The No Good, Rotten Day

Well, I had a bad day. My dog woke me up at five this morning because he decided that he needed to do his business two hours earlier than his normal time. In fact, he was so incessant that I didn’t even have time to get the second shoe on before he was dragging me out the door. And, of course, my one bare foot happened to step into fresh bat guts that my cat left strewn over the driveway sometime in the night (thanks a lot Missy, I love you too). At breakfast I found that someone had eaten all the cereal and left the empty box out (which I figured out after shaking the box over my bowl for a good ten minutes, trying not to curse when nothing came out. Yeah, I’m not a morning person).

The day progressively got worse, dropping my 600 page textbook on my injured toe, my RPG game crashing while I set a personal kills record, getting stuck in the middle of a fight between my father and sister, someone stealing the awesome piece of cake I had been saving for two days, all the candy spilling out of the bag and rolling down the driveway into the street, dropping the full two galloon milk jug only to have it burst on the kitchen floor and get everywhere. And to top it all off, I slipped in the bathtub and hit my head.

Well, since there’s supposed to be a point to rants: don’t you hate when you have bad days? I know I do, but the thing that I really hate is when I get cookie-cutter Christian answers from my friends. I know I’m supposed to cast all of my cares on Him, but I don’t want you to quote a Bible verse back at me. I want you to curse the evil dog for waking up early, to curse the cat for leaving the bat in the driveway, to sympathize with slipping in the tub or having my food eaten, dang, even laugh at what a bloody (that’s right, I will occasionally swear in British, bet you didn’t see that coming!) idiot I’m being for letting a bad day get to me.

I appreciate the fact that you have a Christian answer to give me, I just want something a little less stereotypical. I’m an odd girl, I require odd solutions.

Anyways, when I’m calmed down enough, then you can give me a Bible verse to go look up to help me next situation, but I really don’t appreciate telling you all about my day only to have a Bible verse quoted back at me. Seriously, if I wanted a simple Bible verse, then I would have gone and told the story to the open Bible on my desk. Which, in hindsight, I probably should have thought of sometime during my no good, ill luck, rotten day.

 But hey, my lesson is learned: next time I’m telling the story to Arthur (the sarcastic, cynical voice in my head that, for some odd reason, is British).

This made sense to someone, right?

A Mockery

I really do appreciate your opinion and your comments

about the music I play, the clothes I wear.

I really do understand that you're only trying to help

introduce a little taste, a little color.

I really am aware of all the superior bands and brands

of music you play, clothes you wear,

but if I cared, don't you think

I would have changed a long, long time ago?

I choose the music I play, the clothes I wear,

and I like it that way.

Thank you.

          Song: Headstrong by Trapt

          Quote: "Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." - Mark Twain

The Art of Handwriting

     In a world of mobiles, computers, and Apple products, writing seems to be a lost art. I’m not talking about the words we write, but rather how we write them.
     The printed word may be one of man’s greatest achievements, but it is only an extension of the written word. When you look at the founding documents of this country (which I have had the privilege to gawk over), you can not only see the magnificence of their message, but also the care poured into the forming of each word.
     Words, in and of themselves, are the most powerful things we can use. They can be used to praise, forgive, condemn, they can lead armies and conquer the deepest recesses of our minds.
     But what also matters, and what few seem to take into account nowadays, is how we write them. As a student of my father, a nit-picky perfectionist who schooled me for almost two hours, six days a week, on just my handwriting; and of calligraphy, I have learned to value the practice of picking up a pen (or a quill, in my case) and recording my inner thoughts and muses. This entire rant was actually handwritten long before I decided to type it up and share it with the world, but I’m getting off topic.
     In these modern times we are taught to type, not write. Only a hundred years ago, it was considered some of great significance if you could write your own name. Today, we forget a lot of that, writing is just a mundane task that we must accomplish before we move on to grander things.
     Our handwriting is an extension of ourselves, it really does matter how we dot our i’s and cross our t’s. For those little actions speak a world of ourselves.
     Many of my peers in my classes all groan when our evil English teacher assigns us a handwritten essay. For me, it’s an opportunity to organize my thoughts on paper, and I enjoy it because of the extra care I can take in forming my words. But when it comes time to hand in the assignment my peers all hand in essays that are covered in chicken scratch and barely legible!
     What happened to a world where the handwritten letters were looked forward to, when mastering beautiful writing was celebrated? What happened to a world where we took pride in what our letters looked like? What happened to a world where handwriting actually mattered?
     I was thinking of this when I sat down to write my graduation letters (yes that’s right dear friends and mentors, you will soon have to suffer through my overly sentimental letters of appreciation). I take hours on one page measuring my spaces and lines, forming letters that express who I am. I want people to know that I appreciate them enough to sit down and take time to write out my thoughts, not just quickly type a letter that I can be done with in ten minutes.
    Okay, it’s probably time to get off of my soapbox, but hopefully some of you get the point (there was a point in there somewhere, right?) of this rant.

