Monday, January 14, 2008

"A fool made wiser by pity."

My family lives in a small town. I am living with another family while I go to school in a nearby big city. I have had a rather ugly past believing that football and girls/women were what you needed to be good at. Alice, the woman of the house, and I use the same blog, and back in NovemberI noticed a post by Alice entitled"A fool made wise by pity." I did not think much of it at the time. Alice is a beautiful 65 year old lady. Her life has been fascinating. She came from a wealthy family and was pursued by many men, including a Saudi Arabian prince who would charter planes to come and see her. Her boss asked Jack, before she married Jack, to help him win Alice because Jack was more 'experienced, and would know how to win a woman. But instead of marrying her boss she married Jack,a young teacher and union organizer . The marriage was met with great opposition by her family because Jack was not Catholic,as Alice and her family were. But To this day Alice is loved by all who know her. Her personality, her kindness, her sense of humor, make her always wanted for parties and gatherings of all kinds. And she has been very kind to me ,nursing me back from a rather serious injury, just like a mother would. She treats me as she does her own children, although we were not even related. She has guided me to religion, not by force, but by exposing me to what Christianity can do.

One day we were sitting in her living room, and I noticed a picture hanging on the wall that had always been there since I had come to live with Jack and Alice and their family. I ask her about it. She told me it was a reproduction of a 19th century painting called "The Temptation of Parsifal." I had never even heard of Parsifal, but Alice explained he was a knight of the round table who was called "A fool made wise by pity." I can't remember the whole story, but Parsifal was a foolish young man who became sorry for the King of the Holy Grail, who had a painful wound that could not be healed except by a young knight who had compassion for the king.

After many adventures, the young Parsifal became a knight and found the spear that had been used on Jesus' side at the cruxifiction. He took the spear to the king and touched his wound, and it was instantly healed. Parsifal then became king of the holy grail when the healed king later died.

Alice believes as did the author of the legend that we become good and wise by having compassion on others. She is no saint, but she loves the picture. I believe it reminds her of what she should strive for. But we slightly disagree, because I think I know an unwise young man, not named Parsifal, who became not wise but wiser, because he received the touch of the spear. And he is wiser because of a person who had compassion on him. So Alice, God Bless you.

7 comments:

  1. Did you want spelling and grammar comments? If that's not part of this assignment, maybe I shouldn't do it?

    Otherwise, I thought it was good. It was really cool to hear all that stuff about Alice.

    God bless,
    Anna

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  2. I would really like your spelling and grammar comments, but I did not want to pester you. Frank

    My test should be back in a day or two about being a father.

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  3. Spelling/grammar:

    foorball should be football. “who posted it” is unnecessary; you already said you noticed a post by Alice. “persued” should be “pursued”. “win alice” should be “win Alice”. The period after “experienced” should not be there. “maryring” should be “marrying”. “a young teacher and union organizer” should have commas before and after it, but that sentence has a lot of different thoughts in it; you might try breaking it up a little, like: “But instead of marrying her boss, she married Jack, a young teacher and union organizer. There was great opposition to this by her family because ...”. “catholic” should be capitalized. “But To” should be “But to”. “her sense of humor and I could go on” is not grammatically correct: you could substitute “her sense of humor and other qualities I could go on about”. “me ,nursing” should be “me, nursing.” “I ask her about it” should be “I asked her about it.” “19th reproduction” is probably supposed to be “19th century reproduction”. “nealed” should be “healed”. “she loves the picture because I believe it” sounds awkward; “she loves the picture, I believe, because it” would sound better.

    Places I would add commas: after “use the same blog”. After “pursued by many men”. After “was not Catholic”. Before and after “just like a mother would”. After “touched his wound”.

    My correcting your grammar with your earlier essays was part of the project that your teacher allowed. You might want to double check with him if he is ok on you getting outside help with this new batch of essays, since some teachers don't like that.

    Good essay though.

    God bless,
    Anna

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  4. Frank,

    And I don't mind correcting the spelling/grammar. Whenever I read a mistake, I'm itching to just fix it. Usually I make myself stay silent, because people feel picked on if I try to correct everything, but if someone's going to give me permission to correct something, then I'll have at it. :)

    God bless,
    Anna

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  5. O Yes he wants correction. His emphasis is on content. He is a great guy, but I think he does not want to do spelling and grammar at this state. I've told him your name and you are on the internet. That is fine he says. I turn in my original along with the corrected copy. Thanks again Frank

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  6. Anna, if you get a chance look at this post and see if I have improved it. This is embarassing Anna, but I don't know how to look at your comment and correct at the same time. Any hints. And yes Anna, tell me to BE MORE CAREFUL. I couldn't do this without you. Frank

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  7. Frank,

    You have a few issues with spaces: "back in NovemberI" looks like there isn't a space between "November" and "I". There also looks like there isn't a space between "entitled" and the quote mark (") that starts "A fool made wise by pity." "experienced" only has the ' at the beginning; it needs one at the end too. (Technically I think there shouldn't be a comma after experienced, since what follows afterwards is not a separate thought-sentence.) There is a space between "union organizer" and the period, where there shouldn't be. "Catholic,as" should have a space: "Catholic, as". "But To" should be "But to". "me ,nursing" should be "me, nursing". "I ask her about it" should be "I asked her about it".

    Other than that, it all looks good to me.

    When you write your essays, do you write them on paper first? Do you type them up straight onto the blog?

    The first thing I would recommend for you to make things easier is that you type your papers into a word processor. Lots of computers will have Microsoft Word on them. I use OpenOffice Writer, which works very similarly (and can be downloaded for free). Whatever Jack and Alice have on their computer, that should be where you first type it, because that can detect most of your errors right away, and put little red and green squiggly lines under things that have to be fixed, and can suggest ways to fix it.

    Then, when you want to put something on the blog, instead of re-typing it, what you do is go to where you have typed it up in a word program, select the whole thing (which you can do either with the mouse or probably by holding the control button - CTRL - down while you hit A); then hold the control button down while hitting C. (This makes a copy of it.) Go back over to the blog page and use the mouse to put the cursor in the space where you normally type up a post. Hold the CTRL button while hitting V. It might ask you whether you want something to access your clipboard; hit "yes". Then everything that you wrote in the word program should show up in the blog space for you to post.

    Here's what I do about trying to look at two things at the same time on the computer: In the upper right hand corner of most programs, there should be three buttons: a left button with "_" on it, which is the Minimize button; a red button on the right with a big X on it which closes the program; and a middle button. If your browser is already taking up the whole screen (maximized), then the middle button will say "Restore Down" and the picture will have two little boxes; if your browser takes up only part of the screen, then the button will be labelled "Maximize" and there will be just one box on it.

    So what I do is, I use the middle button to un-Maximize my browser (Internet Explorer). Then I use the mouse to move it all the way to the left of my screen, from the top to the bottom, and make it just the width of what's written on the blog.

    Then I open my word program, use the middle button to un-Maximise that, and adjust the position and size of that so that it takes up all of the rest of the screen that the browser doesn't take up.

    That way I have the browser on one side of my screen and the word program on the other. I can read what's written on your blog while I'm writing something on the left side.

    Write your paper up first; save it; copy-and-paste it on the blog. When I make corrections, make the double-screen like I described above, using the saved copy of your paper. Then you can see where I wrote my corrections on the left, while you can also look at your paper on the right, and make corrections along the way.

    Does that make sense, or does that sound too complicated?

    Good luck with it, anyway. God bless,
    Anna

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