Special Post 2

The story A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children starts off with a couple trying to shoo out crabs thinking it is the cause of their childs sickness when Pelayo sees an old man stuck in the mud. When he got closer he saw an angel with the old tattered wings. After getting past their initial shock they went to find their neighbor who was wise in spiritual matters, and they decide to put this angel in the chicken coop. After they put the angel in the coop, their child felt better and wanted something to eat. The following morning, locals gather in awe to look at this so called angel, except that it doesn't look like your typical angel. This angel looked old and dying. His feathers were falling off his wings and he spoke in some dialect that not even the local Priest could communicate to him. After meeting with the angel the priest reminded the throng of people that the devil likes to deceive people and that he was going to write to Rome about this matter yet, his words his words fell on deaf ears. More and more people came to visit this mysterious angel, Pelayo’s wife Elisenda, decided to charge 5 cents to every visitor, which actually helped them out in the long run. After several days of visitors gawking at the angel, a carnival came to town and distracted the townspeople for a little bit. In the carnival was a lady who had her body turned into the body of the spider because she snuck out of her house to go attend to a dance party without telling her parents. On her way back to her house there was a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning and her body was turned transformed into a spider for not telling her parents. What was interesting about the spider lady was that she had healing powers as opposed to the angel who really didn’t. The spider lady healed Pelayo of his crab infestation and the priest was cured of his insomnia. Whereas the angel let a paralytic person almost win the lottery and someone who suffered from leprosy sprouted flowers form their sores. After a several months, the chicken was in terrible condition which allowed the angel to escape and walk around Paleyo and Elisenda’s newly renovated house, which was a result of all the money that they charged the visitors to see the angel when he locked up in the chicken coop. Eventually, the angel heals up to the point where he can fly and Elisenda watches hi, fly into the horizon, happy that he is leaving.

At first I wasn’t sure to think of the angel, but after the wise neighbor mentioned that “He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down” I thought of him coming for the child, so that would make him the angel of death. I also think that the angel mimics the ill person that he comes to take with him, which would explain his frail nature at the beginning of the story. The angel could also imply patience and compassion, as he suffered through being in the chicken coop, while eventually Pelayo and Elisenda were better off than they were in the beginning of the story.

The visitors who came to visit the angel were those looking for a sign that would justify their faith in God. Something that spider lady would ultimately do for the townspeople instead of the angel.

Speaking of which, the spider lady could represent how self-assuming people are with their own faith, many went to see the angel thinking that he had healing powers when he really didn’t. the spider lady had a heart wrenching story that was able to draw crowds and be able to do her own healing. The spider lady and the angel are contrasts of each other in the fact that she is easier to understand whereas the old angel is filthy and can not mach her appeal.

In a little history section about the author, they used a term he liked writing in, mystical realism, which is a blend reality and fantasy. Many Latin American authors write in this mystical realism genre. It is prevalent when the author, Gabriel García Márquez, describes in detail the life of Pelayo and Elisenda in detail, while adding the celestial component of the angel to the story, which gives a balanced storyline throughout the entire story. Also, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children could also be described as a satire. For instance, after the local priest told the crowd to beware of Satan’s tricks and he was going to “write a letter to his bishop so that the latter would write his primate so that the latter would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from the highest courts.” Well Rome wrote asking ridiculous questions such as “finding out in the prisoner had a navel, if his dialect had any connection with Aramaic, how many times he could fit on the head of a pin, or whether he wasn't just a Norwegian with wings.” This shows that the author was painting the Church in a new light, and in a sense made them look like they knew nothing.

I chose this story because it had a lot of material was allowed to be interpreted.  This allows for readers to be able to have their own ideas and bring in their own interpretation. This applies to us since the author makes an attempt to show that what we think is right, may not be right at all.

Angel Wings

Let me say right off the bat that this story really confused me. The story A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children starts off with a couple trying to shoo out crabs when they see an angel stuck in the mud. After getting past their initial shock they put this angel in the chicken coop. The following morning, locals gather in awe to look at this so called angel, except that it doesn't look like your typical angel. This angel looked old and dying. His feathers were falling off his wings and he spoke in some dialect that not even the local Priest could communicate to him. After meeting with the angel the priest reminded the throng of people that the devil likes to deceive people and that he was going to write to Rome about this matter. After several days and a carnival passing by, the angel eventually heals to the point where it flies away into the horizon. This story makes me question if this story is told in an alternate parallel, where everything is different then what our current reality is. When I read this story I felt that i didn't comprehend anything I read, however I believe what this story is trying to tell that no matter what happens, everything happens for a reason.

Are You Living in Reality?

