Let me warn you, first of all: PG content. This is going to be another open, honest, and somewhat blunt entry, and I'm kind of afraid, because I am making myself vulnerable. :/

An excerpt from my diary.

Professor D today talked about reasons why literature is immoral�or rather, why it isn�t immoral. He�s a Democrat. Which means he is more liberal than about 90% of the staff and students here and ALL the people I�ve ever met in the Nazarene church! It�s so interesting to meet a Democrat I�m not offended by�

His opinion is that obscenity, sex, and violence do NOT make a book immoral. Actually, he doesn�t think that books are immoral at all. Not The Scarlet Letter. Not Shakespeare�s plays. Not Catcher in the Rye (which I have heard is terrible.) He doesn�t believe in �garbage in�garbage out.� He�s a very firm believer in free will. We MAKE the choices to do the things we do.

Hearing him talk completely opened my mind and I loved it. He made so much sense and for once I am beginning to change my views on strict conservatism. I think I�m going to end up, as a result of this, closer to the middle of the Liberal-Conservative scale. But still on the conservative side, �cause I want to keep that a little.

I think it�ll make decisions on beliefs harder and I�ll go through a trial, but I believe that God will guide me the whole way, and I�ll end up firmer in my beliefs and more confident in God.

Does that make sense?

I can�t believe I�m with a liberal, though! Crazy! And at NNU, too!

Man, he had some good points that scared me. About being exposed to books with gross, gross sex in them. Like, ahem, The Canterbury Tales. YUCK!!

His good point was that we should be exposed to them, because, teaching in public high schools, we are going to encounter bad stuff out there! He told us about an 8th grade girl that he had in class when he was teaching junior high who got pregnant.

By her father�

That was a shock. And I realized that he�s right� I�m going to encounter stuff like that out there. I don�t completely agree with him that reading bawdy books is the way to be readied for that, but it does make some sense.

There is another side to the issue, though, about reading books like The Canterbury Tales�or Shakespeare, if you can understand what they�re talking about. He�s one of the trashiest writers of history, if you can believe that! I don�t get much of the bawdy humor he puts into his plays, because the language is so strange, but Professor D and my high school British Lit teacher both told me that Shakespeare puts a LOT of that in there.

Anyway� Wow, I got off track� Where was I going with that?

Oh yeah. The other side of the issue for me.

Portions of the stories in The Canterbury Tales stick in my mind. They are emblazoned there. I can�t get them out; I try to force them away but they stay, and I remember, and again shove them to the back of my brain�but I can�t forget them. Sometimes I am even tempted to pick up the book again, flip to that page, and reread the sentence.

Guys might understand this better than most girls do. For them, though, the things that stay in their minds�the stuff they become so easily addicted to�is not writing. It�s images.

I really identify with my book (Every Young Woman�s Battle) when it says that steamy romances (and bawdy sex tales) are like written pornography, and affect girls like pornographic images affect guys.

This is the issue I might have to bring to the attention of Mr. D. I don�t think it will get that bad� At least, I certainly hope not� But I will speak to him on it if it comes to that. I�m actually kind of eager to hear what he would say� Hanging around Republicans all the time, you sort of get a feel for what they would say in response to anything you might ask or tell them. It gets predictable, and rather boring, you might say. I look at Mr. D and consider what he might say, and I have my predictions, but I am interested to learn if they are right.

In other news, the most amazing thing happened the other day. I read an entry from �owyn's diary, where she was talking about a guy she still feels attached to and can�t seem to let go. I was like, �That sounds EXACTLY like what I�ve been going through!!� I am terribly excited about this, because I have been learning the last couple months, and I can tell! I�ve been learning to let go, just like I�ve been praying for the longest time, and God is answering my prayers! And then I came across �owyn�s entry and saw the most wonderful opportunity to help someone through something that I have gone through myself. I e-mailed her and told her about this, and I have a definite feeling that I can help this girl, in however a small way it may be.

I wrote this prayer in my prayer journal in response to this fantastic revelation:

Dear God, I now pray for �owyn. She is going through much the same ordeal as I am right now, and Lord! I now can see Your plan coming together! For the first time in my life, I want to thank You for letting me go through this ordeal with Nate. Lord, You have taught me so much recently! I KNOW that You can teach �owyn the same things. Do it, Lord! I am so glad to be able to pass on the lessons I�ve learned to someone in the same situation! Thank You, Father, for bringing �owyn across my path at just the right time!! You are great!! Love, Your child, Stephanie

Talk about a spiritual high! I LOVE that feeling! Don�t you just love it when you find you can use your own experiences to help others?? I do!

And today after World Lit, I got the same amazing feeling of getting a glimpse of God�s plan for me. I can see Him preparing me to face the world through this class. I can see Him showing me, gently, just how unready I am just yet. It�s an interesting thing, to be humbled that way. I see how immature I am, how na�ve I am, how simply not ready to face the world I am�but it�s okay! I can see that God is going to teach me to be ready. And I can�t wait to learn!!

-Stephanie

P.S. LOL... I was going to write even more great observations from my book today, but this entry's probably long enough. :D Although I'd love to!! That book is just awesome. I'll just have to post about chapter 17 tomorrow, I guess.