Week 11 Storytelling: The Road Less Traveled

          

           There was a young man named Shane Lowry; he was a very conscious person who thought more than the average individual did on a daily basis. His mind was a constant roller coaster and one day, it finally got to him. He believed in a spiritual entity, but did not know what its’ role was in his life or in the world. Shane decided to set out on a journey to find out the meaning for his existence and the truth to life.

            He sat out on a journey to find the answers to all of his questions. After a few days of traveling by foot, he decided to stop and sit down at a tree. Shane looked around and what he saw really caught his attention. In front of him was a enormous and beautiful cathedral. He rested for a bit longer, but eventually decided to enter and examine the ruins of this abandoned cathedral till he arrived at the altar. There were four objects at the altar, the Bible, a piece of bread, a bottle of wine and a glass of water. All of this confused Shane; he tried to figure out what these certain objects were for.

At that moment, a great beam of light shined on him and a mysterious voice called his name, “Shane, Shane, Shane.” He tried to shake his head to clear his mind from any thoughts because he believed he was hearing things until the voice told Shane to pick up the Bible and turn to Matthew 26:26 – 26:28 and begin to read. It read, “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” 

 

Communion

Shane looked down to the altar, took the bread in one hand and the glass of wine in the other hand. He followed the same sequence of which he had just read in the Bible. He did not feel any different than he did before he consumed the bread and wine. The voice returned, ordering Shane to pick up the Bible again and turn to Matthew 3:13-17, which is when John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the river of Galilee. The voice said, “Shane, take the glass of water and repeat these words with me… Heavenly Father, In your love you have called me to know you, led us to trust you, and bound our life with yours. Surround this child with your love, protect it from evil. Fill it with the Holy Spirit and receive it into the family of your church that it may walk with us in the way of Christ, and grow in the knowledge of your love.” After saying this prayer, Shane felt at peace.

This sequence of events led to answering all of the questions he has always had. Finally, he found the truth and the true meaning of his life in the world. 

Bibliography: KingArthur, How Sir Lancelot Saw A Vision, Andrew Lang (1902)

Author’s Note:

The story I chose this week was How Sir Lancelot Saw A Vision from the storybook of King Arthur. He arrived at a stone cross which laid next to it was a block of marble. He tied his horse up to a three, hung his shield there and looked into the chapel. The altar of the church was covered with silk and a candlestick that had six branches made of silver. There was a great light that beamed from it in which prompted Sir Lancelot to enter it, but he could not. He went back to where his horse was and laid down to rest. Two white palfreys stopped at the stone cross and the Knight said, "O sweet Lord, when shall this sorrow leave me, and when shall the Holy Vessel come by me, through which I shall be blessed? For I have endured long, though my ill deeds were few." As he spoke these words, the candlestick from the chapel stood before the cross and brought with it a table of silver and the Holy Vessel of the Graal. The Knight moved toward the Holy Vessel, and prayed, his sickness went away. The Graal, the light and the candlestick entered back into the chapel. Sir Lancelot wanted to follow them, but the weight of his sins weighted him down. He knew that he was in deep sin that he has never confessed of. "My sin and my wickedness have done me this dishonour, for when I sought worldly adventures for worldly desires I ever achieved them and had the better in every place, and never was I discomfited in any quarrel, were it right or wrong. And now I take upon me the adventures of holy things, I see and understand that my old sin hinders me, so that I could not name nor speak when the Holy Graal passed by."

Week 10 Storytelling

Outsmarted, continued

            They day of the game arrived and both teams showed up to the Mustang Community Center, where they had settled on playing the game. The time was 7:30 pm, the dust was settling as the teams took their place upon the court with the championship of champions on the line. The Leaders of the New School and the All-Stars met at half court to shake hands, but quickly those friendly handshakes turned into game faces as both teams stared down the other before tip-off. Everyone in the building could feel the tension of both team as the game was about to start. The official walked to the center circle at half court to do the tipoff to get the game started. He tossed the ball into the air and the game began.

            The All-Stars controlled the tip to start the game and set up their dribble drive offense right out of the gates. This consisted of dribbling into the center of the court and handing off to the next player cutting over the top of them till you get deep enough in the paint for your own shot or the defense helps down and you are able to find an open teammate for a shot. The All-Stars did this until they found an opening when a post player from the Leaders of the New School stepped up to help on the drive and this allowed for them to pass over the top of the defense for an Alley-Oop. Over the first ten minutes of the first half, both teams went back and forth trading baskets. Everyone saw the contrast in styles between the two teams as the All-Stars were getting all of their points either in transition or off of athleticism and speed in their dribble drive offense. The Leaders of the New School were getting all of their points in the half court using their motion offense, which uses a lot of off the ball movement and pick-n-rolls to create gaps in the defense.

