random topics

A couple of fun things, first off . . . I had my article printed on the front page of the Troubadour, the campus newspaper, today! Exciting, eh?! Not that the article was anything exciting, although it was pretty interesting. It was about spiritual direction - what it is, how to get it, what to do once you have it, etc. I enjoyed going to the seminar, I must say, and learned a lot. It was funny, I had always had this idea that spiritual direction was something the saints always did, so we should do it too, which is logical, or so it seems. Fr. Dan, however, said that's precisely NOT a reason to receive spiritual direction. You have to see a need for it in yourself, he said.

Something else, very random, but that's not unusual around here. I was sitting in my room tonight doing homework, when all of a sudden I heard loud male voices outside my window, singing. A bunch of guys had just run out of Marian hall, singing Salve Regina as loud as they could, before running back into Trinity. How often do a bunch of college guys yell/sing an ancient Marian hymn?!?! It was like it was their fight song or something!

To get back to books (oh yeah, is that why I started this blog?), I also got to go to a ministry called Music in our Schools today, which was unexpectedly amazing. We went to School of Bright Promise, a school for special needs-children of all ages, starting off by singing songs in one classroom and then reading a book in another class. The latter was a class of high school age students, all special needs, some more severe than others, and I got to read a story called Can't You Sleep, Little Bear? It was so much fun - I could be as dramatic with it as I wanted, and they only laughed more! I made them smile, and they made me smile! The power of a good story, huh?! Well, obviously, it was more than that, because of who they were . . . I had never done anything like that before, and I was surprised to find that I really loved it.

On a more serious vein, my honors class discussed the wonderful (ha ha) Greek tragedy Antigone today in class, and it actually got very exciting. I could tell, for once, that everyone had definitely read the play, and everyone had definite opinion on it. We got into really heated discussions about what the difference between man and woman is (because of what Creon says about women being inferior), about whether it is right to be radical and stubborn in one's views, to the point of suicide (not as obvious as you would think). I was very happy, because I got to put in my two cents-worth multiple times, especially when I said that Antigone is not the heroic character everyone sees her as. Wow, I am really not writing coherently.
Let me just say, though - if there's only one Greek tragedy you ever read, it should probably be this one. There's just more life, character, choice, love, and distinct beliefs in this one than in Oedipus, and just more of everything than in the Oresteia. Make sure you don't fall into the same trap as everyone else, though, in underestimating Ismene. As a younger sister myself, I sympathize more with her. I guess you probably don't know the story, though. Antigone and Ismene are sisters whose two brothers have both died, by the hands of the other, in battle for the city of Thebes. Creon, their uncle, is now ruling, and he issued a law saying no one can bury the brother who had been exiled from the city, and came back to win the crown. Antigone wants to be loyal to her brother, and obey the laws of the gods, which require the dead to have proper funeral rites, but must suffer the consequences when she breaks Creon's law. Ismene loves her brother as well, but is more cautious than Antigone. I love Ismene's lines in the play: to Antigone, she says, "You are in love with the impossible . . . though you are wrong to go, your friends are right to love you." I think that's beautiful.
And, of course, as in any honors discussion, we brought up the politics in the play, since Creon is all about absolute rule, and the laws of the state versus the laws of the gods. There's always some underlying political message, or at least, people try to find one in literature. I think people just read too far into it sometimes, especially with historical novels and such. It's not going too far to say that Antigone has deep political messages, however. The lesson Creon learns in the end is really powerful, although it reminds me a little too much of Romeo and Juliet. That's a hint, by the way.
I certainly recommend Antigone to anyone interested . . .
Happy reading!