Modern Religious Experience: Personal Commemoration- Reflection #7

Modern Religious Experience: Personal Commemoration- Reflection #7: "Think of an event in your life- past, present or future. You are going to create a commemorative ritual for this event. First, describe the ..."

Two years ago, when I was in 8th grade, my family and I went on a skiing trip to Yongpyong, during winter vacation. This was my third time going, and I was quite excited, because I had a lot of fun the first two ski trips. After a long, snowy four hour drive, with multiple stops at rest stations, we arrived at the High1 Resort. For three days, my family and I skied joyously down the slopes. On the last day however, I mustered up enough courage to attempt one of the "double black diamond" slopes--the second hardest difficulty level at the resort. After much debating and reassuring thoughts, I gritted my teeth, leaned forward, and shot down the slope. Even though I ended up falling several times, this attempt of the double black diamond slope is important to me because I realized that one should always take chances, stray from one's comfort zone, and try new things.

This commemoration will last one day, to represent the day I attempted the double black diamond slope.

This will be stated during the commemoration:
I will expand my horizons, trying new things.
I will accept challenges, and not be afraid of failure.
If I am courageous and resilient, I will succeed.

On this commemorative day, I will try something new, or something I have been afraid to try before. This can be related to anything from foods, to sports, to even hobbies. If I fail, I will try again, without being discouraged. For all three meals, I will eat foods that I haven't tried before.

The Morality of Greek Myths - Reflection #6

Arachne the Spinner

The story of Arachne is about an overconfident maiden who is conceited about her weaving skills. She is so vain, that she claims that she is better at weaving than the goddess of crafts herself, Athena, and offends her greatly. After Athena hears about this outrageous declaration, she angrily challenges Arachne to a weaving contest, which Athena wins. As punishment for Arachne's vanity, Athena turns Arachne into a spider, forcing her to weave for the rest of her life.

I believe the foremost moral of this story is to never be too cocky about yourself, and there is always room for modesty in one's personality. We, the reader, can see this in the story, when Arachne continuously brags about how talented she is at weaving, and insults the gods by comparing her work to Athena's, thus angering her. This moral is supported by a consequence, which for Arachne is her eternal transformation into a spider.

This story attempts to explain the mystery of how spiders and arachnids came into being. In addition, the fact that they could weave beautiful webs with needle-like threads would've been a compelling mystery for ancient Greeks. In addition, since they had so many questions about nature and they had very few answers, ancient Greeks often created myths and stories to provide explanations for these unknowns. This story is also responsible for creating an English word 'arachnid', which means 'spider' in Greek.

From this story, an important virtue for the Greeks is to be modest. In the tale, the necessity of modesty in one's personality is shown when Arachne gets punished for her vanity. It also tells Greeks that they should always respect the gods, and to never insult them. One should learn that being humble is always the best option, and one can be rewarded by not being arrogant. In addition, having a good personality is the key to maintaining healthy relationships with the people around you.