My Recommendation of Professor Arrington

For my first semester at Georgia Gwinnett College I had the awesome experience of having Professor Arrington for English 101. As a lover of all things to do with English, this class helped me a great deal home my skills in scholarly writing. The class mainly focused on essay writing with special attention paid to developing logical explanations for claims. 

I would love to recommend Professor Arrington’s course to every college freshman under the sun, but I can think of many people who definitely SHOULDN’T take her class. These people fall under labels such as lazy, stupid, idle, pathetic, and sloth-like.

But in all seriousness, passing Professor Arrington’s class isn’t that hard. Assuming you pay attention, take good notes (she practically tells you what to write down) and make some attempt to participate in the in-class discussions, Professor Arrington will help you out. Not only is she super laid-back, she meets with students after class in the library to help them with anything they’re struggling with.

If you take your essays and ideas to her during these “office hours” then your grade will thank you. You’ll understand the objectives of the course a whole lot better, and Professor Arrington will make note of the extra effort you’re putting in. Besides, Proff. A is just one of those really interesting people you’ll want to get to know outside of class.

Now, to get an A in her class will take a great deal of sincere passion about the subject matter. Whatever you choose to do a project on, make sure you have intellectual curiosity in it. Don’t just do something simply for the sake of doing it. Whatever you do in this class, put lots of thought into it.

In closing, I loved Professor Arrington’s class, but that doesn’t mean everyone will. If you’re looking for an easy course to get an A in, Professor Arrington is not for you. But if you think you can handle everything I’ve mentioned, then by all means get her as your teacher.  

           

           

           

           

           

            

An Account of My Meditation Experience

I finally did it!

On the Sunday of October 30, I went into my woods and meditated from 12:50 to 1:50. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. Below is a brief account of how it went.

Wanting as few distractions as possible, I wore little else except my gray back robe. I sat down on the side of a hill and spread my legs and arms out. I bowed my head and closed my eyes.

This is where things take a turn for the strange and dramatic. There is no other way for me to describe what happened next than by saying that a dialogue was set up between God and I. God and I spoke of many things together, many of them too personal and just too strange to type here. But there is one big thing that I will speak of.

While I was meditating I was aware of everything that happened around me. Every acorn that fell, every squirrel that ran past me, and every rustle of leaves I was totally aware of. I was also aware of every single movement that I did. Nobody can truly stop moving, even while meditating. Every flutter of my eye lashes, every twitch of my hand, and every slight rocking of my back I was totally aware of.

Through God’s guidance I learned that the purpose of meditation is to get into the spiritual mindset that we need to have every day. If everyone in the world had a spiritual mindset all the time every day, there would be no sin.

In conclusion, I loved my experience. Without a doubt it brought me into a closer relationship with God. It more than qualified as a successful Faith-Based Spiritual Adventure, and I will make it a habit to meditate in the future. 

Preparations for Meditating

I have chosen this coming Wednesday (October 19) as the day when I will go down into my woods and meditate for an hour. I have chosen this day for a few different reasons.

*I couldn’t have done it before now. Now I have finally figured out what kind of adventure this is: A Faith-Based Spiritual Adventure. With this term fully defined, I fully understand how I should approach meditating.

*Choosing to meditate in the middle of the week creates a certain challenge that choosing to meditate on a weekend doesn’t have. One purpose of meditating is to “let go” of earthly stress. Therefore, it seems appropriate to meditate on a weekday of “earthly activity.”

*I do not want to put my meditation off any further. I am not a fan of procrastination.

I do not have to buy anything or drive anywhere for my adventure, which makes me very happy. However, there are two preparations that I have made for Wednesday.

*I have decided what kind of technique I will preform. Since my meditation will be faith-based, I will focus all my thoughts on the God I seek to connect with. I will sit with my legs and arms outstretched with the palms of my hand upward. My head will be bowed in reverence.

*I have found the perfect spot for meditating. It’s a ways into the woods under a large number of trees and beside a beautiful creek. Perfect.

I will be giving an oral presentation on my meditation period to my English class. In that presentation I will show two things.

*Photos taken of my mediation spot. I will take several photos of my meditation spot.

*An in-depth journal entry. Immediately after meditating I will write a journal entry that will focus on the things that occurred to me mentally and spiritually during the course of the meditating period.

In addition to all of this, I will also answer the question “Did my meditation period help me connect with God better?” If the answer is yes, then meditating will have succeeded as a faith-based spiritual adventure. If the answer is no, then it will have failed.

I look forward to my Faith-Based Spiritual Adventure this Wednesday. I will be sure to make another post to let you know how it went.

An Adventure of the Spiritual Breed

An Adventure of the Spiritual Breed

         Here's the 411: In my last blog entry I defined adventure as "any process of physical actions that lead to a new level of worldly understanding." But now I see that my definition was incorrect. There are many adventures that lead people to new levels of spiritual understanding. And those are types of adventures that I will cover today.

Before I can tread any further I must first define "spirituality." Wikipedia defines it as an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”

Seeing how pretentious Wikipedia can be (which defeats the purpose of spirituality in the first place), I will provide my own definition. My definition will be influenced by the Christian principles as well as my own love for nature.

