Kevin King

I found the film "In the Light of Reverence" to be really interesting and I decided to research more about Devil's Tower and Woodruff Butte for my research paper. I was always aware of how we took the natural land away from American Indians throughout civilization but I was never educated about situations such as these. There has been constant techinical climbing on Devil's Tower and actual destruction of Woodruff Butte that has been very personal for these American Indians. Mining was conducted for gravel at Woodruff Butte to finish Interstate 40 in Arizona. This goes back to the discussion we had of Dr. Redick's paper about the interstate system and the consequences it has had for our society. Sacred places have been constantly ruined to do construction in our country and these natural landscapes have continued to pay a toll with our constant industrialism. It was interesting to study more in depth these two places and I know have a much better education on how we have effected so many things with our civilization and technilogical revolutions.

Outside Reading- C.S. Lewis-Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to Be Said-Melissa Faller

C.S. Lewis' Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to Be Said is a short story written about Fairy Tales. C.S. Lewis explains that through myth sometimes the truth is better displayed and understood. C.S. explains that the reason for this is that a lot of times religion is associated with bad connotations. He writes, "Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one out to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation can freeze feelings." With religion comes a lot of misunderstanding, people are uncomfortable with the unknown. Most of this misunderstanding stems from the fact that Christianity changes lives of many people and because of this they want to preach the good news. This preaching (or obligation to preach) tends to rub people the wrong way and as a result when the word Jesus Christ is uttered people tend to role their eyes and stop listening. C.S. Lewis writes that it is through myth that this misunderstanding is removed and it allows people to experience without the bad associations. This made me think that myth is similar to a child. A child has not yet been exposed to the world, so they still have their own original thought with out obligation to please everyone around them. It has made me realize that the world would be a great place if we thought like children if we were able to appreciate each other with out judging or discriminating against one another.

Outside Reading-Screwtape Letters-Melissa Faller

In 1942 C.S. Lewis published a religious book written in a different perspective than most religious books. The book, Screwtape Letters, was written from the perspective of several different demons. When reading the book the reader gets an idea of how demons delight and influence our temptations and failings. In order to capture the demon perspective the book is written in a world where evil actions such as greed and selfish acts are good while trying to deplete acts of kindness. It was the particular perspective that C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters that helped strengthen my faith. Throughout my religious journey I have never really talked about evil. Evil has always been something I haven’t been well versed in because it is “scary” or “bad” it is never something we talk about in bible studies. During lessons we tended to focus on how God’s goodness was at work, and what we could do to improve it. Focusing on these things was good, but I was unaware that it also put me in a sort of utopia. I was oblivious to the fact that along with God’s goodness there is also evil present in my enviornment. The book Screwtape Letters gave me the ability to recognize evil and by recognizing I’m about to understand and defend myself in situations dealing with love, pride, gluttony, and war. C.S. Lewis accomplished this through explaining how evil thinks. He explains that they do not directly tempt, but rather to confuse you.

Outside Reading-The Shack-Melissa Faller

The first time I heard about the Shack was from one of my parent’s family friends. He could not stop talking about this book. After he finished the book, he went to the local Borders and bought every copy and started handing them out to all of his friends. You could tell that this book changed his life, so I had to read it. This novel was particularly interesting to me because it introduces a new concept to the Christian religion. It pushes the social norms of how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are perceived. The author, William Paul Young, writes about Mackenzie Allen Philips religious journey. He starts with Mackenzie getting a letter from God that tells Mackenzie to meet him at the Shack. Mackenzie not understands puts the letter aside. Later his youngest daughter, Missy is abducted and murdered. She was found in an abandoned shack in Oregon. Mackenzie thinks that the note could've been from Missy's murderer, so he goes to the shack. At the shack Mackenzie's life is transformed. It was not Missy's murderer but rather the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. By reading this book you understand the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a whole new light. The reason for this is due to the way Young writes about the trio. The father is seen as a big black woman. She like God is always loving and always wanting to be around you. She is caring and treats Mackenzie with the utmost kindness making him his favorite foods and helping him with his struggles. The Son or Jesus is a Middle Eastern man. He is the most relational of the three. He is where Mackenzie feels more comfortable because he is most human. The third is the Holy Sprit. The Holy Spirit is woman from an Asian decent. She seems to be constantly moving. He compares her to the wind. I understand why Mr. Douglas was raving about the book. It is a great read and has taught me to better understand how God can still be present in a world filled with so much hurt and pain.

