Images

Sharp images. I noticed some of them as I walked down the street to see if any object might arouse my curiosity, maybe a thought to salivate my thinking. Among the myriad of objects that I could have picked up—mainly they were of a more valuable use, such as a stool and a napkin—this sharp image, the image of a woman in a picture, seemed almost content. Isn’t it weird, that we love things that portray some sort of image, though it isn’t near the reality of the image; after all, images are merely stimuli and reflections of what the mind sees, or wants to see. On any note, this image was still very attractive to my mind. The woman wore a red dress, a sort of skirt-dress. It had spots of white with a strap, white, attached to the ends of the neckline part of the dress. She was sitting on a chair reading the newspaper to her husband. The place in which she read was a patio, a taste for virtu and art was among the objects in their home. She had red hair, curly red hair, which fell to her waist, holding her tightly as a lover gently accents her credulity. She was a thin woman. She had light and delicate hands, untainted, fortunately, from all the trappings of “womanhood” adornment. Her eyes were blue, filled with a sadness of transcendent joy. There was green grass, which meant that there was nothing dead in this image. (How could someone be so careless with a thing so beautiful? This is probably the joy of some man, or maybe a joy a woman wishes to be. Dropping a picture so aesthetic in nature, so admirable must be something hard.) Among the green grass and the antiquity of the objects—mainly vases and painting of Saint Barbara, from Sistine Madonna—there were other objects of admiration: a quaint house, servants filled with merriment in servitude, and above all, a book case in the next room; you could see it through the glass door which leads to the house. It looked like the wall was filled with collections of data and novels, books of innumerable genres. It is possible that the sight only spurned my imagination as to what they loved to read. They must have loved the life of deep contentment. Reading was the obvious curiosity I had, because the wife was reading to the husband at the patio. This picture, this image of life filled with contentment, with living life, was so precious to me when I found it. I left it. I had to. Someone else needs to feel this poignant feeling of content satiation.

Levels and Stages

Some notables are vital to the reading project. First—well, where do I start?—is the essential reading, the primary focus of my writing this blog. The author, or I should say authors, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren (for shortened purposes Adler and Von Doren) begin with the purpose of the initial reading. What is to be expected?

But for now, I want to divert to a reason why I think I should participate in this activity. Why on God’s green earth should I even read? Well, there are certainly different reasons for the activity itself, but for me, I am content to say that it is ultimately to find the answer (or answers) of all philanthropic endeavor—happiness. Let’s find a more proximate goal in mind that I can share with my general audience; the goal, therefore, is for knowledge. Whether one is reading a manual for a television set or a philosophical inquiry, the person seeks answers for his or her intended purposes. So let the reason be that we seek knowledge.

In this reading prospect we have levels in the reading hierarchy, or I should probably add the levels in which we deal in the reading process. Without dealing in the specifics of each level, meaning that the stages not conferred in detail, I will outline only the levels. This installment will only include the primary functions of the first level and the meaning of the two other levels, though I will not outline and explain them like the first.

In the first level most of us have already learned, granted that he or she—the reader—has lived in the states and has had some kind of formal education. Subdivided, the stages are elementary up to the ninth grade stages. A level of high school reading is enough to live and communicate in the modern milieu, but certainly not enough to be a critical writer or reader. This kind of reading requires a more advanced kind of level in reading, a proactive approach, viz. the third level in reading—analytical reading. I will give a more detailed analysis of the primary level and its stages with citations from the book, How to Read a Book. First I need to learn how to hyperlink cross-references on this web log (or as the cyber world puts it, “blog”).

Theology Meet My Personal Life

Something in my mind has been bothering me. It is the encumbrances that have this tight hold on me--my usual struggle. I've tried to find some means to cut it off, but the more I try I find myself in it all the more proximate, holding me if you would in a tighter grip. Then I came to a text by Augustine of Hippo, a 3rd century Christian philosopher. He said, "The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord must be understood as follows: grace is the only thing that delivers human beings from evil; without it, they do absolutely nothing good, whether in thought, or in will and emotion, or in action. Grace not only makes known to people what they ought to do, but also enables them to perform with love the duty that they know." Here he was merely explaining grace and what it does, nothing more and certainly nothing less. How is it that the great minds of religion and philosophy make living a virtuous life seem so docile and easily attainable? Maybe living is simple, as the song by Switchfoot purports, but living meaningfully isn't. Is indifference better than living in this tumultuous yet dejecting life? I have mentioned this to some of my friends, that living indifferently is a far cry to living meaningfully. I've always seen indifference as a great threat to living a goodly life. After all, it was Socrates who said that living an unexamined life is not worth living. Why? Because it is the soul's pursuit to find a meaningful life in examining self in order to find it. So that brings me to this text. A true examination of myself only further explicates my meaning as a human being, a person who is created by something--no, someone--that gives me, and I would further stress "us," meaning. I can know myself, and further, I can know the reason I am here; to live and love God in it. How do I do it? Grace is the means.

A Faith Based Faith

So today I went to a bible study. We talked about John Calvin and his view of the degradation of man. I also found something online which could further explain the issue of faith--faith as a gift of God versus a synergistic approach. Here is the website. Enjoy.

