You very likely are wondering why the name 'Transformers' for a class blog. Why not the school's name? Well two reasons: 1. To have the school's name would be boring. 2. We in the Gileskirk program are really...in training, and we are training to be Social, Cultural, and World Transformers. We are being taught, instructed the truth about the world, and how to stop the crazy mayhem that has come about. What has come about? I will tell you later. For now I am just giving a reason for a strange name.
I would like to say that (even though I...uh hum...I almost fall asleep at times) that this class is the best class I have ever been in. Not only are the teachers the greatest, caring teachers were are, but also the classmates have been awesome. We hardily knew each other at all the first day (or at least most of us didn't know at least four of the other eight students) and yet I remember that we talked together like friends, and the interaction was fun and jovial. I can assure everyone that not one (unless it is me, I hope it isn't) of us are supercilious or acrimonial. Nor are we querulous or affectatious. (I just used four of our vocab words off of the top of my head. Mrs. Carter can congratulate me later.) It is fun to step into class, except on Wednesdays...you have a dreadful feeling on Wednesdays. That day is opportunity day.
~CalebB
Monday, October 22, 2007
Just Begining
Hello all, my name is Caleb Brandt and I am part of a homeschooling group called Gileskirk. My life is pretty much boring: I get up at five-thirty or six AM and start on school. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I leave the house by eight to get to Spirit of Joy Church by eight fifteen. (I am usually late...but as I am not the one driving, yet, it can hardily be my fault.) Well, today, a beautiful October day, at a crowded table (one more person and it would be way to tight a fit) Mrs. Emery, my Humanities teacher, said that one of us should start a class blog. Well, no one said anything and; especially with all the work we do already, no one was volunteering. So Mrs. Emery made the deal sweeter: every year there is a last project which is called the 'Forty-hour Project'. Mrs. Emery said that she would let this blog be a forty-hour project; and so I immediately jumped on it, for I had no idea what I was going to do and this sounded fun as long as it wasn't extra curricular. So here it is, the first post of the Gileskirk blog. The name was kinda a spontaneous idea, so if you are reading this, and happen to be one of my classmates, and you don't like it (you must meet those three requirements), then let me know and I will change it.
~CalebB
~CalebB
About Us
Gileskirk is a Christian homeschooling group. The main course is determined by the era in history it will cover: whether it is Creation, , Antiquity, Christendom, or Modernity. I am in Modernity this year, which covers from the 1600’s until now. We are learning what the world has brought itself too since it’s spiral down ever since Modernity started. We also learn what could fix this, and the difference just one person can make. We learn the thoughts of the great thinkers of Modernity: from Sir Walter Scott to Descartes. From Chalmers to Maximillien Robespierre. We learn both sides of the equation, and quotes from people on both sides. We get to choose for ourselves whether we perfer ‘ Honest answers for Honest Questions’ ‘The Gospel is True and capable of changing you and all the world.’ (Chalmers) or ‘I laugh for the sake of those who die. Blood is what sets us free. We will slaughter in a reign of blood and terror until only one man stands: and that man shall be me.’ (Maximillien Robespierre).
The knowing of every great person in the years from 1600 to 2007 and what their lives were (or are) like will enable us to better help our nation, in either changing it, pushing it towards Reformation, or helping it fall into it’s own darkness of Revolution. We are all Christians. We stand up for the believes of Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Chalmers, and Blasé Pascal, so that we can teach others to turn from the ideas of Descartes, Voltaire, Maximillien, Diderot, Hobbes, Spinoza, or Hume.
I will add to this more and more. This is just the beginning of me telling everyone exactly what we are learning.
~CalebB
The knowing of every great person in the years from 1600 to 2007 and what their lives were (or are) like will enable us to better help our nation, in either changing it, pushing it towards Reformation, or helping it fall into it’s own darkness of Revolution. We are all Christians. We stand up for the believes of Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Chalmers, and Blasé Pascal, so that we can teach others to turn from the ideas of Descartes, Voltaire, Maximillien, Diderot, Hobbes, Spinoza, or Hume.
