"Shadow Bird"

Shadow bird dark as night;

  Representing Satan and all his fright.

To stop the spread of the gospel heard;

  He uses such a tiny bird.

Fluttering around a distraction true;

  He'll use whatever it takes to get to you.

So, shadow bird fly away;

  For The Lord resides in this place today.

                  ~Written by Rebekah Ratliff

"Fair Play" by Deeanne Gist

I have been an avid reader of Gist's books ever since her novel debut. She has always been teetering on the edge of edgy. This one topples over that edge. I have to say as well that Gist usually does her homework when it comes to research. This one, not so much.

I am by no means a prude. When I get uncomfortable reading a novel, that raises all sorts of red flags for me. I took a lot of hard work to remove the foul language from my mind so I would not spew it out of my mouth, and it took a lot of hard work to shake myself of bad books as well. 
I love well-written Christian novels. I know that they can be better than most classics if authors and editors work hard at their craft. This one starts out definitely humorous, with really good references to actual events. It not only strikes true, but rings true. Then Gist falls apart. Using the guise of the female being a doctor, and the male being the patient with a bowel movement problem, this novel goes downhill from there.

I get enough garbage from TV commercials without having to read it in a Christian novel. This was the worst of Gist's efforts. Why go there? What was the purpose? The examination scene was written as nothing short of erotica. I balk at that. If Gist want's to write that kind of junk then she needs to move away from the Christian label.

The major problem most authors have is they think readers have no imagination. Why are we reading if we do not exercise our imagination to the fullest? I do not need an author to spell out that a female hand is on the abdomen of the male character and then have the male think something erotic even while he is in severe pain and has fainted in the elevator.

I read Christian books so that I can be assured of a clean imagination ride.

I give this book one star (I may be selling this one short just a bit, but going over the edge of edgy takes away that second star.)

Happy Birthday!

A special shout out to my sister Rachel Ratliff Heflin who turned 26!!! Happy birthday sissy poo! Lol....

A new book review is soon to follow... Finishing up the book now :)

Disney Dream Song

As my fingers glide over the ivory piano keys and my eyes search the piano sheet music for the notes to play, I think back and become thankful for my mother giving me a love to read. My mother remembers that, when I was a little child of just three years old I would bring her stacks of colorful books varied in thickness held all the way up to my chin to her, crawl up in her lap, settle in, and say, “that one!” I would point to a book in the stack and my eyes would light up with excitement. We would sit that way for hours…., my mother and I, completely content to bask in the excitement of the book we were reading and in each other’s company.
As my mother read the story books filled with wonderful adventures of talking animals and little children making memories, I started to pick out words, syllables, phrases, pages, and then whole books. By the age of three I was able to pull one of my favorite books (Dick and Jane- the story of a little girl and little boy who play with balls and bats, and have crazy mishaps) off my small little white shelf in my bedroom and sit on my plush brown carpeted floor to read all by myself.  
As I continued to grow older, and my love of reading grew, I moved on to a harder form of literacy, that being, musical literacy. My father played the mandolin my entire adolescent life and became interested in playing the violin when I was just six years old. My father was not sure that I was old enough to read and comprehend music, let alone hold a violin and rosin a bow, use my fingers to find the notes, and use my other arm to extend the bow back and forth at the right time to make music come out of my violin that sounded good. He wanted to wait a couple years, but I was persistent and I signed up with my father to take violin lessons when I was six years old. This was the first step to start me off in learning to read music.

On Tuesday nights at 6:00pm our violin lessons began. The teacher pointed out musical notes to me, at first they looked foreign – completely unusual and the note form didn’t mean anything, but the teacher pointed out as I read the description of what those notes meant, and I soon began to understand and read music. Musical notes are little dots located on multiple lines with a stem pointing up or down. The stem direction determines whether the note is the melody or the harmony.  From a quarter note (which you hold out for a quarter of a beat), to a whole note (which you hold out for four whole beats) when my eyes scan a piece of sheet music I can translate it into what my fingers are supposed to play whether it be the violin or the piano. My eyes look at the notes (musical words) and having years of practice my fingers know exactly what they need to do without having to stop and really think about it. It is not that easy when you first start to play an instrument. It requires time and a lot of effort in practicing to read the notes, just like when you are practicing your alphabet when you are little you have to repeat them multiple times. Then you have to teach your fingers to stretch and reach for keys that are further away while making sure that your music flows. You have to do this multiple times to teach your fingers which notes are placed where.

