When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

When I first read the poem, it took me a while to understand that it was about Abraham Lincoln death. I must admit that I was pretty confused the whole entire time I read the poem. Then after a couple times through, I felt like I started to understand the meaning a bit more. The author was obviously torn up about his death, which the poem greatly resembles by referring to the season of spring as a time of mourning when most poets consider that a time for rebirth.

Since I was not able to go to class on Monday, I was unable to engage in the class discussion of the poem, but I had the chance to talk to Cierra about the poem. We discussed how when something horrible happens to you, you find yourself remembering every single detail about that horrific moment. For example, my mother just called me the other week telling me that one of my best friends dad died by drowning in a river. It had been raining a lot back home and there was a low water crossing, but I guess her dad could not see very well because he drove his car into the water. The rest of the details I do not know, but I do know that he was a great and caring man and loved his family dearly. When I heard this information, I burst into tears, and the relevance of this story is that, I too, remembered exactly what was going on. I was in the car with my boyfriend driving to his sister’s for the day in Orlando. We were right about to exit and we were talking about how school was and what are schedules were going to be like this upcoming week.

Walt Witman’s poem is extremely meaningful and full of precise details. He connects the details of the day and the emotions he was feeling in such an enticing way that it makes the reader want to read his poem over and over again. Even though I read it multiple times I feel as if there are so many things that I still have missed from the poem and look forward to finding out what those things are.

Onions

The Traveling Onion, by Naomi Nye, was by far the most interesting poem I have ever read. I would first like to start off by saying that I loved the fact that the author gave us a bit of history of the onion before she started her poem, because it allowed me to read the poem with some background knowledge in mind. (Side note: I could not help but think of the movie Shrek and the conversation about ogers being like onions.) Despite this distraction of I was able to read the poem and find a sentimental and meaning. Whether or not this is the meaning of the entire poem, it is something that made me think after reading it and listening to others' response.

In class someone said, "You can't cry until your opened up", as they related this to the section of an onion causing people to cry once you cut into one. Then for some reason I thought about what I prayed for last night. I specifically asked God to take old habits and old ways of thinking out of my life, but in order to do this He must "dissect" me internally before I act out externally. I must allow Christ to make an incision on my body so that He may pull back the insidious layers that are causing damage to my life. As I sat there, contemplating in my thoughts, I realized that if I want God to truly take away, uproot, the undesired things in my life, then I am going to have to surrender and allow the layers of my life to be revealed. It is in that moment of surrendering my life to Christ where I feel the most vulnerable to cry and I find it relevant that when you cut into an onion, it isn't until you start pulling back and cutting into the layers that you start to cry as well. There is definitely a connection with vulnerability and revealing the layers of your life, which I feel is a healthy process that people should actually go through when asking for healing in certain areas.

Even though I do not feel like the author was trying to get that across to the reader it is what I thought about when my classmate read aloud his thoughts on the poem.

The Book of Joel

On Monday, my class had the opportunity to read a loud the Book of Joel. It was actually quite fun and interesting to hear the different voices read the parts they chose. When I decided to read I did the section on the Deliverance Promised. When I was done reading I realized that, that was the exact passage in which I wrote about in the beginning of class when Professor Corrigan asked us to write about something that struck us the most while reading the Book of Joel. I liked how the book started off with locusts, starvation and drought but then God was faithful to provide again for His people the things that were taken away, and that is why this passage stuck out to me.

For the tree has borne its fruit,

The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full.

So rejoice, O sons of Zion,

And be glad in the LORD your God;

For He has given you the early rain for your vindication

And He has poured down for you the rain,

The early and latter rain as before.

The threshing floors will be full of grain,

And the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil.

"Then I will make up to you for the years

That the swarming locust has eaten.

