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).

Can Sonny's Blues Be Your Blues?

This story is probably the hardest story that I had to read for Lit. For a short story there was a lot of things in motion before the story began so it was a little tough in the beginning of the read. But the story is about the narrator who picked up the morning paper and saw that his brother was arrested and put in jail. After corresponding several times via mail, the narrators brother Sonny comes to Harlem to visit. The whole interaction between the brothers is very uncomfortable begins to turn awkward. Eventually Sonny hints to his brother that he was addicted to drugs and that was the reason that he went to jail. the narrator attempts to be understanding, but doesn't really succeed at it. This is due in part because throughout the story the narrator feels this sense of discord and and hatred for his surroundings and what Sonny represents. This theme was mentioned so many times that I am going to write about this theme. The narrator left for the army and returned, and in a way never seemed to escape where he came from. Have you known somebody from your childhood that you were so close too and then all of a sudden lost touch, then years later you reconnected with them and you turned out better than they did and when you tried to help them you couldn't relate to them? The theme behind this theme of the narrators feeling of hatred for his surroundings and of his brother is that no matter where you go, no matter what do or will do, no matter how hard you tried, you will never escape the surroundings that you grew up in. It will still catch up to you, just like it did to Sonny.

The Zombieland Ese

This is not what he was looking for. A desolate land across the Rio Grande. Alejandro had been looking forward to seeing his family, the family that he paid so much money to send over from Mexico to the states waiting for him at the river bank. Before him was a wasteland, cars everywhere, car parts, building material and other stuff. The sight put him into despair, seeing that his ticket to freedom had been his wife Marisol holding his phony green card. His two companions came up behind him, Pepe and Machete taking in the scenery as well.  Alejandro didn’t trust these two since all they wanted was to eat taco bell and eat fajitas for the rest of their lives.  They descended the hill and approached the highway they looked for a vehicle that was in working order, hoping that they would be able to begin their journey in U.S. Alejandro began cursing out loud about the current situation and how they would get out of it. While he was mumbling to himself Pepe spoke up “thius is not what I was expecting ese, all this destruction man I did not sign up for” Machete nodded his head in agreement and just grunted “I’m hungry”. “Do you guys only think of yourselves all the time?” Alejandro retorted. Before they could answer He took off moving faster, looking for the stupid car. After a while they came upon a Cadillac that had full tank. At first they admired the car and moved around it. Finally Machete was able to pop the door open and allowed Pepe to hot wire the car and get it started. All of this was taking too long and Alejandro was started to get irritated. All he wanted was to see his wife and kids to start his new life with them. All of this was not going to happen if he continued to hang with these eggheads of companions. Finally Pepe got the car started and Alejandro jumped in the driver seat and waited for the other two. As they got in Machete gave him a “where are we going” look, to which he responded “Houston, to find my family.” Machete nodded and promptly fell asleep. As he was driving, Alejandro couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that they were about to run into something bad. Something really bad.

Is Your Character Welcome?

Before I get to writing the main part of this blog, I want to take a little trip down memory lane. Remember back in the day in English class during high school and we all had to write a narrative story? How long did it take you come up with that character to be at the center of the story? I remember taking pretty much the whole time I had to write the paper just trying to create a character. I don't know about you but I would just think of myself being this ultimate hero in the most ridiculous situation possible. That's one way to do it, but its not the only way to think of a character. In my reading for my Into to Lit. class, it talked about how create a character. Most of us do what I mentioned previously, but what caught my attention was that we should discuss our characters with others. When I read that I immediately thought of how I treated my character creation. I would pretend to have like a maximum security prison, underground laboratory in which no one could gain access to but me. Looking back on that, it seems kind of childish and I guess you could say that I was afraid of someone plagiarizing me and taking my brilliant character. But discussing your character will allow your character to grow even more, before you can put him/her into the story.

