LITERAL : ESSAYS
DEEP BLACK ARTHROPOD
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As I knelt there on my multi-colored blanket on that glorious, God-given day pondering the subject of this essay, I realized that the object of my thought was crawling all over me. Little, by comparison to myself, six- or eight-legged, and maybe winged, these busily bustling creatures are usually dismissed as little more than a nuisance. Bugs. Let me just describe a minute in the life of one bug, or more precisely, an ant.
This deep black arthropod was clearly on a mission when it stormed like a marathon runner onto my blanket. What mission exactly can only be imagined: perhaps it found a delectable morsel of nourishment and was scouting out a chemical path for others to follow, but it was, regardless, a mission for survival. The path the ant marched upon to complete its task as it scampered through its forest of crab grass and weeds was suddenly and dramatically altered into a surface much unlike the dirt it was accustomed to. The forest’s canopy disappeared and the sun beat down upon its exoskeleton unadulterated by the usual leaves and stems, instigating what seemed to me like panic in its miniature brain. It began performing figure eights as it attempted to decipher this new environment, climbing anything it happened to walk into. I guess one could have expected peculiar behavior such as this immediately following a drastic condition change. As soon as the ant had clambered over all of my belongings and reached the large, empty space on my blanket, the real fun started. The folds in the fabric quickly gave rise to the idea of numerous ant-ready catapults spread across malleable land. I hope you can guess what took place in the next instant, and, having surmised the answer, I hope you are now paying off any and all bets you made in reference to "ants flying." The makeshift catapults worked wonderfully as the poor insect flew around my blanket like a Wright brother.
When the final catapult finally fired and the seemingly dizzied bug touched down, it immediately regained its bearings and continued dashing toward its originally intended goal. This deep black arthropod climbed off the edge of my comforter and onto the canopy of its forest as I sat in awe at the fact that it could just land and re-orient itself without hesitation, let alone not puke all over my blanket. Although I felt slightly evil after having performed such a heinous act of terrorism, I smiled at the perseverance God had given this bug to simply pick itself up, dust itself off, and keep on trucking. I wondered what humans would be like if we maintained that kind of steadfastness in the face of such tribulation, instead of simply turning tail at each sign of trouble. How much stronger would our Christian walks be if we were like bugs? Who would have thought that an irritating little nuisance could have taught me about stronger Christian endurance? Bugs.
This deep black arthropod was clearly on a mission when it stormed like a marathon runner onto my blanket. What mission exactly can only be imagined: perhaps it found a delectable morsel of nourishment and was scouting out a chemical path for others to follow, but it was, regardless, a mission for survival. The path the ant marched upon to complete its task as it scampered through its forest of crab grass and weeds was suddenly and dramatically altered into a surface much unlike the dirt it was accustomed to. The forest’s canopy disappeared and the sun beat down upon its exoskeleton unadulterated by the usual leaves and stems, instigating what seemed to me like panic in its miniature brain. It began performing figure eights as it attempted to decipher this new environment, climbing anything it happened to walk into. I guess one could have expected peculiar behavior such as this immediately following a drastic condition change. As soon as the ant had clambered over all of my belongings and reached the large, empty space on my blanket, the real fun started. The folds in the fabric quickly gave rise to the idea of numerous ant-ready catapults spread across malleable land. I hope you can guess what took place in the next instant, and, having surmised the answer, I hope you are now paying off any and all bets you made in reference to "ants flying." The makeshift catapults worked wonderfully as the poor insect flew around my blanket like a Wright brother.
When the final catapult finally fired and the seemingly dizzied bug touched down, it immediately regained its bearings and continued dashing toward its originally intended goal. This deep black arthropod climbed off the edge of my comforter and onto the canopy of its forest as I sat in awe at the fact that it could just land and re-orient itself without hesitation, let alone not puke all over my blanket. Although I felt slightly evil after having performed such a heinous act of terrorism, I smiled at the perseverance God had given this bug to simply pick itself up, dust itself off, and keep on trucking. I wondered what humans would be like if we maintained that kind of steadfastness in the face of such tribulation, instead of simply turning tail at each sign of trouble. How much stronger would our Christian walks be if we were like bugs? Who would have thought that an irritating little nuisance could have taught me about stronger Christian endurance? Bugs.
SIREN'S CALL
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I have a compulsion to dash at full speed toward any body of ice or other slippery substance I see and glide across to its other side. During the winter of my freshman year of college, this compulsion created an incident that was humiliating, but even more so one that was among the funniest events of my life.
