Jesus Likes Me or Sunday School for the Sorrowful

Jesus likes me

This I hope

Although the church tells me nope

They all say I don’t belong

I beg and pray that they are wrong

Jesus, do you like me?

Jesus, could you like me?

Jesus, will you like me?

My heart needs to know.

I’m planning on writing a book someday called Jesus Kinda Likes Me: Dismantling the Lie of Second-Class Christianity, based around the poem Jesus Loves Me. Hehe. 🙂 I have big plans.

This is one of the final (but not the last) drafts of a speech I presented to my class about persuasive language techniques, what I’d learned that term etc. Although it scared me stiff presenting it, it was worth it and a lot of people in my class now have a lot of respect for me. Including my gay female English teacher.

Friedrich Nietzsche said that “All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth”. When I heard Robson Green mention this during an episode of Wire in the Blood last week, it made me realize that what we’ve been doing in English this term has in fact expanded my understanding of me and the rest of the world.

What I have studied this term has deepened my long held belief that there is no such thing as true objectivity. Human beings by their very nature cannot approach a situation without any bias whatsoever, and I am no exception to this rule myself.

As such, when I was confronted by the Martin Luther King ‘I Have a Dream’ speech during class, I found it hard to study purely for its literary value. King’s message that ‘now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children’ inspired me, and I now appreciate what life has been like for members of other minority groups who are discriminated against both legally and socially.

King’s speech also spoke realms to my inner civil rights activist. I couldn’t help but imagine how I in the future could allude to this speech whilst delivering my own personal message of equality for all regardless of one’s innate personhood. I have realized over and over again that discrimination is a timeless function of humanity, with various forms of this practice continuing to this day.

When King says that there we can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities, I immediately replace these with how I personally can never be satisfied as long as the person I love and I cannot have our relationship recognized in the same way other peoples are.

When King says he has a dream that his four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character, I feel compelled to respond with my dreams.

I have a dream that one day I will live in a nation where my uncle, my neighbours, my friends and I will not be judged based on our sexuality but by our individual merits. I have a dream that one day all people can walk down the street holding hands without the fear that they will be jeered at, I have a dream that one day the gay youth of the world can come out without fear of violence or abuse.

This term has shown me how language can be used in so many ways, to persuade people as to what they should believe, and also the effects it can have on the world we live in. I learned how to analyse texts and also underwent a process in which I realized that another one of Nietzche’s sayings is also true: We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. How you present your argument will really make the world of difference.

nice work Isobel

now many of you will know i’m a gen Y trapped in a baby boomers body…..so i listen to podcasts all the time on my iphone.

I’ve found through Itunes i can subsribe to great speeches of this century for free.

one i’ve listened to several times is Malcolm X’s speech “The Ballot or the Bullet”. its fascinating listening to this speech made 44 years ago when we are about to see the first african american person become the president of the United States ( fingers crossed)

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/malcolmxballotorbullet.htm

I’ve been writing as a hobby for many many years now, here is one I’ve written fairly recently. Have omitted the swear word in the final line:

Inane Ramblings

Too many voices speaking in my head

Too many pathways, possibilities lie ahead

No opportunities in the career I have chosen

Panic grips like a vice around my conscious mind

Worry, doubts, defeated ambitions

Scrolling along before my very eyes

I feel like I am being called, pulled against my will

To the answer that lies before me, so close

Unattainable – Unreachable – Clouded from my eyesight

Issues, goals and achievements, once all encompassing, all meaningful

Now lose their value

depreciated by life experience, current experiences.

Im left standing

A victim of naivety

Praised in the past………now

F*cked for the future.

I am a writer and have had a book published, along with several shorter works of fiction. Some of the content of my writing is probably not for sharing here, and heaven knows what will happen to me if the government’s proposed censorship laws get through. 😆

Not that I write porn, mind you, but some of it could be termed ‘unwanted’ by some people.

*hiding now that she has outed herself*