Skip to main content

What Changes us - Caroline Tucker

 I am very confident that I can correctly assume that growing up we all were told to be careful of who we surround ourselves with. This is something we hear both at home and in the church. We even hear Socrates mention it a couple of times.

Socrates mentions the impact of good and bad company multiple times through out The Republic. The time that coincides with this particular blog assignment is in book VIII when it is said “The son is drawn once again to the same bad companions. He meets them clandestinely, and a whole new brood of desires is hatched” (Plato, 151). My entire life my parents have been invested in my friendships, always asking about my friends and how the relationship is going. Looking back at my life I realized that there were some friendships I had which were not completely healthy for me. I am so grateful that my parents would watch those friendships carefully but would let me make the decision to end the friendship if I wanted to. Thankfully, my parents trained me well and I eventually realized that those friendships were bad for me and they were changing me in a way I did not want to go.

We are all influenced by what we are around. It could be anything from music, tv, book, and people. This is why it is so important to be aware of the people and things that influence you. All throughout the Bible it is mentioned the importance of your companions. In Proverbs it says, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed” (Prov. 13:20). The Bible stresses the importance of keeping good company. The people around you can change you for good or for bad. This is not to say that you cannot be friends with people who could influence you in a bad way. We just have to be carful not to let them influence us but rather let us influence them.

One of my favorite quotes is by Dr. Jay Strack at Student Leadership University 101 and I think it is very important to this post. The quote is “You will be the same person five years from now except for the books you read, the places you go, the people you meet, and what you memorize.” This quote is a great place to conclude. This quote encompasses the importance of the things you surround yourself with. These things will change you. They can either change you for the better or for the worse. 

P.s. I commented on Racheal’s and Clabo’s posts.

Comments

  1. Braylan StringfellowOctober 5, 2020 at 8:44 PM

    My parents were the same way with my friends. They were very involved with my friendships, and there were times when my mom would come to me about some of them. I didn't always listen to her though, and there are times I wish I did.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Word Painting in Vesta—Lily Caswell

  Word painting in Weelkes’s As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending is quite interesting. And because that is a really long title, I’m calling it Vesta from now on. Word painting is basically when the melody matches up with the lyrics. So in Vesta, when it says “ascending” and “descending”, there are obviously scales going up and down. The madrigal was written for six voices to sing unaccompanied, so when they start to come together, it matches with the lyrics; so if the lyric says “two by two”, there are only two voices; “three by three” there is another voice added, and so forth. All the parts combine in exclamation before Vesta before it is left “all alone” to the highest soprano. All the way to the end of the piece, word painting continues when shouts of “Long live fair Oriana” with the bass sustaining long notes. Word painting in and of itself is a highly interesting topic because a musician takes the words of a poem or a sonnet and writes a melody line that pertains to cer...
4 comments
Read more

Honor and Gain; Which Do You Seek?

 Pericles.... thanks? I can only imagine that's what the family and friends were thinking after they heard his historic funeral speech honoring the departed. What do I mean? Well, Pericles briefly mentions the men who have fallen at the beginning of his speech, but then goes on to discuss how great Athens is, and how the contributions the city has made to the world are unmatched.. why? I understand that he is also commending the citizens of Athens and empowering them to continue to make their city greater, but I thought this was supposed to be a funeral speech about dead war heroes, not about Athens. Another thing I found interesting is what Pericles said on page five about honor: "For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness" (Thucydides, page 5). Have you ever watched a show or movie, or read a book, about a duel between two men? There is always an unspoken agre...
Post a Comment
Read more

It Is All About the Intent - Clabo

Augustine shed light on a very important idea that worship is not supposed to be just like every other kind of music. I used to have friends who went to an extremely restrictive church where the pastor believed and constantly proclaimed, "If during worship your toe starts tappin' before your heart starts movin' then it ain't Christian!" While this statement may be kind of excessive, it does reflect the same truth that Augustine touches on. Worship is meant to teach and to help one grow closer to God. It is not about trying to reach an emotional or spiritual high, it is a time a place where we, as Christians, should be striving to focus intently on the words we are singing. This leads to my second point. Our intent and heart posture when worshiping God is always going to be a necessary thing when it comes to truly worshiping, but if the songs we sing don't necessarily reflect the truths that we are trying to live out and apply to our lives, then we are never go...
2 comments
Read more