Perceptions

I have been thinking (something not new at all) and I have come up with an idea (another regular occurrence). This involves you (yes, all of you who like to write) and me. So, I thought it would be fun to do a little collaborative writing thing for the fun of it. Here's my idea, I will create a random scene (or use one I have already written) and have different people rewrite the same scene from different people's perspectives (which will be called Perceptions). Maybe your character wasn't even in my scene, maybe they were watching the scene from a distance. Maybe your character is an animal who is trying to understand what is going on. Maybe your character wrote a poem after this scene explaining what happened, how it made them feel, etc. Maybe your character picks up on things that my character never saw, heard, or thought worth mentioning. Maybe your character leaves in the middle of my scene and goes off to do something different, or your character goes past where I left off. The possibilities are endless. All you have to do is pick a character, comment, email, facebook, text, tweet, (contact me somehow) what character you're doing, then when you're done, send me your part and I'll post it on here for all to see. Or you can do it just for fun and I can not post it if you prefer. My email is southboundvideos@aol.com. I hope this is fun! I will post the scene sometime this week. :)

Talent At Its Peak

Fluffy the Unicorn

Written By: Margaret Sensenig and Jonyo Hull

Plot Assistant: Nathan King 

Published By: Members Of The Whale 

Dedicated To: Mason Miller’s Unicorn 

Special Thanks To: Julia Pritchard's iPhone 

"Their best work put on display," says the CEO of Mythical Creature Times, Nicholas Shoff. 

     Fluffy was fluffy. Fluffy had pink hair. Fluffy had a long, long horn. Fluffy loved to dance. Fluffy was a boy. One day Fluffy danced in the rain, and his pretty pink hair got all messed up so he went home and cried. He was so upset because once his hair was messed up, there was no going back. So he cried. And he cried all night long. This was because his hair was messed up. His hair was messed up because he danced in the rain. Fluffy was a boy. He died. He shouldn't have danced in the rain. The End.

A Limb Removed

       Here is a short and sweet Literary Analysis on Jane Eyre that I wrote for school. Normally the Literary Analysis we wrote were on the theme but this one is on Biblical Principles. 

A Limb Removed

       In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë depicts the fictional life of a woman named Jane Eyre. During the course of her life, Jane suffers through loss, heartbreak, and her own faults, but she discovers friends, family, and love. Throughout the book there are numerous biblical principles portrayed, including the one found in Matthew 5:29-30, which says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

       This biblical principle can be found when Jane is told of Rochester’s secret and leaves Thornfield. When Rochester pleads with Jane to stay at Thornfield, even though she is tempted to stay, she knows she cannot because “laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?” (343). As much as she would have liked to dismiss her principles at that moment, she knows she cannot because where is their worth if she can pick and choose when she follows them? Jane knows that if she were to stay, being so near to Rochester would create temptations she would never be strong enough to conquer. She has to leave Thornfield to cut off her temptation. Jane’s action renders her understanding of Matthew 5:29-30.

       Another part of the book that portrays this principle is when Rochester loses his hand and sight in the fire. Rochester was a proud creature whom surrendered to no man and made his own rules and regulations. God had to literally cut off his hand and eyes to make him see his fault and begin to redeem him. Rochester acknowledges this himself when he says: “You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness?” (486). Instead of cutting off what made him sin himself, God had to step in and do it for him or else he would never had surrendered, and surrender he did. “I began to experience remorse, repentance, the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere,”(486). Through the removal of his self-pride and prestige, Rochester is humbled and brought to repentance so that his “whole body [would not] go into hell.” This clearly portrays the principles of Matthew 5:29-30.

       A biblical principle running throughout all of Jane Eyre is as found in Matthew 5:29-30, which explains that we are to cut off whatever causes us to sin because it is better to lose that than to lose your whole self to hell. Brontë exemplifies this through both Jane’s character and the redeeming of Rochester. There are many biblical principles in this book, including that which is portrayed in Matthew 5:29-30.

A Little Bit of Red

Willow: On Water's Edge

              This is a story I started in 2011, so I wasn't that good at writing then. It was never written that well and is pretty cheesy but I think it could be half decent if I re-wrote it. It is an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. The main girl (Red Riding Hood) is called Willow Thatcher. That is a name that I have used since this story in at least one other book because I had thought I would never finish this book but I like the name too much to give up on it entirely. Below are some parts from this story. Let me know if you think I should revive this or just drop it.  

_______________________________________________________

The icy water was freezing my bones and my muscles wouldn’t respond. The water was draining the life from my veins. Suddenly I was being pulled into the chilled air and a blurry face hovered above me. Warmth enveloped me and I was again surrounded by water, still sinking. The face had been a vision, a memory; it was vague yet familiar. Water was filling my lungs and all went dark.

