When I walk around this campus I cant help but to think we could totally do our little field trip right here! I mean, this place is one big jungle. Take away the buildings and I’ll be in Jurassic Park. How’s that for nature? Anyways, the other day in class we talked more about nature and nature poetry. We read some scriptures from the Bible that pertained to nature as well. One of them was the end of Matthew chapter 6. We read “Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin..” Now, when I first read this I knew what the context was. Jesus was telling his disciples no to worry about food or clothing, and that if God can take care of nature, then he can certainly take care of us. I am not sure if I would apply that to nature poetry, but this verse helped me realize that Jesus took the time to admire his Fathers creation. Another verse that we read cam from the book of psalms. Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God;
 the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” One thing I like about this verse is that there is another verse in the New Testament that says all of creation is proof that God exists. So when I read, “the skies proclaim the work of His hands”, it reminded me that creation itself is the simple proof of God’s omnipresence. We also read psalm 139, which was my favorite out of all of them. The chapter talks about God’s omnipresence and complex goodness.  A couple of years ago I went to Peru for a mission’s trip. We stayed about two hours outside of Cusco up in the mountains. That trip caused me to look at nature in whole different way. I was awesome because I got a new glimpse of God’s glory.

State of the Planet

When I first read this poem, I was having a lot of trouble understanding it. I felt like each section of the poem was changing and had nothing to do with previous one. I actually didn’t really understand it at all.  Poetry is so hard to grasp sometimes because it is the authors own interpretation of something. Whether it is nature, grief, or life in general, the author always has some kind of metaphorical meaning to every line of the poem. And sometimes that can be a challenge to break down. There were a few lines in the poem that I found interesting.  One was in the first paragraph of the first section. It says “A Japanese plum throws off a vertical cascade of leaves the color of skinned copper, if copper could be skinned. I really liked that imagery because I felt like he was making something that is usually viewed as plain and unattractive into something beautiful. He took the element copper and used that to describe the color of the leaves. Which also indicated to me that it was the fall season. Another quote that I liked was in the fourth section: “It must be a gift of evolution that humans can’t sustain wonder. We’d never had gotten up from our knees if we could.” I don’t think I fully understand this line but it was one that caught my attention. I don’t think evolution is necessarily a gift. If anything, it brings us further away from the truth of creation. Even as I sit here now and think about it, I feel like this line almost contradicts itself. Would the theory of evolution sustain wonder to cause people to get up form their knees? I’m not too sure about that one. Overall this was one poem that took a lot of thinking. My brain hurts.

poetry prayer

Poetry is one of those things that I think I pretend to understand and interpret. Maybe if I read it certain way, like in a deep profound tone, then ill get out of it what I should. But that doesn’t seem to work.  I like that we are reading more poetic stuff in class, especially in the bible.  When we talked about the reading for transformation, it made me think of that quote “read for transformation, not just information.”  The quote that stuck out to me the most was one hat we read in class.. “When we pray with poetry, whether the biblical poetry of the psalms or non-biblical poetry open to Christian appropriation, we open ourselves to the possibility of spiritual experience.”  I was thinking, a lot of times when people pray they pray with a certain tone.  It is almost a poetic tone.  Whether it is from the Bible or our own words to God.  I think when we pray from the psalms, we open ourselves up to a spiritual experience.  There is definitely something different when we pray a God prayer as opposed to a good prayer.

I also just want to touch on when we talked about language in class. I’m not one who gets offended when we read books or stories that having cursing in them. I would rather read stuff that did not, there’s a lot clean material out there.  But I understand that we need to be exposed to the real world as well. The fact that we read literature that has bad language and fail to take it out is not so much about making God angry. Why would God get angry because someone says a curse word? That’s against God’s character. But it’s the heart behind it. When I read Colossians 3:8, that set it pretty clear in my mind that I should use profanity or any kinds of words that are socially unacceptable. I don’t think it’s right try and bargain with God on something like that.

