M2A4: Peace Child Discussion
Why was a gift of a child needed in this story? Why not a sum of money or some other less extreme sacrifice? The gift of a child was needed because the writer, Don Richardson, needed to use it as an analogy to communicate that Christ is the perfect child and God was willing to give his only child for the sake of peace. It was also significant because money is not something of extreme sacrifice or value to the Sawi people, or other tribes within that area. What was important and valued were their own children, whom if they were willing to give up a child to another person’s care, they were proving they trusted them and that the peace would remain intact. The peace child was the ultimate sacrifice and that needed
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Effective communication is how I resolve the conflicts I encounter in my family, work, and community culture. By speaking honestly and clearly, my position and interests are shared. When the other party decides to also take part in the effective communication, they are open to listening to me. However, if they do not listen to what I have to say, rather than escalate the conflict, I listen to their positions and interests. By doing this, I can then show I am open-minded enough to respect their cultures and viewpoints in order to reach a reasonable solution. Richardson employed the same method when he decided to listen, openly, to the significance of the peace child, then related the holy peace child in terms they could relate to and understand.
What lessons about the necessary elements of peacemaking do you get from Peace
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Richardson developed mindful awareness, increasing his understanding of the Sawi’s point of view. He built cultural fluency, an essential element of peacemaking, in order to help solve the conflicts he faced with the Sawi people. He learned the Sawi language, in order to better communicate and understand their culture, and he discovered important cultural patterns. He familiarized himself with the cultural dynamics of the Sawi people in order to bridge their differences. Richardson realized the low-context communication style of the Sawi people and learned to use it affectively. As he attempted to build his cultural fluency, he did not fall in the cultural traps that can cause miscommunication and failed thinking. Richardson explored both the cultural differences and similarities, rather than focusing on or the other or failing to see both as equally important to peace building. He also developed conflict fluency, understanding the conflict, knowing it was essential to bridging the differences between the various tribes. Richardson was then able to take what he had learned from observing and interacting with the Sawi people, fostering dynamic engagement, in order to build a new relationship on understanding and dialogue. Richardson also understood the fact that unless he realized and accepted the differing starting points and currencies, of both himself
John Knowles writes a compelling realistic fiction about the lives of two teenage boys throughout the start of World War II in his novel A Separate Peace. Peter Yates the director of the movie plays the story out in a well organized theatrical manner. There are similarities and differences in these two works of art. However; there are also similarities.
The literary analysis essay for A Separate Peace entitled Chapter 7: After the Fall notes that Gene’s brawl with Cliff Quackenbush occurs for two reasons: the first reason being that Gene was fighting to defend Finny, and the second reason being that Quackenbush is the antithesis of Finny. Cliff Quackenbush calls Gene a “maimed son-of-a-bitch”, since Gene holds a position on the team that is usually reserved for physically disabled students, and Gene reacts by hitting him in the face (Knowles, 79). At first, Gene remarks that he didn’t know why he reacted this way, then he says, “it was almost as though I were maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me”, referring to Finny (Knowles, 79). Quackenbush is “the adult world of punitive authority personified”, his voice mature, his convictions militaristic (Chapter, 76). Quackenbush reminds Gene of the adult world and all of the things that Finny and Devon protected him from, such as war.
In the human nature, naive ignorance of the world's imperfections eventually yields to the recognition that the world does contain hatred and violence. John Knowles places his novel A Separate Peace in situations which necessitate this emotional transformation. The characters become increasingly aware of the nature of the world. In addition, symbols help show the interrelation of ideas and events as they appear in Gene's subconscious mind. In this novel, setting, character, and symbols develop the theme of loss of innocence.
Faith is belief in what you cannot see and is a common theme shown throughout this book. The Lands family go through many different personal trials throughout their lives. Reuben had much faith in his own father, while Jeremiah never wavered in his faith with God because he always trusted in Him. But, Davy, his son, only believed in himself because he continued to run away from his issues because he believed that he could deal with them on his own. In the book, Peace Like a River, Reuben, Jeremiah, and Davy apply their faith to different people.
A key point is how a child can be treated in an awful way, especially by his mother. As Paul Greaney says “How can a child starve to death in 21st century England?” (Pidd, 2013) The strength of the above quote is that it shows that it is shocking that in today’s society child abuse is still happening and because, of this innocent children like Hamzah are dying. Nowadays, there are more help you can get from different services, and parents get benefit for children that are under age. So the mother had no excuse to starve Hamzah to death and treat him in a cruel way, which has shocked everyone. What happened with Hamzah was a type of an abuse, which is neglect, he was left in dirty clothes and in a setting where it was unclean. He wasn’t fed properly and taken good care of in a result on which he died.
Envy is known to bring out the monster in everyone. It is an enmity that is buried deeply inside of us and causes us to do things we wouldn’t normally do.It even turns the people we love into people we hate. In the book A Separate Peace, Gene is filled with envy and it makes him act upon it blindly and injure his so called “best friend”, Finny. This envy endangers their friendship and one of their lives.
