Madame Descartes

   If there's one thing I love more then a great, well made movie, it's an amazing vocabulary, and an original voice. And David St. John... he has that. He very delicately describes Madame Descartes as he sees her and takes in her beauty; "Along the fir wall, a leisurely veil of cigarette smoke steadily latticing the air before her; then I caught her unmistakable reflection in one of the square mirrored pillars, "those regal cheekbones, those nearly opaque, sea-blue eyes that'd commandeered both men and newspapers for forty years, simply lifting to meet mine..."  I love how he describes, in great depth, her eyes before he even sees them. 


   This is something I struggle to maintain. A distinct voice when I write. Every now and then it'll sound like something, or someone, else. When you go through and you read the entire new testament, you can see that paul has his own style, and certain words that he emphasizes the most. John does the same, as does Luke and Peter. When you read the book in the new testament you can tell who wrote it simply by it's voice. David St. John has a voice that is both refreshing and unique. There is another time in the narrative that stands out to me because it is so descriptive that you can't not notice it. "Beneath her quite carefully constructed mask, The islands of rouge mapping soft slopes of power, beneath the precise calm she'd expertly painted for herself before the mirror, I could see why scandal had tattooed even the air she'd walked through. I'd never seen a beauty like hers, riveting as a unicorns soft eye." 


   In chapel last friday (Yes... I go to religion chapel at Southeastern) The had a panel of three women who are actively involved in ministry. Each one had something different to say as far as how ministry is to be approached and dealt with, but they al had the same underlying theme... find your voice. They argued that your life is a story, and it has a voice. One of my goals is to find that voice and to write that story, and then to eventually read it to my children, and to my children's children, so that they too can find their voice. But why stop there? Why not so that everyone can read it? My dream is to help others discover their voice, to write their stories. For this I now live...

Joel

  After rereading the book of Joel. I tried to find a common theme. As difficult as it was I think I may have found one. In the beginning He is talking about different kinds of locusts. After reading and analyzing the book a little further in detail, I feel as though I am able to come to the conclusion that he is metaphorically speaking about all of these different nations that took Israel into slavery. In Chapter 2 he quotes the Lord having said, "Then I will make up to you for the years, that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust." Calling it His great army sent against them. And then in Charpter 3 he talks about "...Tyre, Sidon and all the regions of Philistia." and then later, " and sold the sons of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks..."

   This is the main theme I found through out the book, even though it is incredibly short. Death and destruction, then a reviving of the life that was lost. The locusts come and eat everything and completely decimate the land. Just as the neighboring countries would come in and destroy the land that they called home and take them captive, making a profit by selling them into slavery.

   Chapter one is describing the scene created in a metaphorical nature. Chapter two emphasizes redemption and God's power and it's potency. Chapter three, seems to elaborate on both of these things by using a little more literal language. As we talked about in class on Tuesday, the bible is literally poetry. Maybe not always the way it sounds but the way it's written definitely presents a prose and common theme. Truth, and justice. What else is important enough to write 66 books about?
  
   If you haven't read Joel or Any of the other minor prophets, I would encourage you to read at least one before the year is over.

A New Way of Thinking

   I should say that one the things, or aspects, of Corrigans class that I find most humbling is what dialog that we share in class. After reading and blogging about his essay on darkness, hope and other such things I found that class discussion was some what robust. The room was filled with questions and most did not have answers. Which is fitting since the essay talked about how the questions that we so often look for are the ones that we know we either have the answer to or the ones that we can find an answer to. Nothing is as it seems. And it's funny, I always thought of myself more as a writer then as a reader. But the last year or so, and especially after being introduced to Prof. Corrigans class, I feel an urgency to read more then write.

  This last discussion we had in class reminded me of something I wrote last semester. Something in my journal...

"All the mourning that you're doing tonight, in the morning will just turn into might, give you strength to fight, lace 'em up strap your armor on tight, don't you settle for wrong when you know that your right, my eternal God, my refuge and my strength, I pray that you would guide me within every step I take, no mistakes, cause me to break, and above all else I pray you keep me safe, as the earth quakes, 'cause everyday ain't the same, some are filled with guilt and shame, and then there's those days you gotta call on the name, 'cause what can you do when you greatest fears come true, it's at that point you realize your strength is not from you, it's not your own, not until you seek the throne, your not accident prone, you're attack prone, susceptible to the evil one, the master of deception, make you believe in lies like you're not good enough, make you think that you're not tough enough, like you ain't got the stuff it takes, to fight for your life and other lives at stake..."

