Until we meet again, my God
Humans are odd creatures. We believe that a divine higher power controls us and fates. This higher power is God. And surrounded by God is religion. A way to pass down morals, teachings, and beliefs that have been supposedly taught to us by God. We pray to God. We pray for our health, or wealth, and happiness. We believe that by placing our trust and in God and by giving God our heart and soul, we will achieve what we desire. And yet, we find ourselves questioning God when we are forced to go through a jarring time in our lives. We question God and His Grandeur. We question whether the higher power truly exists.
In the novel ‘Night’, the author, Elie Wiesel, inaugurates the idea of God, religion, and beliefs and how humanity questions His Grandeur when we face severe situations. I find myself relating to Eliezer in how our journey through religion and finding ourselves has played out over our lives. How even in times of despair we found ourselves surrounded by our faith. How we questioned our God and our faith. How we no longer chose to accept God.
“By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.”(pg. 3)
As a youth, Eliezer considered himself very religious and always attempted to be close to God. One may believe he chose to bind himself with God and religion because he had not been exposed to the atrocities of the world. Because as youth, we tend to be simple-minded and as a result, we do not see the true chaos that entangles us.
“Why, but why would I bless Him?… Because He caused thousands of children to burn in his mass graves?… Praised by Thy Holy Nam, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar.”(pg. 67)
After being brought to the light about the truth of the world, Eliezer finds himself confounded with how God would allow for such an atrocity. How he, Master of the Universe, would let his children be slaughtered in masses. It displays how Eliezer loses his touch with God. This once young boy, who had an affection for his Lord and religion, begins to lose the relationship he had with his God.
Like Eliezer, I too was bound by religion. Being born into a very religious Hindu family, I was always surrounded by religion and God. My parents had even made a miniature temple on the shelf in my bedroom, where it resides to this day. I felt so close to God that every week, I would visit our temple and every night I would pray before going to sleep.
But when I was around 8 years of age, my parents got into a fight due to private reasons. This would just be the beginning. As time went on, my parents would fight and argue more and more. And suddenly, this once peaceful household became a ground for severe skirmishes. I remember it would get so terrible, my relatives would have to come to break it up, even in the middle of the night at times. As time went on, I began to lose touch with my God. Why would He, who I thought so highly of, create such a disruption in my home? Disruptions that sometimes became… traumatizing.
Years later, when I was around 11 or 12 years old, I found myself in front of a poster of God in my grandfather’s room. I looked right at Him. At God. And I questioned him. Why had He, a man who my family had dedicated their whole lives to, decided to lay ruin to my family? At that moment, as tears dripped down my face. As my parents argued back and forth downstairs, I lost whatever relationship I had with Him. With God.
Even though I am no longer in touch with God or religion, I still feel bound by them. Partly due to my parents. Even now, after they have moved on and begun to build a healthy relationship on their own, they still feel as though it is God’s doing. My mother says that God had his reasons for doing what he does. She even said that God sent the Coronavirus because humans began to feel as though they were the superior being. Nevertheless, I don’t feel a connection to God. I feel as though humans follow God to give themselves a purpose and to answer the unanswerable. To leave it all to God.
Reference
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Dear Sidd,
I really wholeheartedly enjoyed reading this piece of writing. You amazed me with the connections you made from Night, and how well you related the quotes with your personal experiences. I’ve never really experienced a loss of faith, only a lack of understanding when I was younger, however, I was still able to fully grasp your response. That shows how excellently you convey your thoughts from your mind to the paper. You had a great range of vocabulary as well as lots of sentence variety. The short one or two word sentences put a lot of weight on those words and made me realize their importance. I also really liked how you wrote an introduction paragraph at the beginning instead of jumping right into Night. It helped the reader get an insight about your general thoughts on the novel.
