Problematizing Post-The Road

I think it was so interesting how the boy kept asking his father if they were the good guys. "'Are we still the good guys' he said. 'Yes. We're still the good guys'"(McCarthy 77). If the son was so young that he cannot remember the old way of living, then how would he know right from wrong? What's the guiding moral compass? What is the ultimate good that the boy is deriving morals from? This seems to be the direction of the culture we live in. We want people to have morals but we're not willing to admit that there has to be an ultimate from which morals derive. This is what's causing all the sticky, opaque situations that our nation and people are getting lost in. No one is able to stay within the moral compass because we choose to believe there isn't one. It's quite ironic how our culture thinks. This reminds me of the bumper stickers that say, "Tolerance" and "Coexist" and each letter has a symbol of a different religion, including Christianity. Yet, the irony is that the one religion people won't tolerate is Christianity.

Our culture needs to understand that they cannot have morals without having something that defines and creates those morals. Saying that they come of ourselves means that we are gods. And if we are gods, why is their death and reproduction? This whole thought process opens up Pandora's box and if one is not careful their whole world is going to be turned upside down. Jesus is going to make sure they know who He is and how serious He is about their lives. It's funny that Cormac McCarthy mentions God and has his characters question if there is a God and yet he is not a believer himself. "You mean like the good guys? Yes. Or anybody that you wanted them to know where you were. Like who? I don't know. Like God? Yeah. Maybe somebody like that" (McCarthy 246). He just reflects our culture and the journey they are on; finding meaning and purpose without being held responsible for their actions

Peace Like a River-Annotated

Leif Enger, undoubtedly, had religious themes and references laced within the book Peace Like a River. One that many Christians would notice is that Jeremiah seemed to be a Christ-like figure. His name, first of all, is significant. I looked up what the name Jeremiah means in Hebrew and I do not think it is a coincidence that Jeremiah means “Yahweh Exalts”. I would not be surprised if Leif looked it up and subliminally wanted his character to exalt God throughout the book.

The first thing that gives the readers the idea that Jeremiah is a Christ-like figure is when he walks on air one night. Reuben woke in the middle of the night and thought he heard voices. Sneaking outside to take a peek at who might be out there, he noticed it was his father praying aloud and pacing. “And then, as I stood watching, Dad walked right off the edge of the truck” “He went on pacing—God my witness—walking on air, praying relentlessly, a good yard of absolutely nothing between the soles of his boots and the thistles below” (17). One of Jesus’ famous miracles is when he walked on water. This is one of the first indications that Jeremiah is no ordinary man.

When Jeremiah was humiliated in front of all the students, he says absolutely nothing. “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39b). This reflects Christ so much. Christ, while taking his last breaths upon the cross, asked not that his persecutors be punished but that God would forgive them. Jeremiah healed the superintendant’s face. That was his response. After being ridiculed and put down, kindness and forgiveness was reciprocated.

Another characteristic that shows Jeremiah as a Christ figure is the forgiveness he shows. “In this picture I saw no forgiveness for myself—not from Davy, not from Swede, not from anyone but Dad, who was so forgiving that it almost didn’t count” (285). Christ said to Peter, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:21). Christ continually forgives us for our stupidity; Jeremiah forgives others in the same manner. He especially forgives his children because they are his pride and joy. Christ views us as his children (1 John 3:1) and he loves us with a love that a parent has for their child.

The last and final Christ-like act is when Jeremiah sacrificed his life so that Reuben could live. Jape hid out beside the house and patiently waited for Davy to leave. Everyone went outside to see Davy off when a loud shot rang through the air. Jeremiah fell onto the hood of the car. He had been shot in the side. Roxanna ran over to try and stop the flow but Jeremiah replied, “Let the blood wash it clean” (306). Christ’s blood washed us clean. It is by His stripes that we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). A few minutes later, Jape shot three more times and Reuben was hit in the lung. “One day he said, ‘Your father should not have died, Reuben. Did you know that?’ I nodded. ‘I mean, injured where he was. I examined him, you know. No organs were damaged. Blood vessels, yes. But he actually shouldn’t have died.’ And I conversely shouldn’t have lived” (307). When Christ died, no bones were broken. In Jeremiah’s case, no organs were damaged. When reflecting later on in life about what happened that day, Reuben states, “That it seemed a transaction had taken place on my behalf” (310). Christ paid the price so that all of us could live with him eternally and that we would no longer be separated from our Heavenly Father by a chasm. There was a transaction taken on our behalf.

Jeremiah, New Bible Dictionary, Second Edition, Tyndale Press, Wheaton, IL, USA 1987.

Writinghood. "Peace Like a River Explored." Writinghood. N.p., 3 Feb. 2011. Web.
20 Apr. 2011.
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Water-Reflection Post

"It's more than just rain or snow" was really interesting. I never realized how significant weather was in literature. Like the chapter says, I know the infamous line, "It was a dark and stormy night." It's become a cliché. After hearing it so often, one becomes numb to how weather can affect the story line, unless the author puts it in your face.