            But after the first ten minutes, the All-Stars started to take over the rest of the half. Their athleticism was proving to be too much for the undersized Leaders of the New School as they were jumping passing lanes and trapping the guards off of pick-n-rolls to cause turnovers, which lead to easy baskets. They built a 15 point lead going into halftime with the score being 48-33 in favor of the All-Stars. The confidence level of the Leaders of the New School had dropped below bearable. They were all bickering at each other until one of them stepped in and stopped everyone. He spoke to all of them and told them that they needed to stay together and that they were going to come back to win the game.

            The second half began and started off the same way the first half ended with the All-Stars creating turnovers. This was allowing them to score without having to run offense against a set half-court defense. Finally, one of the players from the Leaders of the New School decided to pick up the pace and put the team on his back. He got focused in mentally and things started to click for him. This allowed for him to string together a few consecutive baskets which put him in the groove. He put himself on the All-Stars best offensive player. This stalled their offense, tremendously and stopped them from scoring. The Leaders of the New School started to make their comeback by chipping away at the lead, cutting it down from fifth teen points to ten points to five points with two minutes left in the game.

Both teams buckled down and the game got very intense as they traded basketball after basket until the All-Stars went up by two with five seconds left in the game. This was the Leaders of the New School last chance to save face and defeat the All-Stars. They inbounded the ball and moved right into their offense to get off the final shot, but they knew they wanted to go for the three pointer to win the game. The point guard got to the right wing and waited for the power forward to come up and set a screen for him to come off of, but they trapped him off the screen and he was forced to pass it back to the power forward. He squared up towards the basket and let his shot go, it seemed like eternity as the ball was in the air and the horn went off as time expired. The ball went through the goal and the Leaders of the New School had defeated the All-Stars which ended their three years of going undefeated. 

Basketball 

Author’s Note:

My reading from this week was Apache: The Animals Race. All of the men came together in a group to run a race to the edge of the world where a certain pretty girl was living. The man who arrived to where she lived first would get the privilege to marry her. They started running and Coyote gained a big lead, far ahead of all the other animals. He kept his head on a swivel and kept looking back as he ran along in the race. The men had formed into one running behind the other. The Heron begun to run the race long after all of the other animals had set out on their opportunity to marry the pretty girl. Somehow, he caught up and passed the others as they ran along a slope. The Heron asked the Mole where he was running to and the Mole responded by telling him about the pretty girl. The Heron offered his back to the Mole to ride on as he passed all of the other animals. The Heron finally caught up to where the Coyote was, far ahead of the others. He passed by him and was coming close to the place where the pretty girl live when he put the Mole down telling him, “Hurry up now, run.”When the Coyote and the other men came running to where the Heron was, he said to the rest of them, “What are you running for? Mole has already married the girl.”

Bibliography: The Animals Race, P.E. Goddard (1911)

Week 9 Storytelling

Outsmarted

            Everyone in the town of Mustang knew the All-Stars were the best team in the recreational league, year in and year out. They thought there was no one who could dethrone this team because the All-Stars had the best players in the town and had not lost a game in the last three years since joining the league. The other teams in the league put out their best efforts to try and take down this team, but every team came up short of that goal. There was no one capable of beating them and ending their streak of recreation league championships.

            Another recreational team, the Leaders of the New School, from Yukon, a town to the north of Mustang, caught wind of this whole scenario going down and decided to take the matters into their own hands. They showed up to the Mustang Community and challenged the All-Stars to game between champions to see who the best team in the Canadian County was. The teams agreed on a time, place, and day when to play their game. The All-Stars did not think much of the Leaders of the New School and already started thought they would win this matchup. The Leaders of the New School were not a very intimidating looking team, while the All-Stars had a team full of athleticism, length and size. These attributes were the reason of thinking they would be the Leaders of the New School because they would be able to run and gun up the court and wear them down. The Leaders of the New School knew this is what they would try to do, but the way they would counteract that was slowing the pace down and work the game clock while producing good scoring opportunities within their half court offense. 

Mustang Community Center

            They day of the game arrived and both teams showed up to the Mustang Community Center, where they had settled on playing the game. The time was 7:30 pm, the dust was settling as the teams took their place upon the court with the championship of champions on the line. The Leaders of the New School and the All-Stars met at half court to shake hands, but quickly those friendly handshakes turned into game faces as both teams stared down the other before tip-off. Everyone in the building could feel the tension of both team as the game was about to start. The official walked to the center circle at half court to do the tipoff to get the game started. He tossed the ball into the air and the game began.