In front of our cafeteria there was a landscaping project that had only been started at the beginning of the year, and when rain fell, almost the whole project filled up with water due to its height compared to the sidewalk. Because the winter months were just settling in, the air was warm enough to precipitate with water, but cold enough to freeze it when it reached the ground. This process created, as you might have guessed, a small pond of ice; it was in possibly the most trafficked area, and thus the most tempting area on campus. As I walked to the cafeteria with two of my close friends on one fateful day, I spied this very pond and I heard it call my name with a beautiful voice that I could have heard for miles.
”Shawn. Shawn! SHAWN!” The voice grew louder with every step I took toward the cafeteria. I tried my best to contain the agony that grew inside me and churned my guts like butter, but alas the excitement swelled to such a great extent that not even my own level head or the risk of losing all dignity in front of my friends could thwart my desire to answer the siren’s call. Even if the whole student body had been standing with eyes wide open waiting to persecute my next move, the same outcome would have still emerged.
“Watch this, guys!” I shouted as I sprinted happily to my impending doom. With every lunge I took I could feel the inward turmoil calm and the siren stay her call. I was ecstatic, not only at the fact that I was about to quell my desire, but also that my nearing slide was going to be so incredulously long because of the sheer size of the pond. I jumped onto the frozen water with new enthusiasm about ice skating, and, as I landed, I felt a new, utterly unexpected and misplaced feeling: disappointment.
Suddenly (and somehow without losing my balance at all), I stopped dead in the center of the diminutive lake because of a few little bumps in the ice. I turned to my friends, who had by this point been through confusion, fear, and astonishment, and I found them in the midst of humor laughing at my interrupted attempt. I came to the conclusion that I had met my death on the rocks that surrounded the siren’s island, and resolved to make my way carefully back to shore; I was beaten.
It is honorable when you beat and humiliate an enemy to end their torment by letting up your attack; this shows that you at least have a shred of decency. Inanimate objects, and sirens alike, do not share this idea. When I took my first step off of the icy blemishes, the lake of death decided to add insult to injury by deleting any and all friction that used to be under my foot. I’ll just say that the receipt I stored in my jacket pocket earlier in the day ejected itself during my fall and was infinitely more graceful than any ballerina as it floated down and landed beside my dignity-stripped, vertically-challenged body that was lying on the bed of ice. My friends have never let me live it down.
In front of our cafeteria there was a landscaping project that had only been started at the beginning of the year, and when rain fell, almost the whole project filled up with water due to its height compared to the sidewalk. Because the winter months were just settling in, the air was warm enough to precipitate with water, but cold enough to freeze it when it reached the ground. This process created, as you might have guessed, a small pond of ice; it was in possibly the most trafficked area, and thus the most tempting area on campus. As I walked to the cafeteria with two of my close friends on one fateful day, I spied this very pond and I heard it call my name with a beautiful voice that I could have heard for miles.
”Shawn. Shawn! SHAWN!” The voice grew louder with every step I took toward the cafeteria. I tried my best to contain the agony that grew inside me and churned my guts like butter, but alas the excitement swelled to such a great extent that not even my own level head or the risk of losing all dignity in front of my friends could thwart my desire to answer the siren’s call. Even if the whole student body had been standing with eyes wide open waiting to persecute my next move, the same outcome would have still emerged.
“Watch this, guys!” I shouted as I sprinted happily to my impending doom. With every lunge I took I could feel the inward turmoil calm and the siren stay her call. I was ecstatic, not only at the fact that I was about to quell my desire, but also that my nearing slide was going to be so incredulously long because of the sheer size of the pond. I jumped onto the frozen water with new enthusiasm about ice skating, and, as I landed, I felt a new, utterly unexpected and misplaced feeling: disappointment.
Suddenly (and somehow without losing my balance at all), I stopped dead in the center of the diminutive lake because of a few little bumps in the ice. I turned to my friends, who had by this point been through confusion, fear, and astonishment, and I found them in the midst of humor laughing at my interrupted attempt. I came to the conclusion that I had met my death on the rocks that surrounded the siren’s island, and resolved to make my way carefully back to shore; I was beaten.
It is honorable when you beat and humiliate an enemy to end their torment by letting up your attack; this shows that you at least have a shred of decency. Inanimate objects, and sirens alike, do not share this idea. When I took my first step off of the icy blemishes, the lake of death decided to add insult to injury by deleting any and all friction that used to be under my foot. I’ll just say that the receipt I stored in my jacket pocket earlier in the day ejected itself during my fall and was infinitely more graceful than any ballerina as it floated down and landed beside my dignity-stripped, vertically-challenged body that was lying on the bed of ice. My friends have never let me live it down.
