| Life While Alive or Death Before Dieing |
[Jul. 20th, 2006|04:08 am] |
Death can be for us the tragic end and ultimate sadness. In Anatole Broyard’s Intoxicated by My Illness we learn that facing death can be a positive experience giving us a fresh outlook on life. This new outlook can allow us to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the life we still have more fully.
Broyard says that when he realized life is only for a limited time he was “filled with desire—to live, to write, to do everything” (327). This desire focused him. It allowed him to see what goals he had yet to accomplish and begin to bring them to completion. If we, like Broyard, face the fact that we will all someday meet our end, we may all be able to begin to carry out some of the important things that we’ve been too complacent to begin. For Broyard it was finishing a book. For you it could be the great cause of feeding starving children in Africa or perhaps something more innocuous like filming a documentary on sky diving.
Even if we don’t manage to do something fruitful with the last hours of our lives, at the very least—with the right perspective—we can become aware of how even some of the simplest things are truly amazing. Take simple body function for example. After being unable to sleep or excrete any bodily wastes at the beginning of his illness, Broyard tells us that having his body working again was a “voluptuous pleasure” (329). “[He] realized how marvelous it is simply to function” (329). His old boring body “was reborn as a brand-new infatuation” (329). Just as Broyard was reawakened to the marvels of a functioning digestive system, we too ought to awaken to the beauty of the life we have and the beauty of the life around us.
Someone might say that only the delusional can be truly positive about death. Who, after all, looks at pain and suffering as a positive thing? Certainly, no one looks forward to facing such a fate. However, when looking the pain and suffering of a life threatening illness in the eye, Broyard says that “you can turn toward this knowledge or away from it” (327). If we turn away, our last days may well be a morose lamentation. They could be death before dieing.
In contrast, by confronting the truth we can accept the life that is left and enjoy it. If we do this, even the food we eat can be a remarkable thing. After Broyard had acknowledged his eventual demise he says of his wife’s cooking: “I thought it was the most fabulous hamburger in the history of the world” (328). We also can use the knowledge of our impending death to savor the vibrant life that surrounds us every day. Ultimately, the choice to live while alive or die before death is in the hands of each individual. But if Broyard is to be believed, living is worthwhile even when it includes deadly illness. His perspective urges us not to brood over death, but rather to find a way to relish the life that each of us has.
Works Cited
Ferster, Judith. Arguing Through Literature. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005
Hurray! I've made it through another late night and another short for my english class. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 6th, 2006|05:08 pm] |
Once as a child my parents took me to a Mexican restaurant. The adobe-red masks that hung on the walls fascinated me. Their eyes followed me wherever I went with benevolent, smiling cheerfulness or passive, frowning wariness. As I occupied myself with the wall decorations my parents ordered the food. I wanted a taco meal. My attention now focused on the painted patterns on the tiles of the table. Interlocking leaves and diamonds wove their way around the border. The diamonds were divided up into fourths by a pattern of black and yellow triangles. The leaves danced pale green across a bright blue background. The center of the table was covered in larger white shining tiles with yellow daisies painted in their center. It was upon these tiles that the waitress deposited the strangest thing my young eyes had ever seen. There on a small white plate surrounded by yellow corn chips was the oddest scoop of ice cream imaginable. It had a sickly green color as though the ice cream had gone rotten and lacked the smooth sheen of melting sweetness a good scoop would have. As my father scooped up some of the green ball, I asked: "what's that Daddy?" "Guacamole," he replied and handed me a corn chip with its own green mass. It was not the sweet goodness I had hoped for but I chewed diligently the traitorous ice cream that Dad had offered. "Whaddaya think," he asked. "It's not very good ice cream," I stated honestly. My parents laughed and tried to explain that it wasn't ice cream but it was many years before I understood that guacamole is not a sweet dessert. |
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| James' Darkness |
[Jun. 27th, 2006|06:24 pm] |
In the twilight hours when there is no sleep, shadows take on a life of their own. Each turn of my head twists another assassin from the black corners of the room. They come for me when rest has fled and drag me from what dreams I may have had. They leave me empty. They leave me with no direction to walk in. I am numb.
