Christy Wilson Beam's Miracles From Heaven

The play Mission of Mercy was written by Esther Lipnick. It was about a woman becoming a nurse. That woman's name was Florence. Florence Nightingale is many different things. But she is brave more than anything.

Dorothy Allison’s essay, Panacea, recalls the fond childhood memories about her favorite dish, gravy. Allison uses vivid imagery to cook up a warm feeling about family meals to those who may be a poor family or a young mother. Appeal to the senses shows this warm feeling, along with a peaceful diction.

In his poem "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace," published in 1968, Richard Brautigan places the reader in a future realm: a sparkling utopia "where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony" (1). He draws us in by juxtaposing images of nature, man and machine that challenge us to imagine this new world. In essence, Brautigan's poem is a supplication for that dream world, but to the modern reader it can be a land of irony.

The poem, “Gospel” by Philip Levine gives a vivid description of what the narrator sees around them. The narrator focuses their description on nature. They make many references to types of plants like lupine and thistles. Throughout the poem, nature can be seen as and abstract creature. Nature is giving and lively. The conflict in the poem is between the speaker and nature. The narrator tries to show how nature can give nice outdoor views and how the earth gives people a place to walk on while people give nothing back to nature. Levine’s speaker uses repetition and comparisons to show how nature is constantly pleading for the narrators attention yet they cannot offer anything to the relationship they have with nature. The poem slowly evolves

Culture defines humanity. Culture makes humans different than any other living organism ever known. Culture is what makes humans unique, and yet culture is easily the most misunderstood characteristic of individuals. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan develops the theme of incomplete cultural understanding leads to an inability to communicate one’s true intentions through juxtaposition and conflict between mothers and daughters and their cultures.

Wanda Coleman’s Angel Baby Blues highlights the black experience in Southern California. She talks about the struggles of African Americans and how and where they endure discrimination. In the short story, Coleman explores discrimination in and outside of the classroom. Her story can be linked to Kendrick Lamar’s The Blacker the Berry. In this song, Lamar also talks about the black experience but goes deeper into discrimination. He goes into detail about the struggles that the black community goes through as well as himself being an African American man. His lyrics are very strong, creating images of discrimination while cursing and highlighting the same themes presented in Coleman’s story. Angel Baby Blues and The Blacker the Berry are very

Through my understanding of the book, Homeward Bound by Elaine Tyler May explores two traditional depictions of the 1950s, namely suburban domesticity and anticommunism. She intertwines both historical events into a captivating argument. Throughout the book, May aims to discover why “Post-war Americans accepted parenting as well as marriage with so much zeal” unlike their own parents and children. Her findings are that the “cold war ideology and domestic revival” were somewhat linked together. She saw “domestic containment” as an outgrowth of frights and desires that bloomed after the war. However, psychotherapeutic services were as much a boom then as now, and helped offer “private and personal solutions to social problems.” May reflects her views on the origin of domestic containment, and how it affected the lives of people who tried to live by it.

In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Waverly Jong is a dynamic character who shows her arrogance, selfishness and insecurities as the story progresses. On the first letter of Waverly’s name, W, sits a Mink, which symbolizes her desire for her mother’s approval. Throughout the novel, Waverly avoids Lindo’s criticism and fears her mother will not agree with her choices. This is evident in “Four Directions” when Waverly shows her mother the mink coat Rich bought her and Lindo responds, “This is no good… It is just leftover strips. And the fur is too short” (Tan 186). Waverly is destroyed by her mother’s criticism. After Lindo points out the coat’s flaws, Waverly can no longer see the good in it; she only values the things her mother values. Next, the “a” is formed by a crab, symbolizing selfishness. During New Year’s dinner at the Woo house, Waverly takes the best three crabs for her family. She does not care that she is a guest or that Suyuan had not planned on Shoshana eating crabs, she takes the best for herself, showing her self-centered nature. After the “a,” the “v” is formed by two dolls, symbolizing her childhood and her love for her daughter. Contrasting her negative traits, Waverly’s unfaltering love for Shoshana shows that she is willing to sacrifice her successes for her daughter’s prosperity, demonstrating that she is not as selfish as she is portrayed. A red candle is embedded in the “e” to highlight Waverly’s ignorance. She believes she is all knowing but does not

Often times we are at a loss for words when it comes to talking about the person of the Holy Spirit. Beth Felker Jones in her work entitled “God the Spirit” serves as an introduction to the study of the Holy Spirit in a distinctly Wesleyan and Ecumenical Perspective. Jones is working against the notion that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is often the most neglected of all Christian teachings (1). She recognizes her experience within the Wesleyan tradition as one that shapes her pneumatology and this book. She asserts that one of Wesleyan Christianity’s special gifts is it’s “leaning against any tendency to neglect the Spirit” (4). Even with this framework she aims to place the Wesleyan perspective in a larger ecumenical milieu that shows the continuity of a Wesleyan pneumatology with the Tradition of the Church. Overall, her approach is very accessible, as she assumes very little and writes in such a way that allows her to cover large dogmatic topics clearly and concisely. By merit of simply being an introduction only style book, there is the risk of glossing over topics and not providing enough in depth discussion to fully understand and comprehend the doctrine discussed. A reader should feel confident that Jones has indeed provided us with a solid introduction to Wesleyan pneumatology that has the ability to bear fruit and initiate growth in the life of the believer.

