God's use of language

The commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of your Lord God in vain" has always seemed one of the lesser of the Ten Commandments, to me. God wanted proper respect for his name, sure, but didn't he also elevate us to the level of co-heirs with him in his kingdom?
A few class periods ago, my worldview professor explored God's use of language.

• God created the world by speaking it all into existence.
• Jesus used language to perform his miracles. He spoke to the storm while the disciples cowered in fear. "Be still!" he said and the storm ceased.
• Jesus, on another occasion, verbally cursed a fig plant and it withered and died.
• God revels himself to us today by the Bible--the Word of God.

Somehow, there is this power contained within language itself. Although we use a language which is as broken as ourselves, there is a remnant of power within it.

• Paul writes that "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom. 10:9)
• "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move." (Matt 17:20)
• Adam's calling in the garden was to classify and name the animals.

I don't know what the implications for this ideas is yet. I don't know how it will change my writing or how it will affect my everyday speech. But it does explain why God is so concerned with the use of him name.

Freshman Writing

Now that I have started college and lived the collegiate life for a few months, I have discovered that you can become anyone you want. Once your parents drive away, no one who knows your history remains. You are only known and judged as you are in the present.
For me, this was liberating. My writing became aggressive in what I wrote about and my wit (aka sarcasm) is developing, or, I hope it is.
I am also writing for the college's student newspaper, The Bryan Triangle. To see examples of my reporting, you should read it there. Of course, I will probably post examples here as well. My writing has grown here because this is the first time where I was forced to write about several sport stories.

Physical Education Majors Aren’t the Only People to Benefit from Exercise

The first day of college has arrived at the state university. Students are walking across campus to check out the coffee shop. Others are finished moving into their dorms and are meeting the people they will tolerate for the next four years. One student beginning her freshman semester is Cathy Unschuld.
She doesn’t stand out from the crowd, because she is the crowd—she represents the quintessential college student.
Cathy has always had a good life. She was an average student in High School and she had a wide circle of friends. As a teenager, she participated in the occasional walk for charity, played pickup Ultimate Frisbee, but she didn’t let health get in the way of life.
Her plan at college is to get a degree in psychology, and work as a teacher after college. She is serious. Some punks may go to college for the parties, but she knows the cost of college, and she is going to work at this. Cathy has taken a heavy course load this freshman semester; she wants succeed at college.
Let’s see how her life goes the first semester.
After the first week of school, Cathy is letting out a deep breath. Her course load is Tough! She wisely declines the offer of some new friends to attend a party over the weekend to study. All her time is spent on classes and studying—nothing else.
The second week leaves Cathy a bit baggy around the eyes. She is keeping up with the load, but the long term stress is catching up with her. Friday morning she stumbles into the cafeteria needing energy and a pick-me-up and but she has no appetite. The donuts, frosted flakes, and sweetened coffee are what she can get down right now.
By the fourth week, Cathy really begins to feel terrible. Her eating habits have stayed the same. And the course load, she has managed to get most of the studying done as well as all the assignments. But it’s a stone wheel which is slowly grinding her away.
She thought that she might have needed to get out, to do something different, so she attended a party, but this Monday morning she looks at herself in the mirror through a blur. She is tired, discouraged, and the beginnings of freshman fifteen are showing itself around her hips. Lying on her un-made bed, she lets her troubles weigh down on her. There is a test tomorrow, she is dropping behind in English and she just feels blah. “Was I ready for college?” She wonders to herself.
Cathy’s health has gotten in the way of her life. Too much stress and an unbalanced lifestyle has left Cathy tired and burned out. She tried to eat her way out of it, but the greasy, sugary food only made her worse. Now, her education is suffering and her goal of becoming a teacher is put at risk.
After complaining to her roommate about how burned out she is, Cathy’s roommate looks up from her textbook and says, “Y’know Cathy, you don’t have to be a Physical Education Major to benefit from some exercise.”
Many freshmen find themselves in Cathy’s predicament. Faced with adult decisions and responsibility, they drop their health to try to fit everything in their life. However, a healthy lifestyle helps them through college.
Even if Cathy could find the time for another class, it is too late in the semester to participate in a sport, but Cathy has found other ways to get active.
She joins the pickup games of Ultimate Frisbee in the evening. On the weekends, she walks through the college town, poking into the small shops and experiencing the bustle of humanity. Before, she would hop in a car to the movie theater and she hardly glanced at the town.
In the spirit of staying healthy, she even tried the special in the cafeteria and found she likes kale.
In short, Cathy pushes herself hard. When she pushes her body through exercise, school isn’t that hard anymore. Her body is used to working at rigorous speeds and running from class to class isn’t’ that hard anymore. She sleeps better and she can manage her life.
Making her life a healthy one, Cathy has widened her life. Instead of hermiting herself away in the library to study, she is getting out more and experiencing her college life.
Cathy has learned her lesson. Operating in the modern world is hard work. To sail through life, she will incorporate the healthy habits she has developed in her life after she earns her psychology degree. Teaching a class of students is hard work too, but it won’t be that hard. After all, running the dog, bicycling to work, and the yoga class will prepare her to succeed far into the future.