Sonny's Blues

A short summery of Sonny blue's...Sonny’s Blues was one of those stories that was difficult for me to read through.  There was a lot of dialogue and emotion in the story.  The story starts out with the narrator reading in the paper that his brother had just been arrested for selling heroin. The narrator is a teacher at a school in Harlem. When he is at school, all he can think about are the boys who do not have bright futures and will probably get addicted to drugs at some point in their life. After school, he meets a friend of Sonny’s on the subway. He was grown up, but he was still out on the streets. I didn’t think the story gave a very good description of what Sonny looked like. It just says that his hair is dirty and that he smells “funky.”  At first during their conversation, the narrator seems as if he were going to judge him for where Sonny’s friend was at in life, being hooked on drugs. As they were talking, the narrator began to think back to the last time he saw his brother. It had been a year. The thought crossed his mind that he could have been the cause for Sonny’s addiction.  Later in the story it is found out that Sonny is not going to school. Instead, he is going over to hang with   his jazz friends, probably to do drugs. Once Isabel’s parents find this out, Sonny leaves their house, drops out of school, and joins the navy.  Towards the end of the story, the narrator and Sonny go to a jazz club.  Sonny completely blows the narrator away by his talent. It was cool to read about the connection that was made between these two characters.  It shows that even someone in the deepest pit can be pulled out if they have a hand to grab.

Good Reminder

 

So this is me just babbling on for about three hundred words.  When I look at the stories and notes that we’ve read, I honestly feel like the first few weeks of the class readings and assignments were better than what we have read in the last week or so.  I think my favorite reading assignment was from Joel.  I am always a fan of digging deeper into God’s word. When I read it for the first time, there was one particular verse that caught my attention which was 2:25. In the new living translation it says “I will give you back what you lost.” I guess I’m one of, if not the only student in the class who actually enjoyed talking about suffering and darkness. Although sometimes I can get hostile when other people think they know what suffering and darkness is about but they really have no idea. This past week has been pretty challenging itself.  With schoolwork, relationships, and just stuff happening, life feels like its just beats us to the ground sometimes.  Sometimes it feels like the suffering never stops, or when it looks like things are coming together, sometimes fall through or falls apart again.  The problem with us is that we fail to see the big picture of the situation.  Every Friday in my life of Christ class, we have a Q&A class where we can ask Dr. Hackett whatever we pertaining to the bible, Christianity, God, ect.  One of the girls in the class asked, well, she really made a statement, that she did not understand why God had to allow suffering and people to die in order for us to grow and mature.  As we were talking about it in class I was reminded of something. God is always in control. No matter how chaotic things get, He always has it under control. A lot of the times we fail to realize what God could be saving us from because we’re so focused on the worst of the situation.

Dreams Postponed

Everyone has dreams.  Everyone has that one thing where they say “if I could do anything in the world, I would do...” fill in the blank.  She was nine years old the first time her father told her that she was required to play some type of instrument.  That conversation at the dinner table didn’t go too well.  But she did what her dad said and played the clarinet.  That lasted about six months. 

Christine grew up with music.  She was always hearing the sound of gospel coming from the basement.  She was always hearing her father yelling at his manager on the phone. “I’m going to fire him!” Christine’s father said for about the 11 millionth time.  Christine’s father older than most dads of teenagers.  Her was very health conscience and very outgoing. He always had a way of telling the truth as well.  Even if it was harsh.  Christine’s father was a well known gospel musician overseas, and just like her father Christine was the performer of the family. She was pretty short, not that good looking, played a few instruments, but never really excelled at any of them.  Christine’s passion was for the drums.  Interesting, because her brother, Daniel was the one who begged for the drum kit. But when dad bought it, she started playing it more than her brother.  Soon she became pretty good at the drums.  Christine’s father always told her that she had a good foot for the base.  Coming from a musician with an ear for every little thing, that was a pretty big deal.

            Over time Christine learned how to read music by playing the trumpet.  She played in the concert and symphonic band throughout high school.   Christine even played on the drum line in the marching band.  She wasn’t out of the ordinary.  Half of the drum line were girls.  And being a girl who played drums was, well, normal.  In fact it was kind of cool.  The marching band was her element. Playing with other people, being the pulse of the band. This was her definitely her thing. While most would call people in the marching band geeks, Christine saw it as one of the cool things to do.  To her, the band was the main attraction and the football game was a side show. 