Spirituality (as defined by Cole): Being aware and thankful of the presence of God's omnipresent Holy Spirit in His Universe, and having the desire and skill to commune with Him.

I believe that I myself am a spiritual person. I also believe that there are degrees of spirituality. I am not at the degree I wish to be. If the adventures that I previously wrote about lead people to new levels of worldly understanding, then spiritual adventures must lead people to new levels of spiritual understanding. I want to go on a spiritual adventure so that my own connecting with God might be strengthened. Before I can tread any further I must more clearly define "spiritual adventure."

In order for an adventure to be of the spiritual breed it must fulfill these five requirements.

1.) You cannot be forced into it; you must choose to go on the adventure by your own free will.

2.) You must have to humble yourself somehow to complete the adventure.

3.) You cannot go on the adventure seeking the admiration of others.

4.) You must go into it listening for the spiritual voice of God.

5.) You have to be willing to hear answers you don't like.

There is also a sixth requirement that is set apart from all others.

6.) Parts of the spiritual adventure must be impossible to document. This can be for a number of reasons. One of them might be that there is no way to verbally explain what goes on in someone's soul that brings them closer to God. Another reason might be that part of the spiritual adventure dealt with the supernatural, and the adventure doesn't want to appear crazy to everybody else by talking about it. 

So by now you might be asking me, Cole, when are you going to go on your spiritual adventure? And what will you be doing?

My answer: I've already begun. When I decided that I wanted to go on a spiritual adventure I was given the opportunity to do things that I previously didn't have the opportunity to do. I can't talk about them for a number of reasons, hence the sixth requirement.  But the crux of my adventure needs to be some physical set of actions that I can talk about. I've given a lot of thought as to what I should do. At first I thought about fasting, but do to the physically demanding stage in my life I'm at now, that proved to be impractical. Then I thought about taking a vow of silence. But that also proved to be impractical. I planning on doing both one day, but I know what I'm going to do now.

I live near some woods. For the crux of my spiritual adventure I will go down into the depth of those woods and meditate for about an hour. During my meditation period I will not eat, drink, talk, move, or even think too much. I will sit on the dirt with my palms up and my mind open. Bugs might crawl on me. The sun might beat on my head. I might get bored. But I will commit to it and not move until my time is done. Meditation is a documented spiritual activity that has been done by all sorts of monks and aesthetics. And now I'll give it a go.

I will now make it clear how meditation falls into my definition of "spiritual adventure." I'll go through the five requirements once again.

1.) I want to go on this adventure. Nobody is telling me I have to do it.

2.) I have to sit still and silent for about an hour in the woods. That requires a certain "lowing of one's self", if you will.

3.) I don't give a crap what you think! I'm doing this for me!

4.) The whole point of being silent is to listen for His spirit.

5.) I am prepared to hear things I don't want to hear. I can't imagine what they'd be, but I'm prepared to hear them.

I will go out in the woods to meditate on a day not too far from now. Until then I will read up on it to prepare myself. I would also like to point out that my spiritual adventure will not end with my meditation session. As someone very close to me said, meditation is "a good place to start."

What Is An Adventure?

So I've been thinking long and hard about what the word adventure means to me. It is one of those words that means something slightly different to each person. As I pondered over what it means to me I tried to avoid cliched definitions such as an unusual experience or a meaningful journey. And finally, after many long hours of thinking hard, and harder, and harder, and then slightly less hard I finally devised a definition that works for me.

An adventure is any process of physical actions that lead to a new level of worldly understanding.

Fancy words they are. But what do they actually mean? I shall elaborate.

Remember when you were nine years old and your parents took you to Disney World. You rode the rides, got your picture taken with Mickey Mouse, and had an awesome time. It was an unusual experience because you had never been there before. It might have even been a meaningful journey. But if you didn't gain new insight about the world you live in it was not an adventure, despite how much you thought it was.

Now remember when you went back a few years later, and because you were older you picked up on things you didn't pick up on when you were younger. You saw the trash on the ground, saw that Mickey Mouse was just some creepy sweaty guy in a costume, and saw how overpriced everything was. You realized that Disney World, like many things in this world, is an overrated facility designed to part people from their hard-earned cash. Congratulations Young Grasshopper, you've just had an adventure.

An experience does not  have to lead to cynicism to be considered an adventure. If an experience provokes one to seek knowledge, then that experience has led to a new level of worldly understanding, therefore it is an adventure.

For instance, when I was in the fifth grade my parents took me to see the play Cyrano de Bergerac. Having never seen a play before, I was both entertained and intrigued. Having become intellectually curious about the art of theatre, I checked out books about Shakespeare from the library, wrote a few short skits of my own, and got involved with a local community theatre. Thus, seeing Cyrano de Bergerac was an adventure for me. However, for everyone who saw it and then went home with an unaltered mind only had an usual experience (unless of course they attended plays regularly). What is an adventure to one person might not be an adventure to another.

I'm having an adventure writing this blog entry. I've never had a blog before, so I really don't know what to expect. This is an experience that is leading me to new level of worldly understanding in terms of writing for an online audience.

So in the comments section I would love for everyone to share their views on adventure. Do you agree? Disagree? Care to share an adventure of your own? I look forward to reading everyone's comments.