"How To Solve Stressful Situations" & "My Legacy of Learning Language"

"How To Solve Stressful Situations"

I have 28 unfinished drafts sitting in the ethereal realm of my blog. This is distressing, and does nothing to further their procrastination and remedy their unfinished state. I've thought of a few solutions to this problem, which apply to lots of other sorts of life problems...

1. Despair, quit, and cry in a fashion Mary would respect. Go on with my life as a slave, revoking my humanity and abandoning all creativity and goodness and beauty and truth.
2. Attempt to do things my own way. Grow weary and/or proud, confront dilemma of whether to repent and proceed to solution #3 -OR- fall into despair and lose hope, receding to solution #1.
3. Accept and confess my shortcomings and weaknesses to a greater strength, a greater power. Rest my soul in His arms, lean on His everlasting strength and unfaltering faithfulness, and adventure with imperialistic purpose of winning souls and making a living as a free man under a gracious king.

Without further ado, below is an assignment I turned in at the beginning of this term (Fall 2013), and seeing as the class just ended, now seems like an appropriate time to post this short autobiographical essay.

"My Legacy of Learning Language" a Personal Literacy Reflection
By Joseph Pollard
09/30/13
Psych 192V: Language & Literacy
Professor Brooke Howland

My childhood was a peculiar one, though I, like many of my peers, probably don't remember much of it without the aid of pictures or recorded bits of time. With the bits and pieces that I remember, along with the tangible memorabilia and awards, I present to you my language-learning legacy thus far.

I was raised by a Korean mother and a mixed-European father, along with the help of his parents, my paternal grandparents. Though my mother was a first-generation immigrant from South Korea, born into the Korean War era [the 1960s] and having Korean as her mother tongue, she never taught me or my brother how to speak Korean, fearing that bilingual studies would interfere with American incorporation. Thus, the only language I heard from [infancy was only from] all my immediate relatives from my father's side was the dialect of English common to Southern California. All my relatives are highly learned and well-versed in English, so I grew up only with literate models who loved me.

Much a function of this same love, my parents and paternal grandparents brought me along with them to an old-school Presbyterian church every Sunday and enrolled me in costly private Christian schools from Kindergarten to 12th grade. They [my grandparents] tell me half-jokingly that their scholastic investment in my talents is my inheritance up-front, and for this I am grateful. At church and through reading the Bible, I was immersed in thorough research and cross-referencing and exegetical studies from the earliest age, besides discovering the beauty of the Creator's poetic story-telling ability, His mercy and grace for hopeless mankind, and His provision and special love for mankind in setting us apart from all the rest of creation by inspiring language and thoughts and mores. At the Christian schools I received much personal attention in mastering the languages of the land and other sorts of academic classes. I learned phonetic approaches to English, consistently won ACSI Spelling Bees, and memorized and dynamically recited famous poems, biblical passages, speeches, and documents for prizes and school programs. I learned some different nuances of languages by comparing different mind-frames of Eastern and Western people and how they viewed God and metaphors and music, [among other things]. These schools pushed me to read many classical and non-classical books by requiring monthly book reports, varying topically, which allowed me to put language-learning skills into practice by writing about the reading comprehension gleaned from these books.

In high school and [university], I learned Spanish for five years, which is long-gone by now due to the inadequacies of learning vocabulary without practically conversational grammar. Continuing to practice "literate thinking," I joined the yearbook club during junior high and high school in order to incorporate different media together in solitary messages, be they yearbook videos or adding humorous captions to candid-camera style yearbook pictures. Because of the hypocrisy of [some] students at the Christian high school and controversial-yet-deceptively-taught materials of some of the professors of my university studies, I practiced writing critical poems and theses against these practices.

Moving onward, I just recently learned the languages of logic and Attic Greek, which taught me much about the orderly structure of the languages that rule the world in which we live. Languages are powerful, but I've grown to respect the Potentate that rules and sustains all language, institutes all languages and their inceptions and demises, and knows all the words of the world. The Bible [names] Jesus the "Word," which has a huge variety of translations from the Greek λόγος, including reason, argument, thesis, cause, consideration, plea, speech, and expectation. It is through my Christian worldview that I find the greatest joy and understanding of language, philosophy, science, psychology, and all other things. 

Don't add drunkenness to thirst.

I've been doing more introspection now that school is in session, and the title of this post comes from Deuteronomy 29, specifically from verse 19, where the KJV reads "...and it come to pass, when he [an idol-worshipper] heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself, saying 'I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart'--to add drunkenness to thirst."

My twenty-first birthday has come and gone last month, but Fall quarter final exams are now upon me, so consider this post my belated birthday rant. This post is late because, you know, all the partying and alcohol and stuff have retarded my productivity.

Let Deuteronomy 29:13 be a warning to covenant breakers specifically. The curses (and blessings!) of the closing chapters of Deuteronomy aren't to be read as specific cause-effect rewards for a man's obedience/disobedience to the law of God. Don't go running around threatening people for homosexuality or idol-worship or witchcraft. America, shockingly, isn't an ancient country abounding with Hebrew blood. These covenant sanctions were firstly aimed at God's covenant people, namely: the children of Israel, the political and geographically demarcated slab of land east of the Mediterranean, filled with the descendants of Abraham. Secondly, these blessings and curses are grafted to the Gentiles of the "new covenant," seeing as Jesus raised up from the stony hearts of men true sons of Abraham, born unto good works of the kingdom of God. Thirdly, they are useful words for the Christian everyman, seeing as there is only one God, the living and unchanging God, whose justice cannot ever grade on a curve.

This verse also reminds me of one of my new-found favorite songs-- David Ramirez's "Fire of Time." He sings as a struggling Christian man, who cries that he has "been loyal to the wants of my lustful heart and unfaithful to my friend, Love." Regardless of his infidelity, Christ the Faithful and True gives condescending grace that remedies the singer's spiritual amnesia: "when it's hard for me to recall my name, You remind me." 

You see, drunkenness is a great way to describe the effects of wanton and intentional sin. I've never drank enough to become drunk myself, but the Bible capitalizes on this metaphor. Or perhaps the metaphor exists this way because of the masterful sovereignty and humor of God? Regardless, here's a short meditation on sin --> drunkenness.

1. Sin, like drunkenness, is a sinful sort of desire.
Proverbs 21:17, 23:29-35.

2. Sin, like drunkenness, leads to violence and oblivion.
Proverbs 4:17, 31:6-7, 23:29,35

3. Sin, like drunkenness, is foolishness.
Proverbs 20:1, 23:29, Eccl. 2:3

4. Sin, like drunkenness, bankrupts the soul. (And perhaps the wallet, too!)
Proverbs 23:20-21

5. Sin, like drunkenness, taints your judgment & brings judgment upon your spirit.
Proverbs 31:4-6, Isaiah 5:20-23, Proverbs 23:32, all the prophets, 1 Cor. 6:10, etc.; the fateful "cup" of Christ, the cup of Redemption, the cup of the new covenant.

I'm going to flesh out these five categories tomorrow after watching Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone with Ariana. Or, if not then, perhaps after finals, or after Christmas, or during the Phoenix trip (depending on how bored I get with chaperoning...), or... next year? Bah.