            Of course all good things must come to an end and Christine graduated high school with band being the very last thing that she did.  Every year the band had to go to graduations and play Stars and Stripes forever” and Pomp and circumstance.  After Christine graduated, she began to get more involved in music at her church.  Her dad was so proud to her getting more involved in the church, especially in music ministry.  But something was different about the bands in the church than in school.  One day the worship leader had an audition to be on the worship team.  Christine tried out, but it wasn’t her ability that caught the eyes of the leader, but it was that she was a female.  A girl playing drums in the church was unheard of.  Never seen before.  They didn’t know what to think of it.  On the other hand, they were very impressed with her skills.  Each time Christine went back to church, someone said something to her about that audition.  Every.  Eventually, after a long time of waiting she was able to play on the worship team. And once again, Christine had found her element.  Drumming for the youth and young adult band was one of her favorite things to do. It caused to start think long term in the future.  Christine always figured that if she didn’t know what to do with her life, she could always work for her father.  But now that thought didn’t seem like such a bad idea.  Her dad always told her that it would be a dream come true to see her play drums for the gospel band and travel throughout Europe.  Why not? It would definitely not be the typical job to have. And that’s what Christine wanted.

            As Christine went to a local college, she continued playing on the worship as long as they would allow her to.  Being a girl who played the drums was becoming more of natural thing for the people who liked to stereotype.  She became more confident and quit comparing herself to the other guy drummers.  After playing for about three years, her desire became to be a part of her father’s touring gospel group.  Her father was excited to get Christine rehearsing and she was excited as well.  She never knew that her entire life would shaken in the next 6 months.

            On a hot summer afternoon, Christine came home from work.  She was tired and hungry because she had been fasting with a group of people from her church.  Christine’s primary goal was to go to sleep as soon as she got home, but her dad had something to tell her and her brother Daniel. Her dad sat them down.  Anytime a person is asked to sit down before they tell you something, it’s not a good thing. She was starting to get nervous.  Were her parents getting divorced? Did someone die? The room was silent until the conversation started with some small talk.  That’s another bad sign. Small talk before the big news.  As her dad began to speak, he could see tears rolling down his face. It was that word that nobody wants to hear.  The “C” word. It was cancer.  He told them he would be starting chemotherapy. Suddenly all the dreams of being along side her father were slowly deteriorating.  Everything that they planned together was gone.  After six months of taking care of her father, he passed away. Now playing the drums was just a hobby.  When she would go to practice, she had no passion because there was no purpose.  The dream and vision that Christine had with her father was gone.  Or was it just postponed?  It seemed like all the hard work came to a stop and nothing mattered anymore.  At the same time, she found comfort in God’s grace.  Living out the fullness of God’s grace. 

Although the end of the story doesn’t have a bow-tie ending, Christine’s heart is still for music.  She keeps her eyes and heart on Romans 8:28. “God works all things together for the good of those love God and are called according to His purpose for them.  Going through the experience of death, Christine realized that dream does not die, but may just get postponed.

Everyone has dreams.  Everyone has that one thing where they say “if I could do anything in the world, I would do...” fill in the blank.  She was nine years old the first time her father told her that she was required to play some type of instrument.  That conversation at the dinner table didn’t go too well.  But she did what her dad said and played the clarinet.  That lasted about six months. 

Christine grew up with music.  She was always hearing the sound of gospel coming from the basement.  She was always hearing her father yelling at his manager on the phone. “I’m going to fire him!” Christine’s father said for about the 11 millionth time.  Christine’s father older than most dads of teenagers.  Her was very health conscience and very outgoing. He always had a way of telling the truth as well.  Even if it was harsh.  Christine’s father was a well known gospel musician overseas, and just like her father Christine was the performer of the family. She was pretty short, not that good looking, played a few instruments, but never really excelled at any of them.  Christine’s passion was for the drums.  Interesting, because her brother, Daniel was the one who begged for the drum kit. But when dad bought it, she started playing it more than her brother.  Soon she became pretty good at the drums.  Christine’s father always told her that she had a good foot for the base.  Coming from a musician with an ear for every little thing, that was a pretty big deal.

            Over time Christine learned how to read music by playing the trumpet.  She played in the concert and symphonic band throughout high school.   Christine even played on the drum line in the marching band.  She wasn’t out of the ordinary.  Half of the drum line were girls.  And being a girl who played drums was, well, normal.  In fact it was kind of cool.  The marching band was her element. Playing with other people, being the pulse of the band. This was her definitely her thing. While most would call people in the marching band geeks, Christine saw it as one of the cool things to do.  To her, the band was the main attraction and the football game was a side show. 

