SOL's, Our Future Leaders...

"I am not someone who was born with knowledge. I simply love antiquity, and diligently look there for knowledge." (7.20)

This quote was very inspiring. It has to do with looking for knowledge and knowing that it isn’t just given to you. So many people look upon a stereotype for example: All Asians are smart. This is false you aren’t just born with knowledge it’s the will power to work that gets you there. So many people expect it to come easily. What they don’t know is that Asians aren’t just born being geniuses; they are actually under a lot of pressure from society and their family to succeed. They have the will power to work hard, something many people don’t have.

"The Master said, 'The common people can be made to follow it, but they cannot be made to understand it.'"

This leads to the next part of my interpretation. This I have a more modern interpretation to. You see I did my elementary schooling at a public school in northern Virginia. Every year instead of doing fun creative projects to help us learn it was all about the Standards Of Learning tests (SOL’s). We were all to follow the same boring curriculum to ace the test and help the teacher keep her job. But were we really learning? No. We were memorizing key questions on the test. We knew the answer to the founder of the Supreme Court but we hadn’t a clue to what in the world the Supreme Court was. These little gaps create the common people. The can be made to follow the system but in the end they have no clue as to what in the world the Supreme Court is.

This leads me to my last and final argument to my reading today. Book eleven I enjoyed more because they were a bunch of short stories. Something that stood out to me was when he talked about ambition. He says it is bad. I say it is the human race, no matter how saintly someone is they have ambition and greed because we are born into it. We crave it. I think it is rather hypocritical for him to say that because judging from the human race no one is immune to it. 

Kung Fucius

So reading the Confucius Analects brought back my child hood memories. The story is essentially the master teaching the student. This brought me right back to the mats and sweat of my Tae Kwon Do days. Master Chung was nuts. My cousin used to say in Korea he would abuse the kids by hitting them but when he moved to the US he realized it was against the law and converted to verbal abuse. Anyways I learned so much from him. He was my master I was his student. It was all essentially about leading a good life style like in the Analects. Goodness and might for right was what he taught. Now that I think of it my whole Tae Kwon Do days I remember in one big dialogue. Every day was another thing to fix and learn, just like the analects.

I really like the teachings in the Analects. They are confusing and hard to understand but that is what is cool about it. I love it when I can finally make a valid connection with my own life and the text.

"The Master said, 'People are true to type with regard to what sort of mistakes they make. Observe closely the sort of mistakes a person makes-then you will know his character.'"
This quote was the one that stood out the most to me. It’s interesting because my brain is immediately lead you to think it is the quote learn from your mistakes but when you go deeper into the text it has a completely different meaning. The quote is saying to study people based on their actions because their actions will reflect on their previous mistakes. For example if someone has regretted a certain thing thye did, they will refrain from doing it again thus reflecting in their actions. I believe this is what the quote means. It is the same in Tae Kwon Do once Mr. Chung would tell me to correct a stance I would refrain from doing the same mistakes and sometimes commit another one instead. 

Little Bits Of Knowledge

The Psalms are interesting. I don’t exactly know what they are there for but they seem like little pieces of guidance to live by. It says, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalms 23:1. I like this quote because it is interesting “The LORD is my shepherd” does this mean we are his sheep? Is this where the term “Lamb of God” comes from?

Psalm 42 reminds me of the book “Night.” He believes God has forgotten him, “I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 42:9. I think it is important to remember that God forgets no one he simply puts their faith to the test.

The Psalms are very interesting and I think sum up what the rest of the Old Testament is trying to engrave in us. It is a somewhat summary or analysis I believe. Their passages picked out to help us live a better life.

Shall We Dance?

Reading on to the second book of Samuel we begin to note David’s morality. I really liked this book more than the other one. I’m confused though, I can’t really tell how they want us to view David, it seems they show him off sometimes in a negative way and other times they put him on a pedestal. David commits adultery (clearly against the Ten Commandments) but God seems to forgive him. Basically this story is to get us to have a point of view on our morals. I really liked it because it shows a true human being making mistakes. This wasn’t the usual man that is all full of joy and obedience and does everything right no matter what. David is a true human being who makes mistakes.

