Oliver

wow, Oliver sure has an interesting way of looking at things. Reading this passage helped show me all the things that nature can be. The Bible uses nature for many examples and metaphors and through this passage i was able to see the furry, wrath and gentle kind heart of nature, boom baby.

The author talks of Gods work being all around. I never looked at nature in that light, if I look at a tree and physically say that God created this tree and the dirt I'm standing on and the very breathe I take it starts to seem overwhelming that our God was able to do all of this. In a why Gods finger prints are everywhere we look, first we just have to look, then we look again and finally we learn to look. I know it doesn't quite make sense but there are many things that just don't make sense and God and nature is just another one for the list. She had a gift for looking into something and seeing it for what it is, we have lost that and I for one would like to rediscover this. I plan for now on not to look at something for what my eyes see but what my eyes don't see. It is as simple as that if only we try.

Nature

Today [Monday] I walked out next to Lake Bonnie and I tried to grasp everything that I could about nature. In class we talked about nature praising God, listening to God and being pentecostal. I tried to imagine nature as a living breathing entity just like myself. So I closed my eyes. Over the next few minutes I tried to listen and I couldn't hear anything. I tried again, this time I laid in the grass and let my feet soak in the lake as my body soaked up the sun. I had to literally become one with nature. Slowly I could almost feel the earth breath with every rushing wind. I could hear the waters crash at my feet, the grass whistle as the wind turn its way. A song I thought, suddenly the earth let out a deep groan that reached from one end of the sky to the other. It was almost like a huge symphony orchestra playing its fine tune, but who in this orchestra is featured. Could it be the crashing sound of the waves, the howling wind through the trees or the grassy plains in which I laid. Who in this orchestra of one could it be. Maybe it is the soft rain that slowly cooled my body or the sound of silence, when all nature is quite before God. Who will nature feature tonight? Surly it must be something greater than even myself, maybe even God himself? But I like to think of God as an excited father sitting on the side lines cheering on his son thats up to bat, "come on son I know you can do it, home run home run", or even the hand that held mine as a child as I fell to sleep. I like to think of my father as that proud parent who rags on about their own child, but surly he doesn't go through all this trouble for us? But then again he would, wouldn't he?

Just I had to become one with nature to somewhat grasp the essence of it all, we must become one with him. Though I am afraid that we may never truly understand it all, and thats all right. For I nor any other man or woman could ever truly grasp it all, and thats why I keep coming back.

State of the Planet

I found this piece of lit to be very interesting. it gives an inside look on the secular view of the world and how it came to be and how it might end one day. The part that talked about how we took the earth and used to to do certain things really caught my attention. Even thought it is a secular view it showed how men do not create only can they invent. Even thought secular it still posses christian beliefs I found this interestingly not suprising, I just needed something to write about.

I love the part when it says that we dare not answer or ask the unanswerable we tend to leave that to priest and such. Why, I ask myself? Do we leave these things to priest because we are afraid to answer them, or do we fear how people might take our ideas and philosophy's. In the Christian view many of us are afraid of stating something untrue and risk spreading heresy, but I can not see why someone on the secular side could or would not want to figure out the unanswerable. The unanswerable has always interested me. One could say that I am nosy and another could say that I have every right to want to know whatever it is that is unknown to me, wow I was really hoping that last sentence would have come out sounding more sophisticated but I will take what I can get on only a few hours of sleep.

I was inspired

During our discussion last class I got inspired to start writing a story, This is just the very begining of an amazing adventure.

My story takes place over 120 years ago in this very land. Our ancestors took shelter in these underground facilities seeking refuge from the danger that drew near. As children we are told stories of the great light and fire so intense that it can vaporize a human in seconds. They say that the bunkers protect us from this great threat. War and famine spread across our land killing all in its grasp. Disease infiltrated our great cities and spread like wildfire, choking the very existence of humanity. Those who survived the plagues took shelter, we are all that are left. Surviving off of mushrooms from underground springs, roaches and an occasional rat for over a century.