   Nothing is as it seems, Sometimes, it's a constant battle, the classic epic fight of good versus evil, light versus the darkness. It's got me thinking about the Yupik (Native Alaskan Tribe) story. Inside everyman lives two wolves, a Great White Wolf and a Blood Thirsty Grey Wolf. The wolf that lives is the wolf you feed the most. Which wolf are you feeding?

A question about Darkness

   Where is darkness? If I were to put you in a room by yourself (or with a friend, it really doesn't matter) and turned the lights off on you and ask you to point out darkness what would you say? Is darkness something that can be defined? Is it something tangible that you can see and touch? And if you could identify it, what would it look like?

   A lot of times we seem to overlook the idea of darkness. Sometimes we refuse to see it because we want to believe everything is okay. "Fake it till you make it." My Intro to Psychology teacher Misty Seybert used to always say. And in doing so we tend to become unaware of what exactly darkness is, and what it looks like. "To live without awareness of it at all is death pure and simple--even though one may still be walking around and smelling perfect." (Thomas Merton, quoted from Drakness, Question, Poetry, and Spiritual Hope by Paul Corrigan)

   Professor Corrigan also states that, "Darkness is a question that must be asked seriously." Implying that Darkness is of such a matter that firing off answers as if you have the right answer is nothing short of ignorance, and/or stupidity. At least in my own rendition of the thought anyway. I feel the same way; that when it come to something as serious as darkness, you need to ask yourself the right questions. Matthew 6:22-23 talks about darkness in respect to your heart. That if your eyes are a window to the soul then this means that they are what lets the light and or darkness in. Make sure that you are only letting in light, but what if the light that you thought was good is in fact darkness? (The question comes...) How great then is that greatness?

   Professor Corrigan brought up a truly valid issue; "Certainly we do not need to attend a funeral or travel to the other side of the world to find darkness. Downtown is as far as we ever need to go; and often, we can find it in our own bedroom." So then now the challenge becomes a matter of the heart, rather then just a matter of pure evil, death, and gloom. This is far more discouraging then the latter. For if it were simply a matter of pure evil, and certainty of death, then we would deal with it as we always have; ignored it. But because it's a matter of our own hearts now, we have been drawn to the dark-side. A force set out to destroy anything resembling that of hope. And the worst part is that we've been fighting this war against ourselves this whole time and never realized it until just now... when I told you. Corrigan also, as any good writer would do, insures a hope; stating that, "Facing darkness is not pleasant or socially acceptable, but in this world where darkness is, the integrity of our hope depends on it."

   The remarkable thing to me is that we tend to be that very source of evil, but are at the same time the only source of hope we have. It's when our hope rises up and chooses to say that, "Enough is enough. I'm tired of seeing people hungry. I'm sick of walking by people and not giving a care, just as long as I have money for the dollar menu at Micky D's. I'm done with changing the channel every time I see an ad for an orphanage in India. I'm done sitting around and doing nothing." It was ElieWiesel, a holocaust survivor, who said it best; "Indifference is the worst kind of hatred." So I direct my question now to our hope... When are you going to rise up? And when are we going to stop pretending that this darkness isn't in us?


   If this subject interested you and you want to see it in a more visual way, watch the movie Three. (It's also a book written by Ted Dekker.)

The Grave-yard Shift

   It was an interesting assignment that much is true,  but it was also in a way, an incredibly eye opening experience. As we approached the site of our next field trip thoughts flooded our minds and eventually found their way out via our mouths. What the heck are we doing here? Is this appropriate, since none of us know anyone here? What's proper cemetery etiquette? And how long should we reflect on each respective grave?

  I feel often that cemeteries can be a place of depression, and loneliness. But as we began reading each tombstone we passed I began to get this feeling of excitement for some, peculiar reason. I began thinking of the stories that we were encountering. I began seeing, in my mind, the lives that had been lived. What were these people like. Considering most of the graves we saw were from around the late 1900's, it was intriguing to feel as if I could understand the struggles they went through. This is a place were the humble were remembered with the great. In most aspects the greats were those who were humble. At least that's the way it seems to often times be. There were soldiers in many different places; some that served in WWII, and some that served in more recent wars such as the Persian Gulf War and one soldier that had died earlier this year.

   Maybe you've heard the saying, "The most important thing on your tombstone, is that dash between the dates." It's what you did while you were alive. Did you give generously? Did you not only notice the poor among you but did you do something about it? I started thinking about all these times when I could have done something. When I could have given something, even though I had so little to share. The times I should have said something but kept my mouth shut with strong effort. What are people going to say about me when I'm dead and gone? (great song by T.I. and Justin Timberlake) What's that dash going to proclaim about the way I chose to live my life?

