Kathleen's Blog

Dear hearts!
In a moment of desperation, I am posting up these last few blogs as snippets of some of my final and most important memories at and of Converse! Because I am trying to keep up with wily Time, it seems that my blogs have always been few and far between. I lost my camera, I lost my syllabi, and I nearly lost my brain. I could have sworn I saw a dog walking it on a leash the other day, but I can’t be sure….

But, in this very last week of work, it seems as if things are beginning to proverbially, “look up!” After Easter madness(as one dear Catholic friend jokingly wrote,” one long mass after another), I have finally managed to find my camera and the photos I have been wanting to post for the past six weeks, I wrote two unnecessarily long papers in a fit of coffee induced zing, and I am here writing now in a desperate attempt to bring a few of my wacky memories to bear before I’m deemed too ancient to blog!

So, as a little gift to you, I’d like to share some of the photographs and memories I haven’t gotten to share. These may be silly, completely unimportant, and insignificant. But I hope they will inspire you to grab your cameras and shoot what means most to you, particularly at Covnerse, as well as give you the idea that in life, it is important to absorb every memory you can. I also hope that these pictures will remind you to enjoy the fact that for each and everyone of us, especially the young ladies at Converse, life is a beautiful journey. This is a journey which has, like many snapshots, its blurs, its vibrancies, and occasionally its strangers smiling in the background, but it is something distinct and worth sharing!

Therefore, I say that as you traverse the strange and winding roads of life, go the roads not commonly traveled, stumble proudly and arise as a stronger person, and never forget to take your memories for what they are-snapshots of who you are, where you are going, and what you will become if you follow your goals with, as Robert E. Lee would say, “a singless of purpose!”

God bless to each and every one of you and may you always have the serenity to accept what you cannot change, the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference between courage and acceptance.
With this, I will leave with my pictures and one of my favorite farewell orders, as I have never been eloquent with farewells!

“May a merciful God extend to you his blessings and protection with an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion….and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of myself….I bid you an affectionate farewell…..”

~R.E. Lee, General

-Adieu

It is very odd, dear hearts, but as I finished writing this blog, I wanted a title that could somehow cleverly match to the topic at hand, and for some reason, Henry James arose in my mind. I will not summarize the novel, but I will begin with this question: when we think of the simple phrase, the portrait of a lady, what comes to mind?

AS I begin to wind down the school year with all of the dear Converse women who I lovingly have deemed my “dear hearts,” I would like to, for a moment, write about you. I’ve realized that in the midst of my blogs, I have failed to discuss the most important aspect of Converse-its women, all of whom seem to illustrate the very portraits of ladies!

(Forgive me male graduate students-I will someday write a blog about how I admire you, like the Spartan three hundred, standing up, the ten of you, against over 700 women-well done!)

As our beloved Founder Dexter Converse once said, “ the well-being of any country depends much upon the culture of her women.” Though we have all heard this quote over and over…and over again, there is something eloquent and significant ot be said for it. Yet, I would argue that it is particularly significant when it applies ot the young ladies here! Never have I met more caring, more beautiful, and ambitious young women than in this place. I have been blessed with fine roommates, tea companions, coffee connoisseurs, strong friends, adopted sisters, and, perhaps most importantly of all ,the faith that no matter where I go and no matter who I meet, I know that there are the sparks of vitality, ambition, devotion, kindness, and faith that keep our culture alive here. And, so without further words, I’d like ot dedicate this blog to the ifne young women on this campus. I am proud to work with you, to debate with you, to exchange a knid word with you, to study with you, and to call you my friends and family. I am humbled to know you all, and I hope that in the future, no matter where you are or who you meet, that you will always carry with you the “satisfaction that proceeds from a consciousness of duty, faithfully performed” to uphold the ideals both of our Founder and of the culture which he asked for women to uphold. Please continue to be humble, caring, merciful, and proud to be the fine women you are. Take satisfaction in your successes, gain wisdom from your failures, and remember that when you leave this campus, you not only represent the best of what the feminine graces have to offer, but that you will set the next example for future women on how to behave, how to achieve success, and how ot maintain humility and sense of purpose in all you do. Thank you for showing this to me, and God bless you all, from alumnae(my dear cousins included!), students, and prospective students!

With this, I leave with a few photographs of only a few of these young ladies, all of whom have strengthened my faith in our culture, a culture which is indeed upheld by the best of women!