All of them are gone now, the story tellers, The only record of what happened is imbedded in the memory of the few that are left hear. Thirty four men women and children, we are the offspring of the story tellers. Their story is our story.

-120 years earlier

-Flipping through the Television channels

CNN- Wide spread evacuations are taking place as of this very moment. You are to take your family and get to the nearest evacuation center immediately. Don’t take any-

FOX- We have Tim Suarez on the scene now. Tim- This is just incredible never in my life time have I ever seen anything like this. There are people busting out windows of shopping centers and taking everything inside. This is just unbelievable. Anchor- Now we go to Charlie Belcher who is at our nation’s capitol, are you seeing what I am seeing, there are mobs of people storming the white house and slaughtering-

700 CLUB- May God keep us and protect us, this is our most desperate hour-

-Turn off Television.

Jake-Honey, did you get everything?

Mary- yes I got all the medication, and enough food for a week.

Jake- That’s not enough. Hear take this [gun] and keep it on you.

-Back to 2130

Anna- Many times I sit and pray to God, asking him why he has forsaken us and left us to die in these prisons we call home. Are we just to rot in here until our race has completely depleted to nothing? O how I feel so alone in such a barren hopeless world, no joy no peace only death and suffering has entered our minds and bodies. O how I long to feel freedom from this fate.

The Adults speak to us of stories passed down from the first story tellers. They speak of a bright fire in the sky that is so big it can warm everyone and still it does not burn you. They speak of pools of water that are so enormous you could not possibly swim across, and they speak of rocks that are so monstrously huge that they make a man look like a grain of sand. O how I long to see these things, to feel this salt wind in my face, the cool breeze in the fall air, to watch green paper change colors before your very eyes. I want to see experience this but I am afraid that they are just myths maid to give us hope of a better life someday. Is that what keeps us going on? The hope of a better life. I wonder, if our race would have tried to work even have as hard if they knew their fate would not be a happy one, but a dark strange world, cursed by our own hand and lost to our greed. O how I long Heaven. For surly I have seen Hell.

-2010

-Driving, Horrible traffic at a stand still

-Radio- This is just in Turkish ballistic missiles just devastated the East coast of the united States. We have contact in Atlanta, Boston, Jacksonville, Charlotte and New York. If you can hear this you have approximately 38 minutes until first light.

Mary- That doesn’t give us enough time.

Jake- We’ll walk from here, leave everything it will just weigh us down. I’ll grab the baby.

-2130

-Anna- I always wonder what it would be like to go outside. Nobody has done it in 120 years. They say that the air outside is poisoned with an invisible monster. They said that if you go outside he will get into your lungs and cause your skin to boil and bubble. I think they are just making it up, besides I’m twelve now and not afraid of no monster.

-Later on that night

-Silently Anna makes her way through the bunker to take a peek out side. Softly and carefully she makes each step count. She could make out the sounds of the elders snoring and adults talking. There was a narrow entrance way that leads to a spiral stairwell. Their where chains on the door, so she had to carefully squeeze her body through ever so carefully. Suddenly she felt something scurry over her hand, and then she dropped. The doors bumped the chains and maid a loud clang against the doors.

-There was a long period of silence, like everyone was listening for her. Then someone was coming. She pulls the rest of her body through grabs the rat that ran over her hand and placed it just outside the doors in the hall. Then all I could see through the crack of the door and hinge was a stout man it must had been Mr. Parker, he sometimes keeps watch during lights out. Those few moments seemed like forever, then Mr. Ferguson walked up and said come on back to the party; it’s probably just a rat.

-Mr. Parker- Your right, OK.

-Mr. Fergusson- Of course I’m right.

-Anna- As I made my way up the stair well I felt light headed and dizzy. Kind of like when you stay under the water to long in the spring. The stairs seemed never ending they wrapped up higher and higher until I was out of breath. I could look down now and see a small light from the crack in the door where I saw Mr. Parker and Mr. Fergusson. As I journeyed onward say a small light appear. It was orange in color. I also became quite cold for a small breeze now blew my hair around my head like the fairish wheels I learned about in my history lesson. As I came to the final ten steps a saw a door on the ceiling, there was a bit of light that had seemed to make its way in through the edges of the door. My bare feet seemed to glide across the stone cold floor as I rose to open the doors.