I will add to this more and more. This is just the beginning of me telling everyone exactly what we are learning.
~CalebB
Heart of Darkness
This will be rather like one of our journal entries, so here goes:
In the book there is this reoccurring theme of the Wilderness. The wilderness itself seems to proclaim a certain...protection almost. Or at least to the natives. 'He was swallowed up in the womb of the wilderness', 'Taken into the wilderness's bosom'. 'Womb', and 'bosom' are words used to convey comfort. They are both Biblical words, 'taken to the bosom of Abraham', 'The womb of a nursing mother'. So it is strange when two such words are used in something that in all else betrays utter terror! 'Those who go out don't come back'. So it is a terrifying goodness...? How is that betrayed in the Bible? Is it possible for something terrifying to be good? All these questions jump at us, demanding answers.
So, is it possible to have a 'terrifying goodness'? The answer is yes surely! quote: "Are our tremors to measure the omnipotence?" (Descent into Hell). An example of something frightening being good would be a punishment. We never think a punishment as good: we fear it, don't we? Yes, think of when you were younger, when your mother or father spanked you (I assumed they did). Your cries of 'pain' often were mere let off of your fear. I grant that that was not always the case, but it was sometimes. We feared the pain of the punishment. But looking back, think of what good it did you! Think of what you would be now if you had impunity! (Another word!) The only reason it was terrifying was because we are sinful: we were selfish of ourselves, not wanting pain, and wanting to get away with whatever wrong thing we did.
Another terrifying goodness would be God himself. If you don't fear him, there is something wrong with you spiritually. Most of the time you don't think of fearing him, but when you dwell on the idea of meeting him, or of confessing to him on the last day; you shake with fear because you know how sinful you are. That brings up another thing: sinfulness is the basis of fear. Without sin there would not be fear and this is why: If there was no sin what would we have to fear? Name one thing we could fear if sin is absent and I will take it back, but we would even have no reason to fear God if we did not have sin! Adam and Eve did not fear him until the fall, and then they ran away from him! They obeyed him, surely but it wasn't the same thing as fear. It doesn't take fear to obey: only respect. And in essence, they didn't obey him, which is why there is sin.
So now we know that there is such a thing as a terrifying goodness, now how is that concept betrayed in the Bible? It is conveyed in every encounter of a man with God. Moses feared the fiery bush, and yet as God is a good God, he is a terrifying goodness. And so is a fearful goodness limited only to that which is in the spiritual realm? (For sin is spiritual, and therefore the driving out of that want to sin, through that attack upon the body, punishment: it would in essence itself be spiritual as well) I would not venture to say so. Can we fear man, or any physical creation of God, and yet he, or it, be good? First we must answer the question, 'What is fear?' Fear is that internal guide or feeling that directs us not to do that which is bold. I know that is rather a bad definition of the word, but it will do. So, the answer to can man fear another physical substance not in the spiritual realm, and yet that thing be good, the answer is yes. Think of all the fighting tools that God used among men: Gideon, Samson, David, and so many others; but those three will do. Gideon: he took three hundred men and slaughtered three hundred thousand. I am sure that during or after that massacre people feared him. Samson: killed five hundred men with the jaw of a donkey; ripped and carried off the gates of Jerusalem! Think of the gates of Gondor in the movie Return of the King. That is about the same type of gate that barred the entrance to Jerusalem! We are told that people feared him! David: 'Saul has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands' and he was yet a boy. He was a bloody man, and many armies turned tail and ran when they heard that he was coming. Now all three of these men were good men. 'Now the man Gideon loved God', 'David's heart was turned towards God', and 'Samson was a man of strong love for his God'. Although they all messed up some time or other, that is expected. They all had something in common: they were mere men, and men sin.
