A required reading for my Modern Western Literature Traditions class was reading "An Essay in Man" written by Alexander Pope. The essay is completely about the sovereignty and will of God. For a breif background before I start throwing quotes from the poem out, I'll let you know a little bit about Alexander Pope.
Alexander Pope lived from 1688-1744, but was stricken as a child with TB and therefor spent most of his life couped up at home where he was educated by his parents. He did not have the same social status as everyone else due to his frequent illnesses. This time period was at the high point in the Enlightenment. Pope set out to prove the oder of the universe, establish a place for humans within that order, establish the role of reason, and encourage the thought of hope. Much of Pope's writing is filled with wonderful imagery, vast emotion, and deep passion.
The intro Pope talks about how humans think that we live in a paradise that is here at our own dispossal, but one with a plan. "A mighty maze! but not without a plan" He also lays out exactly what he is going to talk about. He wants to justify and prove the ways of God. He uses brilliantly animated words in order to do this by saying, "Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; but vindicate the ways of God to man."
In the first verse he explains that he knows and understands that we have question about why we are made the way we are, and that we don't see ourselves as perfect. He says, "Its the great chain, that draws all to the, and drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?" This is basically asking us if we are trying to take control or letting God. This is especially important to Christians today. Often a struggle we have is leaving things to God and letting him have complete control over our lives.
The second verse breify goes on to say who are we to question God. And if we choose to question God, why are we not questioningthe reason for Him making us even less, such as below the animals. He also goes on to say that we are only a part of the whole piece, so our vision is screwed of what the whole chain looks like. Because our view is scewed, and we are only a part, we have no right to question God for His placement of us in society. The last part of this verse is my favorite part of this section. It tells us to stop questioning and except where we are, and if you are destined to be perfect someday why worry about it now? This is really deep. It is really good to hear, especially if you struggle with realizing that we will never be perfect until God makes us that way in his kingdom.
Be glad that you are not aware of the future; this is the message of the third verse. "Oh blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven." This is a very important part. We have to trust that God is in control of the future, all things great and small. Pope goes on to say in the verse, "Hope springs up eternal in the human breast Man never Is, but always to be blest." This basically says that we don't know his plan but we are to have HOPE because the human soul is not supposed to stay here forever. There is a new earth to come, but we must be contint with not knowing when it will be!
The fourth verse talks very planly about all the greatest faults of mankind. It also makesth e point that often, when we are unhappy about the way things are going we blame it on God, but when things are going well, it is due to our own ablilities. This verse takes on an ironic personality when Pope basically that he dares us to try and play God and jsut see what happens. He finishes the verse up with reflection on the fallen angel.
In the fifth verse Pope explains that it is our pride that gets in the way and makes us want to judge God. We let pride get in to the way, way too often. He also talks about how we have a hard time seeing that God's plan is for the overall good, so we give Him glory for the good, but question him about the bad. A big point in this verse is saying that the best way to reason with this is to submit to God's ways. It closes with " The general ORDER, since the whole began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man,"
Verse Six goes on to explain what fits where on the chain of life and command. It also explains that as humans we always want more. We are natural drawn to progress and change. But, even though we are constantly progressing, we cannot know everything to a finite level, and we never will. It talks more about being satisfied with what God has given us because we don't deserve any of it.
Verses Seven and Eight go to explain more about the chain of command and why we are where we are. It also says that everything is interconnected and works together. At the end of verse eight is says that we should just give up on wanting to know everything and be content iwth what we do know. It is madness for us to try and break the chain and know everything.
Verse Nine say that God's plan is much better than we could ever imagine and much better than we could do ourselves. Pope also make a point to say that we are great the way we are no matter what anyone else says.
The final verse is beautifuly written and says that we need to know our place and submit! And, that everything in this world and life has a purpose and plan that we could never comprehend. "All nature is Art, unknown to thee; All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, Harmony not understood; All partial Evil, universal Good: And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, ONE TRUTH IS CLEAR, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT."
I know this is long, but I hope that since you ahve read this now, and you have a small understanding of the basic words of Pope, you will go and read and reread this poem. Alexander Pope is an incredible poet and he has many more works! If you do read this blog, or the poem, let me know what you think!
Thats all for now :-)
Atlee
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
A much needed trip to devestation
here it is.. MISSISSIPPI
Ok friends, here it is. My Mississippi blog. Also, brought to you in a different location... on blogspot. Yep I gave in and got one. Many of my blogs from now on will most likely be on here since it is a little better way to make sure everyone can see it.
I am going to: Tell you our purpose for going down, tell you about my new cultural experiences, tell you what God spoke to me while down there, and whatever else comes to mind.
