More than just symbols

I’ve spent the last couple of days writing, or at least trying to write, stuff for my dissertation. It’s been qutie a hard task, the subject of my dissertation is looking at the use of Christian symbols in advertising and one of the things I’ve been trying to do is look at the key symbols and themes of the faith. On the surface this would a peear to be quite easy, but, its not! It’s taken me longer to write this than it has anything else, not that there was a lot before it, but it’s certainly taken a long time!

Now being a Christian I have an understanding of the symbols and concepts that are the basis of my faith, but thats the issue, that’s why its taken me so long to write this section. Reducing something you believe in so strongly down to just symbols and concepts is incredibly hard. These items/stories etc are so important and mean so much more personally than you can portray in an academic paper. Approaching these ideas in an objective manner is incredibly hard, I find it hard to talk about them in a detached manner, in a way that doesn’t inject my own beliefs into the paper. Even now writing this, I can’t quite fully put into words how difficult it is. Describing these aspects of my faith as just objects or ideas in incredibly challenging, refering to them as ideas is so hard, they are so much more than ideas. It’s making me question if I can write about these concepts/ideas/symbols as things that are personal and that are more than this. I would like to, but everytime I start to do it I can see my tutor asking where the back up for these meanings is coming from. Argh so hard!

I guess it leaves one thing for me to do. Pray about it.

Wow this does seem hard, I don’t know if I could do that.

perhaps looking at an education book or the QCA documents used in schools as lesson plans would help. QCA RE UNit 3A What do signs and symbols mean in religion. I know it may be very simple but the basis of signs and symbols are simple. Who knows it may give you a start. HOpe so .
LOve mum

I’m making some progress now, in fact I think I have managed to outline the symbols nicely now and indicate how they have been used in adverts.

It is one of the hardest things I have done I think, trying not to put any of your beliefs into it is very difficult!