So this story really took me by surprise. The short-story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is about the citizens who live in a city that could be classified as a Utopian city. Everybody lives in harmony with each other and there is hardly any problems in the city. Except for one. Locked away from civilization is a child, who is apparently deformed, is kept in a basement that has no windows. The only human interaction that this child gets is from groups of people that bring young adults as a coming of age ceremony. The sight frightens the young adults, they continue to remember the child, but eventually come to the conclusion that is better for the happiness that the child stays locked away where it is. Also, the entire town of Omelas is aware of the mistreatment of this child but think its best not uproot the established order and keep things the way they are. However, the ones who are truly affected by the sight they saw, leave Omelas, knowing exactly where they are going. This story brings out we as humans show our indifference to injustices around the world. Whether orphans in another country or how needy the poor are, we have to be actually thinking about how we can change these things. Many people like to live indifferent lives because they want to control everything around them. they want to take action because the result of their action would require them to put their faith in something other than themselves. People who live indifferent lives also like to blame their problems on others. When we do this we lose the opportunity to reflect on our choices and actions and and make positive decisions that will help us become better people. We don't live in a world where everything is perfect, the sun is shining all the time, and no conflict. There is thing called reality and it hurts when we realize the world isn't what we thought it was.

Phillipains

In the Apostle Pauls letter to the Philippians, if one were to study closely, they would fin text rich metaphors and other figurative language. After reading this passage and actually trying try and keep count of the amount of metaphors that I noticed. One sentence caught my eye when Paul was describing righteousness as a "fruit". another group of sentences that I also thought were metaphors was "...Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled Himself by becoming obedient,  even to the point of death, even death on a cross." When someone understands the use of metaphors, I believe that they will come to see what a genius Paul is. I also think that Paul is trying to make us think and go more in-depth in our walk with Christ. And we can see how Paul was trying to connect spiritual things with physical things so that the Philippians could make a connection and understand what he was trying to say, and be able to apply it to their lives.

I Attended The Man Who Came To Dinner

Nature Field Trip

I want to Lake Bonny Park and stayed there for a full 45 minutes.

Today as part of our Nature Poem unit in Intro to Lit. we had to go a nature preserve. Going to the preserve brought back many memories of when my mom and I would go to the park and walk the nature boardwalk. So as my walk down memory lane began so did my walk around the preserve. the preserve is part of a park and is right off the road, so I was surprised when everything got quite. Not eerily quite, but that type of quietness  where you can hear yourself think and you start to focus in on the little things about your surroundings. Like the first thing I noticed was how majestic looking the trees were. As I walked deeper it didn't look like I was in Lakeland anymore, and I began to think what if we didn't become such a technologically dependent society, how much different life would be. I began to even wonder if todays world would even survive without tech stuff. As I continued on i ran into a rabbit and watched it run off in a hurry and went on this board walk that overlooked the lake. Thats was when I saw all this junk thrown everywhere, from a frozen chicken container to an old milk carton. Seeing this I thought of a group discussion I had with two of my classmates on earth day in English Composition class last semester. My classmate was all into finding new ways to help clean up the planet, limit waste, and other stuff that I can't remember at the moment. If she saw what I did she would be disappointed. I believe that as humans we have a duty to take care of what God has blessed us with. Some Christians may say that since Jesus will come back and that there will be a new heaven and new earth that taking of the earth would just a waste of time. I would like to submit to you that would be ignorance on their part, just read the parable of the talents. I'm pretty sure that God won't call a "lazy servant" and send us to the place where there will a gnashing of teeth, but chance to witness to someone just by being aware of what we could do better at taking care of what God has given us would be lost.

State Of The Planet

Well, let me start off saying that this was the most difficult reading I've had to do this semester. I've never been a fan of poetry and anything to do with the environment. Yet after reading this poem I must admit that it did intrigue me. What I really enjoyed about the poem was how effortless the author was able to illustrate everything he was attempting to get across. Even though four pages of poetry was very tough to stay focused on, my mind kept coming back to one sentence in the first stanza, "Inside the backpack, dog-eared, illustrations, A book with the title Getting to Know Your Planet."  And it is this sentence that I want to touch upon.

The Backpack- we use backpacks to store things and to transport things. It can be perhaps a representation of our minds, how we can keep vast amounts of information and be able to recall that information in an instant.

Illustrations- what the author is talking about here is our interactions with the world around us.

The book Getting to Know Your Planet- this one struck me the most. We all know about the basics of the planet, like 70% of the Earth is water and the other 30% is land mass. but what I'm talking about is going deeper, about the stuff that truly means something to our planet, like water purification, greenhouse emissions, and climate change (or global warming).