It also shows how David is also willing to forgive. He ends up finally forgiving Absalom for killing his other son Amnion. This to me would be extremely difficult to forgive. So I believe David is nor good nor bad but a human being who knows good and evil from the tree of knowledge. David also becomes king in this book, and I have to say I think he is a good ruler to his people because his expectations of them are fair. If we had a goody two shoes ruler he would expect everything to be peace and unification and everyone to be good, and lets be real that won’t ever happen.

I love how free and human they paint David out to be, “And David danced before the Lord with all his might.” 2 Samuel, 6:14. This quote reminds me of dancing in the rain, free and careless and plain full of joy.

Does Saving A City Justify Killing Goliath?

A king is on the verge of being impeached and a new one about to be discovered. This is the book of Samuel I am talking about. Samuel is in charge of finding the new king due to Saul disobeying God. The king Saul failed to use a priest in his battle and therefore was being punished with impeachment. New enemies were about to be made when Samuel came across David. David was just an ordinary harp player; little did he know he would soon be king. The Philistines called war upon Israel and unleashed their kraken, Goliath was his name. David was able to defeat Goliath and save the people. This was not good news to Saul who would soon be proclaimed ex king. This reminded of the story of King Arthur. An ordinary man could do what no other could and defeat Goliath or pull out a sword from tone.

The thing about this though, wasn’t that David killed the giant, it was how he did it that was interesting to me. He killed the giant with a tiny rock. How a little thing can have such a huge impact amazes me, “And he took his staff in his hand and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook.”1 Samuel, 17:40. How a little pebble can have such an impact on such a huge thing. It is like the Chinese saying that says water can break through stone. This of course couldn’t have been done without Gods help, so the moral is to keep faithful to God.

David defeating Goliath also brought up the question of our debate last Wednesday. Do the ends justify the means? Does saving a city justify killing Goliath? Is David really a good person if his intentions are to kill? This part of the book really got me to think. I hope the story only gets better. 

Daddy's Boys Are Put To The Test

I have finished the book of Job and I have to say I really enjoyed it. This helped me to realize that all the wealthy aren’t always unappreciative, because God puts them to the test. Job was faithful to God even when God himself took everything away from him. This book is very inspirational to see that there is always a God and he puts you through the hard times so you can appreciate even more, the good times. It also gets me thinking about the quote, “from rags to riches to rags.” These people get lucky and end up swimming in money and giving their kids everything they ever dreamed of. When you get things without working for them it is almost impossible to appreciate them to the fullest. The kids grow a sense of entitlement and think they can live on daddy’s money forever. Daddy’s money is consumed in a negative exponential decrease. The kids think they don’t need to study they will just inherit businesses. They don’t know how wrong their theory is until they realize they don’t have the neurons to run a business. So they go from riches to rags. I believe that this is Gods test. If you are faithful through riches and rags he will give you twice as much to for you to make the world a better place. For daddy’s little boys however, who don’t appreciate anything, they will go to rags economically or emotionally, both equally bad. This book is a lesson, a warning, to teach us that this test will come to us eventually. The innocent as much as the evil are tested. As long as we remain faithful to God and our beliefs and are appreciative to what we have, “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Job, 19:25. 

Job vs The Holocaust

Moving on from Exodus we get to the story of Job, an honest, trustworthy, hard working man. Job had everything and he was very faithfull to God. This book is the one where Satan is first mentioned. Satan convinces God that Job only worships him because he has all these luxuries. God lets himself be manipulated by Satan (his son?) and decides to take away everything Job has. Job keeps worshiping God and Satan gets aggravated. God gets manipulated into letting Satan torture Job. Now what is interesting about all of this is that Job an innocent man who is being tortured for no reason and still has faith in God. When this happens to him he strips naked and shaves his head, as a sacrifice to show he is still worshiping God. His friends also turn their backs to him. This to me seems like a preview to the holocaust. Millions of innocent people who got everything taken away, even their closest friends due to religious intolerance turned their backs on them. The Jews were forced to shave their heads and go naked in the freezing temperatures for hours. Now you will rarely find a Jewish person with no money. As God gave Job back twice as much as he had before once he saw that Job is truly faith full to him. The similarities and parallels are fascinating to me. I wonder if there are anymore “previews” I will make connections with.

Through all the torture Job always stayed strong and I believe this quote is to be lived by, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” Job, 13. 15.