A LONG STORY SHORT
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When I write anything, I usually encounter a few false starts—this time I had at least sixteen; “How do you start a review on a book so great?” I would ask myself when I sat down to touch ink to paper; “Just write,” I would then say—and here it is: a love beyond any love I ever knew I could have for literature is what I have for this and all seven Chronicles of Narnia (that’s not to say it’s the greatest love I will ever have—though I don’t believe it will be far from the top—I just never knew I could like a book so much): underground battles against oppression; betrayal; sorcery and magic; an epic, David-and-Goliath-like bout; and an ending (O what an ending!) that made me laugh harder than I have laughed after reading anything but a good joke—these things and more wrapped up in the well-written and image-saturated book that is Prince Caspian. British writing—I can’t get enough.
Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy, the four children who once ruled Narnia in its Golden Age, are yanked by magic from their seats in a London train station (where they had been awaiting the trains that would take them back to their respective schools) back into Narnia, where, as they would find out, they are to liberate Old Narnia (that is, the Narnia that was when they ruled) from the cold-hearted grasp of the tyrannous King Miraz; it’s not an easy task, though, since all of Old Narnia has been driven into hiding, its numbers have dwindled horribly, and it has become somewhat divided by self-concerned survivalists (namely, Nikabrik the dwarf and his company). Upon their arrival, the children find help in a dwarf named Trumpkin (whom they affectionately call “Dear Little Friend,” or “DLF”), who tells them the story of Prince Caspian: how he came into knowing and ruling Old Narnia; how he was waiting at Aslan’s How (or the Stone Table where Aslan, the Creator of Narnia, was sacrificed and resurrected in another book in this series) at that very moment to wait for help to battle Miraz; and how he had sent Trumpkin to the ruins of Cair Paravel (which are on the island upon which the children first land when pulled into Narnia) to lead the help back. They follow the dwarf to Aslan’s How (and have some adventures with a mean, hungry, non-talking bear and a near-fatal decision concerning which way to cross a gorge) only to have to thwart an attempted uprising within Old Narnia—perpetrated by Nikabrik and company, no less.
I suppose I should make a long story short: Aslan returns, helps defeat Miraz, renews the land, and sends the children and Miraz’s remaining people (the Telmarines) back to this universe—back to Earth—from whence they came. Now for my favorite ending of any book: “’Bother,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve left my new torch in Narnia.’” Isn’t that great? Through all of the adventures and misadventures, the first thing Edmund remembers is his forgotten flashlight. British writing—I still can’t get enough.
Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy, the four children who once ruled Narnia in its Golden Age, are yanked by magic from their seats in a London train station (where they had been awaiting the trains that would take them back to their respective schools) back into Narnia, where, as they would find out, they are to liberate Old Narnia (that is, the Narnia that was when they ruled) from the cold-hearted grasp of the tyrannous King Miraz; it’s not an easy task, though, since all of Old Narnia has been driven into hiding, its numbers have dwindled horribly, and it has become somewhat divided by self-concerned survivalists (namely, Nikabrik the dwarf and his company). Upon their arrival, the children find help in a dwarf named Trumpkin (whom they affectionately call “Dear Little Friend,” or “DLF”), who tells them the story of Prince Caspian: how he came into knowing and ruling Old Narnia; how he was waiting at Aslan’s How (or the Stone Table where Aslan, the Creator of Narnia, was sacrificed and resurrected in another book in this series) at that very moment to wait for help to battle Miraz; and how he had sent Trumpkin to the ruins of Cair Paravel (which are on the island upon which the children first land when pulled into Narnia) to lead the help back. They follow the dwarf to Aslan’s How (and have some adventures with a mean, hungry, non-talking bear and a near-fatal decision concerning which way to cross a gorge) only to have to thwart an attempted uprising within Old Narnia—perpetrated by Nikabrik and company, no less.
I suppose I should make a long story short: Aslan returns, helps defeat Miraz, renews the land, and sends the children and Miraz’s remaining people (the Telmarines) back to this universe—back to Earth—from whence they came. Now for my favorite ending of any book: “’Bother,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve left my new torch in Narnia.’” Isn’t that great? Through all of the adventures and misadventures, the first thing Edmund remembers is his forgotten flashlight. British writing—I still can’t get enough.