Note: I urge you all to post your memories with one another! I didn’t have enough pictures of all of you, but I hold you all so dear!

Dear Hearts!
My blogs are slowly flying by, and I have promised to deliver as many as I can before my homework and exams overtake me! Therefore, with a tiny bit of time on my hands, I’d like to make one friendly suggestion to you all…..

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROSES!

I don’t mean to be rude, but sometimes the imperative is necessary in order to grab one’s attention.

What I really mean is that, in our last few weeks at Converse, I want you all to always remember that it is always good to take a moment in the rush to see the beautiful lovely objects and sights which our school, and life generally, can provide.

It is odd, but this past week, I has what you might call a midsophomorelife crisis! Yes, my friends, at age nineteen, it is possible to have thinning hair, achy joints, and late night crashes.

To my dear prospective who read this-Please remember, there is a happy ending here! Consider this crisis a sort of rite of passage! But, more importantly, always remember that in the midst of your academic madness, it is always important ot take a break, breathe calmly, and to find at least one positive point in each day. Whether this is in a ten minute power nap, a phone call to a loved one, a conversation with a dear friend over a nice cup of tea or coffee, or even walking up to smell the stunning Converse roses, this is a moment which will help your physically, mentally, and spiritually, and at Converse. In the friends, the beautiful green quad, the sweet spring breezes, and the roses, you can find this sense of peace. And, if you can’t, I hope that this blog and some of these photographs will help guide you there!

God bless and always look for life’s positives!

~K

My dear hearts,
It seems in the past couple of weeks, the work schedule has become analogous to one of my favorite films-Alice in Wonderland. While I must say I likely prefer the old Disney film, the new film has lately seen me making numerous comparisons with my life and the events around me to the strange world of the smoky intellectual Absalom, the vicious Queen of Hearts, and perhaps my rodentine parallel, the ever time-pressed rabbit!
How often these past few weeks have I felt this way! It somehow seems as if my life, similar to the lives of many of my fellow students, has become a parallel for strange films and their equally strange characters!
After spring break, for example, I found myself in a rather smoky loopy state. AS you envision me smoking my hookah, I will merely say that in my reverie of coming home, I seemed to lose track of the time so precious to me. Perhaps this is the prime difference between Absalom and our Dear Rabbit! It seems as if we spend so much time in our reveries that we lose track of the time, only to find when the hourglass is half empty that we have ever so much to do!
Or perhaps it’s not the time constraint so much as the threat of facing defenestration, or worse, decapitation, from the Queens of Hearts, strange beings who may or may enjoy assigning papers over breaks.


Quite frankly, I’d rather face decapitation for stealing the tarts than for failing a paper. Sometimes there seems to be more joy in the idea of dying with a full stomach of the Queen’s best tarts than dying with an F to your name…
But alas, I ramble! What I really wish to say is this-while I have reached all of the stages in My Alice Story-the maddening tea parties, the reverie of a short rest in the shadows, and the threat of deadlines, failures, and even successes, I realize that to be in the Alice story is to enjoy life at its fullest-to enjoy the very chaos of change, the memory of times well spent, if only in the maddening moment, and the enjoyment that even in the midst of the rush, there is always a little time well spent, be it with friends, family, or perhaps most importantly, yourself in the fine realization that you are moving, always forward, and that even with the twists and turns, your life will be enriched in some new way every day! With this, my dear friends, I go to my short reverie of sleep. I must waken at 7:00 tomorrow(so decadent!), but when I do, I’ll think of you and pray, that when you look at your watches, you won’t think about the time you’ve lost, but about the fact that, aside from the Mad Hatter’s watch, time is always ticking, ticking forward, and you will follow right behind!
God bless dear hearts, and don’t be late for your very important date with the fast and beautiful pace of life!

Hello again!

AS a sort of companion to my new blog, i have decided to change one thing as a part of proverbial “regreening.” I have been told over these past few months that I have somehow been placed in the wrong decade. My phone, according to many, is a sort of relic to what a cellphone was “like five years ago,” and my music is hopelessly old  and outdated,and not in a classical way. This probably isn’t helped by the fact that one of the artists I would marry is now in his sixties…..