Professor Corrigan also asked us in class if this was weird or different by trying to read scripture as literature and it struck me that when we read scripture, we should look at it as we look at literature a lot more often. For when you analyze literature, you look at it from all different angles, such as the words used, theme, plot, climax, sentence structure, and much more. These exact techniques we use to analyze literature should also be used to analyze scripture, so that we may look past what we read and be able to tap into the structure of what we read. Now, I am not saying that we should not look to the words when we read scripture, but what I am suggesting is that we search a little more in depth to why the author chooses to write certain ways or why the author chooses certain words to describe people, places, and emotions expressed in the Bible. When we do this with literature, I feel that we are able to connect more with the stories we read, so why not do the same thing with the Bible? Something I do when I am in devotions is choose a passage to read simply read through it without stopping. Then I reread the same passage but this time I circle or underline phrases or words that stick out to me or words that I do not understand. I then meditate on that particular section that I focused in on. I usually like to try and connect it to something within my personal life so I can relate more profoundly to the passage of scripture. I love doing this, and God tends to reveal new things to me every time I do it. Therefore, truly meditating on literature, whether it be scripture or simply a fictional book, can be an important/ vital step in our reading.

Theme in Literature

Learning to find the theme of a piece of literature can be a little difficult if you are someone who only sees things in black or white. For if we are insisted to find the theme of the story this could be "viewed as an avoidance of the literary experience", because many stories are ranged from a series of complex emotions that could inspire many different themes. This is why finding a theme cannot be viewed from a black or white mindset, but rather a mind that explores the grey areas of the text. These areas could be words that have more than one meaning, or words that are purposely positioned in the text to create symbolism. Literature is truly an artwork, you can study it and have multiple meanings that develop in your mind, while another person can also study the same literature and construe completely different thoughts/ meanings.

I read the story, "Little Red Riding Hood", to my roommate and at the end I asked her what she thought the theme was or simply a message she thought the author was trying to get across to the reader. Her answer was that she thought it was warning people about deceit while I thought it was more about knowing your surroundings so that you may have better discernment about bad situations. Both of our thoughts had taken different angles of the story but both connected in some way about being careful of other people. Another take on this story was what the book said about the moral. It took a literal approach by directing the story specifically for young girls who should not listen to just anyone who happens to cross their path. It when on to say that little girls can be naive about men being predators to them and will openly talk to strangers with out even thinking about it. By doing so this, it has been a huge contributing factor of why young girls find themselves in harmful situations. So obviously, the story does not have one precise theme, but rather multiple possibilities of different themes.

With many different morals of the story, "Little Red Riding Hood" or any other piece of literature, one can realize that theme "doesn't need to be boiled down to a moral even when a moral is offered". When we, as readers, read stories, we need to be more open and less absolute about what we consider to be the moral of a story. A great goal to consider is instead of always trying to find the answer for a story, perhaps it is better to raise ideas about the meaning of a particular text and discuss it with others. This chapter taught me a lot about deepening my thought process and opening my mind to many possibilities when considering a theme for literature.

Is God the Road or the End?

"Am I, for instance, just sliding back to God because I know that if there's any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can't be used as a road. If you're approaching Him not as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all."

This paragraph hit me really hard because when I read it I thought about all the times when I would approach God for something but then I would forget to approach Him for just Him. This paragraph alone really got my thoughts going about why I approach God, if that is even what I could call it. I am hoping that I do not look like a spoiled brat who only comes to God on my own terms and for my own reasons. C.S. Lewis could not have put it any better, if we are using God as a road to something, and not as an end then we are not really approaching God.

This got me thinking about how many times in high school I would just approach my mom or dad when I needed money for something or when I was hungry or even when I just needed permission to do something. It was rare, in my earlier years of high school that I would approach my parents simply because I wanted to talk, share, or here's a big one... actually listen to them. I would add my two cents in by saying, "thank you" and "I love you" but then I thought to myself, when did I actually show them that gratitude or that love that I was professing. They were a means to an end, but they, themselves were never the end. Today, I look back at all the times I could have listened or I could have just sat down and talked with them, but instead, I was too consumed with my own life that I forgot one of the most important things in life, relationships. Building relationships, especially with your family members, not to mention your own mom and dad is vital in the developmental process of a human being. But that was the problem, I was too consumed with my life that I only cared about what I could get out of it rather than what I could give to it.

With all that said, C.S. Lewis was very bold by admitting that he had been sliding back to God only so He could be with H. again. He was too consumed with his own sorrows that God was not the destination but the car he used to get where he wanted to go. God is not concerned with our human relationships as He is with our relationship with Him. He is the way, the truth, and the Light, He is not a doormat for people to walkover when entering a door, but rather, He is the door, or might I say, the "house". For He is where we should be residing and He is the only destination that we should be concerned about reaching. This passage really helped me with understanding that God is not here to be the road that we travel on but the end, in which we want to arrive at.

