#humble faith

[graceandpeacejoanne]

Isaiah 50: The Obedient Servant

The third Servant Song describes Messiah as one who trusts and relies completely on God, and knows with conviction that He will be vindicated. That is every Christian's calling and grace. #Isaiah50 #ObedientFaith #ServantSong

In the third Servant Song, Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah as both a scholar and as a willing sufferer in complete submission to the Father’s will, as the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Perfect Faith The Lord God helps me;    therefore I have not been disgraced;therefore I have set my face like flint,    and I know that I shall not be put to shame;    he who vindicates me is near.Who will…

[karisumawrites]

Don't shine so others can see you. Shine so that through you, others can see Him. - C.S. Lewis

[abelladanger-1]

[dmckinney79]

For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. (Isaiah 41:13)

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[starscelly]

"How hard is it to see Miro limp off like that?" "Yeah, it's terrible. He's, you know, our best player, one of the best defensemen in the NHL, and um. Y'know, hopefully just praying that it's nothing serious, and uh... Y'know, knowing Miro, he'll be back, you know, quicker than ever, better than ever."

otter talking about miro postgame | dal@vgk 01.28.25

[onemomentinhispresence]

[aspirant1598]

[bringthekingdom]

[cescalovestowrite]

I just saw the movie The Return and it ruined my evening.

I know that films have every right to reinterpret the myth however they want, but that doesn't mean I can't get pissed off at how they do it.

Enough with this idea that Odysseus always had better things to do than go home, it now seems like a curse that we will never shake off. I've heard it a thousand times, I don't care to hear it anymore.

I think a part of me realized that the film wouldn't convince me when they had Laertes dying. But ok, I could still understand that. And actually there were some nice ideas that could have made the movie very interesting, but decided to go nowhere and become bullshit.

Then there was the scene where Odysseus talks to Penelope and everything went down the drain from there. Odysseus is such an empty shell that he doesn't even want to help his wife and son. He's so limp that he even thinks about leaving after everyone has recognized him.

I'm so mad.

And I want to reiterate that I don't think reinterpretations of myths are the evil of the world. For example, I really appreciated "Troy: Fall of a city", even though a lot of people didn't like it. I understand very well the point of changing the intentions of the characters to tell a new perspective, it's nothing new and nothing wrong.

But man, sometimes it makes me think: if you don't like the Odyssey, don't make a movie about the Odyssey.

Maybe I'm too partial. Let me know what you think.

[tatesalive]

"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens." Psalm 8:1 ESV 🌍👑🌟✞"

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" Luke 2:14 ESV 🌍🕊️🫶 ✞

I remember my first Christmas with You,

filled with new joy, reading my first Bible on Christmas Eve.

Your Word coming into my soul, breathing life into me.

Now I look back on my one year of being alive in You.

Even when the rain pours out its hardships, You'll never leave.

O' how grateful I am that, Jesus, You'll be with me

You'll abide in me as I in You.

You came all the way to Your Earth so humble,

clothed in swaddling cloth, glory, righteousness, and true love.

God's life that He would suffer for us, more than the eye could see-

You came to save the sinner's soul from stumble.

O' how I look at Your glory set above the heavens,

wishing You were here, but realising that You always have been.

You cause all sin, evil, and the darkness of this fallen world to tumble.

Now everyone from across the depths of the earth, can sing:

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,

Who was and is and is to come" ♫

O' the new life, salvation, peace and joy You bring.

Let us praise and honor Your name forever nightly

and daily, seeing the radiance of God's glory has shone

into our lives with the life, fullness, flourishment and growth of a new Spring.

Thank You, LORD, for our Savior for eternity.

He will live with us forever, We must make His glory known.

A poem that the Holy Spirit helped me write for Christmas, hoping it helps you and that everyone has a joyful day in remembering our Saviour, Christ Jesus' birth, thank You 🌿YHWH🌿. 📃🕊️❤️‍🩹✞

Bible References: Revelation 4:8, Luke 2:7, Hebrews 1:3 & John 15:4 📄👑✞

[howtomakeyousee]

[karisumawrites]

Heavenly Father, each day I am at the receiving end of Your generosity. Grant me the grace to also be generous in kind and in spirit to the needy.

[garden-of-thoughts-fruit-of-lips]

He also told this illustration to some who trusted in their own righteousness and who considered others as nothing:

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and began to pray these things to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like everyone else—extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give the tenth of all things I acquire.'

But the tax collector, standing at a distance, was not willing even to raise his eyes heavenward but kept beating his chest, saying, ‘O God, be gracious to me, a sinner.’ 

I tell you, this man went down to his home and was proved more righteous than that Pharisee. Because everyone who exalts himself will be humiliated, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 18: 9-14

[dmckinney79]

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

[maskofnova]

Sonic twitter is so fucking miserable, holy shit.