An idea the author says is, “So if you want a character to be cleansed, symbolically, let him walk through the rain to get somewhere. He can be quite transformed when he gets there” (77). How true of Christ! There’s a reason He relates himself to living water. Drink of Him and never thirst again. He sustains life and transforms people. There’s a song called, “All My Fountains” by Chris Tomlin that goes with this topic. Here are a few lyrics:

This dry and desert land
I tell myself, “Keep walking on”
Hear something up ahead
Water falling like a song
An everlasting stream
Your river carries me home
Let it flow, let it flow

Verse 2
A flood for my soul
A well that never will run dry
I've rambled on my own
Never believing I would find
An everlasting stream
Your river carries me home
Let it flow, let it flow

Chorus
Open the heavens
Come Living Water
All my fountains are in You
You're strong like a river
Your love is running through
All my fountains are in You

Bridge
Come on, and rain down on us
Rain down on us, Lord

Having Christ rain down on us will transform us even more and continues to change us into the people He wants us to become. We are the vessels that show Christ and His love (fountains) and our source is Him (well that never will run dry). All of who I am should be locked into who He is. Our prayers should be for him to continually rain down and smother us, transform us.

Peace Like River-Creative Post

God, I don't know what to do. You know what's in Davy's heart and what is happening. Was it my parenting? Did I not do a good enough job raising him in your truths? What went wrong? So many questions with so few answers. In a way, I'm glad for what he did. Those boys had done enough damage to Roofing and selfishly, I wanted to see them dead. It makes me sick to think about what they could have done to little Swede. On the other hand, judgement is yours. But I'm looking for your hand through this situation and it's so hard to see. Cloudy fog is blocking the sights I set on you. On this journey, lead me. Take control of this expedition, lead us to Davy, and give us wisdom on what we are to do when we see him. This is all in your hands. Nothing more to do but wait on you. Waiting on you Lord.

Peace Like a River

I love this book. I am really enjoying the narration coming from Reuben. Despite the most difficult problems his family faces, he's lighthearted and you can see he doesn't understand the severity of the circumstances. The word choice is simple and engaging making the story flow and the pages fly by. A funny, normal thought is: "The second, I suppose, is that the doctor turned out wrong about he brain damage. I'm happy to say none surfaced until I entered tenth grade and signed up for Plane Geometry; but since I can still feed myself and grind out a sentence in English, you won't hear me complain." And where is mind is in reference to the situation, for example, "Dread landed flopping in my stomach. We'd never had an enemy before, unless you counted Russia." Also, I like the little interjections he has so that way the book isn't all dialog and it's not all details either. For example, "I'm not even sure why I mention him here-it's not as if he pops up late, holding a clue or moral or other momentous piece of story."

It keeps the story not so serious even though the problems and situations are serious.

God, A Poem (Problematize)

This poem was so fascinating to me, but I'm not really sure why. I believe this poem represents most of society's view on God. He's just a guy sitting up there and he doesn't really care what goes on down below: "'I'm sorry, I must have been pissed-/Though your name rings a sort of a bell,'" Or they believe that He's real but that He removed himself from being active in our everyday lives: "I didn't exist at the Flood/And I won't be around for Salvation/To sort out the sheep from the cud-" Because of those two beliefs, the last two stanzas are what we think God thinks of us, "'You're a nasty surprise in a sandwich./You're a drawing-pin caught in my sock." And, "'You're a serious mistake in a nightie,/You're a grave disappointment all round-/That's all you are,' says th'Almighty,"

The reason why society thinks this about God and think He thinks that way about us is because they think God as a genie. Someone who is supposed to make life easy and give us everything we ask (Matt. 7:7). But it is what fits into His good and perfect will for us. Non-believers who think this haven't had an encounter with God and studied His character. He is everything He says He is, our minds just sometimes can't wrap around who He is. But that doesn't make Him any less real or active.

The Windhover

First reading this poem, I could pick up on a few things that Hopkins was saying but overall, I had no idea. That is, until Professor DeBorde explained it further. My eyes were opened to the beautiful words written, line by line, stroke by stroke. A gift to be given to our Heavenly Father.

The part that really struck me, however, is the overall meaning of the poem. In our brokenness is when we're most beautiful to Christ. Just as the hawk/falcon made a dangerous move against the wind, Hopkins relished on how beautiful it looked when it did so. Along with this, when it says, "sheer plod, makes plow down sillion shine, and blue-bleak embers,", it's referencing to how the soil looks like after being tilled. The sun reflects the beautiful specks of many colors. But, if one had not tilled the soil, the beauty would not have been seen.

Lastly the most powerful line, I believe, references to Christ and the blood that was spilled on Calvary: "gash gold-vermilion." Gold usually represents aristocracy or kingship and the gold being a brown rustic color symbolizes Christ's blood. Out of the pain and death, came life and life abundantly!