Katie Henry English 101, Tuesday/Thursdays at 9:30-10:45 Prof. Menzel 12/1/14 Book Essay: Mountains Beyond Mountains Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder, highlights the work of Dr. Paul Farmer. Farmer is a man who has dedicated his time and energy to help the ill people in even the poorest of countries. These people don’t have the proper medical care because they were deprived of money and a well-functioning hospital. Because of this, Farmer used his own money to provide the utilities he needed to help these sick people. This isn’t a typical biography about a man doing his part in the world.
This shift left workers who tilled and worked the lands without work, food, or a place to stay as the lands usually saved for renters where given to the sheep for grassing areas. To further complicate life, in England, King Henry not satisfied by the Roman Catholic Church’s decision not to support his divorce from his wife because she was unable to bear him a son caused him to break ties with the church. (Brinkley, 2012) This split opened the doors for other religious belief to further permeate into England. For years proceeding his death, Elizabeth, his daughter tried to reconnect the country with the church, but failed with the thriving Christian population. The New World was a land of new opportunities, of new beginnings and place problems from the Old World would be behind.
129). Here Frank was at confession, because he threw up his first communion breakfast. In our culture today, it would be insignificant because throwing up is a bodily function, that should not be controlled, yet to Franks grandmother this was a big deal and considered a sin. Even Frank himself admits that his religion did account for some amount of suffering in his early life. “Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood, is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood”(McCourt pg.
Brown’s life could almost have been genetically engineered to be the subject of studies about disability. He was born to a poor Irish family, the tenth of twenty-two children. Despite having been born with a highly debilitating degree of cerebral palsy, Brown was raised at home by parents who decided against institutionalizing him. With the help of his family as well as a number of mentors throughout his life, Brown wrote the autobiography upon which the movie is based as well as a number of other books. He wrote his books and poems as well as created a number of paintings using only his left foot, using the only muscles that he could control armed by Throughout his life, Brown was engaged in the kinds of performativity that we have been discussing throughout the course, the kind of performativity involved in creating an identity that serves to create both public and private persona.
In 1840, when Blessed Damien was born under the name Joseph de Veuster, few people had firsthand knowledge of leprosy. By the time he died at the age of 49, people all over the world knew about this disease because of his kindness and dedication to a small colony in Molokai. Joseph entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus in his early 20s. And when his brother Pamphile, a priest in the same congregation, fell ill and was unable to go to the Hawaiian Islands as assigned, Damien volunteered in his place; while nobody else did. In one person’s opinion, Damien was a hero for going to Molokai; while another may believe he was crazy.
So it is up to Jody and Bill Buck to try and help the helpless animal. Billy does whatever he can to help this animal survive, but one night Gabilan ran away from the ranch and ended up dead the next morning. Jody felt that he had let his father down tremendously and so he took it very hard on himself because the one responsibility he was given, he felt he failed himself and his father. This is where Jody’s internal conflicts began. For Jody having to take on a sense of responsibility was a new life skill he had never encountered before.
St Benedict was a person that made significant contribution to the growth of Christianity and the Christian monastic communities. Born into a wealthy family in a small town in the central Italian city of Nursia around 480, Benedict experienced a very privileged childhood. He spent his childhood in Rome with his parents and sister, Saint Scholastica where he dedicated himself in books and study but was disturbed by the malevolence present in Rome at the time. Wanting to get away from it all, he abandoned his advantaged life and fled to the mountains near Subiaco, where he spend three years as a hermit under the direction of monk Romanus. (Theison, 2009).
Saint Monica can be considered the first major factor that contributed to her son’s conversion. At one point Augustine became very ill and during his period of sickness he made the decision to be baptized. He suddenly got better and did not go through with the baptism (“Saint Augustine”). Augustine’s father was very ill and also chose to be baptized shortly before his own death in 371. He had not led a very religious life but, like his son, was encouraged and taught by Saint Monica.
Luke Mareham 9/28/11 9A Saint Francis of Assisi Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history. Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, and he lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi. While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life.
Because of Christian Science, his family did not want to go to an official doctor. Due to poor treatment, the wounded eye was left in its socket, causing Thurber’s right eye to suffer from a condition called Sympathetic Ophthalmia years later (Grauer, 5-6). He began to lose vision in his right eye. The condition stopped becoming worse until many years later and he became legally blind. (Morsberger, 602).