Grief Observed

Reading this literature has really opened my eyes to what literature can bring to the table. Often we read books to let our imaginations soar and run wild as we imagine what it would be like to be a certain character in the book. But then there are certian pieces of literature where a person can identify realistically with the author and understands what they are going through. I loved this piece of literature by C.S. Lewis because it was so raw in material that it almost sounded like we were his friend listening to him tell us how he was handling this hardship in his life. The parts where he was outraged with God because he didn't understand why he woud put him through this or when he finally understood a little why he was being put through this. Lewis is real with his reader on how he is handling all this which is the whole point of the book.
One part that really stood out to me was when he was talking about the time that him and his wife had together and if it was enough time. He says that maybe it was the time that they finally got together and perhaps God said this is too perfect so he split them but then on the other hand maybe the time they had together was the amount that they were supposed to be together only (which of course with our God who is caring and loving, this explanation is more understandable). Lewis is going through every thought and sharing even his most raw thoughts despite what people may think which makes this writing so much more attractive because its thoughts that we can all identify with because most of us have lost a loved one at some point. I really did enjoy this text and would love to read more of Lewis's writings.

Literary Discussion

The breakfast at the ristorante was an interesting way to get our brains stimulated and talking about literature. I personally have sat around talking about literature before but it was a subconscious thing that I was doing. I would just talk about a book that I had been recently reading or a book that I was currently reading and that would be the extent of my literary discussion. I haven't read a whole lot of literature but as I've grown up and realized that literature does really add so much to our world I'm trying to read more and more. As we were discussing literature on Monday at breakfast we talked about how much our society has gotten lazy with the literature we have. We have books and some people read them but the majority of the time the books are made into motion pictures and then that's when people realize that there is a book that the story came from. If we instead pushed people to read more, what would our world imagine and change into for our students and our minds? Our imagination has been given to us by God and its something that we could really benefit from but when the producer takes this in their hands and make it into what they interpret the book as it cuts off our ability to imagine with the text that the author has written. I know that there are many books that have been turned into motion pictures that I wish I had read the book first because I would love to see how my imagination develops the words off the pages. And then again I remember that we live in a fast pace society and to be able to calm our spirit and just sit and read is sometimes hard for us, well for me at least. I have a list of like five books that I would like to read but with all the business of life I feel like I never have time to just sit and read a good book unless I'm traveling or something. So reading maybe reading more literature should have been a new years resolution for me!

Happy Endings

When I first read this story I didn't know if I was supposed to go on and read option B and option C and all. All the beginning said was for a happy ending read option A so I did and things ended well. Life was lived blissfully and then the people died and that is the way life is for all of us. Some have more of a happy life then others but over all we all have a good life. But then I chose to read the rest of the options and realized that the author had thought of other endings to the story that actually played off of option A. But interestingly enough every option was just about the in between time of when the couple got together and when they died. So all she was adjusting was the in between of their lives together which was interesting to look at life in scenarios like that.
As I read each option they got a little more obscene with each one and I began to ask what her point was to writing such a story like this. But when I was done reading everything I realized that what she had written wasn't far from what our reality is that we live in today. Our society gasps when they first hear of stories like this but then people begin to think about the situation and say it's not that surprising that things turned out that way; which is very sad and says a lot about our society. People don't see commitment as something sacred in our world anymore which is a shame because so much turmoil comes from not viewing it as sacred. Each option shows what our society does as a result of not viewing commitment as something sacred. People begin to cheat on their partners and spouses and they begin to kill people and ruin marriages, infidelity comes into play and the whole situation is now in a sticky situation. This story showed all of this and really put things into perspective, but then again we have to remember just as the author said… in the end one line is always the same. They die. We all die at one point and it really is all about how we live the dash in between our date. Do we live in “happy ending” option A? Or do we try to live our own lives in one of the other options??

What We Talk about When We Talk about Love

Reading this story was very interesting to me. Its about four people just sitting around a table enjoying each others company; one couple has been in previous relationships and they have currently been married to each other for four years and the other couple has been married for a year and a half. Already by reading that information we see that the dynamics of the two couples relationships vary in how they interact with one another. One couple is still in the "honeymoon" stage of their marriage where everything is blissful and grand, while the other couple has seen the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly.

