A Literary Insight

I am on a quest...at least of some sorts.  After reading a popular fiction novel in the fall of 2010, I decided that I was going to get more familiar with American classic literature.  I googled 'best American literature', found several lists, and started to compile my own.  Then I started reading....I read 38 of them in 2011 and I have read about 10 more, so far,  in 2012.  I have learned many things.  I learned I don't remember much.  I was encouraged as a student to fill out an index card on a book when I read it.  Now I have narrowed it to a simple one-liner on a compilation page.  One sentence describes the whole book.  I also learned the origin of some of the things we say and do: Did you know that there is a Long John Silvers in Treasure Island?  Did you know that half of Moby Dick is a 150 year old encyclopedia about whales?  The story is intertwined with it.    You may say, 'I didn't know and I didn't care.'  Ok, well, it is an interesting quest for me.  When I took Contemporary American Literature in college, I was the only guy in a glass of thirteen with a wide-eyed liberal woman teaching.  A dozen messy, lazy looking, deep thinking women, one wide-eyed professor, and a  clean cut, religion major would sit in a circle, talk about readingn a short story about yellow wallpaper, and then somehow always play 'bash the preacher boy.'  It was a horrible experience, but I was not dropping a class. I would not let them defeat me.   I came out of there with less than a love for literature. However, now, I read on...whether I like it or not...and most of the time, I do like it.
I have learned something else too:  Early writers wrote a lot more politely.  Their characters, even the bad ones, were not as crude.  The literature left more to the imagination and did not describe everything to every gorey detail.  People had manners a hundred years ago, whether they liked you or not...at least in the writing.  Modern writing is crude, and modern people are crude.  We say mean things.  We tolerate less.  We hold more bitterness.  That may be just a literary analysis, but I bet it is true for society as well. 
If it is true for the world we live in, keep something in mind:  we are influenced by it.  The effects of such crudeness leads to constrained relationships.  Bad relations effects a bunch.  As a matter of fact,  Mark 11:25 tells us that bitterness or lack of forgiveness needs to be dealt with before we can seriously pray. Jesus put it this way- And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.  (www.lifejournal.cc)  All this casual spite, bitterness, and ugliness that is so very common in today's world is a tremendous hindrance.  Not only does it destroy relationships, but it seriously hurts prayer. 
Seek to forgive others and seek the face of God.   Mighty things can happen!