So first things first: My class, non profit management, went down to the gulf coast to rebuild a house destroyed by fire, owned my a master cabinet maker who spends lots of time repairing Katrina destroyed houses. Mr. and Mrs. Williams were the owners of the house. Mr. Williams we later found out was really Rev. Williams which was really cool. He made all the furniture in his church sanctuary. My class basically rebuild a house in three days. It was quite possibly the hardest, yet most rewarding work I have ever been a part of in my life. Had it been a normal situation, I would have been exhausted waking up at 6am and doing construction until 6pm then not going to bed until 12am, but God used my time awake as an incredible tool, and he refreshed me daily. Each morning I woke up at 6am to have my quiet time before everyone else got up. It was amazing how many times the scripture would corrilate iwth an event that took place that day. After that we headed to the work site. We stayed there and worked then came back and had dinner. When most people went ot bed though, my, bobby, rachael, and matt stayed up and had some of the most incredible, but very challenging conversations ever. One of hte conversations was about what girls are really looking for in guys and when we say we want a leader what that really means. After answering, we were challenged with another question being "Do you not think that giving that much control to the man is asking for wife abuse?" Which from a Christian perspective was hard to answer because there are many men out there who do take advantage of their wives and it is bad. Another conversation we had was more on scripture nad what exactly we believe. the coolest part ever was that the conversation never once became too personal, ugly, or offensive. It was a great time for my faith to be challenged and for me to stand up for what I believe. It made me appriciate my time in the word because I could tell I was learning things, and understanding them enough to explain myself with scripture. I felt like I was really understanding what it meant to grow away from being tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14) Awesome! One subject that was often discussed was how to act toward non christians when trying to explain our faith. A few people chose to yell, get heated, not quite angry, or just try to prove the other person wrong. A scripture i read this very morning talked about being imitators of Christ (Ephesians 5:1-21).While down in Mississippi, I had the great privilage to visit to african american southern gospel baptist churches. This was a very new experience for me, and I can now say that the movies do a great job imitating them! It was so awesome to just see their love and truely see people on fire for Christ. They were all so incredibly loving, generous, and accepting. They had great food too! Their biggest way to saying thank you was providing meals and boy did we eat wonderfully!!!Another favorite part of the trip was New Orleans. My heart was broken when I saw all the devistation still in the city, but I have never experience a city that was so alive with music, action, fun, and food. It broke me to think about all the sin in the city, but to go there and see how important the city is to its people was great. We saw awesome break dancers, ate amazing gumbo, drank tasty coffee, saw beautiful catherdrals, and really got to experience a new life. While I was down there, God just spoke to me more and more about where i need to work on in my life and what he has planned for me. My love for serving others grew even deeper, and i can't wait to explore what God has for me there as well. God taught me a lot about how i cannot love everyone but through me he can love anyone. My prayer this week has been that I would be filled with the spirit and that Christs love would shine thorugh me. Well I know this is insainly long, which is why i am going to end it now. I hope you aren't too bored, but some of you have been begging for this blog. I'm sure Ill think of more stories and will post them as i do!I would love you know what God is doing in your life right now to so call me and we will get coffee or just message me and let me know!
With all Christ's love,
Atlee
Ok friends, here it is. My Mississippi blog. Also, brought to you in a different location... on blogspot. Yep I gave in and got one. Many of my blogs from now on will most likely be on here since it is a little better way to make sure everyone can see it.
I am going to: Tell you our purpose for going down, tell you about my new cultural experiences, tell you what God spoke to me while down there, and whatever else comes to mind.
So first things first: My class, non profit management, went down to the gulf coast to rebuild a house destroyed by fire, owned my a master cabinet maker who spends lots of time repairing Katrina destroyed houses. Mr. and Mrs. Williams were the owners of the house. Mr. Williams we later found out was really Rev. Williams which was really cool. He made all the furniture in his church sanctuary. My class basically rebuild a house in three days. It was quite possibly the hardest, yet most rewarding work I have ever been a part of in my life. Had it been a normal situation, I would have been exhausted waking up at 6am and doing construction until 6pm then not going to bed until 12am, but God used my time awake as an incredible tool, and he refreshed me daily. Each morning I woke up at 6am to have my quiet time before everyone else got up. It was amazing how many times the scripture would corrilate iwth an event that took place that day. After that we headed to the work site. We stayed there and worked then came back and had dinner. When most people went ot bed though, my, bobby, rachael, and matt stayed up and had some of the most incredible, but very challenging conversations ever. One of hte conversations was about what girls are really looking for in guys and when we say we want a leader what that really means. After answering, we were challenged with another question being "Do you not think that giving that much control to the man is asking for wife abuse?" Which from a Christian perspective was hard to answer because there are many men out there who do take advantage of their wives and it is bad. Another conversation we had was more on scripture nad what exactly we believe. the coolest part ever was that the conversation never once became too personal, ugly, or offensive. It was a great time for my faith to be challenged and for me to stand up for what I believe. It made me appriciate my time in the word because I could tell I was learning things, and understanding them enough to explain myself with scripture. I felt like I was really understanding what it meant to grow away from being tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14) Awesome! One subject that was often discussed was how to act toward non christians when trying to explain our faith. A few people chose to yell, get heated, not quite angry, or just try to prove the other person wrong. A scripture i read this very morning talked about being imitators of Christ (Ephesians 5:1-21).While down in Mississippi, I had the great privilage to visit to african american southern gospel baptist churches. This was a very new experience for me, and I can now say that the movies do a great job imitating them! It was so awesome to just see their love and truely see people on fire for Christ. They were all so incredibly loving, generous, and accepting. They had great food too! Their biggest way to saying thank you was providing meals and boy did we eat wonderfully!!!Another favorite part of the trip was New Orleans. My heart was broken when I saw all the devistation still in the city, but I have never experience a city that was so alive with music, action, fun, and food. It broke me to think about all the sin in the city, but to go there and see how important the city is to its people was great. We saw awesome break dancers, ate amazing gumbo, drank tasty coffee, saw beautiful catherdrals, and really got to experience a new life. While I was down there, God just spoke to me more and more about where i need to work on in my life and what he has planned for me. My love for serving others grew even deeper, and i can't wait to explore what God has for me there as well. God taught me a lot about how i cannot love everyone but through me he can love anyone. My prayer this week has been that I would be filled with the spirit and that Christs love would shine thorugh me. Well I know this is insainly long, which is why i am going to end it now. I hope you aren't too bored, but some of you have been begging for this blog. I'm sure Ill think of more stories and will post them as i do!I would love you know what God is doing in your life right now to so call me and we will get coffee or just message me and let me know!
With all Christ's love,
Atlee
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