 It’s the same thing when I sing. When I choose a song to sing sometimes I hear it on the radio first crackling away and listen to it multiple times before I have the words memorized and the basic part of the melody learned. Other times I pick up piece of sheet music at a music store or online, having never heard the song before. My excitement builds as I cannot wait to sit down on my old rickety piano bench holding the sheet music close and I begin to slowly reach my hand out to pluck out the tune written on the sheet in front of me.

It is just like reading, you crack open the cover of a new book and become engrossed in the plot as it thickens and peoples true characters are revealed. Putting the book down sometimes is not only a challenge, but becomes impossible until you have finished the story. Music becomes that way as well. Once you learn a new song it is stuck in your head and plays over and over consuming who you are and what you think about. When I sing, I am so in tune with the music that my thoughts and mindset become the song.  I sing of loving and my arms ache to hold someone, I sing of adventures and I am already imagining the trip to take.

 Playing the piano with both hands I begin to sing and play the song over and over and over until I finally have it memorized. I can then begin to add extra harmony and minor parts to the song trying different styles and seeing which is a better fit.

Without the great gift my mother gave me when I was three, sitting content on her lap while she taught me to read, and the gift my father gave me when he taught me to read music at the young age of six, I would never have the joy of playing, singing, and making music. Music has become an enormous part of who I am and who I want to become. My dream is to one day have the privilege to sing in a Disney movie as a leading female vocalist. Without the knowledge and passion of being able to read words, which then led me to read music, I might never have a hope or prayer of one day reaching or achieving my dream, but with the literary tools given to me in my youth I am confident that I can succeed in my musical dreams.

Review and opinion of "The Help"

SEGREGATION: The enforced separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group. In the movie “The Help” it relates to the audience how the segregated members of the film and sympathetic non-segregated members felt during the 1960’s, a period of time centrally focused on hate crimes and segregation.

How do you take a potentially highly emotionally charged, painful and divisive civil rights issue and make it into a pleasant, poignant unifying and uplifting story? By laying on the Southern charm, of course, and throwing in more than a dash of real, honest humor. "The Help" is a delicious peppery stew of home-cooked, 1960s Southern-style racism that serves up a soulful dish of what ails us and what heals us. (Sharkey, 2011) Laughter, which is ladled thick as gravy, proves to be the secret ingredient, turning what should be a feel-bad movie about those troubled times into a heart-warming surprise.  Brilliantly translating the bestselling novel by Kathryn Stockett to the big screen, The Help tells a historical story about women, a story that will make you laugh, and probably cry, and it will likely leave you a better person for having seen it.

Set in the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, The Help follows young college graduate Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, who just returned home with a degree from the University Of Mississippi, dreams of being a writer, and while she immediately lands a job writing a cleaning column, she soon after decides to secretly pen a book exposing what life is like from the point of view of the help, the black women who cook, clean and raise white children, only to have those children grow up to neglect them and become their bosses.