My Painting of Joel 3:14

Proclaim It Loud and Proud

Tuesday before class we were told to go read the Book of Joel. Now I don't know about you but Joel is one of those books where you just pass along when your flipping through the minor prophets. I thought that the book was average and I really didn't think much of it. However when I got to class, Professor Corrigan told us that for 20 minutes we were to read sections of Joel. Out loud. At first I thought he was kidding, but after he shooed us out I made a beeline for the concrete dock overlooking Lake Bonny. (I think it's Lake Bonny but whatever). After getting to the dock and mustering up some courage I began to speak under my breath feeling ridiculous. But after awhile I began to gather more courage and spoke louder. then I just started proclaiming loud and proud, hand, motions and all. After I finished my favorite sections, I wondered what the book would sound like if I spoke in a Russian accent, so I began speaking in said accent and replaced the word Zion with Mother Russia every time it appeared. I had a complete blast. But there in lies my point. I said earlier that I thought nothing of the Book of Joel when I read it. That opinion changed almost immediately after I began to speak it out loud. Sometimes when we feel that a certain passage of scripture doesn't feel powerful when we read it we feel that it doesn't apply to our lives. My suggestion to you the reader is that you speak it out loud and see how you feel after. As I read the Book of Joel out loud I began to feel the same tang of pain when it called the people of Israel to repent and turn back to the Lord. I also felt great triumph when I read the passages of when the Lord would come and the nations at the Valley of Decision. So next time you feel that a certain passage of scripture doesn't come alive to you, read it aloud and see how you feel afterwords.

Are You A House Of Cards

In my Intro to Lit class we were given cards and told to make house of cards. After some time my group succeeded and made a ugly house. but it quickly fell down and back to work we went again trying build it again. after we realized that it was going to be futile to be able to build house that would stand stand on its own so we would blow on the the house and it would crumple down. After this we had a class discussion about metaphor that kept appearing the book A Grief Observed. Throughout the book the author keeps describing his faith as a house of cards. the author has lost his wife and questioning his faith in God. And through the process comes to this conclusion "God has been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't....He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down". Ever had one those welcome back to reality moments in your life? How many of you have ever been through some kind trial or trouble? Ever thought questioned God? How many times have we thought that God is this or God is that, and then in dramatic fashion we discover that we turned out to gravely mistaken? Ever thought about walking away from God? I would like to submit to you that your house of cards had no foundation. your foundation was based on something misconceived and therefore fell apart in the wind. I am not saying that there is a perfect to get through any trial or offer any type Faith 101 type thing. but as long as we base our foundation on the fact that God, who created everything we know, who loves us,who knows whats going to happen years before we know we will, sent His son, to die for us, for the hope of a life everlasting with Him, the foundation is strong, and when the winds blow instead of everything crumpling down, our foundation is rooted and strong. For we don't need something that resembles Christ, we need the real Christ. So, is your faith a house of cards?

Graveyard

yesterday night i went to go visit Roselawn cemetery. this cemetery and two others in close proximity are among the oldest cemeteries here in lakeland. when i first arrived i thought this place was extremely creepy (thats what you get when you visit a place like this at 10 at night). after me and rob  got past all the zombie movies we saw and were expecting to come out of the graves, one gravestone caught my attention. i cant remember the name but he was a corporal in the marines who gave his in the first persian gulf war. when i saw this all i felt was really weird, and i felt like crying. so trying to be a man i held  it in but it struck me that death is one constant thing. i looked all around me and all i saw were graveyards. i wanted to take a picture of the gravestone but i forgot to bring my phone and robs phone goes all crazy when he uses the camera. i reflected on what ive read from C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed and began to understand what he he writing about. through this experience this book has come alive to me in my mind. a song that i was listening to said "God knows the hell ive been through knowing that no one can take your place". how many families have had loved ones buried at these cemetaries? how many of them are asking for one chance to see them? for one more hug, one more kiss, one more goodbye, a one more "i love you"?