So, as a sort of measure to keep up with society, I’ve been told to modernize-rather than the Virginia reel, the “Wobble?”, instead of the T-mobile phone with one keypad for numbers and letters, the new Iphone with touch texting, internet, and heaven knows what apps! I’ve also been told to keep up with the Modernists-I’m told that two page long sentences of Henry James are to be replaced with the two line poems of Mr. Ezra Pound.

Therefore, in the next 300 words, I need to make my point, entertain you, and somehow pretend to be profound

And so ,I’ve only one option-get ready for some bad poetry.

A Modernist in the Making:

Do you see this I-phone

on Ebay

3G obsolete

they say

to which I reply

I like

3D

Don’t you?—-

snickers—-

they walk away

their

Five Fingers

on concrete

Mine on my

Number two

pencil

Boo

to

Mo-dern-

i-

zation-

Best I can do, so over and out – Just remember this – question modernization.

a photo I found called “Regreening our Hearts”-what spring can be for us….

Hello Dear hearts! I feel as if I’ve been like a professor on sabbatical. I’m oddly on cmapus, but from my erratic wrting activity, you wonder if I’m really here…..

But, yes, I am here, and I am trying ot think up new and interesting posts, while compensating for the fact that I am, sadly, without a camera!

But, while I don’t have camera, and until I can borrow or buy a new one, allow me to write a quick post about one of  my favorite times of the year

Spring!

As you all have noticed,  spring is a mysterious and wonderful time of the year. It is gloriously sunny one day, hopelessly rainy the next, and altogether one of the most puzzling and joyful seasons!

Seniors on Converse campus are becoming antsy for graduation, freshman are becoming giddy with the thought of  finally leaving thr ghost of high school behind in sophomoredom(this must be a word), sophomores are becomnig impatient for their signet rings and little sisters, and juniors are just catching light of the fact that they need to contemplate just what the heck a senior thesis really is.

But in the midst of spring, there is also a very important series of life lessons to be learned. Spring is, after all, the subject of a Chaucerian reverdie-it is a “regreening” of life, a time for us to contemplate who we really are after our New Year’s promises to ourselves. Have we followed our resolutions, have we turned over “that new leaf,” and are we really changing at all?

It’s been a subject of worry for me over the past few weeks that, as spring has come around, along with that Holy Season of Lent before Easter, that I have fallen short. My resolutions, as all good resolutions do, have fallen by the wayside, papuers begging me for attention and a spare penny of my time. I have been in a hustle and bustle, only to find that when I fall asleep, my desk is as messy as ever and my planner seems to have crept out of the room for a cup of Earl Grey tea(this is my only explanation-my tea is all gone….)

So it seems I ask myself as I go to bed every night-What has changed?

Will I ever wake up to my alarm and roll out of bed on time, will I ever make it to math class early, will I ever be able to walk or bike without worrying that I am wasting time, and will I ever unlock any new pieces of wisdom?

Last Friday, I was cleaning in my room and while I was cleaning, it suddenly hit me-not just a lot of dust, but the fact that, for the first time in about eight weeks, I was completely relaxed. Nothing in the world was on my mind but how nice it was to be cleaning.

Yes, I was covered in lint, yes I looked like a dust monster, and yes, I couldn’t have possibly looked more  unpresentable, but I was happy simply to be in my room, with my doo-wop gently playing, simply not worrying about anything other than my laundry.

I had such clarity of thought that I read some morning prayer, went to a concert, and then spent the night hours away talking with my cousin and a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. And I’ll never forget how happy I was.

Looking back at that,I suddenly realized I had made a mistake-spring isn’t really about turning over a new leaf! Instead, it’s about finding that vein on the leaf that you know so well, tracing that pattern that comforts you, and trying to sink back into that pattern in a new way. We should never look to spring as time of rebirth, but instead as time of renewal. We need to renew what is best within ourselves, and adapt this renewal to new goals, whether those goals be spiritual enrichment, better organization, or just a cleaner room.

Ultimately, I’m asking you to be like the poet William Wordsworth-do not mourn you inability to retrieve the past or your inability to see the future-instead, look back to the past and learn from it, so that when spring arrives, you can renew that past into something more beautiful-something that can, as Philip Brooks might say, be “some feeble echo of the life of God.”

God bless and happy regreening,

~K

Dear hearts, today is January 18th, but as I write this, I am an hour away from a day that is very important to me and which is hopefully also important to you.

