A Timeless Reality

Like my title says, this blog post is not about the dating/relationship topic.  Actually, I want to write about WHY boys are no longer my constant worry.


The whole point of choosing to not date right now was to reduce the time and worry that I spent thinking about guys (you know what I'm talking about, the whole "does-he-like-me-and-if-so-how-much" thing).  The few days after I made that decision were pretty tumultous because of thoughts like "wait how do I interact with guys now that dating is out of the picture?" and other insignificant, albeit important to me, worries.


But now, although I do still think about guys from time to time, I feel a real peace about my decision and how it will affect my life.  "Why is that?" you might be wondering.  The answer might sound rather cliche, but it is so true...  My peace comes from thinking about how much God loves me instead of dwelling on if a boy loves me.


These past couple of years, I have gotten really bad about doing daily devotions and journaling, but one of my goals for 2010 is to get back into it.  So, on January 8 (yeah I know I was a week past the beginning of the year) I broke out my Bible, my new journal, and my copy of Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest and spent a long time meditating on how incredible my Lord is.  It was a hands down great time!

In my American Lit class we've been asked several times what we thought was literature. Some people have said anything that was written down, others said writings that give us a glimpse into the past. I've been thinking about my answer for a few weeks, and the other day in class I decided to voice my opinion on the matter.

Literature is anything that makes you think. It can be a novel, a newspaper article, a poem, the "literature" in the doctor's office, a textbook, or even song lyrics. I don't mean those Boxcar Children books we read when we were kids. I don't mean those trivial emails you get that have been forwarded a billion times. I mean stuff that you don't forget about 2 seconds after you read it. I mean the stuff that makes your brain form a thought, and then form another thought, and then another and another and another. If it makes you think, then it's making you better.
People these days don't read anymore. At least not like they used to. Now we get everything we know from tv, from politicians, from talk radio, from anywhere except for printed material. That's not necessarily bad, but it scares me. Why? Because if people are getting all their information from CNN or FOX news, they don't think for themselves. They accept what the tv tells them and they don't question it!

If people don't read, all their thoughts are not really theirs. They have been hugely influenced by the newscaster. The media is supposed to be un-biased, but that is far from true anymore. Everyone has opinions and they aren't afraid to share them.

Authors share their opinions too, but if you are reading it, you have time to stop and think about it. If you're just listening to someone, you don't have a chance to digest the material and decide your opinion on the matter, so you just take what that person says as your opinion. That's sad. That's scary.

So please, think for yourself. Please, read.

For the past two class meetings, my English professor has been sick. Because of this, we haven't had class, but instead we are required to post on an online discussion board. Today I decided to sit down and read the poems and post my thoughts so I could move on to studying for my Econ test. Here are some of my thoughts:

The poetry we read was four poems by William Cullen Bryant: Thanatopsis; The Yellow Violet; To Cole, The Painter, Departing For Europe; and The Prairies. These are good poems, some better than the rest. My favorite is Yellow Violet, then Thanatopsis, and the other two are tied for last (or third if you're an optimist).

In all of these poems, Bryant displays an amazing gift of description. The beginning of Prairies makes me feel as if I'm in Montana watching the clouds cast shadows on the plains below. When I read Thanatopsis, I could easily imagine Bryant walking on a path through the woods.

Thanatopsis is a Greek word meaning a meditation on death. Bryant's poem by this name is the most philosophical out of the four. He uses personification with regards to nature, and his reverance towards nature makes me think he had Pantheistic leanings. I find Bryant's tone throughout the poem interesting. At first he's thoughtful and melancholy, and at the end he sounds like a motivational speaker. The interesting thing is that the end-- the motivational part-- was written a few years after the rest. So that makes me wonder what happened in those years that so changed his attitude towards death?

Yellow Violet is my idea of a wonderful poem. It has beautiful description of a spring scene and Bryant uses this to draw a parallel between flowers and people. He describes how the violet is the first flower to come up in the spring, sometimes even when snow is still on the ground. This makes me think of how resilient people can be. Just like a flower blooming in the snow, people can thrive in the midst of strife.

Bryant more specifically discusses how the violet seems so beautiful at first, but it's beauty is quickly surpassed when the other larger flowers bloom. He draws a harsh contrast to how when people become rich and/or famous, they quickly forget their old friends. Bryant confesses that he has done this, but he now regrets it. The bitterness that can be heard in Bryant's voice at this point made me actually stop and read back to see how he so swiftly got from an innocent flower to the cold world we live in. (And this was written in the 19th century!) Bryant then just as quickly switches back to talking about a flower. I find it amazing that Bryant could so masterfully use a yellow violet to make a point.

And yes, there really is such a thing as a yellow violet.