Gospel By Philip Levine

In this paper, I will review Charles Ryrie’s book The Holy Spirit. I will detail what I feel the book is about. I will emphasize various points given by the author that stood out to me. Finally, I will give my personal evaluation of the book.

Hirshfield writes this poem in second person to give life to the poem so that the poem speaks to the reader. The poem starts by accusing the reader of letting the redwood grow near the house. “It is foolish” (line 1) lets the reader know that nature should not be growing this close to your home. Hirshfield takes the liberty to talk straight to the reader through the speaker in telling them that it is nonsense to let nature be so close to a material object such as a house. The reader can visually see a “young redwood// grow next to a house” (line 2, 3). The tree starts to symbolize the beauty of nature growing against the materialistic world.

Change is constant with a society that is always recreating itself. From the Enlightenment period to the Industrial Revolution there is a massive difference when comparing these two societies of their norms and daily life.

The narrator shares this story from his youth in the words of an educated man. His actions as a teen are in stark contrast to his phraseology as an adult. Early in the story, he viewed “nature” as sex, drugs and rock and roll (Boyle 112-113). However, as the story ends and the turmoil subsides, the narrator sees nature for the first time, through the eyes of a person matured by this traumatic experience. The “sun firing buds and opening blossoms” replaced the once revered beer and

Trees are important not only physically but also spiritually and for many this fact is lost. Physically trees provide humans with beauty and a healthy ecosystem. Spiritually trees provide humans a connection to nature. Their importance has been lost in our modern times as humans further separate themselves from nature. While forgotten by many, their actions still resonate. The two modern poems “The Tree Agreement” by Elise Paschen and “Living Tree” by Robert Morgan trumpet the value trees hold in comparable ways. In the poem “The Tree Agreement” the speaker argues for the benefits of the Siberian Elm against a disagreeing neighbor. By structuring the poem in this manner, the poet highlights how people are blind to the services trees provide while simultaneously highlighting said services. The tree is portrayed almost as a friend or ally to the speaker. The speaker describes not only to the significance of the tree to humans like the neighbor and the speaker but also to the other living creatures surrounding them. The poem “Living Tree” focuses on the actions performed by trees in cemeteries. This poem follows a more spiritual route when compared to Paschen’s poem. This poem describes the process those who have been buried go through and the role trees play in this process. The trees in this poem are portrayed as lightning rods for the chemicals and spirits of the dead. This relationship is portrayed positively, as the trees are a monument to the passing of life. These poems

The novel, “Afterlife” by Gary Soto was mostly about how this guy named Chuy who was killed in a Club, Club Estrella to be specific. He was killed in the men’s bathroom for complimenting someone else’s shoes, which were yellow. He got stabbed 3 times, and was left there till dying. He then became a ghost, a ghost who couldn’t be heard, seen or touched. He could see everything that was going on, but couldn’t do anything about it. After the ambulance had taken him away, he was already dead, or i mean the body was already dead. When his parents got the news Chuy went to visit them to say one last goodbye, he also visited his school, and the girl he used to like for a long time. He then found this girl named Crystal, who had killed herself taking

The happenings in World War II remain to this day some of the worst that the world has ever seen, and it has marred the past of Aryans and non-Aryans alike since the conclusion in 1945. One question has resonated throughout the decades as it does with any event with this great magnitude: why? How could justification be reached for the slaughter of millions of Jews, Poles, and other minorities? Oftentimes many people do not consider the prospect of being forced into a concentration camp or other such communal home.

The pastoral tradition is the literary celebration of life among nature -- whether it is on a farm, in the English countryside, or deep within a forest -- and stretches back to the time of Virgil in ancient Rome and through the works of William Wordsworth in the 18th century to contemporary writer Rick Bass’ short stories. Bass carries on the pastoral legacy established by his predecessors through his admiration for the pastoral lifestyle involving physical labor and specialized knowledge, his establishment of both fear and beauty as essential elements of the pastoral experience, and his skillful use of memorable pastoral moments.

As it sleeps in its equivalent of heaven, the idea of departing from the forest looms over the speaker like a black cloud on a sunny afternoon. Despite the foreboding presence of impending return, the speaker reminisces on their bliss in the woods. It states, “ By morning/ I had vanished at least a dozen times/ into something better” (13-15). The speaker views nature as a world far above the world of man and speaks gratefully of its time in the company of mother nature. It is also notable that throughout the entire poem, the speaker is in complete solidarity.

The visual imagery of the life of the leaf is recounted by the voice while its fate is stated by the echo, “death.” In the line, “Leaf blossoms, burns red before delighted eyes,” the leaf is a symbol of life while the burning is the end of life symbolizing mortality. The imagery also serves to show the reader the reason for the narrator’s sadness as loss of life of a loved one hence questioning life and living. The imagery in the line, “And in that night would you rejoice or weep” serves to show the sad mood in the poem. The use of questions is a style that serves to emphasize the meaning; an example is, “Are you glad that I must fall asleep?” The voice questions the value of life to which the echo replies, leap showing that despite the concerns and perturbed nature of the narrator, he/she should take a leap of faith. The narrator’s nebulous state is also evidenced by the questions and tries to seek to understanding. In “Oh cold reprieve, where’s natural relief?’ The speaker seeks an escape but is reminded of the need to try as there is no escape. This reinforces the meaning of the poem by making the audience question their purpose in life and seek answers to death and

Revelation is a book unlike the rest of the Bible; it is mostly a record of a vision that John received from the Lord about the days to come. There are many other books in the Bible written about things to come, the minor and major prophets, but Revelation stands alone in the realm of solely containing vision and not a mixture of sermon style teachings. Revelation has a reputation of being solely about doom and gloom and scary creatures and the end of the world, but in reality it is just a God-sized vision given to a human brain that could not fully understand what it was being given. This human brain was John, and he begins by greeting the Christian churches in seven cities and then following up with prophecy of the return of Jesus Christ and the events that surround that.

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.

In class we discussed various meanings for what it means to be a missionary. Overall we came to the general conclusion on the first day of class 09/07/2016 that a missionary is someone who goes to a different community to help fulfill some sort of purpose. The words italicized is what we as a class decided are integral parts of the identity and mission of a missionary. In addition to this baseline definition we also discussed possible reasons in which one may feeled compelled to take on a mission. Some of the ideas brainstormed include: taking on the mission to fulfill a calling, for gratification, or for religious and ideological agendas. The reading I will be focusing on is from Albert Schweitzer 's The Primeval Forest specifically the chapter titled “The Mission”. The reading fits into this definition quite well. Specifically the chapter shows a lot about Schnitzer 's purpose and reasons for embarking on a mission trip in the Ogowe.

The poem A Forest Hymn talk of the origin of all the nature that surrounds humanity and the activities of these naturally found objects. It gives an indication that the source of all the nature that we see is God and He is the one who controls their actions in all aspects and as to that, the poet implores the entire humanity to humble itself before the creator and controller of nature and worship him, not necessarily in houses or in crowds as both of these are weak and cannot stand before the might of the creator, but in natural settings.

He argues that the soul, like a mirror, reflects the image of God such that, just in the same way a ray of light would come hit the ground and be reflected back to the source, the human soul, being the centre of the universe, moves to and fro between the human body and the divine and in the process it plays a very significant role in transforming the body to reflect the image of God. He also makes use of assimilation, as one way in which God brings together the human soul and makes it to ascent unto the divine.