Tomorrow, January 19th, is Robert E. Lee’s birthday, but I write not only to make you aware of this, but also to make a point about Lee that is very relevant to Converse College. After all, I do need to keep this Converse related….

First, let us all remember for a moment the man before I relate him to Dexter Converse and the college itself.

Robert e. Lee was born January 19th, 1807. He was a man born to change the course of human history not only for his role as a strategic military commander in the War Between the States, but more importantly, for his role as one of the most dignified Christian exemplars America has ever produced.

Take, for example, the following:

In his, “A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee,”  John Esten Cooke describes Lee praying with his men in the midst of battle, even as he had to watch many of them fall before him. He wrote, “when General Meade came over to Mine Run,  and the Southern army marched to meet him,  lee was riding along his line of battle in the woods, when he came upon a party of soldiers holding a prayer-meeting on the eve of battle…He stopped, dismounted–the staff officers accompanying him did the same–and Lee uncovered his head, and stood in an attitude of profound respect and attention, while the earnest prayer proceeded in the midst of thunder artillery and the explosion of enemy’s shells.”

and

“again near Petersburg, Lee was observed kneeling in prayer, a short distance from the road, as his troops marched by….”

and, in his own words, Lee stated:

“The doctrines and miracles of our Savior have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him Who chooses to work by slow influences and with Whom a thousand years are but as a single day.”(Excerpts from Robert e. Lee’s letter to President Pierce prior to the War)

These are only three of the many examples illustrating my crucial point. Lee was a man who changed the course of human history, not simply through his military tactics or his alliance with his home state of Virginia and the Southern right to independence. Instead Lee encompasses for all of humanity the shining example of a man whose character remained unmarred by the ravages of war and the destruction of his homeland and its peoples.

Rather, Lee was a man whose devotion to his God and to the highest ideals of humanity to man and duty to country took precedence. And this now leads me to my Converse point.

If you have ever visited the Converse archives and its noble guardian Dr. Willis, you will note as you enter one of the msot beautiful portraits of Lee ever painted. It is vibrant, exhibiting Lee at his finest. One hand in the folds of his jacket and the other by his side, as the great general himself stares into the distance, contemplating. this painting, however, has a story beyond the walls of Dr. Willis’s office. While it now hangs safely in the office, it is important to note that this was not always its resting place. Originally this painting resided in Carmichael Hall, which, as Converse gals, know is our fine hall of history, politics, English, and foreign language and literature.  It is a hall steeped in the subjects of tradition, the subjects whose interpretations, though not the history behind them, never change.  And in the midst of all of these traditions resided Lee, a beacon of the best these subjects have to offer.

He was a fine general, a fine writer (See his Farewell Order Number Nine), and a man above the politics imposed upon his state during and after the war.

And yet, he is no longer in Carmichael Hall, despite these qualities, leaving the question, “Why not?”

Perhaps it is because he is the victim of foul misinterpretation. Take, for example, when the portrait was commissioned. In the late 1890’s, Dexter Converse commissioned the painting with the express purpose of placing it in Carmichael Hall. Converse, originally a New York native, actually had served in the Confederate Army, ,but was given an honorable discharge by General Lee in order to run the Glendale Mill to provide supplies for the troops. This he did faithfully, later commissioning the portrait of the general under whom he had served and whom he admired.

Yet, the portrait does not hang where Mr. Converse intended it. Instead, it was discovered in a closet and alter placed in the archives, fortunately saved from the ravages of neglect and time, a painting that is not only over 100 years old, but also a painting that has historical, political, and artistic significance in the Spartanburg community and beyond.

Take, for a moment, its artistic history. The painter who painted this was none other than G.B. Matthews. Matthews was not only a famous American artist and lithographer, but he is famous for his print, “Lee and his Generals,” a print that is famous for its artistic portrayal of the Confederate military. His prints are not only rare, but also beautiful.  And yet we hide one of the very few if not the only painting he may have painted. This illustrates a great problem, not necessarily within the Converse community, but with all of those who seek to cover up the history of a man who played such an important role within our history.

There is likely an argument that general R.E. Lee was a man who had to be hidden as a result of his role in an ever controversial war in our country, and perhaps because of the heated debate surrounding this war, the community felt he must be moved into the archives of the library and left to be discovered in the dusty tomes of the archives instead.

Yet this is a sin on many counts. It is an act of dishonor to a man who brought honor to the American name with his Christian example and with his compassion to Northerners and Southerners alike.

