Love and the Reasons Why

Plíenich was not a man. Neither was he a creature nor a being, but he was certainly not a deity. He was, perhaps, an entity, but then, he could not be described by any pronoun if he was. No, Plíenich was no entity. He was something that most men of this world have not yet explored and even less understand. He was the only one of his kind on his world, though there is one of his kind on every world (men of Earth would favor the term “universe”) that exists. Most men hated him, and rightly so. Plíenich had not existed forever. No one on his world, Conaín, knew when he had begun. Many said that he would never end, but the wise ones of every age said that nay, something that had begun had to end. Only things that had never begun could never end. Even so, Plíenich’s eventual end was only a small comfort to those who found themselves plagued by him. Indeed, most men thought that he would drag the world down with him when he finally ceased to exist. It was not so. Plíenich’s very life-...

Note: Page numbers are from Introduction to Great Books: Third Series ,  not “Happiness” itself.             “What was it, we used to ask ourselves—that quality that she, we felt sure, misnamed? Was it courage? Was it strength, health, or high spirits? Something you could not give or take—a conundrum? A game of catch-as-catch-can?” (36)             Throughout Mary Lavin’s short story “Happiness,” a mother named Vera asks the same question to all those around her: are you happy? It’s a constant thing with Vera, happiness. She strives for it in everything, and she strives to pass it on to others. She strives to explain its importance, and she strives to understand the people who don’t understand how important that simple thing called happiness is. Vera strives to make her mother happy, but nothing quite works (34-35). Vera strives to define and explain happiness to her...

            Ever since I was a child, I have loved to learn. Not simply learning in school, but learning in general has always made me feel like I had accomplished something and that I could do a bit more thanks to the new knowledge that I had acquired. Mind you, there were many times that I would outright refuse to learn something new in the moment because I had such a problem with change when I was younger. Usually, this refusal had to do with math (my worst subject) or learning new words—I would say words wrong, use the wrong words, or make up words, and when someone would tell me that I wasn’t using the correct word, I would deny them.             Unfortunately, I still refuse to learn new things from time to time without extensive research. I almost always come to accept the things that I am told before long, but in the moment, I don’t want to change my mind. This is something that I consider t...

Hello! My name is Erica, and I’m glad to be able to share a bit of my little world with you. I’m a Christian language nut whose best language is English (and I’m still not fluent, go figure). If there’s anyone out there who’s entirely fluent in English, please let me know. You are my personal greatest role model now. I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to my interests, seeing as my favorite books are almost all by C.S. Lewis and the only types of music that I’ll actively choose to listen to are contemporary Christian, soundtrack (please google Michael Giacchino), and epic music (it’s okay if you don’t know what that is). In my personal opinion, there’s nothing more important than the sacrifice that Christ made for all of us to save us of our sins even though we had done nothing to deserve it. That’s called grace, and that’s the reason that Jesus is the only way to heaven. We can’t earn our way to heaven; in fact, we deserve nothing more than to die and spend eternity in torture. (In...