Walt Whitman

Today in American Literature class (just as a forewarning, it is highly likely that a lot of my future posts will start with this phrase. This class really gets me thinking. :)

So, today in my American Literature class, our professor read to us sections of Walt Whitman's poem called "Song of Myself." He introduced it by pointing out that Whitman was the "Poet of America," and that he embodied ideal American radicalism.

Okay, that's cool.

So usually when I read poems by myself as a homework assignment, I try to read into it and make sense of it in my head (it usually ends up just going over my head completely). However, when I'm in class and the teacher starts talking about it, it seems the poem has the most obvious meaning on earth.

So that's what happened here. The professor started reading it and adding explanations along the way that made me feel like I was the worst English major ever. It was alright for a while. Whitman was talking about cool stuff like abolition of slavery and the equality of man. I was like "Yeah, man. You're pretty cool."

Then it got kinda weird.

Apparently Walt Whitman's idea of radicalism meant tearing down the veil of human sexuality (including homosexuality). Alright then.

We went on further in the seemingly endless poem. I wasn't really bothered until we got to these lines: "Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from...This head [is finer] than churches, bibles, and all the creeds."

Now THAT made me squirm in my seat. The first time I read it I thought, "Wow. He's equating himself with God." It's not really unusual in poetry to do that so it wasn't really shocking, but I read it a few more times....Whitman's not only equating himself with God, he's suggesting that he is better than God.

Um....what?

Just wait, it gets better.

Near the end of the poem, Whitman says,

"I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,

And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is...

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,

 (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?"

I had to blink a few times to make sure I saw that right. It made me a bit angry. It didn't really help that my professor often interjected with comments like "Isn't that just a beautiful thought?" throughout the entire poem.

The more I thought about it though, I became very sad. What a desperately lost soul he was!! This is something that I've been thinking a lot about in this class....Americans have so abused the freedom we have in this country. The freedom to praise God without persecution is an amazing blessing, but people have fallen deeply into self-focused, individualistic lifestyles in the freedom they possess here. Our culture cultivates and encourages it though. Whitman was a perfect model of how extreme one can become in abuse of freedom. He not only embodies radicalism...he embodies a fallen sinner whose self-focused mindset has led him to believe that man does not need God because man has himself.
How sad it is to read the thoughts of a soul so lost which has never tasted the joy that comes from knowing God!!

But then I thought about how I could have just as easily been another Walt Whitman. If God had allowed my sin to just keep on going, I could have been just as bad, if not worse. But God has saved me from enslavement to sin, freeing me from the freedom in America which cultivates and promotes self-importance and self-focus. We as believers are no longer lost souls! Oh praise Him!

Hallelujah, we are found!!!

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

That's something a lot of us have heard, and it's a good thought to ponder. It encourages us to be confident and to do great things which may seem difficult because of our fear of failure.

But here is my question for you: What would you do if you knew Jesus could not fail?


Revelation 12:7-12

And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,
“Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.”

One day this is going to happen. Satan WILL be defeated once and for all, and he will no longer be able to tempt us or attack us. Christ WILL overcome him, and already has overcome sin and death on the cross.
Perhaps the most encouraging part is that because of Christ and what He did, WE WILL OVERCOME. No matter how defeated you may feel at any time in this life, know that we will overcome in the end. And we will overcome because of the hope we have in Christ and because of our witness to others of our testimony of salvation. Christ is the One who has done the work and given us this power through Him to defeat the sin in our lives, no matter how many times we fail.
What would we do then, since we know this to be true? Pray!! Ask God for strength to put your sin to death!! Spread the gospel WITHOUT FEAR!!

What a life we could live if we truly believed we could not fail in Christ...

Lord, forgive my unbelief and help me to live like this.

I started school today...

"Just so we're clear, if I am knocked unconscious you all are free to go."

~my American Lit. teacher

The Hunger Games post

Ladies and gentlemen, let it be known that I, Katie Saba, have *finally* finished the last book in the Hunger Games series.

-Thusly noted on this day, the eleventh of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twelve-

It only took me like, a year and a half to complete the whole series from start to finish. It wasn't that I didn't like them. Just....I let other stuff get in the way. But I am officially DONE, son.