_______________________________________________________

“Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?”

“There’s something about him, something I don’t understand. I just couldn’t do it,” Garrel whispered. 

_______________________________________________________

When I was born my parents could not take care of me. They were too poor. So my Aunt and Uncle agreed to take care of me until my parents could afford to feed me. But when my sister, Maple, was born two years later, they could not give her away. When they gave me away it broke their hearts. They couldn’t go through with that again. They were able to scrounge up enough food for all three of them.

When I was with my Aunt and Uncle, their realm was raided. I never knew who raided it, but all I knew was that life was never the same after that. Abban was gone. Jewel was weak, all the time. Gretchen locked up and never spoke more than two words to any of us. She’d only speak to him. Hugo. She’d tell him everything. They had been close since birth.

_______________________________________________________

“What does she want with me? What have I ever done to her?”

“It’s not what you have done, but what you will do.” I didn’t understand. “Don’t you know? Your little friend never told you? Such loyalty, such love, such compassion- all lies. He never was what you thought. He never cared for you. He was just keeping himself safe, lies to free his soul. No one has ever cared about you. Did you really think all this happened because you knew something about Surrél? There’s nothing to know about her. She’s an Oracle, everyone knows that. Foolish child. Can’t tell when someone is using you.”

                 I turned to face Jac, “Is it true? What he says?”

                 “Willow, I…”

                The Wolf broke him off, “Now that Garrel, he’s a different story completely. Such a fool. A skillful fool. He had no idea who the people where that he killed. He has ensured your death in doing so. But he is as innocent as a child. He knows nothing. Everything he did, he did for you. To bring you back, but really he has sealed your death, with all of them. When he ripped Sabrina Fair’s heart out, he ripped out yours too. You have failed.”

               “What are you talking about?”

             “You don’t know anything do you? Who you are, what you are to do. That you are chosen to…”

_______________________________________________________

             I felt a great force on my back. I was falling. I landed deep in the freezing water. I spun around in the water; I could see Jac’s face. The betrayal.

For Heaven's Victory Has Won

A little while ago, my World History class went on a field study to the Capitol and during that trip we visited the Holocaust Museum. Below are my thoughts about it and a poem I wrote for extra credit. Later we had to complete a word study for the word ‘War’ and below I also have part of that.

What struck me the most during the walk through the four floors were the words they had on the walls of what people said. They all made it more realistic and hit me that these were real actual people that this happened to. I think sometimes when we face such horrible news like this, we tend to shut it out and pretend in our mind that it was less real or not as bad as it actually was just to make ourselves feel better. We hide the truth away so we don't have to face the horror of it all. Those words, though, made it nearly impossibly to push the thoughts out of my head. It gave the people who died voices, bodies, individuality and souls. It took the numbers of how many died and changed them from mere numbers to actually people, human beings, people created in God’s image, that were destroyed.

The room of shoes was also striking. It was hard to not look at the shoes without wanting to cry. Each shoe was unique and belonged to someone who died. The uniqueness of the shoe somehow placed a human face on it. They are actually pieces from the actual event. Shoes have so much meaning for a person, they can describe someone in so many ways, and a room full of them that belong to dead people was like seeing the actual dead people piled up in the room, which is exactly what happened in the Holocaust. There was a description above the shoes that said, “We are the shoes. We are the last witnesses./We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers/From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam./And because we are only made of fabric and leather/And not of blood and flesh,/Each one of us avoided the Hellfire.” This also hit me and helped to put faces to those who died. There was also this horrifying smell from the shoes. They smelled old, musty, and once-human-filled. And the worst part is that, how many shoes there were in this room (and there were many), this amount falls short in comparison to how many there actually were. Each pair of shoes is another life that was taken. It is devastating.

There are really no words that I can use to describe how this all hit me. I cannot tell you how sad it made me, how angry, how solemn, how humble, how dependent on God and how inspired to keep history going and fight the fight to keep this country far from this, this made me.

Signs Of No Return (or Heaven's Victory)

By Margaret Sensenig

Built from the bottom up by Book

To be inspired from above

Freedom for the people they took

Peace like an eagle, golden dove

The sweet, sweet holy love does live

In honored words, "We the people"

Those eternal life He did give

Lead this country to the steeple

World around gives way to sweet war

So deceived by angel of light  

Taken captive, what should have tore

The heart who does claim wrong from right

A people fooled, a race erased  

In the name of 'God', ruthless god

Was the thought that steadied and paced

No grace but servant of the rod

The ground cries out for souls are lost

Blood and bone innocent covers

One who orders must pay the cost

Of the evil that still hovers

Death stained minds grieve for this done wrong

That do swear to "never again"

And he with a hundred 'men' strong

Erase the horrors of that end

Eagle, golden dove's mind goes blank

Of the fruit from which it had grew

He wills to redo the past stank

From where all of his hell had blew

If once a pure people see not

The signs of an 'Adolf return'

When evil completely forgot

Then taken over by iron

Followers of His righteous name

Must awake from their stifled daze

Share the love in their hearts the same

To forever at His face gaze

My brothers! Brothers! I do cry

Inside know truth of where you stand

Take her back with a noble try

Her fruit we must bare on this land

It’s a worthy fight. We must fight!