A Grief Observed

A Grief Observed, has been an amazing book to read . It is the first book that I have read that truly captures the essence of genuine love, but not because of a romantic life but because of the tragedy that C.S. Lewis went through. Something that caught my attention was the paragraph when C.S. Lewis refers to God as a surgeon.

"If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all pain up to that point wold have been useless."

The power in this sentence alone could have been an entire chapter. It reminded me of when I had to get stitches for busting my chin open when I was a child. The pain of course hurt entirely, but I knew getting stitches would hurt all the more. I did not want to go through the healing process because I knew that the beginning would be tortuous. I would have rather sat there in my pain and agony instead of getting the proper treatment that I needed for a complete healing. Thankfully my dad is my doctor and he insisted on going straight to the office to get my stitches.

Okay, okay, so they were just stitches compared to open heart surgery, but still, if you knew my personality and my fear of hospitals, this is a BIG DEAL to me. When I read this line in the book I started thinking about what my dad would have done if I would have asked him to stop in the middle of my operation. The entire surgery would have been for nothing because it would have only been half completed, half healed, and worse, half of my chin still would have been open for infection. In infection that would have only gotten worse and, perhaps, an infection that could have spread throughout my body. I would first like to point out that even asking to stop in the middle of an operation would have been an absolutely ridiculous request, because no doctor in their right mind sets out to perform an operation even questioning the thought of stopping in the middle. A doctor's job is to heal, not partially heal.

With life, we, as humans, will go through sufferings, the key is to get through it completely and courageously. Stopping half way through, before reaching your ultimate victory of being free will not heal you, but only mask over the hurt. This is not smart, for if there are still things that need to be completely rooted out of your life and sewn back, one leaves room for even more hurt and anguish to seep through. So something that might have only taken a year to complete is now taking four to five years and, perhaps, even more. One must complete the entire operation on one's life if one wants to be healed and have the ability to walk in freedom. This, in more simpler terms, is what I believe C.S. Lewis was trying to get across within this section of his book.

After Prayers/ Lie Cold

I was first introduced to this poem just the other day during our meeting at the Resturante. I found it completely confusing the first time I read it but as I read the poem over again it started to make since. I believe that the first part of the poem, "Arise my body, my small body", refers to C.S. Lewis getting off of his knees after praying so that he may slip into the covers of his bed. After his time in prayer, he refers to the Lord as being merciful as He forgives his sins. Throughout the whole poem he addresses himself as pale, small, puppet-like and mortal, as to define humans without prayer as being dead to their soul and a puppet to the world. I love how C.S. Lewis refers to himself after praying as "emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up", to point out the fact that when we do come to God with our confessions we are emptied out and made a new from all of the dirt that hindered our life.

Whenever I get into bed at night I am always freezing because my roommate keeps the air conditioning on cold and all I want to do is warm myself up with my sheets. I crawl into bed and finally get comfortable, and then it hits me. I forgot to turn off the light, inevitably realizing that I am going to be freezing once again. This is what I feel C.S. Lewis was trying to interpret when writing the second half of his poem, when he say's, "be not too quickly warm again". Even though Christ forgives our sins, we, as human beings well ultimately sin again and that once warm feeling will turn cold if we continue to live in sin. Humans are frail beings, we brake under pressure and give in to temptation. We mess up by our own, by "the riot of our blood and breath", enabling us to sin once more. However, just like I do at night, humans long for the warmth of freedom, they never want to stay in a pit of destruction or a bondage of sin, and this is what brings them back to their knees before God.

Instead of ending the poem in a depressed state, casting all humans cold/ dead to sin, I believe that life returns to the beginning of this poem. Life is a cycle. We go through trials and we may sin but ultimately if we repent before God, He is will forgive us, just like C.S. Lewis stated, "We are forgiven". Not we might be forgiven, we ARE forgiven. Yes, we might sin again but God looks at our heart. When we come before Him and He sees that we are sincere, He is faithful to forgive and not only forgive but to restore. In this, we find hope to live and in this we are able to find peace to succeed.