Sugar, spice, and everything Christ!

In today's day and age there is widespread religious freedom and diversity however, Christianity has continued to have a major effect on much of the literature and cinema people enjoy. Christianity centers around the story of Jesus Christ, the humble, giving, and healing son of God, that sacrificed himself to humanity to save humanity from itself.

Authors are aware that not everyone reading their book will be well-versed in the Old and New Testament or even Christian, so they make it their job to not really focus on the religious aspect of the story of the man, but choose to focus on the archetypal and symbolic purpose it serves. When authors incorporate Christ-like themes it is about the archetype. The traits of Christ are universal and can be applied to anyone and anything. He was 33, humble, self-sacrificing, forgiving, was resurrected, and the list goes on and on. The application of these traits and situations onto a character turns them into a Christ-like figure. A Christ-like figure doesn't need to have all of these traits exactly otherwise they would be Christ. They just need to have a connection to Christ's situations and traits.  Essentially the author is just borrowing the symbols and situations of Christ and applying them to a character to bring about a point using a commonly known story to advance the plot and deepen the meaning of what he or she is trying to say through the character and its situations.

Christian symbolism can be obvious and exacting or abstract and formative.  I think one of the greatest examples of "in your face" Christian symbolism has to be that of " The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". The book tells the story of how a group of siblings stumble into a magically conflict between good and evil through a wardrobe. The good being Aslan, and the evil being the White Witch. It is clear from the from the mention of Aslan that he represents a Christ-like figure.  He comes  after a long time of suffering and sadness to set things right, like a Messiah. He is portrayed as a lion which in its essence is Christ-like because one of Christ's titles is "The Lion of Judah". The most obvious Christ-comparison is truly the sacrifice. Aslan has to be sacrificed in order to save Edmund, black sheep of the family, who has betrayed his family for personal gain. Aslan is taken, shaved, chained,spit on, beat and finally slain however, unbeknownst to the White Witch, he is resurrected due to an important clause in the Deep Magic of Narnia. This is completely the story Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. He sacrificed himself to save a people that betrayed God.

Authors continue to pull from stories of the past because they are well established and respected. Christian themes in literature are important as all stories of the bast because they add substance to the characters and the story. They serve their purpose by ushering more archetypal borrowing and less a salvation. Well as far as literary analysis goes...........


http://biblehub.com/revelation/5-5.htm

Vampires Wear Prada...............

What is a vampire? A sinister creature that goes bump in the night, an ironically bloodcurdling image, or even an imaginary character brought forth by the imagination of Bram Stoker? Even though vampires are one of the most iconic monsters we hear about in our childhoods and on, people tend to put the vampire in a mythological box that doesn't leave Transylvania. Is it to scary of a thought to believe that vampires are real and thriving?

Vampires are real! A notion like this is hard to believe, huh? Most of the people who disagree with this do so because they are looking for a tall pale figure in a cape that has blood on his fangs, but vampires are never just vampires. This archetypal figure with the same type of situations wouldn't have had existed as long as it has and been included in so much literature from Victorian to Teen-Modern, if it was just meant to be a scary bed time story. Vampires are beings, traditionally men, who would pray upon young innocent women in hopes to steal their life force, blood. The vampire puts his needs above hers in order to progress himself, in the process weakening her and planting a seed of selfish lust to do the same. You won't see a psycho like this walking the streets at night. This figure exists in the behavior and the character flaws that rest within people. 

I guess the reason people don't want to believe that such evil exists is because they don't want to believe that it might exist within them. Not the blood sucking, sexual assaulting monster we've come to love, but the manipulative, self gratifying, and egocentric being that easily find its way into us.  A vampire can be anybody, that's the scary part. They walk around in broad daylight and carry on with same agenda as Stoker's character, to survive by feeding off of others, leaving them starving whilst planting a corrupt seed. What is truly sad is the state of tarnished innocence that the victim is left in because once it is lost it's not something that can be regained. As Henry David Thoreau said, "There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted".

A great literary and cinematic example of the idea of the vampire is that of "The Devil Wears Prada". A story where successful NYU student and paper editor, Andrea "Andy" Sachs, goes to work for major fashion magazine editor, Miranda Priestly. From the start Andy has a child-like innocence to the world of fashion but relies on her quick wit and intelligence. The crass and demanding Miranda does her best to try to break Andy by having her perform Herculean tasks that seem impossible but Andy fulfills them. Miranda is the vampire.  She sucks the life force from Andy by eating her time, and pushing her to do the impossible for her  own gain at the cost of stress on Andy's interpersonal relationships with her boyfriend and group of close night friends whilst her own relationships are crumbling due to her life choices. In the midst of being fed upon, Andy starts to change, becoming someone she truly isn't. This shift almost costs Andy what matters most, her relationships, her life source. When given the opportunity to continue in the way that Miranda has, she turns it down and regains herself before fully losing it.

As shown in "The Devil Wears Prada", vampires come in all shapes and sizes and can be hard to detect due to their sometimes charming velour. We must remember that the vampires we've heard in stories our entire lives are just reminders of the darkness that lies within people and how the transfer of the darkness or the "feeding" is subtle. All we can do is examine ourselves and don't get bitten. Vampires are real so look out.http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid153931.html

Double double, boil and bubble, is communion worth the trouble?

As a child, I grew up to love the Harry Potter movies (based on the book series by J.K. Rowling). One common image that came back in every movie was that of the great dining hall. Every year the students would return and commune together to celebrate their triumphs, languish over their defeats, and find refuge in the camaraderie of their tables. Even though the student loved to stuff their faces, they were not just communing but sharing in the experience of one another.

Using an example as Harry Potter alone shows that, communing doesn't have to be a religious event even though when most think about the word, a picture of the last supper pops up in their head. Communing isn't just eating either as those who taking a Freudian approach to it would think. When someone sits down to share a meal with somebody else, their encounter becomes communion because they are "breaking bread" with one another. This encounter is the same as fellowship.

Because Communion often is thought to have a religious or formal setting, it often hard to believe that it and fellowship are not that different. By definition Communion is the sharing of intimate thoughts and experiences with others but does that not include fellowship in the process? The religious use of the word communion makes that connection more clear because again, people often think of the fellowship of the last supper.

In my own life I have experienced that even though communing with one another is an essential social interaction, it is not always easy to share such an intimate experience. Eating with others can be a challenge when the food is not good, people are messy eaters, or most importantly, food becomes a distraction from the importance of the moment. Food is what we surround ourselves with when we commune but ultimately it is about the experience of connecting with another person on an intimate level using food as a common ground into another person emotional bubble. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Ron, Hermione, start the basis of their friendship by communing over candy from the candy cart. In the end it wasn't about the candy, it was about using something familiar and loved to connect to another person.

On the other hand, I've spoken to many people who have said eating around others is a vulnerable occasion because eating when other are around brings about anxiety and insecurities about food and people to the surface. This is a good thing because the best way to work through our problems, even if they base off of something as familiar as food is, together and with support.

Rather it be a huge buffet or cheese and crackers, Communion is something divine that can reaches everyone in all realms. It doesn't matter if a person is rich, poor, black, white,young or old. It brings about fellowship and helps to connect people on a divine level that we can't understand. This happens through simple eating. Who would have thought?

http://www.wearethepractitioners.com/library/the-practitioner/2013/10/30/sometimes-a-cigar-is-just-a-cigar