Pessimism in a Box - February Issue

To: The World
From: Connie

So...Valentines Day...

Why, America? Why??

Because it is February, it is essential that I harp on the never-ending horrible-ness that is the Americanized Valentines Day. You know: the big fluffy teddy bears and the obscene amounts of chocolate and the gonna-die-soon-anyways flowers and the nauseating hearts bursting from every nook and cranny?  Why?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                                        !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 <3"Oh, so we can remind the special people in our lives how much we love them,
and give them little trinkets of appreciation that they'll treasure for the 
rest of our beautiful relationship!!!!!" <3 <3 <3

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!

Um...right...because that's what it's all about, people. That's what it's all about. (Let it be known that the above quote should be read in an obnoxiously sugary voice and preferably with a lisp. Oh, and also...it's attempting to look like a heart and failing. Because I stopped caring about halfway through.)


I dunno about the rest of the ladies out there, but if my future man decides to get all gooey and stupid on me for one freaking day of the year, I can tell you right now that it's just not going to work out. Because flowers are NOT just for Valentine's Day. Chocolates are for like...every other date we go on (thank you very much), and Teddy bears better get ready to get thrown in the deepest darkest recesses of my closet, because no way am I littering my bed with frightful cushy things. Gag.


Let me set the record straight: I don't need thirty dollar flowers on February 14th. And neither does any other girl on the face of the planet. Heck, if my boyfriend showed me a dandelion he scraped off the sidewalk, and then planted the thing sweetly in my hair in late August...well, I'd be just fine with that. The fact of the matter is, Valentine's Day is a very commercialized day for morbidly obese people to continue to allow themselves exceptions to those chocolates, and for already rabidly obnoxious little girls to get mushy and idiotic with their boyfriends. Not to mention, gentlemen, it's a national holiday when women are allowed to hang you on a nail on the wall and throw amazon spears at you if you don't give them a bloomin' box of candy and a stupid teddy bear.

Does anyone remember what the real holiday was for? It's a day of brotherly love celebrating the death of St. Valentine. Yeah...it was a guy once. A guy who got brutally mauled to death my starved lions so a mob of crazed lunatics could laugh and go "Ha! Look at the Christian!"

This Valentine's Day...I feel like dressing up as a lion and attacking gooey-gum girls who coo when they see boys buying flowers for their crazed girlfriends. Feel free to join.

Poetry in a Tube

TO: Pappy
LOVE: Connie

            
              Fragile

As fragile as it all may seem

For here; for now,

I deem

Though know not how

That through this beam

Of teeming sun

You’ll gleam.

And humbly I will bow

For you’re residing with the One

Now.
And someday I'll be there somehow
When all my fragile-ness is done.

Religion Class: Judaism Essay

What role does the law play in Judaism?

Order from chaos: that is what law gives to man. But to Israel, law isn’t simply a list of rules to govern its people. If one were to attempt to strip the law from the people of Israel, it would be as if trying to strip roots from a tree – theoretically possible, but to what end? The tree would wither and be of little use. Judaism’s law is such a part of the peoples’ lives that it has become to define them as a people. But exactly what does the law do for the people and how is it involved with the keeping of Judaism?

In order to understand the law’s role in Judaism, one must first define what the law actually is. From a Western-view, such as most people of USA have, law is government associated. We have national governmental laws that deal with foreign exchange and national security, and localized government whose laws deal with the finer things such as permits for building on privately-owned property. However, the law of Judaism encompasses much more than just the national or regional governmental laws.

Judaism’s law bases its power in with the people’s belief system, or religion, if you will. The law includes both oral Torah and written Torah. “Torah” can be interpreted as “the teachings of God” or “law” and are included with in the first five books of the Bible, which are collectively called the “Pentateuch.” Judaism points that their people received God’s law through Moses at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19).