Grammar thought of the Day

What the Heck Are Progressive and Emphatic Verbs?

Today I took a grammar test and became completely confused on this section of Grammar. So I decided to explain it to you. How can a person who bombed something explain it? I don't know either. If my explanation is incorrect, please take the time to tell me. The rest of you, bear with me.
Progressive verbs
Progressive verbs means that the verb phrase shows that the action is still progressing. They are studying at the library. This means they have been studying, that they are currently studying, and that the will probably be studying for a while longer. (workaholics)
Emphatic verbs
Verbs are the most interesting of all the words. They do things. Left alone, the President, the skateboard, and the girl would sit there and do nothing. (and that sentence had an emphatic verb group)
An emphatic verb emphasizes the verb even more so in the sentence. And that is done by adding the word 'do', 'does', or 'did.' In this sentence: But Marissa did go to Grandma's house; the sentence stresses that Marissa went, and it wasn't about who went to Grandma's house, or where Marissa was going.
Hopefully this is an adequate explanation for the Grammar. This is more in depth than what my book said, and I was tested on it. Grrr, I hate that book. And yes, this is a shameless way of studying. Well, at least I understand it a bit better now.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

I don't understand grammar. The workbooks which I am supposed to be working through are drudgery; they are filled with busy work and confusing rules. My writing sounds fine the way it is, thank you very much! Except, I have yet to master the language. Semi-colons are a mystery and my knowledge on where to insert an apostrophe is sketchy. And those grammar text-books are not working. Perhaps, just maybe, I can get by as a writer and college student just by using spell-check and what sounds right to my ear. If someone could make grammar alive and interesting, not just a pesky test to pass through on the way to good writing, I might learn it.
My wish was partially answered yesterday when I picked up and read Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. I never knew punctuation was so much fun. For example, the author writes, "I apologize if you know all this [proper punctuation], but the point is many, many people do not. Why else would they open a large play area for children, hang up a sign which says 'Giant Kid's Playground', and then wonder why everyone stays away from it? (Answer: everyone is scared of the Giant Kid)."
Yes, it's British humor. She not only approaches grammar with humor, but with a bit of history and Shakespeare; yes, Shakespeare. Lynne Truss examines several moments of Shakespeare’s plays as examples; scenes which I know and love. I was delighted. I never knew the Bard referred to grammar and punctuation in his plays.
Learning about the history and evolution of punctuation gave me an appreciation for it. Because I learned so much more than the usual high-school grammar course, the book easily solidified the basic concepts in my head. Grammar may still be a struggle—hey, if you see mistakes in this post, my defense is I am still learning—but thanks to books like Eats, Shoots and Leaves, grammar is made worthy of learning.

