Greg McCracken- Outside Reading 1- Healthy Mindedness

In reading a chapter called The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness in William James' "The Varities of Religious Experience," I came upon an idea that I felt explained the "whole" and "holy" concept. The quote was, "The first underlying cause of all sickness, weakness, and depression is the human sense of seperateness from that Divine Energy which we call God. The soul which can feel and affirm in serene jubliance...'I and my father are one.' has no further need...of healing."
The idea behind this quote is that a person who seperates from the divine will not prosper from it, while the one who loves God with their "whole" being will never be in pain. As a result, they will always be in a positive situation regardless of circumstance.
I could certainly see some truth in this idea since a person who seperates themself from God is directly at fault for all circumstances thereafter, while a person who lives only for God cannot be at fault for negative consequence. In fact, I don't believe a person who is gives himself to God would feel negative consequence at all. Instead, as a being of God, they would find positive thought in all adverse circumstances and be able to attain power for any negative action except death. It is with that in mind that I believe that a person who gives their life entirely to God will stay positive and healthy minded.

Anne Zagursky-Predestination

In one of my other classes we were discussing the differences between free will and predestination. In order to fully understand predestination, we must first realize the difference between single and double predestination. The two leading theorists in this debate are Martin Luther and John Calvin. Luther and Calvin both had their opinion on predestination. Although they both believed that humans lived in total depravity, in need of grace alone to save them, they had differing opinions on how far that went. Luther rejected the notion of double predestination, whereas Calvin accepted it. Luther was only interested in believing that faith in God was all that was needed for redemption, but he did not have much to say about those outside of the faith. Calvin held to the double predestination theory, believing that some are condemned and some are saved from the beginning and there is nothing a person can do to change that. This helped to alleviate the need for works in the Calvinist school of thought.

Calvin’s idea, which other people, such as Augustine also thought of, seems a little harsh for a God of love. I do not see how a God who loves everyone and everything he has created could possible give up an uncountable number of souls to the Devil and not give them any chance during their lives to be redeemed. I think that God knows before you are created whether or not you will choose to follow him, but he leaves that choice up to us. We condemn ourselves with the ways we live and act, he is just waiting for us to turn around as ask for him forgiveness and mercy. There is no way that Christ would have died for only a certain number of people. He died for everyone, but it is up to us whether we believe it or not.

Greg McCracken- Personal Reflection #1- Heaven on Earth

Since it is earth day, I figured I would spread the earthly love from myself to anyone reading this blog.
I have tremendous respect for people who live their lives in a way that is good because they want to get to heaven. Still, I think many people forget how wonderful the world itself is. In fact, I believe that many of the things people think of when they think of heaven can be found with the right attitude on earth.
So much of society is run, run, run. Everybody is working and living hectically to attain the goals which they set out for themselves. I think we have been on this world for so long that we forget how truly amazing it is. Just looking at the complexity of a tree could last a person an entire day if they wanted to. The incredible beauty of colors can be found anywhere you look. The feeling of cold or warmth may be uncomfortable at first, but when you think about it, it is really amazing.
It is understandable that many people want to experience more than earth provides, but honestly, how much more can you want? The world itself is so much more complex than any book that has been written on the subject. And maybe it is possible that we have been in heaven all along. So my message to everyone on this day, stop and take a look around. It's pretty amazing.

Anna Backens - Premonition

The idea of reality vs. fantasy in some of the films like Big Fish that were discussed in class related to the film Premonition. Also true love is another aspect of the film's main character's journey. The back ground of the film is that a middle-aged mom, Linda Hanson, has a perfect life with her husband and two daughters until she receives a disturbing phone call that her husband has been killed in a car accident. Linda is in shock and begins to feel a deep grief inside of herself when she has to tell her daughters the news. The next morning, Linda wakes up to see that her husband is alive and she looks at him in astonishment. In disbelief, she thinks that it is just a dream that he died. The next morning Jim is dead again and her family is making funeral arrangements.

At this point Linda does not know if her premonitions are true forewarnings or fantasies she has construed herself because of her own desire to see Jim again. All she knows is that events happen in random order and she has no control of when they will happen. In this story, time does not stop and does not follow any time line, so no incident follows in order of another.

Linda is alone in her journey against time because she is the only one who has been afflicted with the premonitions. Linda cannot determine which premonition she will have next but she puzzles together which days each event occurs on and finally narrows down which day she thinks Jim died on. While Linda is in a race to save her husband's life, she finds out that the day on which he dies, is the day that he tells her he is leaving for a business trip but Linda finds out instead that Jim is leaving to have an affair. At this point in the movie, Linda is devastated and becomes angry at her husband for cheating. She comes to a stop in her search to save when she realizes he doesn't love her anymore and asks her mother, "Is letting Jim die the same thing as killing him?" Linda realizes that now she has the power of someone's destiny in her hands. From this, Linda ventures to figure out what went wrong in her marriage and fights to restore it realizing that she really does love her husband. Love is awakened with the two as they reconcile and remember why it is that they first loved.The film points out predestination for the main character; she fights to change her life but the events seem to be determined already. There is imagery seen when Linda gets blood on her hands from a dead bird, symbolizing she had the power of life and death in her hands.