Light comes again with morning but never drives the shadows away. The empty memories remain. The past is never far enough behind for me to forget. I've been told before that I need to move on. "That's nice," I always want to reply. "Where exactly do I have left to go?" It's never been my design to be where I am. Now that I could craft my own destiny I find that I have no desires, no will, no passion. I see no future for myself.
This ought to disturb me but I don't feel. The only reason I continue on is that I know there must be more. Something I've yet to discover. Others are happy and sad and excited and disappointed. What is it that drives them...?
When was it that I stopped caring about myself? When did I stop caring about what happens to me? When did I stop caring?
I stopped caring.
That is what is wrong with my life. I care for nothing. What joy can there be when I don't care?
People who don't care make me angry and I see now that I am angry at myself. What foolishnes of the past could be so bad to ignore the potential ahead of me? My life has been lived in hiding and fear. It has yielded no benefit. I must no longer live afraid and ashamed. I will learn to live. I will learn to care. I will learn to forgive.
When the relentless shadows come once more there will be rest. I will dream again. |
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| Questions and Answers |
[May. 2nd, 2006|11:15 pm] |
So I have been sitting the past few weeks considering where life has brought me and I found myself asking some questions repeatedly. Here are four of them and the best answers I've found so far:
1.) What should I do to get a life?
2.) What is the meaning of life?
3.) Why should anyone know the answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?"
and the ever important:
4.) What should I eat today?
So far I’ve found the best answer to these questions in the Gospel of John chapter 6. Yes even for quetion 4.
For question 1 "How to get a life" and 4 "What to eat" verse 35:
"Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; He who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst."
While this won't satisfy my stomach, it speaks to the truth. A dieing world needs the life that only God can give through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Bread to fuel the soul.
For question 2 "The meaning" verse 29:
"Jesus replied, This is the work that God asks of you, that you believe in the One Whom He has sent-that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger." AMP
At the core of the question "What's the meaning of life?" is another question: What is it I'm supposed to be doing? If the meaning of life is 42, then it might stand to reason that I should be doing as many things as I can 42 times. If it were sushi it might be true that I should be using my talents to better enjoy, and if I still have time, help others to enjoy sushi. But Jesus told us that we are to believe in him. If we want to find meaning in our lives there's nowhere else we need to look than on Jesus and his teaching. Concerning the commands of God, one of those teachings is this:
"'Hear oh Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31 NAS)
So, if you're looking for a start, the greatest (most important) commandments of God are a good place. Paraphrased recap: Love God with all you have and love your neighbor as yourself.
Now, for question 3 "Why should anyone know":
Well, simply put: Jesus is God. In John 6, Jesus several times references his father (God) and who else would know but God? For further reference to the deity of Jesus I looked up John 1 verse 1, 2, and 14.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." NIV
May God be your guide today and every tomorrow. |
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| From blog |
[Apr. 19th, 2006|10:27 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | story | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Confusion | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Song of the Redeemed -Charlie Hall | ] |
James sat by the dancing flames of the camp fire digging through the assorted supplies of his bag in search of something. His fingers strayed across the book of mostly blank pages his youngest sister had given him two years before. He felt again the loss of all he had known. The harsh truth was that his father and sisters had passed away “years beyond counting” ago. A grim smile touched his lips as he remembered Rimnik’s words about the country he had called home. He pulled out the journal and read his own words from that now distant time.
There is a balance, perhaps a simple balance, seemingly mastered by the majority of the people I of the Faith I have met. This balance is between the living out of what most would call “a normal” life and the duty to do the will of God. They go on living as if it were simply the way it is supposed to be. But what of the task left undone? The task The Almighty set: for his people to bring His message to all the world. Do we truly march toward this goal? Or do we live in blissful, sometimes willful ignorance of our duty unfulfilled?
And I do see some people, some assemblies, laboring towards this goal. But their numbers seem few. How many are idle for every one who is active? And what have I done? I have been idle! Asleep! Frozen! Mere questions about small things enough to stop me before even making tracks in the dirt just outside my door. I am paralyzed by the all the scholarly dogmas that swirl about. I am paralyzed because I would not bind myself to the minute doctrines so many believe are written in stone. So I seek a different way to further the Faith, to find my function, my use to God, but slow is the finding of it. Perhaps the texts of the ancients will be of some help.
