New York in the Fall

I was looking through my notes and some papers I had from this class and I found a quote from one of the writings we read. "It's your doing that under the wheeling constellations of the sky, he wrote, all nature teams together with life- something of the earth beyond our human dramas." This quote was from State of the Planet by Robert Hass. This I related to instantly because of something that had happened to me over Thanksgiving break when I went home to New York. First let me say that it was absolutely beautiful in New York. There could not have been any nicer weather for a late November week. It was so awesome being home with my family and friends and coming home to that weather only made it better. But I had run into some drama with an old friend when I was home and I was so upset and hurt by everything that was happening and it was all quite childish. But needless to say it was something that I had to deal with and take care of. I am the type of person that likes to think about things before I do them especially when it comes to fights and things like that.So I went to a local lake late at night when no one was around and thought about everything that had happened. I went out on the dock and laid down and looked up at the stars and took a look at my life. I realized a lot of things that I had done right and I had done wrong. It was under those stars that I looked at many different aspects of my life. It was a great night that I just got to look up at nature and have God speak through it for me.

Waiting for Godot

While talking about this book in class and the themes inside, someone talked about how they thought that it had to do with God and how we are waiting for Jesus to come again just like the people in the story are waiting for Godot. We talked about these people had a great amount of devotion, just like Christians do. Even though we don't see God we know that He exist and we have faith and believe that He will come again. The people in the story are waiting for Godot just like we wait for God. They believe that one day he will come and I do believe that by the end of the story He will come just like one day I believe that Jesus will come. The name Godot even looks like the word God. Even though there were many other themes mentioned in class, I thought that this one was the most interesting. Even the mentioning of the tree in the story, to me, seems to represent the cross. Because even though Christians don't exactly have a cross that they stand in front of waiting for Jesus, we use the reference of it. God says in the Bible that we should look to the cross which could have the same meaning as the people in the story standing at the tree. This whole theme of the story, makes me think about how many Christians are actually looking/waiting at the cross? How may of us are as faithful as these people in the story, being patient and selfless, waiting for Jesus to come back? We say and talk all the time about how much we love God but how many times everyday do we give up on God and ignore His laws to do our own thing? Because when we go live our lives according to our own rules instead of God's, that is what we are doing- giving up on God. And eventually once we are ready to surrender ourselves again, we are back at the tree waiting for Him.

Dr Horrible

While we were watching this video, I had no words for what was going on. I thought that it was very weird and I was trying to figure out just what this show was about. But as we continued to watch it some parts were funny and interesting. I think that Dr. Horrible was actually a better guy that Captain Hammer was. Captain Hammer just wanted the fame and fortune. He didn't care who he hurt and or what he had to do in order to get everything he wanted. But Dr Horrible seemed to be the one with the kinder heart that really wanted to help people. It just seemed like he was lost in his own way. Penny had a lot to do with the audience being to see his good heart. He loved her so much he would do anything for her. I think that if Penny had lived and they had gotten together, he would not have wanted to be evil anymore. He wanted her to love him too much. But once she died, that was when it was all over for Dr. Horrible. Once again, Captain Hammer did not care that his girlfriend Penny, had got stabbed. He was too concerned about himself. So how does that make hero? But Dr. Horrible on the other hand cared very much and stayed with her. But once she had died, he went crazy. He probably felt that he had nothing else good to live for and that is why he really started to be more evil. It was sad because he had so much anger and hate that he became a worse person because of it. I wish that the show did not have to end that way. But maybe its trying to show you that no one can change you completeing. Only you and God can do that.