8 Easy Steps for Building a Brick Dream House
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Step 1. Find a plot of land big enough to hold your new dream house.
When building a house of any kind, many decisions must be pondered and finalized: material used for construction (in this case brick), number of people in residence, amount of entertainment space used (which pertains to amount of projected in-house time), number of stories, style of house (i.e. Victorian, earthen, cabin, New England, medieval, Dutch, lean-to, et al.), location, location, location, etc. For the purpose of providing a list of effective building steps, let us say that the dream house in question is a one-person, single-story, brick Victorian dwelling in northeastern Oregon, and has a high projected in-house time (and, thus, a large entertainment space). This will require a fairly large plot of land—70 x 30 feet; perhaps this seems like a large space for one resident, but the dream entertainment center will take up half of this space, at least. Also, check with the city, state, or national government to make sure the plot of land is zoned for residential buildings, as eviction would not be welcome.
Step 2. Hire a contractor to lay a foundation for you.
With the dream house’s dimensions settled and a dream location found, a contractor can now be hired to commence construction of the foundation. This step is taken assuming that you, the reader, know nothing of erecting a foundation and need a so-educated individual to perform the task for you. (If you are a so-educated individual, drop these instructions and step away from the contractor’s office.) Make doubly sure that the contractor has the correct dimensions of your house; if the foundation is larger or smaller than what is needed, the house will look—simply put—dumb, or will fall down, respectively.
Step 3. Hire a carpenter to build a frame for you.
Now, foundation in place—and correctly measured—a carpenter can be hired to build a frame for the dream house; again, this step is taken assuming that you are ill educated in these matters. (Warning: if your intention is to assemble the house’s skeleton from metal or any material other than wood, you are strongly advised to select someone other than a carpenter.) Your wooden frame, keep in mind, needs insulation (you don’t want to freeze); your nearest home improvement store should carry insulation strips, and, though they have experienced professionals who are willing to install the insulation for you, you are encouraged to do at least something for yourself.
Step 4. Hire an electrician to wire electricity for you.
Unless you are content with an outhouse and cooking over an open fire, your dream house needs lights and power. If you installed the insulation yourself, you might feel the urge to do more on your own; subdue this desire at all costs because it has a very high cost if done wrong—your life. You should call an electrician; however, it is best to wait until after the frame is raised—one cannot attach electrical wires and power cables to thin air. Keep in mind that the dream entertainment system will require numerous electrical outlets in a single room. Make sure the electrician wires the correct number of outlets in the correct places; if the dream TV’s cord, for example, cannot reach one of the outlets from its position in the dream entertainment system, chaos may ensue.
Step 5. Hire a mason to lay the bricks for you.
This is undoubtedly the key step to building a brick dream house; without bricks comprising the exterior of the building, the label “brick” simply could not be attached to the structure, nor could these instructions have any use for a mason. Since the frame by this time is finished, insulated, and wired, a mason can be hired to lay your dream bricks. If you have no bricks in mind, there is, thanks to modern artistic advancement, a sizeable selection of brick styles to choose from, and the mason should have a catalogue—pick the style that best suits your vision of your dream house.
Step 6. Hire an interior designer to decorate your house for you.
This step occurs after the interior wall coverings have been erected, and is only for those who have little or no artistic abilities. This is the ideal time to have the dream entertainment center shipped (be certain to leave room on your street for the fourteen semi trucks to park while the product is unloaded, which will take approximately five to eight days—leave your calendar open accordingly).
Step 7. Hire a debt management company to consolidate all of your bills.
Unless your last name is Gates, Perot, or Trump, you will need to spend the next fifty years of your life working off the bills you’ve accumulated. Fortunately, through the miracle of debt management companies, your bills can be consolidated into one arm-and-leg monthly payment; the company will confront the persons whom you owe and let them know how everything will go down. Generally, debt managers with the last name Barbarino or Soprano are most effective at removing outstanding balances.
Step 8. Hire a lawyer (or let the court appoint one) to defend you when you’re sued for all you’re worth by the contractor, carpenter, mason, interior designer, home entertainment company, and debt management company because you tried to flee the country when you discovered you had only a millionth of the amount of money required to build your brick dream house.
This step really needs no explanation.
Step 9. Wake up and go to work; your alarm’s buzzing and it’s waking up your grumpy neighbors.