Maybe Not My Whole Day, But Some Of It

So today I have devoted my time to write somewhat of my day, since my day was a relatively good one. Today, when I went to church, I didn't expect to have a good time, hearing the message and doing my so-called "duty" of attending. At first I acted vainly. But then the pastor decided that he bereave me. In the end, the pastor offered wonderful hope to me and my soul in the end. It's so amazing how God does that to his covenant people (which was what the message was about--his covenant people being bought back to himself). The pastor preached Romans 9 (i know . . . woe!). I've never been so convinced of my sorrow, as if my sorrow had to be enunciated by his outline. It was as if my soul was being surveyed and probed by the very finger of God. It showed me of my naked penury and my unwillingness to submit to his authority, which most men do today. In the previous day I read Calvin's outline of the proof--which is ostensible to the natural eye--that God is there and sovereign in the mind of the intellectual and lay person(s). All this, along with the pastor's sermon, was a preclusion to my subsequently docile submission, to the conviction which was so painful, as if God himself was goading--no, roweling me. I guess this brings a whole new meaning to "Amazing grace."

Chapters 1-3: Tim O'Brien

Stories. Where would man be without them? As I began to read my new book, I found a viable topic for discussion. It is the art of story telling. I know . . . Grandpa is usually the cliché
family figure who comes up with the stories. But then what would the kids be looking forward to if Grandpa wasn't going to deliver? Stories of the past, as O'Brian writes, tells us of the past, the future, and ultimately of ourselves. Sometimes the impulse to indulge in the musings of our lives gives us a deeper meaning to what we may see as significant--enough to love the past for recollection. Writers depend on simple truths of a story. They take a turn from one place and describe how it was significant to them at the time the musing begins. They can express how at one time it was the place where certain activities happened, as if the place had a story to tell or eyes to report. Places have the silent voice of memory imprinted in the writer's mind. Stories--they are the pasts voice and the futures life. We can learn a lot of what we consider fain but monotonous experience. Let the silence take a tour, let it digress.

Who Am I?

SAM: It's the real me. I think I might have found a viable term for SAM. For those who don't recollect the notion of SAM (a word-name for my journal), I have designated this name for the sole purpose of going against the modern trend of a diary. I don't think a diary would serve me as useful as a journal. The reasons are . . . Well, I won't discuss that. But there is something I will explain, and that is SAM. SAM, unlike diaries, is not a person or some form of a person; it is an acronym. The letters contain three words, which is the description of my journal: syndicated anatomy of myself. I scribed this name to express myself and my daily experiences as a memoir. I feel that writing to some intangible phantom of my imagination would serve me no purpose. It wasn't real to me, as my experiences were (and are). So SAM. This is what SAM is. SAM is me, and I am SAM.

Love, The Concept

What would you do for love? What about "love at first sight?" Do you even believe in it? How would it consummate in the mind of the lover? These along with other questions arise when I think of the one. I remember debating my friends concerning that phrase. It seems so fake and common. In our modern day we seem to make much of love. Most of the business of love is just another capitalist endeavor, I suppose. But maybe love is more than that? Is it wrong to love another person, romantically? I've been reading At First Sight (which its title assumes the fitting theme, love at first sight). So far I'm in chapter two. There's more to say about love at first sight than what would appear as a semblance of a romance novel. A novel. That is exactly what I mean when I think of love: some novel idea that elicits capitalism in the hands of the vulgar. Would you say love is the end in human experience? What do we do about happiness? Is it happiness? Aren't they synonymous with each other? Or are they different working towards one end? Forgive the recurring questions, but I am getting somewhere with this. Love isn't the feeling we feel when we see the person we care about. It isn't any of the quirks that we love about them. What then is it? Is it the feeling we get in our stomaches--I think called butterflies? This we know can be explained as biological. But maybe there's another truth behind the apparent truth. Like beauty love is something deeper with meaning. Man was made to love, just as he was made to enjoy beauty. Maybe even those two--beauty and love--are synonymous with each other. God knows. More to come on my new book.

Feb. 5, 2007--Entry

Well, it appears that I have a headache--again. Let's see here. . . Here's something new, I bought a couple books today at Borders. It was a 3 for 2 deal, which means that I paid for two books and got 1 free. It was good. I can't wait to begin the first one, Nicolas Sparx's, At First Sight. Today was odd. I've been getting these weird headaches that cause me to be dizzy. It's weird because I don't get the occasional migraine. I think I might have some kind of brain tumor. I was on the lookout for a neurologist in Riverside so that I can get an MRI. I think I might have found a good one, but the only way to find out is by going to see him (or her). I believe I need to finish this book, because it's taking me far too long to finish.

Freedom Writers and Entry 78

I made this entry my personal responsibility to write about a single entry from the dairy of the Freedom Writers. I want to write about how the mind captures the feeling of being abused. Now I'm not suggesting that the person personally has to be the victim of abuse, but he or she can also be a mere spectator of an abuse--someone whom he or she loves. Because the book is rife with stories of abuse and pain I wanted to choose the entry carefully.

Entry 78:

"Me, cleaning my mother's blood off the wall, represented the 'tornado' breaking and destroying her face (I liked to call my mother's boyfriend the 'tornado'.) After he would hit, everything would look like it had been caught in a whirlwind--our apartment, our sanity, and my mother's face. I was cleaning up after the tornado hit my house and diminished everything. Washing my mom's blood, which was shed from time to time; a sacrifice to make him happy. He lived for blood--her blood, enjoying every fist that hit her flesh, and every scream that took place. While he broke televisions, stereos, VCRs and the dining room table, it didn't compare to the breaking of her mind. My mom was never the same, and neither was I . . ."

So what does it take to get to this point? I previously asked this question in my other blog. We can hate history's characters which resemble terror and violence, but that very ideology is prevalent in our streets and our homes. People need to be more like the teacher that the Freedom Writers had. She was an example of a true educator. In reality, we are all educators. It is in the mind to educate, as if imbued in the creation order. Educate yourself to be ready and alert, being ready to respond to hurting people. We should not wane from the truth--its lessons and moral responsibilities.