English 2323

So I waited until my last semester at UTPB to take an English literature course. I didn't really do this intentionally... it just happened this way!

I was nervous to take British Lit. I am used to my communication and management coursework by now, and though it’s challenging for sure, it's challenging in a predictable way.


I didn't know what to expect in this class, but so far I am loving it!


I attended a Campus Harvest event in Austin recently. This is a conference for college students through Every Nation Campus Ministries. IT WAS SO GOOD.


More about that to come hopefully, but one piece of the conference that really stuck with me was when a speaker said that we should ask ourselves every day, “have you read something life-giving today?”

What is "life-giving" literature?

To me it is something that requires us to stop, slow down, and refocus our brains. It causes us to reevaluate some aspect of living, or the world around us.


I can watch HGTV (which I really enjoy) all day, but is it life-giving? Probably not.


Design/idea giving maybe, but not life-giving!



But when I read something like Proverbs 31, which describes a wife of noble character who is worth “far more than rubies”, I feel life flow out of it.


Proverbs 31:35

 “She is clothed with strength and dignity;
    she can laugh at the days to come

She speaks with wisdom,
   and faithful instruction is on her tongue.”

Wow. Talk about making you stop, slow down, and refocus!

This is what I love about my English class right now. We have studied many Romantic era poets including William Wordsworth. These poets felt that it was imperative for us as humans to slow down and look with wonder at the everyday objects we might normally pass by without a thought, and truly enjoy them.

They stressed the importance of glorifying common places and things and seeing life with the perspective of a child.

For example in his poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud”,

Wordsworth talks about taking a walk all alone and coming across a field of daffodils. Instead of taking a picture with his i-phone, posting it to facebook (not possible as this was in the 1800’s), and then moving on, he takes the time to really take in the scene and marvel at it.

Later on, when he is home and in a bad mood, he can think back to the daffodils, and their memory plays back like a movie reel in his mind. He can enjoy them all over again!

What a simple, yet genius way to view life.

I watched a baby crawl across the floor at Birthright today. He crawled to the front door, which is made of glass, and stared through it with such JOY. What was there to see? The sun shining on a parking lot? People walking in and out of stores?  Trash blowing in the wind? I don’t know but I think he saw more than I did. He just delighted in the world and what was going on. Everything is new to him!

This English class just keeps reminding me that there is so much to see and delight in all around us. True we might not have a field of daffodils to look at, but we have the smile of our grandmother as she gives us advice that she learned in her 50+ years of marriage, or the smell of rain after we haven’t seen any for months, or the beautiful sunsets that we see here in West Texas.

Without getting any cheesier with this blog, I just want to express how happy I am to be expanding my mind through this English class.

And I have to ask,

Have you read anything life-giving today?

Hear “I wandered lonely as a cloud” at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crGftnW8y9s&feature=related