Viola Davis stars as Aibileen, Skeeter’s best friend’s (Elizabeth) housekeeper, who is the first to open up and tell her side of the story, to the dismay of her friends in the tight-knit black community. She is motivated by a desire to remember her late son who was killed in an automobile accident. (Francois, 2011) He was left to die in front of the black hospital with little or no regard to his health. He died shortly afterwards.
Aibileen is a maid. It is her nine-to-five daily job. She does all the cooking, she cleans, she goes to the grocery story, and most important, she takes care of Elizabeth's daughter Mae Mobley. She repeats over and over to Mae Mobley a little phrase “You is kind, you is smart, and you is important.” This phrase she has repeated year after year to the children under her care, hoping that one day they will remember those words and treat others with the respect they deserve.
The next maid to agree to tell her story is Minny. Minny is Aibileens best friend and confidant. Aibileen and Minny have been cleaning white houses and polishing the silver, and cooking meals and tending children and smiling, always smiling, even as they pretend not to hear the insults, to remind you that this is at least partly about backbreaking labor. (Murray, 2011) Working for Miss Hilly Holbrook, the town's queen bee, Minny is the best cook in the county. Miss Hilly's manipulative ways finally become too much for Minny, though, and Minny does a "terrible, awful deed" to get back at her by baking a special “pie.” Minny waltzed right up to Hilly’s house and said she was sorry. Hilly sat at the table and ate two whole slices of Minny’s “pie.” Hilly was cantankerous and began shouting orders at Minny. Minny politely informs Hilly that she had been eating Minny’s feces! Hilly was so embarrassed and repulsed she never got Minny in trouble because she didn’t want others to know what she had eaten.  After that, Minny goes to work for Celia Foote, a nice, pretty young lady who is considered white trash by Hilly and her friends.  
One night it’s after hours, and Aibileen, is going home. Suddenly the bus stops, and a white man orders the black passengers off, explaining that a black man has been shot. In a pool of dreadful night, Aibileen and a young man trade goodbyes and rush off. And then this sturdy, frightened woman starts running as if her life were in danger, because it’s Mississippi, and it is.
When she gets to safety, Aibileen learns that the man who has been shot is Medgar Evers, His wife and three young children, who were trained to lie on the floor in case of gunfire, found him in their home. Medgar was the civil rights activist who was gunned down in Jackson, Miss., on June 12, 1963, Evers died shortly afterward. Hours before, President John F. Kennedy, spurred on by different national events, including the demonstrations in Birmingham led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and had delivered his landmark speech about civil rights. He said we were facing a “moral crisis as a country and a people” and soon introduced legislation that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Francois, 2011)(Murray, 2011)
As racial tensions rise and tragedy strikes in the town, more maids find the courage to come forward anonymously. Despite the possibility of a terrible backlash, the women tell all for a book that has the potential to turn their Mississippi town completely upside down.
The Help is appalling, entertaining, touching and perhaps even a bit healing, as we read and listen, and watch the stories unfold. But what reminds me that I live in a free country where all men are created equal is looking back to the Civil War all those years ago. The Civil War was fought not only to release those unjustly bound by slavery, but also to help keep our country free, and whole.
It has been said that when America ceases to be great, it’s because America has ceased to be good. Prejudice of any kind should never be an issue in a free country. From another standpoint, I have seen prejudice in my lifetime. The very same people that were in captivity and segregation in the movie The Help have forgotten that they are free to make their own choices now, and have not stopped living in the past. While the past should be remembered, it should never be consistently relived. Hatred goes both ways. It’s not just whites vs. blacks. Having been the recipient of black vs. white because of something people did years ago that had the same color skin, did not make me guilty by association, and yet I was still punished.
The lesson to be learned from this movie is to forget, and to forgive. Move on, be better, and hope to instill in those around you something of value.

Book Review Statement

So I have decided that I will start reviewing some of the books that I read. Since I read all of the time I figure it couldn't hurt to help pass on some helpful comments about the books that cross my path and if they are worthy of your time. Books are my friends...they make me smile, laugh, and cry. They make my day brighter and help to sometimes lighten my heavy load even if just for the briefest of seconds.
I hope this will be a help and encouragement to all my fellow readers out there!

God Works His Miracles

My Thanksgiving Song

Do you ever seee the work stop?
   And see people on their knees?
Being Thankful for the blessings
   that they've already received.
The world is moving faster and our
   morals moving slow,
We tell people we love them,
   but our feelings never show.......

Chorus:
Its time to bring back alittle thanks into our lives;
   Its time to bring back just alittle more time.....
Bend America on her knees,
   hold on to faith and liberty.
Learn to say thank you....for each little blessing......

Blessings above us, Blessings around us
   each little blessing we hold in our lives.
Comes from the one who loves and adores us
With bountiful blessings our needs be supplied......

Repeat chorus:

Musical video to soon follow

Songs Of Intermediate Praise

I came up with the idea of blogging my thoughts, poems, and songs of praise....Not only will it help me keep up with my creations, but it will hopefullly be an inspiration to all of you! Please let me know what you think....your opinion is greatly appreciated. Please keep all comments clean and decent since children will be veiwing this site!!!!