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Ebone Rhodes ENGL 1101 Elizabeth Hinnant 9/12/13

Pastor: Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Lady: I do Man: I do Me: Im saved. These were the two words that struck a deep cry within me, as I stood by my mom puzzled as to why I was crying. I was young, maybe around six or seven, and at this moment I had chosen on my own to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. I was now accompanied by what my mom told me was the Holy Spirit, and at that moment my life had begun as a Christian, a sinner, a born again individual and as a child of God. My religion, Christianity, has always been an impacting social force upon my life. I was raised in my church; my church community was and still is very supportive of my family today. If I wasnt attending Sunday school, it was bible study and we as a family tried making it to church as much as we could. Religion was a part of my life before I could even speak, write, or read, for I was baptized at only a few months old in my home church. At that point, my life would be driven by my beliefs as well as the beliefs of my family. Some people would argue that I may have been forced to accept my religion, but with my experiences in life, I grew to love God and the Christian life. I can tell you specifically how religion has affected my social life, my familys life and more, but how it has affected my source of literacy seems to be quite a challenge.

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Going back to my younger days, one of the first religious practices that I learned was prayer. Prayer was and still is a source that is very near and dear to my walk with God. Gracing our food was very important in my house as well as in my grandparents. God is great; God is good, let us thank him for our food. Bow our heads we must be fed, give us Lord our Dailey Bread. Amen. This was the grace that we were taught to say every time we were to eat. Children obey your parents, for in the Lord it is right, Amen, was the last thing said before we ate. This line had the most impact, for it affected how we learned to speak to our elders as well as our parents. We were taught by this prayer that respect is a very important factor of Christianity, so when my siblings and I spoke to our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and any other elder, we made sure to use the respectful words, yes mam, yes sir, no mam, no sir. This prayer also affected how I would speak to my peers, for it was necessary to be kind to others, and to treat others the way I wanted to be treated. Another important prayer that has affected how I speak is the Lords Prayer. It allows me to be conscious of what I say, for I pray Lord forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. This specific part gives me a conscious mind of not only doing the right thing but saying it as well. This part of the prayer whole heartedly speaks of forgiveness, which is one important factor in Christianity. So as I speak, I am taught to utter the words of forgiveness, for it is right and necessary. Another impact my religion has had on my speech, is learning to speak things into existence constantly. This means, being positive, and asking or praying to God for blessings; being encouraging with my words, and speaking blessings upon others. Along with speaking with purpose, religion has taught me to write with a purpose as well. I dont think my religion really started affecting my writing until I actually began to understand

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my connection with my religion. One part of connecting with Christianity is reading the bible and understanding it. From reading the bible, I was introduced to a diverse vernacular, which was difficult for me to understand. At times this forced me to write and summarize what I was specifically reading, allowing me to grasp more of the context. At this point I became used to breaking things down and easily being able to write the point of a specific text. My writing was also influenced by the content that I wrote about or summarized. The bible itself is a book of morality, truth and encouragement. The more I wrote down scriptures like Hold fast the pattern of sounds words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus, (Psalm 33:11) the more diligent and considerate my writing became and the more encouraging and understanding I was and still am of others writings. I understand that others write based on opinions, which I am respectful of because respect is a huge part of my religion. As for the encouraging factor, Ive seen it in many of my poems that have written. One being a poem I wrote for my aunt, who jokingly dreaded turning The big Thirty. To her it meant getting older and slowing down, like it is to most but I wrote her a poem with encouraging words that thirty is no age to dread but an age to be thankful for. I related it to wisdom, motivation and many others things and most importantly I related it to God. My exact words were And thirty is when you finally realize that God hasnt brought you this far to leave you. These were my encouraging words that I feel were a result of my religion and its background. This example along with many others, show how I try to be encouraging, optimistic and cheerful when I write, more specifically when I write creatively. Speaking and writing comes much easier and much more enjoyable to me then reading. So you can guess that I didnt read much then or now, from my bible, or from any other novels. I will say that my reading the bible stays on my mind more frequently than reading another novel

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in my free time. I feel obligated to read the bible, only because it is part of connecting with Christianity and may other factors relating to it. In my younger days I began reading the bible, but I started off with one scripture at a time. Doing this allowed me to focus on the main idea of one part of the bible, rather than on more than one. With this I feel that this could have strengthened my skills of reading, and being able to focus on the specific text being read and not easily wandering off. Also when reading the bible, you have different narrators where Jesus could be speaking, Peter, Mary or another person in the bible. Each person has no similar tone because they are involved in different situations and have a different meaning behind their presence. If Jesus was talking, I could easily differentiate between him and another character because of the authority behind the scripture or even the voice behind it. Same with God speaking, one could tell the difference because that specific part in the bible will have a demanding, authoritative or giving tone. All of these aspects of the bible connecting to tone, allows me now in my reading in some way to try and differentiate the purpose or connection in a specific characters tone. Mentioned earlier, the bible is covered with lessons of morality, and Jesus is one of the people to portray morality and truth throughout the entire bible. As I read about his greatness, it makes me optimistic to read about the same greatness in people readings, because it makes me happy in many ways. Realistically, morality is not portrayed in every source of literature, such as in Raisin in the Sun, where racism and inequality over shines the love and peace that the Jesus would have empowered. There are many writings out there, such as blogs, Facebook post, Twitter Post and more that portray the very opposite of any morals at all. Reading the Bible and my religion has taught me one important thing, and that is to pray for the things that are not of God, and not good. My purpose as a Christian is to let individuals hear about Jesus and

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Christianity, even though they may not be knowledgeable or accepting of it. As I do this I consciously speak with subtlety, I write with a humble heart and I read with purpose to show how my faith has impacted my life. I write, read and speak this way because of my religion were the thoughts to be pondered upon;This way, or That way of writing, reading and speaking is not fully my way, but ultimately Gods.

.Ebone, Youve got some really nice stuff happening here. You very clearly address reading, writing, and verbal communication, and you do a nice job of quoting scripture and/or prayers when necessary. There are also some really strong personal examples throughout. What I feel Im missing however, are those examples everywhere. Though I could clearly see the connections you were attempting to make I had a hard time, at times, completely trusting your authorial voice without personal experiences to back up your statements. There were also several points in which I felt you were speaking too broadly. You mention that you speak to other people courteously, the way God would want you to, but in order to truly understand what you mean by courteous I need you to give me an example you can remember. Use the comments Ive made in the margins to push you to understand your literacy even more!