Author’s Note:

           
       The first story I used was How the Terrapin Beat the Rabbit. Everyone knew the Rabbit was a great runner and thought nothing of the Terrapin except for the fact that he was a slow traveler, but he was a fighter/warrior and very arrogant. This lead to the Rabbit and Terrapin always arguing about their own and each other’s speed. Finally they decided on racing each other to see who was faster. The Rabbit and Terrapin determined the day, the starting place of the race and prearranged to run the race athwart the four mountain ridges and the winner would be who crossed the finish line first. He knew he could not outrun the Rabbit in this race, but he wanted so bad to stop the Rabbit’s trash talking. The day of the race had finally arrived and all of the animals had come to see the race. The second story I used was The Ball Game of the Birds and Animals. The animals challenged the birds to a great game of ball play, and the birds rightfully accepted the animals’ challenge. The leaders made all of the arrangements and decided on a day to play, and when that day came they all met at the agreed location. The animals were on the grass by the river and the birds were over top in the trees. This story will have a sequel, which is why I stopped at where I did because I wanted to do a sequel to this story.

Bibliography: How the Terrapin Beat the Rabbit and The Ball Game of the Birds and Animals,  James Mooney (1900)
     

Week 7 Storytelling: The Man Who Was Selfish

The Man Who Was Selfish

            There was a man named Rick Thompson, who was not a very good basketball player, who was playing at the local park by his house. He played and played and sat down on the table under the canopy to take a break, after awhile of resting he looked up and noticed three other people playing basketball. Rick had never seen these three people before and he was jealous of the talent and basketball skills they had. They made shot after shot, it seemed as if they would never miss a shot and were able to dunk the basketball with ease due to their athletic ability. These people were what Rick hoped he would be as a basketball player, but it had never conspired. He could not watch any longer to release and was determined to do something about it. Rick began to beg and plead with the three people about them helping and teaching him how to become as good a player as they were.

Eventually, Rick had begged so much that the people finally gave in and told him they would help him with his basketball skill to become as good as a player as they were. In return, Rick told all three of the people that he would give him a reward for them helping and teaching him.  After working with Rick for a couple of hours, Rick supplied the three people with his rewards with giving all three of them a $100 each. Also, Rick told the three individuals that he would advertise for them and send people there way, if they needed help improving their basketball skills. This allowed for the three people to start up a basketball skills academy to help players develop their skills. After awhile, the people had a lot of people lining up for their services and the money came with it, it allowed them to live in great comfort. Rick, on the other hand, began to become jealous again because of the recognition and wealth the three people were receiving when it was him who brought this plan to the forefront and he wanted a part of it. He had to figure out a way to get in the fold of everything.

 The Basketball Academy

His opportunity would quickly arise as a few of the players that came into the academy had not gotten much better, so he decided to intervene and take these few players under his wing. Rick used the same drills as the three other people, but did it in a much more detailed fashion to disguise what he was doing. The three people noticed what Rick was doing and tried to stop him. Rick told them and everyone else in the academy that he was the one who had taught the other three people what they knew regarding basketball and that he should be getting the recognition. The three people were hurt by Rick’s action and were quickly pushed out of the academy. Rick took over the academy; he immediately changed the routine and sequence of drills that the players went through. The three people began to here rumblings regarding what was happening at the academy and were asked to come back to take it back over because all of the players who had gotten better were now losing what they had gained.

The three people returned the next day to set things straight, but sat back and watched Rick demonstrate everything and could see the skill of each player decreasing. They took their stand and challenged Rick to a competition of 1-on-1. Rick would play each of them 1-on-1 and if any of them loss, then they would leave the academy forever, but if Rick lost to any of them, then he would leave the academy forever. The fate of each player was in the hands of three 1-on-1 games, and no one knew how it was going to end.

Author’s Note:

            My original source for my story is based off of The Ungrateful Man. In The Ungrateful Man: There is a poor Hunter, who is traveling through the forest until he stumbles upon a deep hole where he finds a snake, leopard, rat, and a man. He did not want to help any of the animals, just the man, but the animals begged the Hunter until he agreed to free them from the hole. They all promised to reward the man for his actions and all gave him a gif. The man did not because h was also poor, but with the gifts from the animals, the Hunter gained much wealth. The man became jealous and created a plan to get the wealth for himself. There were some robbers who stole from the King, so the man decided he would ask the King if there was a reward for turning in the robber. The man pointed out the Hunter as the thief and he was brought to the Court. They asked him how he gained his wealth, but did not believe his story. The Hunter was punished to death the next day. Before he died, he asked the King to use the gift that the snake had given him which was a venom antidote, but needed “traitor’s blood” to mix with it. In this time, the King pointed out the man who had betrayed the Hunter. The Hunter was eventually freed and the King gifted him with honours. 

Bibliography: The Ungrateful Man, William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair (1917)