Anna Backens - outside reading - John Piper

I have been reading in a Christian book called The Passion of Jesus Christ, which I had been given soon after the release of the blockbuster Passion of the Christ. It is a devotional each outlining a different reason explaining why Christ suffered and died for mankind. I recently read one chapter called "To Become a Ransom for Many". It was a description of Mark 10:45 which talks about Christ giving his life as a ransom. I always thought that a ransom's purpose was to give something so that you can get back something in return. Like in the movie Ransom, Mel Gibson has to come up with money to get his son back, but in this devotional, it was explained a little differently. John Piper writes that Jesus was not coerced into a ransom and that Jesus did not require anything from us to come to save us. In actuality, I am not sure that we could have given anything of worth to him in or state that would have come close to repayment for the sacrifice of the crucifixion.

In John 10:18 it says, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own accord." This is the difficult part to understand about the Christ's ransom. He gave his life for free; he didn't require man to pay money or gold for it. This is why sometimes, in my opinion, the scriptures can be confusing because I think that in today's society, if someone pays a ransom, you feel obligated to give back for the payment. With Christ, he didn't. Piper also mentioned that this ransom was given for everyone but not everyone chooses to accept it. Its like someone paying of a set of loans for a whole neighborhood but not everyone wants to take the ransom.
A ransom given for free is a hard concept to understand because it is so different from a social definition of what a ransom's purpose is. Interestingly the scriptures in Mark say that Jesus gave up death for the life of others. He gave up a gift to give it. Also Jesus said that he came to serve and not to be served, so not only did he not require anything from men, he came with a priority of serving them instead.

Anna Backens - Decalogue 1

"You shall have no other gods before Me." In Exodus 20:3, the Lord gave these commandments to Moses to give to the Israelites so that they would know how to live their lives according to God. In Decalogue 1, Krzysztof is highly interested in science and mathematics and has started to believe that all the answers for life can be calculated. His sister does not share the same belief, she thinks that one has to have faith in order to understand the world. Pawal is young but lives with his father and imitates his father's beliefs until one day he asks his aunt about spirituality, she then asks his father if Pawal can take religion classes, he agrees. Krzysztof has two computers in the house and he has become almost entirely dependent on them for answers. Pawal has learned to do the same and anytime he has a question, he types it into the computer. The whole house is rigged up to the computer so that Pawal shows his aunt how he can turn on the water in the house or unlock the doors by pressing a button. So, Krysztof and Pawal have built a home that is nearly controlled by technology. Krysztof thinks that contentment can be found in science. He trusts computers so much that after doing a small calculation, he allows Pawal to skate on the ice because it should be thick enough. His calculations are wrong and Pawal falls through the ice. As Krzysztof was so bound to technology, he had made it a god, to where he put his son's life in danger because of a computer's answer.When he cannot find his son several hours after he told him to go swimming, he panics because he had been wrong. by not following the first commandment, he had put his faith in something else, it costs him the life of his son. The imagery was so unique as he enters a church in despair. There is a black Madonna on the wall in front of him and there are some candles burning. Out of rage, he pushes the candles over and some wax falls on her cheek. This makes it seem that she is crying over his loss as well. The aunt had a quite a different response, because of her personal faith, during the frenzy, her facial expressions were sadness and lament. She knew that her brother had been foolish for putting all of his faith and life into his computer.

Anna Backens - Groundhog Day

When I watched this movie in class, I first of all noticed that Phil was completely self-reliant in his life. He didn't want any handouts from anyone. At his television station, he acted like he was some god-like, all-knowing, person and he expected everyone to wait on him like that. He thought that somehow he was superior to everyone else and lived with a egocentric view of his life. When Bill, Rita, and Larry travel to report on the national holiday, time begins to repeat itself mysteriously and Bill finds himself waking up every morning to the same day and at the same time, six o'clock. Bill's first reaction is interesting, he tries to literally fight time and beat it by thinking that if he can escape the city then he will stop reliving the same day over. Bill's uncertainty leads to anxiety and then to denial. He stops caring about life and on several occasions tries to kill himself. Time, in this case, cannot end its cycle even if death comes so Bill realizes there must be something more in life. He comes to a revelation of his frail humanity and his inner need for community, so he becomes transparent with Rita at a dinner which is the kairos moment for Bill in the movie. He decides to take control of his surroundings, but in a self-less way. He changes to appreciate life more and becomes more interested in others' needs instead of himself. More importantly for Bill, he learns how to love in a deeper way for Rita. His initial interest for her is only physical but when he learns that she won't love him in that way, he works to understand love because he wants it to be a reciprocal process. Eventually it turns into long-standing, unselfish love shortly before the end of the movie. Bill isn't the center of the universe in his mind, Rita and others are, so he feels more liberty when he learns the importance of these lessons. The cyclical aspect of the movie is displayed through imagery as well. There is a scene when Bill clears his window to see outside and makes a circle, and also much snow is in the movie possibly symbolizing cleansing. Bill slowly, day after day of searching for hope was cleansing his life of material wants.