It is a misfortune for artists who cannot see a painting of great beauty, painted by an artist important not only to the Spartanburg community, but to the American public.

And finally, it hides the very ideal for which Dexter Converse stood. In commissioning this painting, he was not advocating a Southern War ideal or an Anti-Northern sentiment. He was not making a historical jab, nor was he commissioning the painting for the sheer fun of it.  He was portraying to young ladies an ideal of character to which they could aspire.

In his own words, “I desire that the instruction and influence of Converse College be always such that the students may be enabled to see clearly, decide wisely, and to act justly and that they may learn to love God and humanity and be faithful to truth and duty so that their influence may be characterized by purity and power.”

As Lee himself said, “you can have anything if you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, have anything you desire, accomplish anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”

He also said, “Duty is the most sublime word in our language.  do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.

My friends, it is our duty to follow this ideal as expressed by Dexter converse and Robert E. Lee. It is our duty to follow the examples of Lee and converse, and it is our duty to faithfully honor that ideal upon which this school was founded.

And my friends, it is our duty to honor and aspire to the character of the man in that painting in the archives. Therefore, it is our duty to place this

portrait where all can see the ideal of art, the ideal of history, and the ideals of the men who sought to change how we view the world and our characters.

With this, I wish you all a happy January 19th and remembrance.

Happy New Year, dear hearts! At last we begin another New Year! Apocalypse now or sunshine in the park, we don’t know yet, but why not test the murky waters while we still can?
Truth be told, I find that this year is both frightening and exciting. No matter what anticipations I have, all I can return to is the constant apocalyptic idea of the world ending.
Yes, as a Christian who does not approve of Mayans who eat each other, I shouldn’t believe it. Rather, I should take out a fine bubble pipe, turn up my nose, and say. “Tutt, tutt, Have you eva thawght pahaps the Mayans were killed awf or pahaps ate one anotha befowa they finished the calenda?”
Yes, I know I should be playing the old English man with jowls who calmly predicts that all of this is hogwash.
But part of me feels a tug, a constant pinprick of fear that maybe, just maybe, those four riders are coming for me. They won’t come with scones and tea. No, they will come with the flare of trumpets, a chorus of angels, the final judgment, a Bible, and possibly an incomplete Mayan calendar just as a reminder that even cannibalistic pagan blind hogs can sometimes find an acorn.
I find it rather intimidating.
I also find it intimidating that, particularly as an Anglican/ orthodox Christian, I will have nothing to present but a book riddled with my sins as a token to a God I am afraid to face for this very reason.
It’s funny, but the New Year has changed my perspective before, but there is something about this primordial year, as if through a number of man’s justifications, I suddenly have to face that of which I am most afraid-my own blatant imperfections. It suddenly seems as if all of my New Year’s resolutions have sunk down the drain with extra sink Draino propelling them forward. I fear suddenly that no matter what I do, it won’t be soon enough or sincere enough to mean anything. And yet, here I am writing these blogs frantically now, hoping to atone for my lateness last semester, secretly wondering if God or the four harbingers have struck the runes of demerits upon their Books of Judgment or their Holy Swords…
It is a humbling thought, isn’t it?
And yet, don’t think I’m not an optimist! I have been accused rightly so of being such!
“Perhaps,” think I, “it’s all a bunch of fake string cheese.” After all, how many predictions have we had of the end of the world?

Moreover, perhaps it’s just a fad. Yes, worldwide we’ve faced more natural disasters than in any other year. Yes, our economy has turned down and Occupy wall street has taken over in some sort of amorphous amoeba like movement, yes we’ve seen the London riots, the downturn of Greece, the chance of worse conflict with Iran, a healthcare bill that our budget can’t exactly support, and a general demise of cultural morality.
But we can bounce back?
Yes, dear hearts, the tables seem turned, but could the world really end?