When building a house of any kind, many decisions must be pondered and finalized: material used for construction (in this case brick), number of people in residence, amount of entertainment space used (which pertains to amount of projected in-house time), number of stories, style of house (i.e. Victorian, earthen, cabin, New England, medieval, Dutch, lean-to, et al.), location, location, location, etc. For the purpose of providing a list of effective building steps, let us say that the dream house in question is a one-person, single-story, brick Victorian dwelling in northeastern Oregon, and has a high projected in-house time (and, thus, a large entertainment space). This will require a fairly large plot of land—70 x 30 feet; perhaps this seems like a large space for one resident, but the dream entertainment center will take up half of this space, at least. Also, check with the city, state, or national government to make sure the plot of land is zoned for residential buildings, as eviction would not be welcome.
Step 2. Hire a contractor to lay a foundation for you.
With the dream house’s dimensions settled and a dream location found, a contractor can now be hired to commence construction of the foundation. This step is taken assuming that you, the reader, know nothing of erecting a foundation and need a so-educated individual to perform the task for you. (If you are a so-educated individual, drop these instructions and step away from the contractor’s office.) Make doubly sure that the contractor has the correct dimensions of your house; if the foundation is larger or smaller than what is needed, the house will look—simply put—dumb, or will fall down, respectively.
Step 3. Hire a carpenter to build a frame for you.
Now, foundation in place—and correctly measured—a carpenter can be hired to build a frame for the dream house; again, this step is taken assuming that you are ill educated in these matters. (Warning: if your intention is to assemble the house’s skeleton from metal or any material other than wood, you are strongly advised to select someone other than a carpenter.) Your wooden frame, keep in mind, needs insulation (you don’t want to freeze); your nearest home improvement store should carry insulation strips, and, though they have experienced professionals who are willing to install the insulation for you, you are encouraged to do at least something for yourself.
Step 4. Hire an electrician to wire electricity for you.
Unless you are content with an outhouse and cooking over an open fire, your dream house needs lights and power. If you installed the insulation yourself, you might feel the urge to do more on your own; subdue this desire at all costs because it has a very high cost if done wrong—your life. You should call an electrician; however, it is best to wait until after the frame is raised—one cannot attach electrical wires and power cables to thin air. Keep in mind that the dream entertainment system will require numerous electrical outlets in a single room. Make sure the electrician wires the correct number of outlets in the correct places; if the dream TV’s cord, for example, cannot reach one of the outlets from its position in the dream entertainment system, chaos may ensue.
Step 5. Hire a mason to lay the bricks for you.
This is undoubtedly the key step to building a brick dream house; without bricks comprising the exterior of the building, the label “brick” simply could not be attached to the structure, nor could these instructions have any use for a mason. Since the frame by this time is finished, insulated, and wired, a mason can be hired to lay your dream bricks. If you have no bricks in mind, there is, thanks to modern artistic advancement, a sizeable selection of brick styles to choose from, and the mason should have a catalogue—pick the style that best suits your vision of your dream house.
Step 6. Hire an interior designer to decorate your house for you.
This step occurs after the interior wall coverings have been erected, and is only for those who have little or no artistic abilities. This is the ideal time to have the dream entertainment center shipped (be certain to leave room on your street for the fourteen semi trucks to park while the product is unloaded, which will take approximately five to eight days—leave your calendar open accordingly).
Step 7. Hire a debt management company to consolidate all of your bills.
Unless your last name is Gates, Perot, or Trump, you will need to spend the next fifty years of your life working off the bills you’ve accumulated. Fortunately, through the miracle of debt management companies, your bills can be consolidated into one arm-and-leg monthly payment; the company will confront the persons whom you owe and let them know how everything will go down. Generally, debt managers with the last name Barbarino or Soprano are most effective at removing outstanding balances.
Step 8. Hire a lawyer (or let the court appoint one) to defend you when you’re sued for all you’re worth by the contractor, carpenter, mason, interior designer, home entertainment company, and debt management company because you tried to flee the country when you discovered you had only a millionth of the amount of money required to build your brick dream house.
This step really needs no explanation.
Step 9. Wake up and go to work; your alarm’s buzzing and it’s waking up your grumpy neighbors.
THE POEMS OF MY LIKING
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I could not decide on one literary piece to limit my opinion to, so I had to eliminate all but the two I most enjoyed reading (though they are completely unrelated): “We Are Seven” (William Wordsworth) and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge).