“The more sure I am that I 'm right, the more likely I will actually be mistaken. My need to be right makes it more likely that I will be wrong! Likewise, the more sure I am that I am mistreated, the more likely I am to miss ways that I am mistreating others myself. My need for justification obscures the truth." This sentence is one of many quotes from the book I really liked and agreed with. After reading The Anatomy of Peace, I realized that the Arbinger Institute was deeply insightful helping me to understand the reality and myself. I also realized that the moment I start to agree with this statement, I walked out of my box.
Children exposed to violence within their communities are left with emotions of hopelessness, insecurity, and doubt. Historical events such as the war on terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the tragic events of September 11th have had a detrimental effect on the entire nation, including the children. Although every child is not directly affected by the aspects of war, it somehow has an emotional effect on all. The involvement of a nation with war affects every individual differently, whether it is out of fear, anger, doubt, hope, or love. In the short novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he narrates the story by telling his own involvement in the Civil War in Sierra Leone as young boy and the many issues he faces while living in horror. Also, author Garbarino points out in his book Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment in the chapter involving the security of children that:
The baby symbolizes revival and forgiveness. Adding on, the baby gave the parents a new
“Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud, It was the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make. With unthinking sureness I moved out on the limb and jumped into the river, every trace of my fear forgotten.” (Knowles 59-60). Gene Forrester, one of the main characters in John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace, describes his best friend Phineas' fall from a “tremendous tree, an irate steely black steeple beside a river,”(Knowles 6) at their all boys boarding school, Devon. Gene is an introverted young boy who is very academically gifted. Finny, however, is an extremely extroverted childish young boy who is very athleticaly gifted. Finny's fall eventually leads to terrible things, such as death and guilt. Throughout the novel Knowles uses Phineas' fall from the tree to symbolize his loss of innocence, to show Gene's guilt, and to develop Phinea's death.
In A Separate Peace, John Knowles depicts two maturing boys, each on entirely different ends of the personality spectrum. Finny and Gene are roommates at the Devon School in New England, placed together by chance. Gene Forrester characterizes himself with intelligence and thoughtfulness while also possessing sparks of competitiveness. Phineas, better known as Finny, holds undeniable charm and strong athleticism. Their utterly different traits leave them in a position where their status as roommates is the only driving force in their friendship. Although they project different world views and demonstrate different forms of leadership if any, both of them have hidden insecurities, connecting them in ways beyond their apparent characteristics.
In part one, Petersen paints a picture of how he became interested in the topic of communication. He also describes major problems that all communicators have in common. Since he grew up in an environment full of communication deficiencies, it drove him to clarify issues that were common to all communicators. One of the foundational concepts to Petersen’s book is the nature of communication. Petersen called communication the lubrication designed to keep functions of stomach, heart, and head working separately and together. The stomach is the source of feeling words, the heart is the source of perspective words, and the head is the source of our perception of facts. Without these three elements working together, communication becomes deficient. In my experience and understanding how this concept of thinking and feeling affects mine and others people relationships goes a long way towards reducing disagreement and disconnection.
In the short story The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omelas, Ursula Le Guin illustrates a community that is joyous. However, the community is torn because the source of their happiness is due to the choosing of an unfortunate child that resides in a basement under of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas neglected and barely ever eating. Le Guin explanation that although the people of the community are very happy, they are also very well aware of what is providing them that happiness. He writes, “all know [the child] is there… They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (257). This unjust and cruel punishment this child must endure for the sake of the community causes an ethical dilemma that tears apart the community. The ethical dilemma forces the community to acknowledge their living situation and ask themselves: What is more important? Their happiness or this child? Thus, they must make a choice to either walk away from the life and community they have lived in for their whole life because their source of happiness is at the cost of a young boys life. Or, do they continue to live in Omelas and ignore the harsh conditions that this young boy is exposed to. In the story the boy is described as a six-year-old boy that is neglected, locked away in a dirty room, abused mentally and physically, and alone(Le Guin, 257). He barely has any fat on him because all he is fed is “hal...
Over the span of recorded history, humankind has inflicted horrors upon itself. Attempts at ending these brutal conflicts usually involved a great deal of violence; problem solving entailed an “off with his head” approach. We would like to think that we are better than that today, but look no further than newspaper headlines to see that human behavior has not come very far since the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, there has been a positive development in modern day problem solving that Pruitt and Kim (2004) call “reconciliation” (p. 218). Simply put, this is the process of relationship repair. The importance of this theory cannot be understated. Reconciliation of divided people and societies is vital to preventing the reoccurrence of violence and building long-term, sustainable peace (Sustainable reconciliation, 2013). If people do not reconcile, conflicts will continue to arise time after time after time.
“each child was given a sandwich.” Faulk's focused on children, this is to make the reader feel sympathetic as children are seen and innocent and helpless. This simple sentence gives the reader insight and foreshadow of the future and inevitable death of the children.