For improvements, firstly I would suggest correcting some minor errors regarding commas. More importantly, I think you should elaborate on how your title connects with the piece. When I read the title, you seemed hopeful to regain your faith, but the response indicated no hope. For example, in the line, “Nevertheless, I don’t feel a connection to God.” To help connect the title to the piece, you could repeat the line “Until we meet again, my God,” a few times throughout the piece to stylistically emphasize its importance. You could also elaborate near the end on your mom’s thoughts about God, and how you have opposing beliefs. Elaborating would just improve the flow of the writing creating a seamless piece that is easier for the reader to comprehend.
Overall, I loved this piece. Your attention to details is very good – even the title and feature image perfectly align. I am thrilled that I get an opportunity to read such outstanding work, and I am beyond excited to read more of your work in the future.
Sincerely,
Neha
Dear Neha,
Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I am grateful for all of your compliments and critiques regarding my blog and I am immensely joyful that you enjoyed my opening paragraph.
Looking back at my response, I can see the errors you were talking about and moving forward, I will keep in mind not to make them. I also completely agree with you on how I should have elaborated on how my title correlates with the writing piece. I regret not talking about it more but moving forward, I will keep it in mind.
Once again, I am incredibly grateful for your critiques and comments on my blog post. It means a lot coming from a distinguished writer such as yourself.
Sincerely,
Sidd
Dear Sidd,
Reading your work was astonishing and I thoroughly enjoyed the ideas you conveyed throughout this piece. Your personal connections were touching and enhanced your work. Being a friend of yours for many years it is evident that you poured your heart out into this blog which I appreciate and it paid off immensely. Your first paragraph conveys deep ideas which engaged me to read more and you executed your ideas throughout. The connections made with Night were fabulous and they flowed well into your personal connections with the use of quotes. I was able to relate to these ideas as I often question religion and god as well. Though I still have my faith I understood how you were feeling when you thought god couldn’t be real after all the pain that you experienced with family affairs. Also, I really enjoyed when you connected your beliefs and showed how they were very similar to Eliezer’s in the novel as it deepened the ideas you explained.
To heighten the quality of your work I recommend that you expand on your sentence structure which will increase the complexity of your writing so your ideas can deepen. In addition, I wish you had connected your title more to your work as I did not understand why you chose it. To add more depth to your work you should elaborate more on your ideas. For example, you can explain how you came to lose your faith and lost your connection with god. Furthermore, explain how that conflicts with your parents beliefs who are quite religious. I believe that with a few improvements your piece can become even better.
Your work is absolutely amazing! You have a unique voice and are able to explain ideas in great quality. I relished how you were consistently relevant with your main point throughout the entire piece. I am so happy that I get to work with you every day and I am exhilarated to read more of your work in the near future.
All the best,
Zanir
Dear Zanir,
I am humbly grateful for your comments as they mean a lot coming from a writer such as yourself. I am glad that you enjoyed my response and I am grateful for your compliments regarding the connection between Night and my response.
In terms of improvement, I see how the title may have been misleading and I regret not connecting it to my piece more than I did. Next time, I will also elaborate further on my ideas to give more insight.
Overall, I am very grateful for your comments and I shall keep your suggestions with me as I continue writing. Onc again, I am very thankful that you took the time to read my post.
Sincerely,
Sidd
Dear Sid,
I fully grasp what you discuss in this piece. Questioning God is something humanity has done, and will continue to do, for thousands of years. As an individual who has been exposed to God at a young age, I have always questioned his decisions, not only in my own life, but in the lives of others around me. My relationship with God is a fluid one- one that will continue to change as I live my life. Yes, I do not acknowledge his existence at the moment, but in a few years I may very well be a dedicated believer.
Simply stated, your work here is fantastic. Your sentence structure and vocabulary seemed to have flourished during quarantine. A very distinguished tone was created as a direct result of your word choices in this piece. Perhaps the most commendable part was your dramatic and questioning voice that took a major leap in this writing entry in comparison to your previous work. The way you asked rhetorical questions- something I do in my own writing- was wonderful as well. Your personal insight into religion was very effective and I found it rather intriguing that the best paragraphs in your piece were the shortest.
