Mary Oliver (Messenger)

Reading Mary Oliver's poems were really great. I enjoyed the activity we did outside. My favorite poem has to be the messenger. The messenger caught my attention because it talks about loving the world. There are times in my life I totally forget what is around me. I am standing on solid ground, the world is slowly turning, there are different creatures living around me. All this God has created and I show no interest in it at all.  My favorite lines in this poem are "My work is loving the world, here the sunflowers, there the humming bird equal seekers of sweetness, here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums, here the calm deep in the speckled sand". I mostly enjoyed how in depth she was with all her lines. What exactly does My work is loving the world mean? Does it mean by her work she need to love the world?
I think by that sentence she is trying to say that her purpose is to love the world. By that I mean for her to admire the wonderful things that God has created. 
"Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work".  I underlined this sentence as I was reading through this poem. I think this sentence relate to me in a way. Now that I am old enough to realize the awesome things God put around me, I will pay more attention to nature and his creation. For Mary Oliver, the only thing that matters to her is her work, which is loving the world.
I enjoyed reading the different poems by Mary Oliver. They Opened my eyes to new things. Going outside and sitting in the peace and reading the poems was very relaxing.  I wish we can do more field trips like this more often.

Lake Bonnie Park (NATURE)

Today I decided to go to lake Bonnie park for the assignment that was given to us by Mr. Corrigan. Going out there I really didn't know what to expect or what to write about. I was just hoping that nature would take its course so I can get some ideas on what to write about.

As I enter the park and got out of my car, I took a big breath of air just so I can come one with nature. As I sat the for a little bit I can hear the sound of children having laughing and having a blast.  It reminded me of the good ole days where all I did was play outside till the sun went down. As I walked out on the board walk I saw a bunny jump into a big bush as if I was chasing it. I can also hear the different sounds of bugs and insects running away as i go further down the board walk. As weird as this sound, I can relate to them. If there was some kind of army that was bigger and stronger than me, I would sense some danger as well. I am now stepping into their territory so they have the rights to feel threatened. Sitting there on the board walk I heard many bird sounds that they made to each other. They all had different sounds and tones to their call. It made me wonder how cool it wold be to understand what they are saying.
Every where I looked I saw the color green. God has put amazing things around us that I took for granted. Looking over the water I see tall trees, the top of the plant,  the birds soaring through the air and the gnats that are flying around my head I'm trying to sit there in peace. By the end of my 45 minutes they were real annoying by the way. The words that are best put to God's creating are PEACE, LOVE, CALM and HAPPINESS. Even though I hate reading and writing about nature I enjoyed myself watching God's beautiful creation. 

State of The Plamet

Class on Tuesday was very interesting. Fist I would just like to say that I do not really like reading about nature and other stuff like that. I find it real hard to experience some thing without you really being at this special place. I believe that people have their own opinion and preference to the things they enjoy reading Mr Corrigan :)
The scripture that really stuck out to me about the environment is Matthew 6:26-28. It says "Look at the birds of the air.... Observe how the lilies of the field grow. That to me is just telling me to look at all of God's creation around us. There are times I get up just stare at the things around me such as the trees, sky, clouds, plants, grass and all sorts of things that our God has created. The things that he created around me is so breath taking I can hardly speak at those times of silence. If you haven't read the scriptures that Mr. Corrigan gave us, I strongly think that you should give it a glance.

I enjoyed doing that activity in class simply because we got to hear all the different sentences that stuck out to everyone. There were a couple of sentences that really stuck out to me the first time I read State Of The Planet. The sentence that grabbed my attention was "Poety should be able to comprehend the earth". To me that means in order to write poetry about about nature and the earth you must really experience it and know how to translate it in words. I find it very insightful how someone can write a poem about insects eating birds and the sky being so blue just by sitting while observing nature. This story has really inspired me to gave nature poems or novel a chance. Hopefully in class we will be able to go outside and be one with nature.

Little riding hood.

Through out my life I was not much of a reader growing up. I always would find other things that are more important to do. When Mr. Corrigan asked us to name our favorite literature I couldn't think of any. Half way through the semester I began really appreciating literature. Literature is not all about the long and boring stuff, it can be about anything that is a story.
Today I am going to talk about one of my favorite literature stories that my mother would always read to me. That story happen to be "Little Red Riding Hood". For some reason this story stuck with me as a child. The characters in this story are little red riding hood, her grandmother, and the big bad wolf.
For those who hasn't heard this story, I will give you a brief summery of the story. Little red riding hood ask her mother if she can pay a little visit to her grandmother. On her way there the big bad wolf saw walking through the woods. The wolf found out that she was on her way to her grandmother's house. The wolf ended up beating her to her grandmother's to gobble her grandmother. The wolf dressed as the grandmother trying to trick the little girl. Little red riding hood realized it wasn't her grandmother and took off running.  A woodman made the wolf spit up the grandmother and they lived happily ever after. The author who wrote this story had a good sense of humor. When literature is funny people seem to remember it more, well at least I do.  A couple other stories that I enjoyed as a kid were little mermaid, the Tortoise and the hare, Beauty and the Beast and last but not least was Rapunzel. To think that literature was never in my life, but all along i been listening to it my whole life.