Or is the world ending really the point?
Maybe, dear hearts, it’s about cherishing instead what have. Today the sky is a perfect azure blue, the sun was out, a breeze was blowing, and I found myself learning about the lullabies of the Oneida tribe and hugging my father before he travels. I am on my computer, I have a new plan and new Resolutions, and I realize that I’m struggling, but I’m still moving forward, wearing my cross, and writing letters.
You are too.
You’re talking with friends, gasping over the fact that it’s the Year of the apocalypse, wondering why your food at Sandella’s tastes so particularly good today, and wondering if you can still go to Gee and steal a cookie or some of the NEW Bluebell ice-cream. You are inwardly panicking about not keeping busy in January term as you laze about watching some new scandalous issue of Jersey Shore or maybe just a movie in your room. You play your music, you call your mother (ALWAYS CALL YOUR MOTHER), and, as john Meyer would say it, “you’re waitin on the world to change.”
Will you change?
I hope if you do, it’s for something better. I hope your resolutions follow through, but I also hope that you realize that no matter whether or not the world ends tomorrow, you have your small blanket of happiness now, and you have something beyond waiting for you, even if it is to be a Last Judgment.
And who knows?
Maybe if you write a few letters, pray a little, help a person or two and tell your family and friends how dearly you love and care about them, you’ll receive a merit mark, not just for God, but for yourself and others too.
Happy Apocalypse year, dear hearts, and may God bless you all, no matter who you are!

New Year’s resolutions
Yes, my friends, I have done it.
I am beginning to follow up on my New Year’s Resolutions. I am now, this evening, writing my third blog for the day. I am determined to make up not only for last year’s blogs, but to also throw down the gauntlet with my Apocalypse Year blogs!
It is truly an honor to be blogging as the possibly last generation of Converse bloggers.
How saddening for you that I shall have the last word. Forgive me if I provoke you before the end of the year.
Now that I have your blood boiling, I’d like to focus on something everyone enjoys-New Year’s resolutions!
It is odd, but in my Apocalypse Year blog(If you haven’t read it, for shame! Check out two blogs ago!), I sort of scurried around the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, but I found myself asking the question-What are these mysteriously majestic machinations we conjur in our minds? What are these pithy pointed promises we make to ourselves to lose more weight, get on that exercise bike more, live life to the fullest, hug yourself more, and as one of my great male friends said, become a real man?
Honestly, I’m not sure, except for demanding.
And demanding mine are! I have decided:
1. no cavities! Cutting out my horde of sweets and eating fewer carbohydrates(How girly)
2. Writing my letters in a timely fashion and NOT just sealing them with boring stamps!
3. blogging on time and like a madwoman
4. Reading and compiling my Morning and Evening Prayer rubrics effectively for the ENTIRE YEAR
5. taming my hair
6. growing a beard-no-just kidding-that was my friend’s resolution-though I have here a link of very handsome manly men who didn’t have beards-check it out!
7. getting beautiful skin
8. Losing about five to ten pounds
9. Calling my family more often
10. Telling facebook it may need to bugger off
That’s enough.
My problem is this. Have you ever noticed how New Year’s Resolutions seem to clash?
Because I wrote my twenty letters this week and have been trying to ace my January term class, my morning and evening prayer aren’t finished, my blogs have been schizophrenically posted, and I check my email for school, so why not facebook? I can’t tame my hair because I’m too tired to care at night, and my brush disappeared. I can’t call my family because my cell phone died, and I’m having a bit of a hard time finding it as I attempt to clean my house. And how do you not eat badly when after Christmas, you are laden with leftovers and candy? And who can walk while typing blogs, wiritng letters, and falling asleep from all of it?
Tiny little buggers, these resolutions.
And yet, particularly when I have the Apocalypse year and my faith in my mind, I’m happy for them.
While I do have a little chaos, I have three blogs coming your way, I have written twenty letters with three more to go, I have a new planner, and a new plan. I WILL complete my resolutions, but more importantly, I will resolve to follow them as best as I can no matter where they lead me.
Perhaps that’s the true purpose of our resolutions-the opportunity to resolve within ourselves to do better and to wake up the next morning with the knowledge that we have another day, week, month, and, if we’re lucky this year, another year to strive to be the best we can be.