The book Redeeming Love is a retelling of the biblical book Hosea. The author, Francine Rivers, rewrites the book to help readers understand how great God's love is. The book takes place in the 1850s during the Gold Rush. The main character Angel, is sold into prostitution as a young child and is known as one of the best prostitutes in the area. Michael Hosea a small town farmer see's Angel and is told by God that he is supposed to marry her. The rest of the troubles with their love. Michael being a devout Christian struggles with the idea that God would want him to marry a woman like Angel. A woman without God in her life. The novel continues to show that God wants us to be surrounded by his love. In Hosea 6 it says "Come let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence" (Hosea 6:1-2). By reading this book I began to understand the concept of Gods love. The idea that no matter what our sins, he wants to love us. He wants us to be able to turn to him and ask for forgivEness. A similar concept to this is seen in Babettes Feast, the idea of unselfish love.

I highly recommend this book to whoever (probably more of feminine book) wants an easy read that they cannot put down!

Susan Watkins -- Topic of Choice 5

I had a conversation with another friend of mine a while ago about feeling like we didn't belong in this world-- more than just wanting a new job, or place to live, or friends, but rather actually feeling like we were meant for something/somewhere different. I tried to explain C.S. Lewis' conclusion, "If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world," by talking about how we don't have natural desires that can't be filled... i.e. we become hungry because such a thing as food exists, lonely because such a thing as relationship exists, etc. To me this makes perfect sense, and at the time she kind of nodded and agreed.

However, later we talked about it again and she confessed that the concept seemed beyond her. She is a science major, and she said that when I first presented the idea to her the only thought she could come up with was about how our body releases chemical signals that tell us we're hungry. She couldn't get past the process-oriented thought pattern that her classes have drilled into her. It struck me as alarming and tragic, because so little of our world can be dissected in this way-- the fact that she literally couldn't grasp the concept of "cosmic significance" because she was so entrenched in scientific process actually upset me. She said she felt it was partially because she had so little time for creative and discursive outlet between school projects that her skills in these areas had decreased, and we wondered whether she shouldn't hurry up and enroll in a humanities course before it was too late for her to regain them altogether.

It still bothers me that this is the case, not because it's the opposite end of the spectrum from where I stand but because I think this trend severely cripples people who succumb to it. We get so focused on minutae that we forget to look at the big picture, and in the process miss out on a lot of potential for beauty and wonder. I think it's possible to find beauty in detail, but that aspect of tremendum that assaults us through the big picture is absent, so I think it's harder. Focusing too much on the big picture is of course negative too-- so I guess we have to try to train ourselves in continually rediscovering a balance so that we can more fully experience life.

Susan Watkins -- Topic of Choice 4

Something we talked about in class after watching Wings of Desire the other day really struck me as interesting, and then it came up again in a conversation I had with one of my good friends. The topic was "conincidence" vs. "intentionality," and I've been thinking about how I live my life and relationships in these terms.

So many people in the world today allow their lives and relationships to be goverened by the random nature of coincidence. They live independently of their surroundings, with their attentions focused inward for the most part. If they are in relationship, it's because they just happen to be around someone often enough to get to know them-- or, if they do exert effort, it's only with people who just happen to have similar personality traits already. Their existence is a co-incidence with the existences around them: they do not depend on eachother, they only happen to be going on in the same place at the same time with no direct correlation. If one were to cease or change, the other would be largely unharmed/unchanged. I wonder if we've become this way out of laziness, or maybe fear that we might become dependent on eachother and then lose something we need and love.

The thing my friend realized, though, was that we have the opportunity to decide how coincidentally-minded or intentional we are going to be in any given moment. This is true in all areas of our lives-- we can decide to either engage with life on a deep level or just kind of skate through-- but it is especially true when we are around people we don't know very well. Every interaction has the potential to be meaningful, even if it's not "deep." We can contribute largely to how meaningful an interaction is by how much of our attention we give to it. When someone walks up to us and we continue using our cell phones, computers, or doing something else, we are not engaging in that relationship fully and are living "co-incidentally" with that other person. However, if we take the time, even 5 minutes, to invest fully in what we're talking about and in that other person's ideas and feelings, we are living intentionally and tapping into boundless potential for real connection and real life.