            Of course all good things must come to an end and Christine graduated high school with band being the very last thing that she did.  Every year the band had to go to graduations and play Stars and Stripes forever” and Pomp and circumstance.  After Christine graduated, she began to get more involved in music at her church.  Her dad was so proud to her getting more involved in the church, especially in music ministry.  But something was different about the bands in the church than in school.  One day the worship leader had an audition to be on the worship team.  Christine tried out, but it wasn’t her ability that caught the eyes of the leader, but it was that she was a female.  A girl playing drums in the church was unheard of.  Never seen before.  They didn’t know what to think of it.  On the other hand, they were very impressed with her skills.  Each time Christine went back to church, someone said something to her about that audition.  Every.  Eventually, after a long time of waiting she was able to play on the worship team. And once again, Christine had found her element.  Drumming for the youth and young adult band was one of her favorite things to do. It caused to start think long term in the future.  Christine always figured that if she didn’t know what to do with her life, she could always work for her father.  But now that thought didn’t seem like such a bad idea.  Her dad always told her that it would be a dream come true to see her play drums for the gospel band and travel throughout Europe.  Why not? It would definitely not be the typical job to have. And that’s what Christine wanted.

            As Christine went to a local college, she continued playing on the worship as long as they would allow her to.  Being a girl who played the drums was becoming more of natural thing for the people who liked to stereotype.  She became more confident and quit comparing herself to the other guy drummers.  After playing for about three years, her desire became to be a part of her father’s touring gospel group.  Her father was excited to get Christine rehearsing and she was excited as well.  She never knew that her entire life would shaken in the next 6 months.

            On a hot summer afternoon, Christine came home from work.  She was tired and hungry because she had been fasting with a group of people from her church.  Christine’s primary goal was to go to sleep as soon as she got home, but her dad had something to tell her and her brother Daniel. Her dad sat them down.  Anytime a person is asked to sit down before they tell you something, it’s not a good thing. She was starting to get nervous.  Were her parents getting divorced? Did someone die? The room was silent until the conversation started with some small talk.  That’s another bad sign. Small talk before the big news.  As her dad began to speak, he could see tears rolling down his face. It was that word that nobody wants to hear.  The “C” word. It was cancer.  He told them he would be starting chemotherapy. Suddenly all the dreams of being along side her father were slowly deteriorating.  Everything that they planned together was gone.  After six months of taking care of her father, he passed away. Now playing the drums was just a hobby.  When she would go to practice, she had no passion because there was no purpose.  The dream and vision that Christine had with her father was gone.  Or was it just postponed?  It seemed like all the hard work came to a stop and nothing mattered anymore.  At the same time, she found comfort in God’s grace.  Living out the fullness of God’s grace. 

Although the end of the story doesn’t have a bow-tie ending, Christine’s heart is still for music.  She keeps her eyes and heart on Romans 8:28. “God works all things together for the good of those love God and are called according to His purpose for them.  Going through the experience of death, Christine realized that dream does not die, but may just get postponed.

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painting

I kept forgetting to post the paintings. So here they are!

Character

The past couple days in class, we talked about character. So here is my little intake. Character is one of those words that people use to describe other people. “She has character” or “He’s quite a character.” So it depends on the context. I’ve never really had to write something about character, so bare with me. Character can be defined as someone who has moral or ethical quality. Honorable, or even a good reputation. When I look at this word, I can think of some pretty awesome people that have crossed my path who have great character. They are people who really stick out as a follower of Christ to me and won’t compromise their faith for anything. Character can also be tested as well, especially in the ministry. That I why, in my opinion, churches are one of the most difficult places to work, because it is the place where a lot peoples’ true character comes out. I believe that this past weekend showed the character of a lot of people. During the week of fire fall, students were encouraged to do an outreach at the freedom center. The freedom center is located in one of the more poor, urban areas in Lakeland. It’s kind of rough area. A lot people who I talked to about it had this judgmental attitude towards that area and people who lived there. Last year about 300 students came out to serve the community after Fire Fall. The theme for last years fire fall was “be the answer.” Obviously, it was all about being the answer to a broken world, or in Southeastern’s case, a broken community. So with all the hype about serving, a bunch kids came out to the outreach the following Saturday after fire fall. This year, we prepared for over 200 students to show up at the freedom center. We ended up getting about 60 students. Some may think that 60 students is not a successful mission. But I had never seen such servant hearts and humble attitudes in a long time. To me, the test of true character is if you’re willing to do not the cool thing, not the popular thing, but the right thing.