The Defeated King

Once upon a time there lived a girl who had everything she ever wanted.
She had every toy she ever wanted and clothes from beyond the sea.
Yet she was innocent and humble as can be
She had blue eyes that sparkled and a smile that was bright
Her spirit was cheerful and light
But was soul was mysterious as the night
She had no boundaries and no one laid down any rules.
The world was at her finger tips and she knew of nothing cruel.
Her father was the King, the ruler of all the land
Hatred in his heart, be began his master plan
He knew of no wrong that she had done
Yet he wished instead that he could bare son
It was a warm summer night when it was to occur
She slept in her bed unaware of their lure
Quietly they captured the poor helpless child
And traveled hill after hill, mile after mile
The years went by without a word from the girl
Some thought she died some she lived
But the King was satisfied with what he did
He knew no love and had grace
The people of his land hated his face
They knew what he had done
How he kidnapped his daughter in a quest of a son
The people began to turn their backs
They wanted a ruler with grace and respect
A ruler courageous as a knight
They picked a fierce one to lead the fight
Soon the King was greatly defeated
And asked for mercy from the great dark knight
The knight took the throne and brought in his wife
The woman was beautiful and full of life
She was the daughter of the defeated King

-Danielle

TRUE Love...

Love is a word that is completely thrown around and insincere these days. It's really pathetic. People say that love is just a feeling that they get when they are around that "special someone." But I disagree. I think love is an action. It's giving of yourself. It's not sex. It's not just a special feeling. It's sacrifice. It's doing what you might not enjoy just because you want the happiness of the person you love. It's giving up something that you want in order to put another person before yourself because you have their best interests in mind.

See, love is the opposite of hate. What happens when you hate someone? Usually, you want to do everything you can to get revenge or show your hatred. So why don't we do the same thing with love? Why don't we give up or do anything in order to show our love for someone...if we truly love them?

Valentine's Day just passed and the word "love" was probably cheated out of its real meaning by some people. I admit that I have thrown the word around, but I think we all need to stop throwing around this precious word and learn its true meaning... "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails..."

I have several of these aspects that I personally need to improve on. At times, it seems impossible to love some people. But, I know that the Perfector of love (Jesus) can help me get where I need to be.

-Lindsey

Alone

Many people speak about feeling alone. They describe that horrible feeling of utter loneliness. It seems to be a feeling that most people have experienced in their lives, or experience every day of their lives. I am the exception to this case. No matter how rough life gets I never feel alone. The times that I am the loneliest, are really the times that I feel the happiest. God is always with me, right by my side. I can literally feel Him every second of every day. The times in life that I am in pain or struggling the most, are the times that I can feel Him right there with me the strongest. No matter what happens I cannot feel alone. I can’t imagine having to go through life feeling empty, abandoned, depressed, and thinking that nobody would care whether I was alive or dead. It must break God’s heart to be right next to a person who desperately needs Him, but not be able to help them because they don’t want anything to do with Him. God is not our enemy, but the one who takes us through life and makes it worth living. I depend on God so strongly that I don’t believe that I could live without Him. I don’t know how I could survive without feeling his kisses and hugs, or without having His everlasting peace within me. Feeling Him inside of me reminds me everyday that nothing can ever happen where He is not with me and in control of everything that happens. He is my best friend and the only one who knows everything about me. This is why it is impossible for me to ever feel or be utterly alone.
-Ivanna

Body in a Box

Body In A Box: Dallas Green

There's a funeral procession on the highway,
Traffic screeches to a halt.
There’s people searching for a better way
To live their lives.

“Johnny lived a good life,” you’ll hear them say
As tears of sadness soak the ground.
The reaper crept in, took his breath away
In the middle of the night.

We celebrate the lives of the dead.
It’s like a man’s best party only happens when he dies.
We gather round to pay our respects while their souls are still searching for the light,
Searching for the light.

So please don’t come to me on my dying day.
Just let me go in peace
With all the things that I forgot to say
Racing through my mind.

And don’t you bury me six feet underground.
Just burn my body in a box,
And let my ashes blow with the wind
Out into the night sky.

We celebrate the lives of the dead
It’s like a man’s best party only happens when he dies.
We gather ‘round to pay our respects while their souls are still searching for the light,
Searching for the light.

Searching for the light.
Searching for the light.

There’s a funeral procession on the highway, traffic hesitates to stop. There are people searching for a better way, but a better way for what? We run through life not noticing the little things, and rather than taking life moment by moment, we take it day by day and as we age, it worsens to year by year. We lose our respect, our appreciation, and our lives by wasting our time searching for understanding (the light). What no one ever seems to see is that we already have all of the understanding that we actually need to survive… but we forget, why? Why does it seem in life that the most important things are not remembered once forgotten? Why and how do we forget LIFE? It is the only thing that we have without a doubt from our first breath to our last, and we don’t even know that it is there.

The only party that many will ever have is the one they are made to miss because their soul has died before their body… but my revelry is now: so when I die, burn my body and put me back from which I came so that when I pass, the world will forget me, but the earth and wind cannot, and I will go in peace.

Live life well. Solitude is not for those who are still breathing.