The couples get on the topic of love which comes up a lot in conversation wherever a person is. They are more or less trying to define love, which truthfully is a task that is almost impossible to come up with that applies to the entire human population. As we see in the story, Terri got dragged down and basically beaten to "love," if you will.. This to me would not be the love that I would want to experience but she had a point. Being a psychology major myself, I understand that some people have mental problems where they can't express their emotion in a healthy way. Take for example Ed. I would guess that he was abused in some form as a child OR his mother was abused by his father. Somewhere in his lifetime he learned that beating the person you love is the way to express that you love them, which a healthy person would understand that this is not the way to show love. So to Ed, love is beating the person and expressing that to them. Terri even had a distorted view of love because she stuck by him in the worst of times and felt that even after everything was said and done he truly did love her, but in reality he was mentally disturbed in some ways and one might say that Ed was more infatuated with Terri then deeply in love with her.

Mel obviously disagreed with Terri in his definition of love. He refused to believe that what Ed had for Terri was love and if it was then he wanted nothing of it. This reaction from Mel is normal though because he was now Terri's man, he was the one taking care of her and protecting her so to hear that some other man beat her and dragged her around the house to show how much he "loved" her angered Mel. But also they were all drinking so Mel may have been able to understand things a little better if he wasn't drunk. But what Mel needs to understand is that Ed did love Terri, maybe not to the depths that Mel loved Terri, but Ed obviously had some issues that he had not dealt with so he couldn't love Terri to the full potential.

We see this a lot in our society with all the abuse cases that come into the social workers offices. Battered wives, abused children, neglected children; all resulting from people not knowing how to love someone and show their love in a healthy way. This all has the potential to lead to things such as dysfunctional relationships in the future, repeating of history where the child can't love in a healthy way when they grow up, and even children as a result of not feeling love in a healthy way can get involved in things that are not healthy. Things such as pre-marital sex, drugs, alcohol and more. Our society would gain a lot if they just stepped back and took a look at what love really is. I understand that the way love is portrayed and lived out is very different family to family but we need to have a healthy view of love all the way around. Love is not something that is always blissful, it takes time and work to love a person 24/7 but we need to learn how to love our friends and family in healthy ways. And honestly, the best way to learn this would be to look at the example Jesus was to us...

Post One: Literary Profile

Literary for me has always been a small part of my life. I can remember some stories from when I was younger, the typical mother goose stories and such but nothing really sticks out to me except for the Dr. Seuss books. Those books were very popular in my household and we read them all the time. They were the books that I learned how to read with and then I read them to my younger brother. Coming to college and hearing other people around me talk about books is always interesting because I have been exposed to much more literature then I was in high school or middle school. I feel like I have really wasted years in the time that I did not read as much as I had a chance too. Growing up, reading was something that I didn't like a lot. I always said it had to be interesting for me to finish a book and really get something out of it; which to an extent is true in some ways but not in other ways. A book can start out horrible but then end with a twist that the reader never saw, but if I put the book down because it's not interesting to me then I have missed an ending that could have been life changing to my literary experiences.

I have begun to value the importance of reading a lot more as I have grown up and matured some and I try to make sure I am constantly reading because reading just about anything is a source of learning. Take the news paper for example, a lot of young adults don't get a news paper daily as would an older adult so this is something that I try to get a hold of or read online so I can learn and be engaged with in the word. Some recent memories of literature are the one's that I have read in college, such as Bible Drama or Crazy Love. One of the most significant literary readings I have done is a book called The Shack. This was a book that has been and still is circulating amongst many christian circles and when I finally got a copy in my hand and actually made the time to sit down and read, I realized what an amazing book it was and it really did change my life. The book talked about a man refreshing his love and passion for God, his creator. It really inspired me and drew me closer to God which was crazy that a book about a man that I don't believe was a true story, can impact a persons life to that extent.

From this example, I can really begin to see the impact that literature can have on a person's life. I can and have learned to appreciate literature and realize that they aren't just books sitting on a shelf. That if we actually open the book, it has the power to change a person's life. Some literature to me is boring, we all have different likes and dislikes about literature, but we all can agree that at one point or another it has changed our lives in some way. Literature is like an intangible painting. Authors create paintings like artists do, they just do it with words for us to read.