Pilgrimage

last eight years, I have been privileged to serve in the Church by teaching and preaching. My proficiency in teaching has steadily improved with practice. However, visiting Israel has greatly enhanced my sermons. Other than my time in college, my pilgrimage was…

In the short story Nineteen Thirty-Seven, Josephine is born after her laboring mother swims across a river that was red with the blood of her countrymen, including Josephine’s grandmother. As Josephine grows, she joins her mother in a yearly pilgrimage to the Massacre River, performing rituals to honor the dead. However, even these memorial rites are interpreted as evil, as humans by nature fear what we do not understand. When Josephine’s mother is discovered as a witch, she is imprisoned for it…

The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer circa 1386, is a collection of stories as told by characters on a pilgrimage. These tales seem to point of a multitude of problems with society present in Chaucer’s time. It appears that Chaucer has used the tales and characters as a means of drawing attention to the corruption in the church, social classes, and gender based issues. His views of the corruption that existed in religious figures is best exemplified in the character of the Pardoner.…

A time that gave us the Magna Carta, nations like England, France, Spain, and Japan. Heroes like Joan of Arc, the Shogun and Knights, commerce, a new economy should not be called “Dark”. The Middle Ages is the time that goes from 400 CE, after the fall of the Roman Empire, to 1400 CE. During this time Europe experienced the crusades, which led to the unification of kingdoms and new commerce routes between Europe, Africa, and Asia. The medieval feudal system developed during this time, with…

Karen Armstrong and Thomas Madden’s respective presentations of the Crusades, seem to present two extreme positions – either the crusaders are intolerant fanatics blindly killing people groups who were never aggressively antagonistic in return; or the Arabs are the fanatics, and the crusaders are selfless soldiers fighting a purely defensive war. Of the two pieces, Armstrong’s analysis of the Crusades is more overtly driven by a modern political agenda, but the belligerent extremes of both…

religion. When you enter the Religion of Islam you become a muslim. You don’t just become a muslim but you also have to follow some steps to fit in this religion. You have to follow the five pillars of Islam which are: 1) Prayer 2) Charity 3) Faith 4) Pilgrimage & 5) Fasting. The religious book is called the Quran. Islam is the second largest religion in the United States! Does that not sound BIG and popular? Islam began in the year 610. The Religion of Islam was founded by Muhammad. Muhammad…

earthly meet, sites that act as bridges between the human and the divine worlds” (Hassner). All of the ritual practices and duties that make one a Muslim, including salat and alms-giving (zakat), and fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj). Once the devout Muslim completes his pilgrimage and…

There has been an interest surrounding the Templar history within popular culture raising over the years. Attributed by the overall secrecy in their practices. It would be hard to denounce their influence in our ideals of chivalry. Even harder to deny are the manmade structures built by them that remain today. Not just the larger, well known Temples, but the series of smaller works found all round Europe. Most of Templar built architecture are being lived in currently. Numerous ancient churches…

Juneteenth are the oldest know celebration commemorating of the ending to slavery in the United States. Back in 1865, it was on June 19th that union solders, led by Major General Gordon Granger, Landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. This was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the…

I chose to read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and within the story of the book, the author uses many Gothic style themes. Some themes such as mystery and magic can be related back to many other passages I’ve read. Such common themes can be found in The Night Circus, and “The Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga. Mystery sneak itself in in each peice, almost more specifically in The Night Circus, but “The Feather Pillow” has a mystery as well. “ “I don’t know,” he said to Jordan in a low…