Though the end is of darkness one

We fight the good fight for what's right

For Heaven's victory has won

Think and Reflect

War is a conflict between people that tends to lead to fighting, both physically and verbally. It is the fighting between people groups, and often involves the harming and killing of human life. It is a combination of many battles fought over for a similar purpose. It often involves weapons used by soldiers. War can also be fought on a spiritual front. This is the kind of war that takes place everyday and everyone is involved in, whether they know it or not. There is a war inside of ourselves, fighting between what is right and wrong, between sin and following God. On a greater level, God is fighting a war for our souls, however that war has already been won but yet it is still being fought over. The final outcome will be God’s victory. On a worldwide scale, there are wars between nations, global wars, wars between countries. These wars, like every kind of war, start in the hearts of individuals and grow into an outward action that affects thousands of people. Wars usually generate from a disagreement. They generally consist of the killing of people to gain what they want, whether it is more land, terrorist attacks on other nations, an agreement that was broken or was not formed, and the list goes on. Also, there can be war within a nation. Sometimes war is necessary, but only when it is fought as a defense. These wars are generally when there is a split within the nation that opposes each other. Such as racial rights, revolutions, discrimination, freedom, a new leader, civil wars and the list goes on. Local wars can be anything from actual fires being shot over a disagreement to arguments in the courthouse over issues. It is a conflict that needs to be mended, and war tends to be the outcome. There can be religious wars, or cultural wars, which are fought between people of different mindsets and beliefs or different ways of life. There can even be “war” among different churches of different beliefs. War is a constant battle within the family today. The children rebel, the parents put on authority, the children submit, and then they rebel again and the cycle continues. Because of the Fall, war is now a natural way of life. There is something we do not like, so we fight until we get it or “die” trying. War can also be fought from an individual’s viewpoint, and is fought everyday. There is a battle between the sin in our hearts and our minds, which know the truth. We daily fight this battle to do what is right, true and just. Everyday we need to put on our battle gear and be prepared for a new set of troubles to fight off. And the most important battle of all is the battle that has already been won by God; the spiritual war. This is a war we also fight everyday, and we have God as our leader, our chief, and our general to guide us through this battle, like he does in any kind of war. God has won the ultimate war, the war for our very lives.

Biblical Philosophy

God is not against the general term of ‘war’. He is against unjustifiable war, just like he is against any other sin that man is capable of. But “the Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name,” (Exodus 15:3). An aspect of God is war, so how could He be against a thing that is apart of Him, for He is perfect? God has fought a war for our very lives. War occurs because of the fall of man. It began when Satan rebelled against God and “declared war” on him. War, on an earthly scale, starts in the human heart with anger, pride, jealousy and many other things and spreads to those around you until it creates a war, either a national, physical war or verbal, mental war. So many wars are fought for unjust reasons. No war is justifiable, unless it is fought in the defense of life and to end a war. No war that is started on the offensive side is justifiable, but the defense is. A man is called to protect his home, people to defend their country, Christians to defend their faith. John Adams once said, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” He was making a sacrifice to the things he had to deal in and with so that his children could have a brighter future than what he was living in. He wanted to create a world where the next generation could live in peace and freedom to love God. Why can’t there be peace all of the time? Why can’t we all just get along and stop all this fighting? Maybe if we all agree not to fight again, then there will be no more wars, right? Wrong. Not on this earthly world, at least. Why not? Well, because of the Fall and man’s sin, perfect peace is unreachable. No peoples can be “perfect” enough to never have war again. War is a product of our sin so it cannot be completely abolished by humans. If every human on the earth agreed to never fight again, how long do you think that would last? Man’s heart is so fickle that it is constantly changing, lying and backstabbing. And out of all those people, there is bound to be one person who will refuse to commit to peace. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” This is true, we will someday reach complete peace through unarmed truth and unconditional love, but it will be the unarmed truth and unconditional love of God. The only way for complete peace to be reached is through Jesus Christ. There will be no peace on this earth until Jesus returns and makes all things right. True peace comes from God, and God alone, and that is a glorious thought.