I've been hinting at a Hunger Games post for a while now, ever since the movie came out in March, but I wanted to wait until after I finished the last book in order to give a thorough evaluation of the series as a whole, and not just the first book which the movie was based on.
Okay, so I finished Mockingjay (the third and final book of the series) at about 1 AM last night. I stayed up thinking about it for at least an hour, mulling over all of my intense feelings that had just arisen after reading the last lines on page 398. I expected to turn another page, but instead I was greeted with two big, ugly bold words: THE END.

Let me get one thing straight with you here...I thoroughly enjoyed the first book. I thoroughly enjoyed the second book, up until the last page. I did NOT thoroughly enjoy the last book. Actually, I didn't like the last book. At all. But I had to see how it all ended, so I kept reading until the end in the hope that something awesome would happen to the characters that would resolve all of the unhappiness and despair that is found on pretty much every single page of Mockingjay.

Then all hopes were dashed. DASHED I TELL YOU.

There was one tiny little glimmer of something that might have been happy in the end, but that was it. There was a very uneven balance of despair and happiness in the whole story itself, actually. Very disturbing. And unsatisfying.

Maybe what really annoyed me was the whole love triangle resolution. For those who aren't familiar with the story, there is a love triangle between Katniss (the main character) and two guys, Gale and Peeta. I had been rooting for one guy since book one. The other guy started to grow on me in book 2, and I ended up liking him in book 3.
Without giving too much away, Katniss ended up with the guy that I had been rooting for, which is great...right?
The thing is, I just don't like Katniss. I really don't. I decided somewhere in the middle of Mockingjay that the guy I wanted Katniss to end up with was actually too good for her. And when he did actually end up with her, I didn't feel great. I felt terrible. And then the book ended.
It's hard to like a story in which the main character/hero of the story is not likable and/or doesn't learn anything by the end of the story. It just doesn't work. And I guess that was my problem. Katniss didn't learn anything. At least, not to the point where she was made into a more likable character. You get a small tiny hint of something in the last two lines of Mockingjay that indicate a slight change in Katniss' thinking, but nothing more.

It's just annoying.

And since I'm on a roll, another thing that annoyed me was how fast everything happened in the end. It was like Suzanne Collins decided she'd had enough and just wanted to end it quickly. There was no closure with any characters (besides Katniss and the guys she ends up with) and there was no explanation about what happens to anyone or anything after the big battle at the end, not even a mention. Did anyone stop to think that maybe we liked other characters besides Katniss and wanted to see their endings too? Apparently not. Grr.

It's just annoying. But I already said that.

So, if you want my recommendation, I would say read the first book. Then stop. It only gets worse from there. Oh yeah, and watch the movie.
And since we're on the topic, I thought the movie portrayed the first book really well!! With what they could do with the story, I thought they did an excellent job. The whole story is written from Katniss' perspective, so the moviemakers only had Katniss' views on everything to work with. But they did awesome. It was great. Go see it if you haven't yet. But remember, THE BOOK IS BETTER. The book is always better.

That is all.


P.S. If you really want to read a great series which follows a character who you will actually like, read Harry Potter. But I think I'll be saving that for another post at another time... :)

an interesting thought...

P.S. ^one more reason to praise God, right?

This Week's Playlist

Lately, I've been listening to the radio...which is weird because normally I just plug my ipod in and listen to that in the car. But anyways, I apparently need to listen to the radio more often because I keep getting behind on all the new music that comes out...so I end up going to people saying, "Oh my gosh, this song is so awesome!" and then they look at me and say "Yeah Katie, that song has been out for like two months...."
So I'm here today to tell you about some awesome songs that came out very RECENTLY.....I think.

Let's start with an awesome verse: 2 Corinthians 4:16
"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day."

which leads nicely into this song....

"Beautiful Things" by Gungor. I heard it once a few days ago and I had to go look it up immediately. It's been on repeat in my house all day today, and I just bought it on itunes. :D (Also fitting because I JUST finished going through 1 and 2 Corinthians in my Bible readings....God always has such perfect timing.)