Lena and Ying-Ying from Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club both face injustice in their patriarchal relationships, just as Mariam and Laila from A Thousand Splendid Suns, however on very different terms. Lena, like Amir and Laila, struggles with confrontation and complete deference of others. However, under the influence of her mother, Lena realizes the problematic recurrences in relationship with her husband. Ying-Ying, aware of her daughters submissiveness, must lead Lena to intervention to confront herself and reconnect with her Chinese heritage in order to save her struggling relationships. While Ying-Ying sees the imbalance in Lena and Harold’s relationship as an embodiment of the flaws in her own marriage she reflects on her past and thinks to herself, “So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose. I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughters tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose” (Tan, 153). She has sacrificed so much for her daughter, Lena, and accepts her American ways despite the fact that broadens the cultural gap between her Chinese heritage. Ying-Ying already experienced her loss of identity and self through her own marriage because she was unable to be assertive towards her husband. Here, just like Mariam and Hassan in Hosseni’s novels, Ying-Ying gives up her freedom in order for Lena to live a better life than she had. Although Ying-Ying doesn’t give up

At first glance and after reading through Amazing Grace, it seems that Jonathan Kozol is going to take us on a journey through the lives of the underprivileged, but similar to the ones you read about, or hear in the news. However, this is not the case; the real underlying theme seems to be how the life and society they live in is very alike to a life in a prison, not because it talks explicitly about prison conditions in this area, but also because their lives are portrayed as being a prison. Kozol uses the views of children and adults throughout this book to emphasize this theme through their living conditions and personal lives, background and struggles.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a story of Janie Mae Crawford, an African- American woman who went through a lot of tough experiences in her life. Janie’s mother was absent from her life and her grandmother raised her. Although Janie’s grandmother’s intention was good in order to protect Janie, she forced Janie to marry at a young age. Janie has gone through life looking for a perfect love but nothing went her way. Janie was a loser in love but she was definitely a winner in life.

How do we define power in our society? Do you we look at those with money or those who acquire many things? According to Michael Parenti the structure of whether or not someone is defined in the sense of powerful or powerlessness relies on their social class and ethnicity. In the novella Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Maria Viramontes, we see the development of power through the main character Estrella.It is clear that although Estrella’s background as a powerless migrant worker struggling to support her family financially she shifts into a powerful role as an empowered young latina woman.

Puritans and reformers of seventeenth century England have been given a bad name for their part in history. This is primarily because they were working against the grain and trying to create change in world that saw change as a threat. The time period was turbulent and there was bound to be resistance in a world that was dominated by Catholics and those that had reformed to abide by their King’s law. The puritans of the time were considered extreme and rubbed people the wrong way because they wanted a world that abided by their morals and ethical codes. For this, they took the blame for the misery that many suffered during this age, but as we see in Fire from Heaven, this is not a fair assessment. The Puritans of this time wanted to improve the lives of the people and society as a whole through morality and purity.

In the 1950’s the melodrama genre came to age and there is no better example than Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows. The melodrama followed some basic characteristics which can be identified in the film. First and foremost the narrative of the melodrama focused on the family. All that Heaven Allows follows the narrative of the typical melodrama but at the same time also challenges the social conventions. While Sirk follows many of the key themes he does so in a more detached fashion. The protagonist Cary is bound to her community by her social class. Change was occurring in society and the melodrama displayed people’s restraint to this. In All that Heaven Allows Sirk began his focus on the female and her desires in contrast to the more conservative male focused melodrama. As with the melodrama the legibility of the story, displayed through the plot, is simple and easy to follow. “Our engagement with the story depends on our understanding of the pattern of change and stability, cause and effect, time and space” (Bordwell and Thompson, 2008). The linear time flow of the film allows for it’s simple understanding. This is added to by the expressiveness of the melodrama, where everything is brought into the open and nothing is left unsaid. The expressiveness of the melodrama is also represented in the highly expressive mise-en-scene. Sirks use of colour, the human figure, camera work, lighting and music allow him to portray suppressed meaning and significance.