So, I have analyzed the questions, and maybe have gone over the top, but there you have it. I loved that book: it inspired new thought. I might just read it again....for the third time.
~CalebB
In the book there is this reoccurring theme of the Wilderness. The wilderness itself seems to proclaim a certain...protection almost. Or at least to the natives. 'He was swallowed up in the womb of the wilderness', 'Taken into the wilderness's bosom'. 'Womb', and 'bosom' are words used to convey comfort. They are both Biblical words, 'taken to the bosom of Abraham', 'The womb of a nursing mother'. So it is strange when two such words are used in something that in all else betrays utter terror! 'Those who go out don't come back'. So it is a terrifying goodness...? How is that betrayed in the Bible? Is it possible for something terrifying to be good? All these questions jump at us, demanding answers.
So, is it possible to have a 'terrifying goodness'? The answer is yes surely! quote: "Are our tremors to measure the omnipotence?" (Descent into Hell). An example of something frightening being good would be a punishment. We never think a punishment as good: we fear it, don't we? Yes, think of when you were younger, when your mother or father spanked you (I assumed they did). Your cries of 'pain' often were mere let off of your fear. I grant that that was not always the case, but it was sometimes. We feared the pain of the punishment. But looking back, think of what good it did you! Think of what you would be now if you had impunity! (Another word!) The only reason it was terrifying was because we are sinful: we were selfish of ourselves, not wanting pain, and wanting to get away with whatever wrong thing we did.
Another terrifying goodness would be God himself. If you don't fear him, there is something wrong with you spiritually. Most of the time you don't think of fearing him, but when you dwell on the idea of meeting him, or of confessing to him on the last day; you shake with fear because you know how sinful you are. That brings up another thing: sinfulness is the basis of fear. Without sin there would not be fear and this is why: If there was no sin what would we have to fear? Name one thing we could fear if sin is absent and I will take it back, but we would even have no reason to fear God if we did not have sin! Adam and Eve did not fear him until the fall, and then they ran away from him! They obeyed him, surely but it wasn't the same thing as fear. It doesn't take fear to obey: only respect. And in essence, they didn't obey him, which is why there is sin.
So now we know that there is such a thing as a terrifying goodness, now how is that concept betrayed in the Bible? It is conveyed in every encounter of a man with God. Moses feared the fiery bush, and yet as God is a good God, he is a terrifying goodness. And so is a fearful goodness limited only to that which is in the spiritual realm? (For sin is spiritual, and therefore the driving out of that want to sin, through that attack upon the body, punishment: it would in essence itself be spiritual as well) I would not venture to say so. Can we fear man, or any physical creation of God, and yet he, or it, be good? First we must answer the question, 'What is fear?' Fear is that internal guide or feeling that directs us not to do that which is bold. I know that is rather a bad definition of the word, but it will do. So, the answer to can man fear another physical substance not in the spiritual realm, and yet that thing be good, the answer is yes. Think of all the fighting tools that God used among men: Gideon, Samson, David, and so many others; but those three will do. Gideon: he took three hundred men and slaughtered three hundred thousand. I am sure that during or after that massacre people feared him. Samson: killed five hundred men with the jaw of a donkey; ripped and carried off the gates of Jerusalem! Think of the gates of Gondor in the movie Return of the King. That is about the same type of gate that barred the entrance to Jerusalem! We are told that people feared him! David: 'Saul has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands' and he was yet a boy. He was a bloody man, and many armies turned tail and ran when they heard that he was coming. Now all three of these men were good men. 'Now the man Gideon loved God', 'David's heart was turned towards God', and 'Samson was a man of strong love for his God'. Although they all messed up some time or other, that is expected. They all had something in common: they were mere men, and men sin.
So, I have analyzed the questions, and maybe have gone over the top, but there you have it. I loved that book: it inspired new thought. I might just read it again....for the third time.
~CalebB
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