Northfork - Elizabeth Roy

Northfork
Non-essay film blog
Elizabeth Roy
4/23

The movie Northfork had some very unusual use of symbols. Many of the symbols were not used in a typical way. One of the most noticeable of these was the white feather. The white feather in the movie Northfork, which is traditionally a symbol of purity, justice, or divinity, is particularly interesting in this movie because it instead appears representative of deception. The men who are helping people evacuate attempt to fool the evacuees by using white feathers that are supposedly from young angels; the men then lie and tell the evacuees that they are sent from heaven. Similarly, Irwin tries to convince the angels that he is one of them by showing them white feathers. As opposed to representing innocence and purity, it represents a lack of innocence. On the other hand, in some mythologies (such as Egyptian) the feather represents justice. In the case of Irwin, there does seem to be a kind of justice. Irwin has seen his parents die, has had to live in an orphanage, and has been rejected by his adoptive parents. Furthermore, he is now very sick and mostly alone since most other people have left. However, Irwin finally ends up with people who welcome him and care about him. Although we intuit that this means he has died, the film still presents this as a positive, well-deserved outcome.

Closing Thoughts

I really enjoyed this class. It has taught me to think for myself and to look deeper in everyday interactions. I don't think i could handle any regular one night a week class with the exception of this one. Watching a movie each week was crucial. I love movies. They are such an incredible art form that allow anybody to express anything in anyway that they want. I love them because I could film myself for a day and people will watch it and think analytically about it. I love to learn about religion too. I've tried to live a very religious life and to build upon that with knowledge is a great opportunity. My only criticism with the course is that I wish we'd covered more eastern religions. Religions that I'm hardly familiar with. We kind of did that towards the end of the course with Shamanism and Buddhism, but these were tied to western philosophical ideas and other western religions. This .class helped me to expand my knowledge by presenting the opportunity for me to do it myself through creative thought

Robert Pinkett- Outside reading

The book Invitation to Love by Thomas Keating is a book that i had to read for another class. This book focuses on the practice of centering prayer. Thomas Keating beleives that centering prayer is not taken as seriously as it should by many of todays Christians. He points out that you have to have an open mind and open heart in order to deepen the connection between yourself and God. He also made me realize that Centering prayer is based on our consent to let God work with us and that if we persevere with it we can achieve practical changes in our lives.

Tim Powitz - Outside Reading #5

Have you even seen that old Coke commercial where everybody is singing and the lyrics go as such: "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company. It's the real thing, what the world wants to be." This is my outside reading, those lyrics. The first line of this jingle is the most important, partly because the second is what advertises the product. But that first line is brilliant when you look at it a little deeper. When I think of the world, I see thousands of different cultures, but there is one common ground between us, and that is music. Music is arguably the only universal language. Music is almost above language. Music isn't limited by language and culture. Music is pure. If the whole world would just sing together, we could all get along. The only problem is that we have some countries who think they're better singers than others, some cultures that refuse to sing, and other cultures that only sing when they're by themselves (or in the shower). I think music is a beautiful and valuable gift from God that we take for granted and defile on a daily basis.

Tim Powitz - Outside Reading #4

One of my favorite Biblical passages has always been Ephesians 6:10-20. Paul uses body armor as a metaphor to what our relationship with the world should look like. In Romans 12:2, Paul tells us "do not conform any longer to the patterns if this world." it is this that we are protecting us from. He literally goes through the whole suit of armor and relates it to salvation, truth, peace, and so on. But what is great about a suit of armor is that everything is a defense tool, with the exception of the sword. Paul relates the sword to the word of God. I think it's just a great analogy about how powerful and piercing the word of God can be. For those of us who are Christians, it is not wise for us to attack or come down on anybody through our own words and actions. What kind of examples of Christ are we if we did (or when we do). But imagine if we properly used the word to tell the world and show the world the love of Christ. God's power is infinite, and words are endless, eternal, and collectively one of the most powerful tools this world has.

Robert Pinkett- Outside reading

For another Religion class I had to read the Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali. This translated book shows us how in indian philosophy the mind works. Sometimes refered to as a roadmap to the human consciousness. It explains pretty much everything in a day to day life like how we come to know what we do and why we suffer and ways to help get out of suffering. "when the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature which is unbounded consciousness." This is one of the reasons for yoga to settle the mind. I think it is funny after taking a class with Dr. Rose how westernized our version of yoga is. We focus mainly on flexability and breathing. In traditional yoga it is how they live. There are multiple stages and like i said is completly what they live by.

Tim Powitz - The Sandlot

This is the movie that I wrote my paper on. About a year ago I was watching this movie and it all just hit me, the movie represents a direct parallel to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I won't go entirely too deep, because then we' end up with 12 pages. It's as simple as this: Benny is Jesus, baseball represents a relationship with Jesus, Babe Ruth is God, the beast and everything over the fence is death, and the little leaguers are Pharisees. All Benny wants to do is play baseball (have a relationship with us), but on the hot days (rough patches in our lives) we just want to go to the pool and check out the ladies or chew tobacco (we seek pleasure and fulfillment in unfulfillable things ). The boys try so hard to get the baseball back from the yard, but it only works when Ruth tells Benny he has to go over and get it. This is just like when Jesus prays for another way to save the world, but God's will is for Jesus to die on the cross. Benny jumps the fence, into death, for Smalls, and then is resurrected when he comes back over the fence. That is the basic, tip of the iceberg synopsis of my final paper.