Second song....

"When the Stars Burn Down" by Phillips, Craig, and Dean. First of all, what an awesome title for a song, right? It just sounds cool...

Secondly, I love how WORSHIPFUL this song is!! Just sit down and close your eyes and LISTEN to this song...then listen to it again and sing along! :)

And next....

"The Proof of Your Love" by King & Country. I just heard this song for the first time the other day, but I LIKE it. The music is beautiful, and I really like these guys' voices. I've never heard of the band before, but I'm pretty sure they're new. Anyways, this song really encourages me because I've been praying and asking God to help me be a reflection of Christ. More of Christ, less of me. It's something I really need to work on. I guess this song also came at a perfect time. :)

One last song...

This one's just for fun. I know it's kind of a change from all the other songs up there...spiritual, spiritual, spiritual, NOT SPIRITUAL. But I confess this song grew on me...and I ended up buying it. If you haven't heard of One Direction yet, they're basically like if the lost boys from Peter Pan got together and decided to make a band. This particular song is their most popular one called "What Makes You Beautiful." I know the lyrics aren't exactly the DEEPEST ones around....but I think this one will be a fun one to play in the car with the windows down this summer. ;)

What's on your summer playlist? Please share any awesome songs you've discovered. I would love to hear them!

P.S. We're almost at 300 reasons so far!!! If we keep this pace up every week, we'll be at 10,000 by....*opening calculator on laptop...10,000/300=33.33333333...*
Okay, so 33 weeks. Maaaybe we should step it up a little to get this done a little earlier. The reasons are out there!! We just need to think of them. Invite your friends to the facebook group I made! Get them listing reasons! If you're not on facebook, shoot me an email with your list! Or comment below. Whatever works. :)

10,000 Reasons

I've had a new favorite song ever since the Passion conference. It's called 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman. I strongly encourage you to look it up because it's awesome. And I don't use that word flippantly here. When I say awesome, I mean AWE. SOME. So worshipful and beautiful...it's the perfect song to listen to when you first wake up in the morning. :)
Anyways, this song has inspired me. Not only has it inspired new, glorious thoughts about God that I can meditate on, but it's given me an idea and I've decided that I want to try out. The line in the song which the title comes from goes like this: "For all Your goodness, I will keep on singing. Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find."

So that's what we're gonna do.

I'm not sure exactly how long it will take, but I want to list 10,000 reasons to praise God. Now you're probably thinking, "Now Katie, 10,000 is just a really big number that they use to stress the point....we can't possibly come up with that many." And to that I'm saying No, we are actually going to come up with 10,000 reasons and list them one by one because our God is so great and so unsearchable and so much more amazing than our tiny human brains can comprehend, that there is probably an infinite number of praiseworthy aspects of our God that we don't even know about yet. But for now, let's list the ones He has chosen to reveal to us. Only 10,000. Pretty small compared to infinity if you ask me. (And if you think about it, the Bible is FULL of reasons!! I mean, just look at the book of Psalms!!)

Your thought process is now probably going like this: "Katie, that's great and very true. But come on, be real. Coming up with 10,000 reasons is going to take FOREVER. It's just too huge a number."

And that's why I'm going to need your help. :) This Summer, I need you to think EVERY DAY. Come up with at least 5 new reasons to praise God. You may end up with 5. You may come up with over 100 in one day. But WRITE THEM DOWN. Don't forget them!!!! We need to keep track so we can reach our goal in a reasonable amount of time. :P So go get yourself a clean notebook and start listing!!

Let's try to keep each other accountable and keep this going through the summer. Spread the word. Recruit more friends to start listing their reasons too! We can use all the help we can get!

I'll be compiling all of the reasons, so you can update me on your list as often as you like. Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, even daily. Just don't forget about it!! You can contact me via email (ktsaba10@gmail.com) or through the ol' FB (if we're friends, of course).
One last thing: These don't have to be long reasons.One sentence or even just a phrase will be perfect. :)

If you're willing to help out, let me know! The more the merrier, always.

P.S. The actual song contains quite a few reasons, if you would like to start there...