In terms of improving your work, I completely agree with Neha and Zanir in their assessment of better relating your work to your title. “Until we meet again, my God” implies that your belief in him is continuous when the reality of your piece presents quite the opposite. Furthermore, it would be nice for a little more elaboration into what your mother had to say about God; including her, as well as her idea of COVID-19, was jarring and took away from the dramatic tone you developed throughout your piece.
Of course, no work is perfect and I assure you that this piece contains some of your writing to date. I found it rather moving to read and was amazed by how similar our views of religion currently are. I plan to read more of your work in the future and most definitely believe that you will continue to improve greatly as a writer. I believe your views of God and religion will change too and I look forward to seeing how it affects you.
Sincerely,
Ben Nixon
Dear Ben,
I am sincerely thankful for your critiques and compliments on my piece. I am gratified to know that I am not the only person who has also questioned God and believes that humanity as a species too will continue to. I am pleased that you find my sentence structure finer than before. As well, I am delighted you find my use of rhetorical questions to be wonderful.
As for your recommendations for improvement, I concur that I indeed should have elaborated on my title and it’s connection to my writing. I first thought that I should have left the idea of my mother and COVI-19 as it is but after seeing your comment and rereading it, I do concede that I should have elaborated more on it as it did take away from the rest of the post.
Once again, I am sincerely grateful for your insight on my writing and like you, I am also surprised by the similarity in our views. I am also humbly moved by your compliment on how I shall improve as a writer and I am eternally grateful for it.
Sincerely,
Sidd
Dear Sid,
The first thing that I want to say is that this piece is wonderfully done. Your connection to Elie’s perspective on religion and connecting it to your own views in wonderfully done. Your opening “Humans are odd creatures. We believe that a divine higher power controls us and fates. This higher power is God. And surrounded by God is religion. A way to pass down morals, teachings, and beliefs that have been supposedly taught to us by God. We pray to God. We pray for our health, or wealth, and happiness.” draws attention and transitions perfectly with your next point. Your use of quotes is phenomenal, it’s timed accordingly, and gives strong support for your points. You tied into your own view on religion and on Elie’s in an almost seamless transition and your word choice gave a tone that perfectly fit with the atmosphere of the writing.
Although few, for improvement I would suggest that you expand upon your own personal when you mention when you lost your faith in god and tell us how you lost your faith and what it meant to you after you lost it. Also when you mention your mother’s view on Coronavirus it felt like you could have added more, as that drew our attention and made us wonder more, but was left unfulfilled. I also agree with the other’s as your title doesn’t match the your story as it sounds like you want to reconcile with god.
Overall it was a great piece and I can see remarkable improvement from your last piece. I was moved by your piece and it has given a lot of insight into you as a person. I look forward to your future writing and the improvements you’ll make.
Sincerely,
Harsh
Dear Harsh,
I am eternally grateful that you took the time to read and critique my writing. I am pleased you found my transitions and word choices seamless and my use of quotes phenomenal. I will continue to utilize these skills moving forward.
For improvement, your recommendations make complete sense and I agree that I should have continued to expand rather than keeping it what it is.
Once again, I am eternally grateful that you took the time to look over my post and I thank you for your observation in my improvement. Moving forward, I plan to take your advice and incorporate it into my future writing.
Sincerely,
Sidd
Dear Sidd,
First of all, I want to say that I miss you!! Hope you’re doing well during this pandemic~
I loved this piece– it was extremely relatable to my own life (and I can imagine the lives of others), as I am a Christian. I suppose that faith sprouts from what some may believe as a happy coincidence or luck, but I like to believe that it is the work of God. Not to say that I have not been let down by him in the past. You bring up scenarios and dilemmas that most religious individuals have faced. I suppose that most children are born into religious families and have been obliged to be faithful to whom they do not even have a relationship with. But I believe that even during those times when we feel betrayed by my God, that he will not be there to hold your hand every time I enter a low valley in life.
I do not really know what to criticise, but I think you should elaborate your personal experience. You made great points about Elie and pulled powerful evidence from the book, but your personal response is a little lacking.
Overall great performace. Take care during this catastrophic time!
Sincerely,
Debbie