When many people hear of religious law, their thoughts point to the Ten Commandments, a list of do’s and do-not’s that tell people how to live a moral life. Many people agree that the Ten are impossible to keep, and yet Judaism boasts 613 commandments found throughout the Pentateuch! (Cohn-Sherbok, 405-17) However, in Judaism, The law is not just a list of do’s and do-not’s, but they include them in stories to better explain their meaning and reasoning. Rabbinic sages take the Torah and interpret it, setting them in story explanations so that the people can grasp what exactly God’s law demands of them. For example, Neusner examples this through a rabbi’s teaching of Leviticus 19:18 which reads, “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge.”

“… To what extent is the force of a grudge? If one says to him, ‘Lend me your spade,’ but he did not do so. The next day the other one says to him, ‘Lend me your sickle,’ and the other replies, ‘I am not like you, for you didn’t lend me your spade [but here, take the sickle]!’ In that context, it is said, ‘or bear any grudge’.” (pg177)

Thus, through example story, the people can then incorporate these understandings into their own life and day-to-day living, thereby pleasing God. They therefore have a better example of how to live then just a simple listing of rules to follow. And, if individually they can strive to become as close to God as possible, as well as working together and becoming as one, then communally they will be blessed with God’s grace and favor.

But what is the point to following Torah in the first place? Israel’s relationship with the Almighty began when He called Abraham out from his homeland and made a covenant, a kind of “contract,” with him. The basics of the Covenant are that Abraham and his descendants are to follow and worship God only, and He will make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation, one that will bless many others, and the people thereof will be too many as to count them (Genesis 12).

In the Judaic mindset, God is seen as a creator of history and its stories. He is not a God to make the world and then find more interesting things to do, leaving the earth to survive on its own; nor is He one to find interest simply watching humanity or causing strife for pleasure. Instead, their God is one who has a hand in shaping and changing Israel into a people for Himself. Thus, when Israel is banished from their land or forced under another’s authority, they see their situation as God’s way of trying to turn them back to Him. A form of punishment, yet it also brings the hope that when they get their act back together and follow Torah, they will be right in the eyes of God who will, in His timing, set them back into position of power and worth.

This leads into the question of how Judaism has been able to stay alive for so long. What is meant is this: why have so many other nationalities failed to survive when banished from their lands when Israel has been through many up-turnings and yet still survives? (Scott) What holds them together as they merge in with surrounding nations? The answer is the law. The law governs their economic handling, their internal socialization, policies and attitudes regarding foreigners, the worship rituals to God, right down to their diet and yearly festivals. Torah changes their daily lives and therefore shapes their worldview.

The societal differences and the people’s attitude towards others play back and forth on each other. For instance, a simple example of social differences would be looking at their diet. Diet restrictions alone can single people out from certain communal bonding activities. If you can’t eat pork and everyone has a BBQ night every Friday, you will be less inclined to go on a regular basis. Thus the daily actions and restrictions that the Torah gives the people set them to be much different than the surrounding lands. Couple those differences with the mindset that if Israel is God’s chosen people and they are pleasing to Him, then they have a spot in Heaven waiting so that they can serve God and enjoy rest from darkness. This attitude enforces the separation because one would not want to endanger displeasing God by mingling with the surrounding law-less lands.

When the Temple was destroyed in 70CE, Israel could no longer perform sacrifices which were commanded by the Torah. Because this worship was no longer possible to be done, the people turned to regular study of the law, placing great importance upon this (Scott). The overwhelming belief being that when Israel gets her act back together and follows God, then He will bring redemption and call them back to the promised land. This “get-back-on-track” mindset fueled people to stick together and to go back to their roots. The law gave them the glue to bind together and settle in foreign lands as a group instead of melting out into the masses. Thus, the reason Israel as remained for so long can be traced to their connection to the Covenant and to the Torah that came afterwards.

Just as a tree depends on its roots for survival, so does Israel depend on the law. The integration of the Torah into everyday life, religious worship, and governmental law sets a strong foundation for the people of Israel to keep their identity as a people devoted to their God. Without this foundation, the people may well have melted into the surrounding nations, losing sense of self and of their dedication. From order to chaos.



Works Cited

Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. Judaism: History, Belief and Practice. England: London, 2003. Print.

Neusner, Jacob. Judaism: an Introduction. England: London, 2002. Print.

Scott, Rachel. “Introduction to the Study of Religion: Judaism” Virginia Polytechnic University. McBride Hall, Blacksburg, Va. January 2012