Grief.

Grief. why does such a thing exist? unfortunately i dont have the answer but i would like to bring up this point. how do we know that we can tell if someone is actually grieving or not? are we even in place to judge to should we begin to have the previous question pop into our minds. i went to a funeral since one of the students who attended the elementary school division of my christian high school. he passed away in a terrible car accident and his funeral/viewing was being held the in the sanctuary and the high school was allowed to sit in. i went since my whole class was going and was very solemn through the whole ceremony but wasnt very interested. after the ceremony i was on my out when a complete stranger proceeded to pull me aside and ask if i had any respect. he believed that because i didnt show any emotion i was not being respectful to deceased's family. being 16 and not afraid to stand up for myself, i retorted that i was being respectful by not crying or making any type of big scene, since i did not know the deceased or his family, i felt that if i did those things that i would be mocking them and therefore cause more hurt and pain than there had to be. i bring this up because i was reading "A Grief Observed". this book was written by C.S. Lewis soon after the death of his wife. just reading the first two chapters i already connected with him. you literally feel the grief that he is going through come right through the pages and hit you. so how do we know when someone is actually grieving and when they're not?

Is there such a thing as Happily Ever After???

Have you ever planned your life out? like after college im gonna get a high paying, then meet the most beautiful girl the planet has to offer, have this enormous wedding, then go to china for a honeymoon (ok maybe no there. maybe Puerto Rico and im not being bias) then have like 6 kids and live in a ten bedroom house in the mountains. perhaps that was a little over exaggerated but my point is that what we wish for is not even close to reality. there was a short story I came across where it started with one of those fairy tale endings. then were about 4 different versions of the story with the same characters with different situations for them. to me each version reminded me of accurate these stories are of reality. how many people go through similar experiences that the characters had been through. reading this story reminded of a broadway musical called Into The Woods. this musical pretty much had all of the major fairy tales the we love today, such as cinderella, rapunzel, jack and the bean stalk and added the story of a baker as well as several other fairy tales. and each of the musicals characters wanted some specific cinderella wanted to go the ball, rapunzel wanted to get out of her  tower and see the world, jack and his mother were poor so he stole from the giants after he grew the beanstalk, and the baker and his wife just wanted to have child since they were barren. now heres the plot twist, after they got what each of them wanted, none of them were happy, which brings me me to my point. happily ever after is sometimes damaging to our perspective of reality. yes i completely understand that as a child we were taught to imagine and thats all right. but as adults if we continue live in a "fairy tale" it opens us to be used and then discarded,  just like mary opened herself to john and john didnt do the same in Version B in Happy Endings. mary lived in a fairy tale of john will warm up to me, which never happens. we need to have a reality check to help us have a very meaningful and enriching life. by have a proper balance of reality and "fairy tale" to help us live happily.

What is this word we call love?

Love is one of those words whose meaning always seems to be muddled in every way. we all have our own definition of love that we love to stand by. we get it from an experience we had or from reading a from favorite romance movie or fairy tale or even from the dictionary and from the Bible. we could go on and on and on about what the true meaning of love is and that for another time and place. however i would like to ask what is love and how can can love be shown? i ask this question because i recently read a narrative on this very subject. there are four characters in the story and they were all at a table sharing a bottle gin (not the best drink to have when about to have a serious a conversation but it'll do). what got them started on the conversation of love was when one the characters started talking about her abusive ex-husband. he expressed his love through hitting her. now we all say that there there is no possible way that he could have shown his love by beating her. that would be true if he struck her for no reason. yet he kept saying that he loved her when he hit her. he loved her so munch that when he found out that she ran off with another man he ended up killing himself. what is the farthest that you will go to show that special someone that love them? will it be chasing them where ever they may go? following them everywhere? constant communication with them? sending them flowers all the time? now think about how far some will go for you to see that they love you. if they did the craziest thing you can think of could you love them? think about it for a while