Never has a poem or any writing inspired me as much or given me as much insight into a child’s faith as “We Are Seven”: the little girl, the “Simple Child” (line 1), believed so blindly that her two dead siblings were alive in Heaven and that her four journeying siblings were in her heart and therefore still with her (though that idea was never mentioned) that she adamantly held her contention that all seven were still together against the author’s objections (“If two are in the church-yard laid, then ye are only five.” line 35; “But they are dead; those two are dead!” line 65) throughout the whole dialogue; she had such faith in God that they would be together again one day that she considered them as good as together now. It is a poem I should like to hang as a large poster on the wall of my house (should I ever get a house of my own, I should like to paint it on a wall, large and highly visible to all who enter—hopefully, it can inspire them as much as it has me). If the girl didn’t have the faith I believe God wants us all to have, she might have grown up depressed and been easily influenced by those who would harm her, and she might have constantly sought escape from those who reminded her of her lost siblings, and thus her loneliness; she might not have lived much longer if she hadn’t the faith she demonstrated. I cannot begin to conjecture what Wordsworth’s intention was, but let’s pretend for a moment that he knew what he was doing when he wrote this poem: if I pulled out of it what I did, I can only guess that at least some of what I think he meant, if not all or more, was part of his point, and that he was trying to capture what it is to have the faith of a child. Great poem.
Hypnotic storytellers; awful supernatural storms; journeys to the south pole; a skeleton ship with Death himself at the helm; the walking dead—who could ask for more exploits from a story? Coleridge wrote an arousing adventure that would inspire the modern entertainment buff (once he worked his way past the poetic language) to say,”When’s the movie coming out?” I caught my leg jumping up and down (the way it does during an intense action movie) many times while I was reading this poem. I loved the way he described the directions the boat sailed: “The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea” (line 25), and the look of the skeleton ship: “And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, (Heaven’s Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered With broad and burning face” (line 177). Though I despised the main character for shooting the albatross, this is also a poem that I should like to hang on my wall (or, if I felt brave enough one day, I might undertake painting it on a wall near “We Are Seven”, though I highly doubt I will ever feel brave enough). I did catch a little inspirational thinking at the end (the mariner walking to the church to pray), but I didn’t really feel that it was Coleridge’s intent to inspire. Again, great poem.
Never has a poem or any writing inspired me as much or given me as much insight into a child’s faith as “We Are Seven”: the little girl, the “Simple Child” (line 1), believed so blindly that her two dead siblings were alive in Heaven and that her four journeying siblings were in her heart and therefore still with her (though that idea was never mentioned) that she adamantly held her contention that all seven were still together against the author’s objections (“If two are in the church-yard laid, then ye are only five.” line 35; “But they are dead; those two are dead!” line 65) throughout the whole dialogue; she had such faith in God that they would be together again one day that she considered them as good as together now. It is a poem I should like to hang as a large poster on the wall of my house (should I ever get a house of my own, I should like to paint it on a wall, large and highly visible to all who enter—hopefully, it can inspire them as much as it has me). If the girl didn’t have the faith I believe God wants us all to have, she might have grown up depressed and been easily influenced by those who would harm her, and she might have constantly sought escape from those who reminded her of her lost siblings, and thus her loneliness; she might not have lived much longer if she hadn’t the faith she demonstrated. I cannot begin to conjecture what Wordsworth’s intention was, but let’s pretend for a moment that he knew what he was doing when he wrote this poem: if I pulled out of it what I did, I can only guess that at least some of what I think he meant, if not all or more, was part of his point, and that he was trying to capture what it is to have the faith of a child. Great poem.
Hypnotic storytellers; awful supernatural storms; journeys to the south pole; a skeleton ship with Death himself at the helm; the walking dead—who could ask for more exploits from a story? Coleridge wrote an arousing adventure that would inspire the modern entertainment buff (once he worked his way past the poetic language) to say,”When’s the movie coming out?” I caught my leg jumping up and down (the way it does during an intense action movie) many times while I was reading this poem. I loved the way he described the directions the boat sailed: “The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea” (line 25), and the look of the skeleton ship: “And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, (Heaven’s Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered With broad and burning face” (line 177). Though I despised the main character for shooting the albatross, this is also a poem that I should like to hang on my wall (or, if I felt brave enough one day, I might undertake painting it on a wall near “We Are Seven”, though I highly doubt I will ever feel brave enough). I did catch a little inspirational thinking at the end (the mariner walking to the church to pray), but I didn’t really feel that it was Coleridge’s intent to inspire. Again, great poem.