Week 9
1096 words by hawrts
Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain tickets to the Angola Rodeo because they’d sold out some time in April. However, as the kids and church members are responding positively to this anti-violence project, I plan to continue it next year. Hopefully I’ll be able to get tickets to next year’s rodeo (which means buying the tickets in January!). Everyone was really disappointed that we couldn’t go.
I was going to drop the idea entirely but then I managed to find some pictures online and collected them and gathered information on the prison and presented a slide show. I used some pictures of Angola and some pictures of the museum at Angola and some pictures of the rodeo and everything and talked about what it means if you’re sent to live there. We discussed what someone has to do to be sent there (serial rapists to murderers, etc.) and what can lead someone to commit such crimes. For the most part I stuck to discussing murder and killing others and why that’s bad because some of the younger children were in the class and for the most part all they know about sex is that it happens when someone gets married… Didn’t want to have to explain that one! The kids asked a lot of questions about the picture of the electric chair and of the different chains and such. Some of the older kids had seen movies that showed the electric chair in use and they felt the need to describe it in as scary detail as possible to worry the younger kids. Needless to say, everyone got the point. So maybe what I’m doing is using scare tactics for these kids, but I guess it’s working. The parents have been telling me that the kids ask a lot more questions at home and want to know the consequences for something before they do it, as in “what will happen if I hit my little sister?” They’re learning to think a little farther in advance.
My mother works with someone who’s husband works for the federal government in the Assistant District Attorney’s office, and I’m looking forward to interviewing him soon. I don’t know exactly how much effect I’ll have with this project, but I’m doing the best I can with it. I really hope I’ll be able to teach kids that guns are not the answer no matter how angry you are with someone else or with yourself. But how can I teach them that when their cousins and uncles and brothers and sisters are away at war? I’m doing what I can to differentiate between using guns for protection against others or using them to defend your country and using them for revenge or out of anger with another person. I tell the people in my classes that the choice to end someone else’s life is meant to be for God and for those in authority, and those in authority should be governed by God.
The Deuternomistic Historian claims that a good king is one that does exactly what God wants. He doesn’t change what God wants to suit others or to gain popularity. He doesn’t let his power get to his head. A good king also has to be a good leader for his people and must be a good example for them to live by. He can’t be breaking God’s laws or doing things for his own gain in life.
I think the Deuternomistic Historian would more readily accept President Bush over President Clinton. EVEN THOUGH we discussed in class that adultery in the Bible was if a married woman slept with another man and not if a married man slept with another woman. President Bush is doing what he can to fix things. I don’t want to delve too far into politics, but I believe that Americans are insane for being angry with Bush for going to war. America wanted to go to war with the terrorists after 9/11 and if we hadn’t, America would have been angry. If we’d known about Hitler and the Holocaust, would we have intervened? I’d like to believ ethat we would have. The same goes for Osama bin Laden and the way he was treating the people of Iraq. People were dancing in the streets because they were so happy to have been delivered from the oppression that stemmed from his power. Then again, I also think we should leave and let the people figure out what they want to do now that they’re relatively free, but that’s something else. So basically what I’m saying with all of that is that I believe that George W. Bush makes his mistakes at times like every one else, including kings in the Bible, but that he qualifies for “good kingmanship” more than some of the other presidents we’ve had.
I think the worst thing King David did was to kill the husband of the woman he was sleeping with. I mean, he didn’t outright kill the guy, but he set him up to be murdered by sending him into battle and having the troops pull back without warning him so he ran, alone, into the middle of the troops. David lusted after another man’s woman, had sex with her, and then tried to fix it by getting rid of her husband. I think the worst of those things is killing the woman’s husband, because in doing so he was not only commiting murder, but he was trying to hide his other sins as well.
The Temple of Jerusalem was first built by King Solomon until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. It had been the center of the city and was located on the Temple Mount. After it was destroyed by the Baylonians, it was rebuilt and later destroyed by the Romans. Some of the remains are still standing in Jerusalem.
My dad and younger brother are planning a trip to visit Jerusalem (and Israel in general) in December and I’m really looking forward to seeing pictures of the different religious sites.