Personal event relating to big question

I've been going through a rough time lately with everything becoming incredibly overwhelming between school, band, choir, and trying to keep close with friends I don't see often. We've been very busy doing Oldie's performances around the area and the Singers have truly saved me with their love. All the kids in there truly care about and support one another and they can always cheer me up when things get bad. They've saved me before too. Right after State Marching Band Competition I was incredibly depressed. Not only did I lose the sport, but some of the people as well. This was one of the hardest times of my life and they were always there. They constantly cheered me up when we had rehersals and kept with me through some of my darkest days. This happened again right after Parade of Lights with the same feelings of loss. We did many winter performances and I grew even closer to these incredible people. Once again they pulled me out of depression and back to my normal happy life. They're doing the same thing now although it's not as serious. They are constantly supporting me in everything I do and I get closer to them everyday. In this way their love has truly saved me and I could never have made it here without their support. Having them in my life I have learned to count my blessings everyday.

American Band

This entire book was centered around love saving people. Bands across the country save children's lives everyday by giving them a niche that most people, especially high school students, search so desperately to find. In this novel, students like Adeline Corona, an incoming freshman clarinet player, meet people like Diana de la Renza, the senior section leader for clarinets, who supports her unconditionally throughout the season. In American Band, all participants in the Concord High School Marching Band can find people who truly care about their well being and about the program in general. These people are willing to work hard for the benefit of the group, no matter what sacrifices they have to make in order to do that. This is what is so special about this kind of love. It is very complex because not only is it love for a program that saves lives, but love for your fellow band mate. That is expressed especially at the state competitions. Everyone out there competing is working their hardest for the people standing next to them. At the competition, people go beyond themselves for a team of people and for the sport. In this experience people make lifetime friends and confidants that will carry them through and support them as long as they live just as they did from the start. Truly the entire novel and the sport in general is completely centered around love not only for a program, but for the people who make the program possible. In this case, love truly does save, countless lives.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This was interesting since it was a very different kind of love that saved Stephen from the love that has been discussed in relation to some of the other books we've read. The love that saved Stephen was a love for life in the real world, one that he so longed to be a part of. Another love that saved is art. He loved art so much that "He would fall" (162). He gave up the priesthood and a life with Christ to become an artist and become a part of the real world. This love saved him from a lifetime of unhappiness. He saw the loss of light in the priest kindling the fire and found through his love of art that if he continued down the path to priesthood, he would lose his light too. Clearly, love did save Stephen although the love was different from the conventional love of a person to another person.

Current Events

I think this question is a question currently going on in the world right now, but unfortunately it's not being tested and tried nearly as much as it should be. Instead of loving unconditionally, whether it be through religion or between countries, it's not being practiced. The war in Iraq is a prime example of this non-practice of love. If love were being practiced, I truly believe that there would be less suffering and much less fighting. I wish that the world would embrace this question and test it out to see the effects it could have not only on our nation, but the world as a whole. We could be so much more peaceful and I believe, truly be saved if we would only love our fellow man.

Pop Culture

Well as for movies go, almost any chick-flick could vouch for a yes answer to my big question so I'll use one of my most recent examples. Two weeks or so ago I went to see P.S. I love you which is a movie with a couple where the husband dies of a brain tumor. Before he dies he plans out a very elaborate set of letters to his wife to be delivered over the next year, instructing her to do things that she's never had the chance to do before. She follows all his letters and in the process slowly but surely recovers from her husband's death. Sure, she still has her days that are incredibly hard, as would anyone, but with her husband's love even after death she is saved from severe depression and possibly even suicide which she considered in the days before his letters started arriving. Books are sort of the same way I guess: anything by Nicholas Sparks would qualify to answer my question so I'll explain the Notebook. If you've seen the movie you know the story for the most part, but the book is better. Allie falls in love with Noah as a young girl, but they are forced apart. Half-way through her life they find each other again, but she's engaged at the time. She finds Noah and falls in love with him all over again. Not only did he save her from her marriage which never could have possibly been as beautiful as theirs was, but he saved her from a lifetime of misery without him and she did the same for him. As for music I'm still trying to find the perfect lyrics to incorporate, but I haven't quite found the right ones yet.

Crime and Punishment

This book deepened my understanding of the question even further. We talked about Sonia and how she was the one who ultimately caused Raskolikov to confess to the murder and it was also Sonia who lived near him while he was in prison. She saved him from many things, not only from his guilty conscience, but also from the horrors of prison by being there for him and being someone he could rely on even after he had done such a horrendous thing. We also talked about Sonia being sort of a Christ-like figure in the novel which opens up a whole new definition for the word love for my big question. It made me contemplate how God's love can save a person or how unconditional love can save. It brought up the point of how although one can do something horrible, they can also repent for it and be resurrected or saved by devotion to God. It also brought up more questions, for example, does it have to be unconditional love to truly be saving or can it just be a normal sort of love? Or another question: Does it have to be to God that one is devoted in order to be saved, or can simple devotion to another human suffice? The verdict is still out on these questions, but as for my big question this book was a big help in understanding it.

Henry IV Part 1

Before I had thought about love in terms of a man and a woman, but in this case it is the father/son love that saves. I believe that because Henry IV cared about his son so much and pushed him to do the right things, Hal stepped up to the plate at the end of the play. Hal was so involved in Falstaff and the pub crawlers at the beginning of the play, but as it went on he began to see possibly through his father's love, how much responsibility he needed to have and how much he was going to have to change in order to be that person that his father could be proud of. His father encouraged him to do this and at the "talk" that they had about his behavior I believe Hal actually saw the caring and pulled away from his bad choices. An example of this urge of change is during their talk: "Not an eye/ But is aweary of thy common sight,/ Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more,/ Which now doth that I would not have it do,/ Make blind itself with foolish tendencies" (Act 3 Scene 2, ln. 90-94). After the king gives him this speech, he decides that he will fight Hotspur to the death to prove his honor and dedication to his country. This is one of the first times we see him doing something honorable and I think it was if not directly due to his father's love, it was definitely influenced by it.