Nature in my Life

Nature means a lot to me in my own life. Not only because I can really see God through it when I feel distant but also because I love to paint it. I painted this picture when I was a junior in high school and it is one of my favorites that I have done. This is a replica with a few changes of Georgia O'Keefe's painting. I wanted to change the color of the flower a little bit because I think the way I made the color in this painting is more realistic in how the colors really blend on an actual flower. My favorite things to paint are flowers because I feel that they have so much life behind them and you can do so much to them as an artist. I love to be able to play with the colors and create some unique colors that blend with colors you might not put together regularly. When I was at Lake Bonny I saw a lot of really bright and vibrant colors on things and it gave me a lot of ideas. When I got to just sit there and relax it gave me a chance to really look at the shapes and textures of nature. A lot of times I just guess on what the texture would look like because I never really studied that part of nature. It just goes to show you that even though you think you know something you might not know it as much as you think. Again, going to Lake Bonny was a lot of fun and I am going to go there more often to relax and just spend time with God and His wonderful nature. Mybe take some pictures of my own and paint them later. (:

Lake Bonny

The other day I went to Lake Bonny Park, like our assignment had said to do and I actually spent a lot of time there. I went with one of my friends and we sat there together, not necassarily talking a whole lot but really just enjoying the nature. Ever since I got down here to go to school, I have been wanting to see an alligator and I finally did! I have seen them before but not since I have been here for school. It made me so happy to finally see it. There was so much in the nature that was going on and it was so much fun to just watch everything! While we were there, there was some chicks with their mom and it was so cute to watch them play around in the water, and there were lizards everywhere. Me and my friend were running after them and trying to catch them. We did not have much success.
While we were there we read some of the Bible. Mostly Genesis when God talks about creation and when He first made it. It is so cool how he thought everything out and what would happen each day. We also read other verses that talked about nature that helped us appreciate it even more while we sat there. I really like this project and it was great to watch and study nature. It's just as cool as watching people in the mall or something. Animals do some pretty funny things and it was just a lot of fun and a good place to read the Bible. Good idea!

Prayer

In the poem Six Recognitions of the Lord, it gave me a revelation on my prayers. In the poem is talks about how we may know all these big fancy words, but how much does God care about you using them in your prayers when you talk to Him. Sometimes when people pray, especially in front of people, they have this tendency to pray the most extravagant prayer using the biggest and best words they can find in their brain. They also try and be extremely spiritual and they use things that are written in the Bible to prove something to God. For example, people will say, "God, in your word in tells me that you will feed me just like you feed to birds of the sky and God I need you to take care of me like you promise you will in the Bible." I just want to say "I think that God knows what He promises in the Bible and I really don't think that He needs you to be reminding Him what He said. I am guilty of it sometimes too and this poem helped me realize that, I don't need to try and impress anyone. God knows my heart and God knows the things I want to say without having to use these big, extravagant words. We also talked in class about how when people pray they like to say "Father God" over and over again like God doesn't remember His own name. It is funny to think about and how we do that when we pray. It's like every time we say Father God we are calling like He's fallen asleep on us or something. I garentee He is still listening because He always does and He doesn't only listen to big words. He hears the soft simply words that come from the heart and that we speak and actaully mean something to us and Him. We need to work on pleasing God and not worrying about what other people are thinking about us and our relationship with God.

nature

I love nature!! I think that there is nothing cooler than all the different things that God has made. My favorite thing to look at and take pictures of is the sky! Anywhere and at anytime, if there is a beautiful sky outside, you can find me taking pictures of it. The picture to the left is actually a picture I took one night in Florida. One of my favorite things about Florida is the skies. The skies here are soo beautiful compared to New York (where I am from). Over the summer, I really missed walking outside from dinner and looking over the lake and seeing these amazing colors that are not something you see everyday! Seeing all these amazing things that God has created, I don't understand how someone can not think that there is a God. How could someone think that the trees, water, animals, humans, the different and unique flowers, and complex brain of an ant- how could someone think that that came from a big bang or evolution!? It just does not make sense in my mind. I feel so sorry for them and the fact that people are so blinded by their own brains. The poem that we read in class about nature was making me mad because of this. I felt like the author was really into nature and everything but they did not know where it came from. They kept talking about evolution so how can you really appreciate nature when you don't understand where it came from and who made it. It really saddens me and I really just want to shake it in them how dumb they are.