   "Never let anyone tell you that your not old enough, that your too young, that you don't know anything." (The Apostle Paul-paraphrased) Let be your warning! There are no excuses, nothing should keep you from doing what you know is right. While we were at the cemetery, we came across the grave of a couple who had lived during the segregation period of our country. The best part of this was that this couple was African-American. The trials they must have gone trough in that time must have been unbearable at times. Those are the stories I want to hear. Those are the stories I want my life to mimic.

A Grief Observed- Part 1

   "They say an unhappy man wants distractions- something to take him out of himself. Only as a dog-tired man wants an extra blanket on a cold night; he'd rather lie there and shiver then get up and find one. It's easy to see why the lonely become untidy, finally, dirty and disgusting." (Pg. 5)

   It was my junior year in high school and we were just about to get the basketball season started. The team was looking good and our chances at winning the state championship were even better. It was looking like the perfect year. We had most everybody coming back, and after a summer of working out and hanging out, the time was approaching us. The Season opener; the first game of the season. Everyone knows how important the first game is. It's like a first impression on the season. It's what says, "We're the team to beat." As a Junior and co-captain, I was in the starting line up; I had worked a lot over the summer trying to make sure I didn't take any steps back.  But that night was one of the roughest nights I had in high-school. We get a call at about 9pm-10pm. It's my Aunt Tricia, who is my dad's younger siser,... It's about my Grandma... she just passed away after struggling only a few months with breast cancer. Devastated I failed to sleep that night, and as I went to school the next I found myself in the same isolation the C.S. Lewis put himself in after the death of his wife. Even though the relationships are different, I still felt the same things he felt.

   I grew up not knowing anyone in my mothers family, for clearly obvious reasons, and the only distant relatives I knew were, my Aunt Tricia and her family, and my dads parents. Only my aunt lived in town so it wasn't very often we got to see them. But them were all the family I had, and I loved them. But this is not the end.

   The very next year, I find out my Aunt Catherine (my dads aunt) just passed away with breast cancer also. Granted I did not really know her except for when we took a vacation down to Florida one year and stayed with her for a couple nights, I wasn't affected as much.

   "Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My Mother, my father, my wife. I wondered who is next in the queue." (Pg. 12) Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My Grandma, my Aunt Catherine, and then my Aunt Trica. The very one who called us to tell us about Grandma was now diagnosed with breast cancer, my sophomore year in college. It's never an easy thing to hear, someone you love and hold so dear has now got a disease that has no real cure. Times can be hard. In relation to, at least the first two chapters anyway, I find it hard to disagree with Lewis. Sometimes you really do have to ask the tough questions, because sometimes you just really don't know.

My Literary Self

   It seems to me that my earliest memories of literature, after deep reflection and prolonged action to do anything about it, I have come to the simple conclusion that, at least my favorite anyways, is whenever my Dad would read to us as we fell asleep. He liked reading the adventure stories like Frank Peretti's "The Cooper Family Adventures", and then J.R.R. Tolkein's quotable "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. They were inspiring and the only thing I would really look forward to when the day had come to and end. There's nothing like falling asleep to a story that involves such perilous adventures and life and death situations, I'm sure if you were to ask my parents they would say they made for great dreams to be told about in the early mornings before school .
   But through this my Father had instilled within me an uncanny nature to just read. "Knowledge is Power!" He would sometimes say, and even though it took awhile for me to actually pick a book that I thought I would enjoy, I did, and there's been at least one in my hand ever since. He birthed that passion to learn, that passion to read.
   The most significant piece of literature I've read, besides the bible (which I still haven't even read all the way through yet), wold have to be "Worldliness" edited by C.J. Mahaney; I had also just finished reading before I left for India, and so need less to say God pretty much messed me up in preparation for that little adventure, but it made me really re-examine my outlook on life, and forced me to notice things that I needed to work on, as much as I didn't want to. It helped me see who I am, and who I've been called to be. Where I'm at, and where I should be.
   Literature has value in the sense that without it, we wouldn't be where we are today. Even if the art of writing on paper gets outdated and goes out of style, it was important because it was a necessary part of the process to get there. Literature is important and shows promise in the single fact that literature provides understanding. There are things I can't comprehend, unless I see it written out on paper. But like everything else it has it's pros and cons.
   Literature doesn't matter when it comes to table talk, or opinions/advice (since I feel that opinions/advice are points of views based off of experiences), there are certain things that literature cannot make up for. Literature cannot make up for an experience. Just because you read a very well written book about skydiving, does not mean that you know what it feels like to jump out of a plane, unless of coarse you have had that experience. Literature cannot get you a girlfriend. No matter how many books you read, or how many times you read them. You will never woe a woman until you take significant time to get to know her.