"A Grief Observed": The Closed Door

"Meanwhile, where is God?..go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what
do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After
that silence...Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time
of trouble?" (pgs. 5,6). The preceding quote came from C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed, Lewis' honest reflection regarding  life, death, and doubt in God as he mourned his wife's death. Later in the book Lewis had expressed his doubts about God, wondering if He had ever truly cared about His creation or if He is a "Cosmic Sadist" who merely watches our suffering and never intervenes on our behalf. Lewis spent quite some time struggling with the concept that perhaps God isn't Who we think He is. What if, Lewis asks, God isn't good or at least not good in the way we would consider goodness? I am enjoying reading this book because Lewis comtemplates very honestly about several ideas regarding death, the afterlife, and God's goodness as he grieves the passing of his wife. It took  great courage not only to write down these thoughts
but also to publish them. Who would have thought C.S. Lewis, the great Christian apologist, the man who communicated the idea of a loving God so fluently, would express such honest doubts about the God he served? But Lewis not only expressed such doubts but he also felt them deep in the core of his being. Lewis could have ignored these doubts or pretended they didn't exist. Instead he chose to be honest with himself by writing his true feelings down and to be honest with the world by publishing them. I think that is the greatest test of a Christian-to be honest with God and with others when we are experiencing true feelings of doubt, anger, fear, or sadness over the bad things that occur in our lives. Many Christians believe that to trust God during times of trouble means to suppress these supposedly negative emotions. But in reality trusting God means being completely honest with Him about how we feel and allowing Him to comfort us in the midst of our turmoil.

The Joy of Literary Discussion

On Monday, I gathered with my small group at the restraunt our for Intro to Literature class. We discussed reading and books over breakfast. Among the texts discussed were Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult, and A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner. I believe it is very important for people to talk about the things they read for various reasons. First of all, they can impart interesting information or valuable truths others can reflect on and possibly even somehow use in their own lives.  Second of all, readers are always curious about what others are reading because they know they may also enjoy the literature these readers find so interesting. Third, dialoguing about literature can just be plain fun. It is very engaging and enjoyable to sit down with someone and discuss the literature they like to read. Fourth, literary discussion spreads need-to-know information. There all sorts of things being printed about in newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc. that should be discussed. If we  discuss news we read in these and other media we can better form and refine what we believe about the events by learning of and considering other viewpoints. However, if we don't dialogue about news events then we aren't getting those other perspectives and will only see the events from one side. Can literary discussion be negative? Literary discussion, or any discussion for that matter, can be made into something negative if one or more of the participants are only talking so they can  hear how smart they sound or so they can enjoy having people look at them admiringly. It can also be negative if the discussion turns into an argument in which everyone is so determined to have their own say they refuse to listen to others and are only concerned about being right. Literary discussion is meant for the civil exchange of ideas and information that we learn from texts, not a battleground upon which the participants argue about who is right or who is wrong about how they interpret the text.

Happy Endings

One thing that stuck out to me about Happy Endings was that no matter how the author shaped the plot of the story it always ended in death. It didn't matter what happened between the beginning of the story and the end because the characters would die anyway. That's how some people view life. They believe that it doesn't
matter what we do or don't do between now and death because after we're dead it will be a moot point anyway. But everything we do, every choice we make does matter. If a young person died because
she chose to use drugs, then her choices would result in devastating grief for her family and friends. Though the young person is dead, the consequences of her actions didn't end or become irrelevent following her death. Her loved ones would spend the remainder of their lives griefing their loss. But as much as this family would grieve, God would grieve much more. God gave Jesus, His only son, to pay the price for our sins so we wouldn't have to. Therefore, when we make wrong descisions and get ourselves in trouble, God's heart breaks. In Matthew 23, Jesus griefed over the city of Jersalem, saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." I think this verse can apply to today's people as well. Everytime we gossip, lie, steal, insult/mistreat others, we're not just hurting those around us. We're also hurting Jesus. In the same way the Israelites of old killed the prophets, we symbolically kill Jesus all over again every time we sin. And just like during the times of ancient Israel, Jesus desires to gather us
to himself, if we would only allow Him to.

Frankie and Johnny

One of the things I noticed about the country song Frankie and Johnny was that it seemed to glorify murder. The following lyrics explain it all: "He was her man, but he did her wrong." The implied messege
is that Frankie was justified in killing Johnny for cheating. In fact, even Johnny himself appears to justify
Frankie's attack. Johnny admitted to having "done her wrong" right before he died. Now, obviously,
Johnny should not have been cheating on Frankie; if he wanted to be with someone else, he should have gone to her and civilly ended the relationship. And similarly, Frankie should not have resorted to violence
to resolve the situation. Instead, she should have confronted Johnny and found out the truth. From there, Frankie could have decided whether or not she wanted to continue her relationship with him. But, as we know from the song, that is not what happened, and both Frankie and Johnny had to suffer the consequences of their choices.  Despite the song's assertion that the story "has not moral", I think there is at least one important fact everyone needs to take from this song; bad choices always have painful consequences. Johnny decided to cheat on Frankie and was murdered as a result. Frankie chose to murder Johnny and will probably spend the rest of her life in prison. Another moral can be found in the lyrics themselves: "This story only goes to show that there ain't no good in man." I originally assumed this meant men, in general, were evil. But there is another interpretation of these words. In this song, the word man can be interpreted one of two ways. The word can either refer to males specifically or it can refer to the human race in general. I think, based on how the word is used in the song, the latter definition is more accurate. If this is true then the song is really saying "there ain't no good in the human race." Based on the contents of the song, the preceding interpretation seems more applicable.

My Literary Life

Fiction has always been my main literary venue. My earliest memories involving literature would be reading children's mystery and adventure books from my school's library. A more recent memory was when I began reading Jodi Picoult, one of the latest fiction authors. I enjoy reading her because her plots involve issues that are relevant to society and which use heartbreaking yet poignant plot situations.  I have read many texts that I would consider significant. Among those is one entitled Eve's Daughters by Lynn Austin. It is an historical fiction novel that tells the story of four generation of women who come of age in America. This story was significant because it epitomized the essence of God's love and forgiveness. Literature matters in a number of ways.  If the world did not have literature, intelligent thought could not be permeanently recorded and passed on to others who could read and learn from them. In the same way, others would not have the opportunity to read the thoughts and ideas of others and take something tangible from that literature. In my opinion, there is no instance in which literature does not matter. Some would say that math has nothing to do with literature and the written word. But how would we know about all these math equations and how they work if someone at some point had not written the equations, along with their explanations, down so others could read them?  Can literature be applied to music and science? Certainly. The world would not have even heard of How Great Thou Art if someone had not put pen to paper and written the lyrics. As for science, Thomas Edison's lightbulb could not have been mass-produced if he had not written the formula down so others could have access to it. So you see, literature is all around us, even in the least obvious places.

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My first blog

Hi, my name is Breanna Elise Jones and this is my first blog ever!