Controversy!
Now I know last blog scared you a bit, but I’m here to scare you more, and ask you to think with me for a bit.
If any of you checked the last link I posted, I’m sure you had a good laugh and also a good cry. You feel so sorry for all of those people who worked so hard predicting the end of the world, some devoting their entire lives to surmising how their lives and the lives of everyone else would end.
It makes you laugh, but it also makes you cry. Imagine devoting your entire life to something that fails…but at least their pain was eased by the fact that they were still alive and could be good Christians-hopefully.
Well, forgive me that was a tangent. Funnily, the topic I have for you is based on something you might not have noticed in that link. This is concerning a particular abbreviation that I find a bit peculiar-C.E
Now, my friends, C.E. is in any book today that tackles history. Common Era is its full title.
Complete embarrassment for me.
And why?
It may seem odd, but I find this abbreviation odd on many counts. The first is this.
What do we really all have in common with each other?
We’re people.
Good and dandy. But what about this diversity concept that is so popular today?
We have this era in common?
I won’t comment on this argument
Or maybe this argument-we weren’t all Christians, so B.C and A.D. aren’t all inclusive.
Now we have an interesting conundrum.
Aha, we were not all Christians, and we mustn’t offend anyone.
Dear hearts, this is important, yes? I’d like to hear some comments on this blog because I think it’s not just an abbreviation for a period, but instead an abbreviation and erasing of our culture, even our world culture!
The idea that we can consolidate our differences and erase them with this term is to me an outrage. While many will say it is foolish of me to argue when I am a Christian is to me absurd. Take, for example, the fact, that many who argued to change C.E were themselves not Christian. I am indeed biased, but were those who changed B.C to C.E not biased themselves?
Originally the term C.E was first used by those of the Jewish community, understandably as they did not hold the same faith in Christ as Christians do. Many sects do not believe this concept. And yet, I do not see the issue as one strictly religious, but as one of history.
Yes, C.E. is perhaps all inclusive of cultures. It’s not specific, and this lack of spasticity is arguably to represent not only it universality, but society’s embracing of a new progressivism, thoughtful to all races, sects, and creeds.
BUT
I would like to argue that this spirit of progressivism, we are progressing toward a modern disaster by erasing history itself.
Now allow me to give the opposition a chance and to illustrate some other uses of Common Era in our society.
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued, “[T]he Christian calendar no longer belongs exclusively to Christians. People of all faiths have taken to using it simply as a matter of convenience. There is so much interaction between people of different faiths and cultures – different civilizations, if you like – that some shared way of reckoning time is a necessity. And so the Christian Era has become the Common Era.”[74]
And
“In the United States, the usage of the BCE/CE notation in textbooks is growing.[59] Some publications have moved over to using it exclusively. For example, the 2007 World Almanac was the first edition to switch over to the BCE/CE usage, ending a 138-year usage of the traditional BC/AD dating notation. It is used by the College Board in its history tests,[68] and by the Norton Anthology of English Literature. Others have taken a different approach. The US-based History Channel uses BCE/CE notation in articles on non-Christian religious topics such as Jerusalem and Judaism.[69]” (wikipedia.org for both quotes, under article called, “common Era,”)
For United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, I would like to respectfully disagree. I can agree that our calendar is now used by millions in the world. Yet I can also say that another thing all cultures share is a world history. We cannot acknowledge our roots, our mistakes, our very cultural designs if we cannot first address an event that changed the lives of billions, trillions, around the world. Christianity is the most populous and popular faith in the world. It seems odd to me that, in an effort to keep everyone from squirming in their history books, we change a date so crucial to the course of human history. Even Allah was influenced by Christian teachings.
Take, for example, a funny passage form an article arguing AGAINST Judeo Christian influence of Allah.

The Quran does not maintain that it is teaching a new religion. Instead it upholds and revives the original teachings God has given through all Prophets of all nations. It claims that its teachings are the same as that of Ibraaheem (Abraham), Moosaa (Moses) and ‘Eesaa (Jesus), May Allaah exalt their mention, and speaks about all of them in glowing terms.

This is not to say that I believe Islamists should conform to Christianity nor should it imply any fierce opposition to the Muslim population.
THis does serve, however, to make us realize that Judeo-Christian influence did play a part in other cultures, other religious beliefs, and, most importantly, world history.
C.E. is not then an effect that can please everyone. Rather, it is an effort to erase a crucial event in world history. It is not to advocate anyone’s worship of Christianity. It is not to place Christ on a pedestal of nomenclature. No, it is a reference to an event and a man who changed the course of human history.
It is indeed something we have in common with one another. It is a reference point, a beginning, and it is not to be changed for the sake of people’s feelings. History, dear hearts, cannot and should not operate this way. And, for this, I hope to see many of you view abbreviations with a new eye and to look to the history that changed each and everyone one of us, no matter what uncommon religious creed or no creed at all.
http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=articles&id=134204
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_most_popular_faith_in_the_world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era