realize that they were mentally handicap. The idea of not knowing that they were handicapped was hilarious to me because I liked their personality, and a lot of people today act the same way. There are some really cool people that are mentally handicapped. My brothers have a disease and they learn a little bit slower than other people. My younger brother is hilarious, and he knows how to manipulate people into getting what they want. My older brother is super smart and once he hears something he can basically retaliate it back to someone else. Especially about the bible. My older brother knows the ins and outs of the bible. I believe that as long as a person is not laughing at the mentally handicapped people and they are laughing with them  then I think that it is fine.
I posted this picture because it reminds me of my brother's. Although I may be upset at times they were always there to cheer me up and I love them and appreciate them for that. This proves that some mentally handicapped people can change other people's lives in ways they cannot imagine. I know that if I ever had a disability I am not sure that I h would have such a positive attitude the way they do. I love them so much!