I never thought how interesting it would be to visit a different place of worship besides Christianity. Since the day I was born I’ve been a Christian and whatever anyone else believes in is wrong and that they are going to hell if they don’t believe in Christianity. About 3 years ago I visited the International Buddhist Progress Society a Buddhist temple in Naperville. Buddhism from what I learned looks more like a way of life or guidelines to it rather than a religion. Buddhism tells you how you could live life better but doesn’t scare you with the prospect of hell instead you live with ignorance. My own history with Christianity still made me doubt or fear the conquences of going to this temple. Part of me believed that I be punished by…
“We’re all dead and just hoping that we come back to life when we get into the world again.” The book “Fallen Angels” by Walter Dean Myers is the tale of a young man named Richard Perry to Vietnam. Perry is just a young man and so are many of his fellow soldiers. Throughout the story they all face many of the same feelings. Feelings of fear, comradeship, and losing a close friend.…
In the first chapter of “Encountering God” the author Diana Eck starts by explaining that the book is her experiences in encountering different religions. “All of us have rivers deep within us, bearing the waters of joining streams.” I loved this starting quote it feels like she is open to any view. She knows that different beliefs are a good thing, and that we all have to experience different people because we need to be mixed together for us to grow and form our own views. Throughout the rest of the chapter she is telling us all about Bozeman, Montana. The memories she had from the town and the descriptions she made where vivid. What was a small frontier like town when she was a girl is now a busy city.…
Eddie's first meeting in Heaven harkens back to the days of his youth, playing at Ruby Pier as a young boy. Running to retrieve a ball thrown into the street one day, he stepped in front of a…
Losing a loved one is difficult, but questioning if they are really or not alive takes a toll on one’s daily life. In Heaven’s Keep, Jo’s plane disappears without a trace and no one can seem to find it until people start digging deeper into the story. Her husband Cork, son Stephen, and family friend Palmer set out to find what really happened on that plane and where Jo really went. Visualizing Aurora, Minnesota, evaluating where the airplane went, and questioning how Jo died is simple because the author used great detail in the book Heaven’s Keep.…
The novel, "Fallen Angels", was written by Walter Dean Myers in 1988 in Jersey City, New Jersey. The writing is of a war fiction genre and also a coming-of-age story. The tale is told in a first person point of view through a fairly young African-American soldier fighting in the controversial Vietnam War. The story takes place in 1967 to 1968.…
In the book Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, he analyzes the roles of two important men in Civil War history. One is Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate army, and the other is James Longstreet, a Confederate general. Both men play key parts in the battle of Gettysburg and their choices help direct the course of the whole war, both in their favor and against. While they are fighting on the same side, there are differences that distinguish them and cause conflict between them, and these differences will determine major turning points in the war.…
In the final section of the novel, The Sweet Hereafter, Banks seems to be using the demolition derby setting as a place for everyone to meet and see just exactly how things have changed in the town of Sam Dent since the tragic bus accident that happened the previous winter. It serves as a place that can be compared and contrasted with how the townspeople act this year versus the previous years. It is also a place where most everyone in the town comes annually. It may be told through Dolores' perspective but she gives the reader an idea of exactly how different of an experience it is for her this year from last year. She also eludes through her narration how specific people are different this year.…
At a point when a person is faced with fear and death all around, they need a good friend they can trust and have watch their back. They are both constantly attacked, and eventually are severely hurt. Even though they are potentially on their deathbed, they are both worried about the other. This shows the strong friendship that existed between…
"I 've seen people howling from hunger and tearing their hair out when they had the strength. After a flood eight years ago, I saw human flesh sold in a market. I 've gone into villages where whole families committed suicide..." (Bosse 227), the sallow-faced little man Chen and Hong met at the town of Gaoyou says. This is an example of disruption in the mandate of heaven and how big of an impact it can take of those who live in Ming Dynasty China. The mandate of heaven applied to all of those who lived in Ming Dynasty China, playing an absolutely important role in how the government ran. If the mandate was troubled, the gods would respond with natural disasters, such as…
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis gives the reader a new perspective on hell and life after death. Written in the demons point of view, a new light is shed on the amount of work put in to tempting humans into hell. Zeroing in on the struggles and conflicts humans go through on a day to day basis, Lewis is able to make his novel timeless for all generations past and here to come. Though it is not exactly clear why Lewis ended the novel with such a broad idea, The Screwtape Letters offers much insight and life lessons.…
A sacrament is a tangible connection between Heaven and Earth along with how God's love and essence is physically here on Earth. Jesus Christ is the essence of God on Earth in human form. He preaches the ideas and serves as the son of God to his kingdom. When people preach, serve, and worship, God's power is present and the people remember what Jesus was all about when he was on Earth and therefore what God was all about. The concept of God is spread through ideas like the Pentecost, Paul and his conversion, and even in the catacombs of Rome.…
Zora Neale Hurston, in keeping with themes dealing with personal relationships and the female search for self-awareness in Their Eyes Were Watching God , has created a heroine in Janie Crawford. In fact, the female perspective is introduced immediately. "Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly" (Their Eyes 1).…
Their Eyes Were Watching God brings us on a journey through Janie’s life, focusing mainly on her three marriages. Throughout the majority of the novel, it seems as if Janie is in search of a man to fulfill her wants and needs in life. Towards the end of the book, when Tea Cake unexpectedly passes away, a whole new idea comes to fruition. Janie was not ever meant to find her happiness through a relationship; she needed to find it within herself, and embrace her independence. Janie’s return home to Eatonville, alone, is not the typical happy ending one would have expected. However, it is extremely significant to us because it shows that Janie has finally found her soul, the one thing she spent her entire life trying to discover.…
In the book, The Afterlife, by Gary Soto, Chuy is killed in the men's bathroom of a dance club. The book is all about him and his journey as a ghost through Fresno, California. He meets another ghost who has just died and falls in love with her. Unfortunately, he finds himself disappearing slowly limb by limb. He learns the story of Crystal, the dead girl he met, and how she died. He also finds a man who dies homeless, becoming friends with him. As he tries to find the person who killed him, by running into people he once knew, he realizes how much he really is loved.…