Lectio Divina "Sunny Blues"

After reading sunny blues I found it to be a very good story. I don't read too many stories but for some reason I found this one very interesting. It could of been the characters I related to or it could of been music of conversation that they kept on bringing up through the story. In class on Tuesday we did an assignment called Lectio Divina. Some of you might heard of this and some might not. The whole point was to practice of approaching a text in different ways, reading text recursively, meditatively and reflectively. The second part is to make sure your being implicated in what you read, of aiming for it to matter in how you live and who you are after words.
The first part was Lectio (Listening to the words). As I was listening to the story the first time I tried to grasp everything that was important in the story. Even though I read the story before I got to class, I heard something new when he was reading it. "He who has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life of his own". "He has to make it do what he wants it to do". These two statement that really stuck out to me when i first read it.
The second part is Meditatio (Reflecting on the word). Those quotes I gave you from the last passage really opened my eyes. I think he means the life within who controls what happens around us. Our single breath gave life to the instrument and it came alive. Simply amazing to me.
The third part in this exercise was Oratio (Responding to the word). As we read the story again my thoughts of the story is that He's relating life to music. Life is like a melody that we bring to this world.
The final step was Contemplatio (Resting in the word). This part we are simply to rest in the spirit. This part was really weird to me. It hard to rest in the spirit of book that is called a literature experience. Someone in class stated that it would be easier if we did it over the book of Joel, simply because when we meditate on the scripture we have an image of God. I totally agree with that statement. When we do it on a book that not about God, what are we suppose to picture? The author who wrote the book? 

Sonny's Blues

When I got done reading, I was amazed on how long the story was. This story was definitely worth reading because it had some pretty interesting things that I thought was really cool. I am a huge fan when it comes to different sounds and music. The first day I sat a drum set and hit the base and the snare I fell in love with drumming. Music was my first love. In this story, the things that confused me a little was he talks about the instrument but also his uncle's death. This story was very graphic when it came to explaining the fathers brother's death. I can not even imagine how that family felt. It seems like the mom held this little secret for a long time. I can tell when mama told him about his uncle that died it took everything out of her not to cry. "I know you never saw you Daddy cry, but I did many a time, though all these years. When she finished explaining tears were gleaming on her face. At the end of the story it stated something about music being played as if it was instruments having conversations. This can be the highlight point of the story. I really cant put a finger on it but hopefully in class Professor Corrigan can explain this better.
 I said this in an older blog, But my cousin died in a shooting almost 2 years ago. He has a kid that is 3 years old right now. When that kid gets older it's going to be so hard to explain to him how his dad died in a shooting. He's going to grow up without a father figure by his side. That just makes my heart burn for that little boy. I will keep praying one day his mom will have some courage to tell him when the time is good.  Stories like this I love reading because I can relate to it. I like how it's very productive and really makes you think.

Notes on Character

Since class on thursday, We haven't really discussed anything new.  As I was looking through my notes I found the page on Notes on Character by Paul T. Corrigan. I found that it was really interesting and that is why I am going to share my thoughts with you guys today.
Having to create a story was very difficult for me. I told myself how can I create a story from scratch when I hate reading and writing?
Mr. Corrigan stated "Characters often determine plot, and character are developed through the things that happen". This statement stuck out to me due to the fact I did not want my story to be boring. I wanted multiple Characters so that it would be entertain to read. In my story my normal life, there were five characters. My mother, sister, father, best friend and lastly me.
Starting off the story was difficult for me. What I had to do is what down every character and write down their roles in the story. I decided to write about my life, simply because my imagination is not too amazing.

The thing about literature is that you cant really define a character's type from the get go. I think that is why literature is so interesting, because as the story continue you can see the characters personality being developed. Characters are developed by
1. their physical description, including the way that they move, the clothing they wear, the way they sound and so on;
2. The things they say
3. The things they do
4. The way other characters respond to them, including the things others say to or about them:and...
5. Their Thoughts, if these are shown
The five points that I've read are really good points that Mr. Corrigan gave so that we can write our short story. Knowing characters in a story tells a lot about the person who wrote it. That is why it is good to really engage and know the true meaning of the story.
Overall this really helped me a lot to develop my characters and story. If you haven't read it, I strongly courage you to read it.