-2010

-Patrol officer-Get inside, hurry. No sir, there is only enough room for 50 people.

-Mary-(screaming) Jake, no.

-Jake- I love you, take care of her, when she gets old enough tell her that I love her and no matter what happens God will see us through.

-Patrol Officer-Mama, I must shut the door.

-Mary-(crying) I love you.

-Jake-(crying) I love you too.

-Door shut, A great wind picks up, sun fades into the distance. Suddenly, a blinding light appears.

-2130-

Character Post

When I think about characters I like to think back on a story known as Hamlet. hamlet was quite a character, most people would refer to him as deep but i beg to differ. Hamlet seemed to me Flat. He was quite amusing but he was not deep intellectual or thought provoking. He simple received information and acted upon it. This sounds quite boring yes, but it is not. You see Hamlet is unique to me because he is flat but not boring. Many story,s with flat characters are very boring but hamlet keeps the action alive. He even makes this out to be funny at some points. I personally make flat characters when writing but I find it challenging and fun to keep them from turning sour. In the play Hamlet he is constantly keeping the audience entertained all the way even to his death. Yes as he is dying he makes it almost comical.

The character Hamlet looks like a young man in this mid to late twenties. he may have a bowl cut and a thin beard. He may where leggings and any other clothing styled during that era. Being of noble blood his skin would be pale not having a bit of sun on his skin. So far this image of our character looks a bit like a modern nerd, but thats alright, Hamlet is a funny guy. Our character would smell like he never broke a sweat in his life. Our character would also posses a European accent. This of course would be because he lives in Europe, don't worry Hamlet we'll forgive you. Our character during this time is training to be king someday by going to school constantly, learning how to govern a group of people, etc... During the course of the story he is trying to find out the reason for his fathers death. He finally learns that his father was killed by his uncle who is now king and happily married to his uncle. During the course of the play he is trying to expose his uncle then to revenge his father's death by killing his uncle. This is why I say that he is not very deep. Everything is laying wide out in the open. There is no thought provoking work in his works or actions. Shakespeare should have taken Prof Corrigans class.

Hamlet does have a friend who throughout the play stays rather secondary, but towards the end he makes his approach and ends the play with some deep well rounded words. It really causes me to think. "What is it ye would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search." Wow.

In the play know as Hamlet there are many other characters, many of with are flat just as Hamlet, but there are a few that are quite deep. Horatio for instance is a friend of Hamlet. Horatio is the one that said the what is it ye would see speech.

A Second Look at Sonny's Blues

There was a few points in he article Sonny's Blues that stood out to me. One of my favorite lines were not a set of words that most people would ever recognizes as standing out to them but they did to me. At the top of page 390 I found it interesting where he was talking about the differences in age and how he wonders if the years would some how connect them both together like a bridge. That was very interesting to me. In my own life I have found where when I was a kid most of my friends would make jokes of the elderly. I never paid much attention to it but recently I noticed my brothers friends treating me different because of my age advantage to them, so now I have been able to connect the dots and observe how our society works. The gap between generations is a problem only because we make it a problem. The older generation has a lot of advice to give us just as they have a lot of knowledge to gain from us, and if we can ever see it for what it is maybe our generations can cross and learn to work with each other even better.
I only say this because when he was asking himself this question it was almost like he was worried that their age gap would not bring them together but keep them apart. I picked this up in the tone of the sentence, yes sentences have tones.

Another part that I absolutely loved was the line ,"All I know about music is that not many people ever hear it.". I myself write music and find that words and phrasing in the notes are crucial to the message and that the message can some times get lost if heard with the wrong set of ears. To really hear music is to feel it, breath it, and experience it. Music is one of the greatest Literary feats of all time in my opinion and with this great power comes misunderstanding, for the musician this can be disheartening, frustrating and sad, but not for the musician them selfs but for the audience which will never truly hear it.