-Jill

Let What Will Be, Be

As these last four months start winding down, there are many obstacles I must overcome in order to survive. Fear of acceptance, inability to move on, difficulty persevering. These are three things that reveal my flaws, my weaknesses. Confidence, ambition, happiness. These are three characteristics of the person I want to be. The question is, which route will I go? Will I be able to conquer my fears, break away from this hereditary mold of weakness, and be able to become the person I have always strived to be? And even if I try, will I fail? Will I lose the ambition to change myself, or will I gain the inability to identify who I am altogether?

College is not a very subtle change. It is the biggest taste of the real world you will have before you find yourself right in the middle of it. About 6 months from today, I will be in an apartment with three complete strangers, and they will know me as their roommate. Will I like them? Will they like me? Better yet, will they like the new me? I don’t want to change who I am, rather, I want to fix my flaws, the flaws that hold me back from being ME. The person I want to be is still ME, just in a new light. But I am scared. I am scared of change, more importantly of failure. Should I really be looking forward to college? I think so. Really, I can’t wait. I just hope that when the clock strikes twelve and I find myself in a completely new world that I won’t lose myself, lose my goals, lose my will to change for the better. The answers to these questions are unknown, and to be honest, I don’t want to know them just yet. I want to dive into my new life head first and take the biggest risk I have ever taken in my life. I want to live. I want to Breathe. I want to be in the dark and have God hold the lamp to my feet. I seek opportunity, strive for success, and I am awaiting my future.

-Riley

History of "The Night Chant"

The Night Chant. That’s provocative. Now the book gives a short little backstory of this “poem” but instead of going by that, I think I am just going to make up a story about it for this poetrey response (blog post). So here we go (that was really just to take up space and make this a line longer (so was that)).
It was a dark, cold, winter’s night (it has to be either that or a warm summer’s day otherwise the story wouldn’t be nearly cliched enough) and a man came walking out of the forest into the camp of the Indian tribe of Nohwitesaloud. Now the Nohwitesaloud people were a very srict tribe of Native American Indians, and as so did not usually allow visitors into their tribe, especially not after what happened when they let David Blaine in last time. Long story short, pigs’ heads should not be magically transformed to look like Kevin Bacon, luckily it was only six degrees outside though, so it all ended up okay. Anyways, they don’t usually let outsiders in so it was going to take some serious convincing on this man’s part for him to be allowed access to their unlimited supply of marshmallows and garage-door openers. So, to describe the man he was about 6’1” looking vaguely like a combination of Taye Diggs and Ryan Reynolds, he also had a splash of Phillip Michael Thomas in him too. I should also mention that he was in fact 1/16 ostrich. Now that you know roughly what he looks like we can move on with the story. Once he was there he had to think of something to give them fast or else they would have fed him to their wild flock of snapping turtles. So he just started writing and ended up writing this poem down. Which they loved so much that they granted him full-access to their marshmallows and garage-door openers. Later that week though they realized that they had neglected to get the Navojo’s anything for Christmas, so they just gave it to them. They later decided that they wanted it back.

Leaving My Mark

Old photographs . . . goofy . . . fun . . . crazy . . . smiles . . . laughs . . . being with friends . . . the best of times . . . old crumpled up notes . . . sad . . . disappointing . . . hard times . . . tears . . . losing friends.

All of these thoughts can sum up my high school years at MJCA . . . tonight I was looking at tons of old pictures that immediately brought back several memories. Girls I was friends with, fought with, gossiped about and thought we could never be friends again . . . look at us now, we are all friends again. Teachers that taught me more things than I know what to do with; some information relative and some I’ll never use again. Teachers that could care less about curriculum but rather teaching us about life and how to live it. Peers who influenced me and my decisions for the best or worse more than you will ever know. Days I wished away . . . weeks I couldn’t wait to pass . . . I want to relive. Soccer games I wish I could have just given a little more. Younger students I wish I could have invested in their lives. More things I wish I wish I would have gotten involved in. Worrying over pointless things that in the end did not matter at all.

Regrets? I think yes. Lessons learned? I think definitely. Four and a half months is ALL I have left to make it count. This song, “Graduation” by Vitamin C really made me think after hearing it. I mean it gives the perfect picture of graduating from your good high school memories and friends to moving on with the rest of your lives. All these things that seem just like yesterday now will only fade into long lost memories. Some we will remember and be able to tell about when we are older; others, we won’t even be able to recall. The first day of school this year I remember I kept thinking, “Man! I can’t wait for this year to be over! After this I get to head to college!” But now . . . now I wish I could start back over back to day one, and I already wish I had done things differently. But I can’t focus on the past, I can’t change it. All I can do it focus on the future and how I can change things. I want to leave my mark on MJCA. I want to make sure I am remembered at MJCA for positive things. I have four months to determine how I will leave this school. It is so crazy to think we will graduate and all go our separate ways, and we probably won’t even see each other again. It is sad, but it is a chapter in our lives that is ready to end, and we are ready to start another. I am sad to leave this chapter behind but excited for a new one to start. I challenge all of you to make your mark. Determine how you will be remembered at MJCA. Don’t wish away your days you have left, rather treasure them. Because one day, I promise you will look back and wish you could have done something differently. Live without regrets.

-Faith