He had written it the day that the School of Stars had begun experiments on the samples from the planet nearest their star on the day they had begun unleashing the ancient forces that took him from his home and erased it from the memory of all but the most tenacious of historians. A breed in rare supply from what he had seen of this new world. And what of the Faith? What had Lord Addamon called it…? Whatever its name now, there were only murmurings of an underground in the Empire he had escaped. James put his forehead in his hands and prayed for deliverance in the north land into which he fled. He prayed for a refuge from the hatred that seemed to nip at his heels. |
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| Quote and thoughts |
[Apr. 4th, 2006|11:26 pm] |
“It is not always the majestic concerns of Imperial ministers which dictate the course of history, nor is it necessarily the pontifications of priests which move the hands of God.”
-from Children of Dune
This reminded me that my life is really in God’s hands no matter what plans I may have and no matter how much control I think I have over things. To cement this idea in my mind I remembered Psalms 127 as sung by John Michael Talbot which says:
“Unless the Lord builds the house, in vain do the laborers build. Unless the Lord guards our city in the night, in vain does the watchman keep vigil.”
Throughout the psalms we are continually encouraged to put our trust in God who ultimately has control of everything. May you step into each new day putting your trust in God.
Peace be with you |
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| Arrrr! |
[Jan. 16th, 2006|02:16 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bored | ] |
| [ | music |
| | X men | ] |
My pirate name is:
Mad John Rackham
Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!
Get your own pirate name from fidius.org. |
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| The flu sucks! |
[Dec. 28th, 2005|11:47 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer | ] |
So for the past 3 days I've been sick. Being sick stinks--especially if you don't shower while you are feeling bad. Getting sick is just one of the joys of the season eh? In any case, despite sickness on and around Christmas, we have managed to have a fun time playing card games Dokan, Hearts, Canasta, and playing Diablo II WOOT, and watching anime Fruits Basket and Evangelion. I am starting to feel better just in time for heading north to Denver. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and family from up there again. SO! Take care and flee the flu.
P.S.
to all the children...Congradulations! |
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| Homework |
[Nov. 7th, 2005|11:17 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Tick tock of the Clock is painful | ] |
Sometimes homework really stinks.
Like when your lab partner has bad breath or you are doing an experiment with sulfur.
Sometimes homework really stinks.
Like when you have three essays and a lab report all due the same day and you don’t get enough sleep.
Sometimes homework really stinks.
But how else are you going to learn?
At least knowledge is sweet. |
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| Silly quiz, but I do like the woods |
[Sep. 14th, 2005|03:37 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hopeful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Chicago-Does anybody really know what time it is? | ] |
You are an earth sprite!
You love nature and everything in it. You are a
deep person with a kind spirit. You are very
loving and compassionate. You have alot of
friends, but not many "best friends".
You long for something more, and you are a good
listener.
color: green
lyrics: "Without the mask, where will you
hide? Can't find yourself lost in your lie. I
know the truth now I know who you are, and
mabye someday you will find yourself too."
Which elemental fantasy creature are you? ~~AWESOME PICS~~
brought to you by Quizilla |
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| Sometimes I feel that: |
[Sep. 14th, 2005|03:26 pm] |
Sometimes I feel that:
By the time I've lived
And learned to live
That it will be too late
To have a life. |
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| White Water |
[Aug. 22nd, 2005|06:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  determined | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Trigun: Spicy Stewed Dougnut H.T. | ] |
I sit here now everyone's life a blur
They flow by quickly and far beyond me
I stretch to go, to follow downstream
But the eddy's swirl holds and binds me
Spinning now I go nowhere but I'm always in constant motion
But I'll always reach and struggle to gain opportunity's great vast ocean |
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| Shaving Cream or Whipped Cream? |
[Aug. 20th, 2005|06:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Don Francisco I'll never let go of your hand | ] |
If you had no sense of smell could you tell the difference before it hit your tongue? Wouldn’t that be a crazy realization! I can't imagine putting shaving cream in my mouth or what it tastes like. Today I am eating sloppy joe for dinner with reheated pizza. It's a make shift meal, or as I like to call it collage cooking. Now as I sit here and digest I realize that it doesn't take a multi course meal to satisfy even though they’re nice. Sometimes we need to be grateful for the simple blessings in our lives.
Be sure to thank Him.
PBWY,
Josh |
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admontius's journal
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Introspective
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