Journalism Advice

Over the weekend, I traveled to Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. Bryan is one of the schools I am considering attending for my degree in Journalism and there, I got the opportunity to visit with the Journalism professor. Over the course of two days, I asked him several questions about how to become a journalist. He had several good responses.
Question 1: How to Get A Good Job In Journalism
According to John Carpenter, there are two ways to get a good journalism job, the one that pays the comfortable sum of a dollar a word and adoring fans devour every phrase ever scrambled from your keyboard and published in the New York Times, USA Today, or Times Magazine.
The first is to go to a college, such as Bryan, get your bachelor’s in Journalism, and work hard and long to reach the top. Your first job will probably be at the village weekly, the small publication where all four of you work long hours for little pay.
“We were almost starving,” recalls Professor Carpenter “but God always provided. When four kids came along, I said I had to stop. I wouldn’t see them from Sunday night to Wednesday because I was working at the newspaper.”
The second option is to go onto graduate school, get your masters in Journalism, and go straight to the cushy job. The only consolation the poorer journalists have is that people who go this route probably have huge school loans to pay off.
Question 2: Developing Your Writing
It occurred to me to ask Professor Carpenter how much daily writing I should do if I want to become a professional writer. I had heard many different answers to the question. I had heard advice such as “write 1000 words a day” to “4 hours every day.” As you can probably guess, it looked like this could be the question where everyone has their own opinion.
John Carpenter’s take on it was practice writing well. Sure, you could blast off 1000 words everyday in a journal, but the writing would lack thought and you wouldn’t have practiced good writing. He told me that posting regularly to my blog should be fine, because, with this blog, I am attempting to communicate and think.
He continued and said that this idea also carries over to reading. He told me we should read deeply, slowly and with our whole mind. This is reading so that we understand what the writer said and also how he said it.
This makes sense to me. If you are practicing good writing, eventually you will get good writing. The method of writing less but with more content is how I got my start in writing. In the beginning, I took a week to write a 500 word essay because I was focusing on what I was saying.
This method of improving my writing will take effort, especially the reading habits. Reading with your whole mind is hard work. It is a much easier task to watch TV. But it will be worth it.
What do you think? Comment below.

Student Newsletter on Culture--iAwaken

Several months ago, I was published in the newsletter of the Family Institute of Connecticut (FIC), iAwaken. iAwaken explores today's culture to the limited audience of Connecticut readers. What was notable was that it was a totally student produced publication which went out to an audience of approximately 4000. My review of the book, Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris, is on page four. I thought that you, my readers, might be interested in seeing the E-zine so here is the link.

You will notice that the publication is a bit old. This is their first issue. Their second issue is due to come out any day now. It has been a long time coming and it promises to be an excellent issue. I will post it here as soon as it is released.

Doubts and the Red Pencil

Writing is scary. Every time you have an idea, trying to put pen to paper, fingers to the keyboard, you are proving again that you can write. When I see some of the phrases, sentences and whole paragraphs, which come out of my head sometimes, it adds doubt that I can write well.

One of the things is the whole self perception of a writer. If I believe that I am the next best thing since Twain, Bellow, and Shakespeare, then I am more likely to keep the dross that forms on my page. But if I have something to prove--then I work and hone every sentence, polish each paragraph and pick the right words. Out of that page full of mangled sentences and confusing structure comes a thing of beauty. Seeing the rough draft come together is a humbling experience, fraught with writers block and doubt.

To see how much a little revision can help writing, I will show you the rough draft (or pretty darn close) of a paragraph for a recent magazine article I wrote:

"The performance of a bullet shot in the air is a widely debated topic among people. For physicists, it’s fairly simple. The bullet is fired and the force of gravity gradually slows the upward ascent of the bullet (along with the help of a bit of air resistance, but a little bit, as a bullet is supposed to be as aerodynamic as possible). At one point, it will turn and start coming down. Turning and twisting the bullet will drop towards the earth, accelerating because of the force of gravity, but at some point, the friction between the bullet and the air will create a speed where it stops accelerating and it drops to the earth at a constant speed. For a human skydiver, it’s about 150mph, but since the bullet is much more aerodynamic, it’s about 300meters per second. But there are variables in that. Such as bullet shape. How big is it? How many grains? Is it a hollow point? What is it made of?"

Ugh! painful! Here is the finished product:

"The performance of a bullet shot in the air is widely misunderstood. Here’s how a physicists would explain it. The bullet is fired and the force of gravity and air resistance gradually slows the upward ascent of the bullet until at one point, it will stop, turn and start coming down. Turning and twisting, the bullet will drop towards the earth, accelerating because of the force of gravity. But at some point, the friction between the bullet and the air will make the bullet drop at a constant speed. For a bullet, it’s about 270 feet per second. Many things though, such as bullet shape, how much the bullet weighs and what metal it’s made of, will affect the exact speed."

It's better, but I still don't know if it is totally clear. Again, those doubts.

When I think about it, I really cannot see Mark Twain, Saul Bellow or even Shakespeare churn out perfect prose in one go. They spent their time revising and editing just like the rest of us. The thing they had and we don't is recognition. Starting out, they all probably had the same doubts and frustrations as we did too. But they plugged on and wrote and wrote (and revised and revised), and eventually got somewhere. So what about passing the red pencil, eh, friend?