Apparently Necessary Disclaimer: The Author of this Blog is Himself an Idiot, and Not Unaware that his Ranting can be Interpreted as a Judgment against those he views as Overly Judgmental. Please be Advised that the Delicious Irony of the Situation is not lost on said Author.
(But it's how I really feel, dang it!)
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
I'm about to violate a rule I set for myself.
We're all closet legalists, aren't we? By that I mean we all pretend to interface with the world, react to stimuli, make decisions based on rational thought focused by our experiences . . . but we're also list makers, yes? We have our little clipboards filled with checklists to assess our growth, development, correctness.
I have lists I keep in the back of my head. These lists are my lists; you may have similar ones, dissimilar ones, I don't know. One is entitled "Things My Parents Told Me I Will Never Tell My Children" -- this is a list you may have, as well. You know this list, right? Things your parents told you all the time that you swore to never inflict upon your kids? Things like "You think this is something? Everything was so much better when we were younger *sigh*." Or, "In my day, people had respect for others!" Or even the inevitable, "Appreciate what you have, young man! When I was your age I had to . . ." Insert horribly melodramatic tale of woe here, usually punctuated by immense piles of snow and hurricane force winds. Who knew that West Tennessee became Montana for months at a time in the 1950's?
The rule I am about violate has to do with another list I keep. This list is entitled, "Things To Never Write About on Your Blog Because It's a Public Forum, Idiot."
I'll quit stalling now -- I swore I would never mention religion. To begin, I really don't know enough about the Bible. When I was growing up (by the way, those were much better days!) my family did not attend church much . . . my father was a cynical and lapsed Methodist (a Methodist without Method, perhaps?) and my mother was a pseudo-member of a small church that most of the people in our hometown thought of as some kind of strange legalistic cult. When we did attend church (twice a year or so) as a family, we went to mom's cult. Of course, it wasn't really a cult, but I can't blame anyone for thinking so. After all, we were trained (with long sermons and even longer prayers) to snap viciously if anyone -- ANYONE -- assumed that the church we attended had anything at all to do with any other church, even those nearby of the same name. The Baptists called us "Campbellites"; the other churches around us of the same name called us "anti's," or "non-institutionals"; eighteen elderly people and four younger than sixty (including me) called us "home."
Books could be written about my little "home" church and its wonderful ability to sow the seeds of alienation, division, hypocrisy, and discord. Now, I'm going to try very hard not to be judgmental, as they were; I'm going to try very hard not to loose my anger, either, because I know it's ultimately counterproductive.
That church hurt me. It hurt my mother deeply.
I am reminded of a great poem I read years ago (forget the author, sorry) who wrote about his daughter's response to a day camp at a local church: "How could I tell her the truth/That church was a place for people who wanted only/But to hurt other people with their holiness/And keep a Bible filled with rules she could never fathom." I think everyone who has spent time in our fellowship (though the men of my home church would have said "brotherhood" -- sorry ladies, you get only to cook for us) understands the perilous chasm between legalism and liberality. On the one hand, you have rules that can never be kept that seemingly exist only to prove your own worthiness; on the other hand, you've got a universalism that includes everyone, even those who don't ascribe to your values. Spirit AND truth? You've got to be kidding me.
Those more astute among you may be asking, "Great! What does this have to do with anything?" My history with the church reared its head just recently. While browsing other blogs and websites this weekend, I came across a public message forum that disguised itself as an open forum dedicated to discussion in the body of believers. After one post -- ONE post, and remember, I still quote exclusively from the KJV -- I had received a number of "corrective" e-mails that threatened to collapse my computer monitor under the weight of the scriptures included in them for the sake of eliminating my error. Wow. It seems God does not want us to sing a song during the passing of the Lord's Supper. That's apparently VERY bad.
Even reading those last two sentences I am forced to laugh at the outrageousness of their intimacy. Many of you may not know what I'm talking about -- heck, many ***Christians*** have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. In order to understand the concept of the debate, you and I have to be so close in doctrinal belief that the world would see no difference in us. Unfortunately, my new acquaintances on the message board certainly did. I am tempted to write back with some shocking sin -- "What does the Bible say about bestiality, friends? Should I be worried about my salvation if I keep eyeing my dog?" The saddest thing about this story is that they would be far more accepting of that struggle than the idea that our worship styles could be different. All of the old anger I felt at my home church came rushing back in a flood of memory. I literally shook with anger at my keyboard. "Don't they know?" I thought. "Don't they understand how much their inflexibility hurts other people?"
And yet, here I am. I'm still in the church, still looking for truth, still trying to understand.
That right there may be the greatest of the miracles of Jesus Christ. In a fallen world filled with flawed people who use the word of God as a defensive weapon to wall off their own faith, we still search for Him.
Crazy, isn't it?
We're all closet legalists, aren't we? By that I mean we all pretend to interface with the world, react to stimuli, make decisions based on rational thought focused by our experiences . . . but we're also list makers, yes? We have our little clipboards filled with checklists to assess our growth, development, correctness.
I have lists I keep in the back of my head. These lists are my lists; you may have similar ones, dissimilar ones, I don't know. One is entitled "Things My Parents Told Me I Will Never Tell My Children" -- this is a list you may have, as well. You know this list, right? Things your parents told you all the time that you swore to never inflict upon your kids? Things like "You think this is something? Everything was so much better when we were younger *sigh*." Or, "In my day, people had respect for others!" Or even the inevitable, "Appreciate what you have, young man! When I was your age I had to . . ." Insert horribly melodramatic tale of woe here, usually punctuated by immense piles of snow and hurricane force winds. Who knew that West Tennessee became Montana for months at a time in the 1950's?
The rule I am about violate has to do with another list I keep. This list is entitled, "Things To Never Write About on Your Blog Because It's a Public Forum, Idiot."
I'll quit stalling now -- I swore I would never mention religion. To begin, I really don't know enough about the Bible. When I was growing up (by the way, those were much better days!) my family did not attend church much . . . my father was a cynical and lapsed Methodist (a Methodist without Method, perhaps?) and my mother was a pseudo-member of a small church that most of the people in our hometown thought of as some kind of strange legalistic cult. When we did attend church (twice a year or so) as a family, we went to mom's cult. Of course, it wasn't really a cult, but I can't blame anyone for thinking so. After all, we were trained (with long sermons and even longer prayers) to snap viciously if anyone -- ANYONE -- assumed that the church we attended had anything at all to do with any other church, even those nearby of the same name. The Baptists called us "Campbellites"; the other churches around us of the same name called us "anti's," or "non-institutionals"; eighteen elderly people and four younger than sixty (including me) called us "home."
Books could be written about my little "home" church and its wonderful ability to sow the seeds of alienation, division, hypocrisy, and discord. Now, I'm going to try very hard not to be judgmental, as they were; I'm going to try very hard not to loose my anger, either, because I know it's ultimately counterproductive.
That church hurt me. It hurt my mother deeply.
I am reminded of a great poem I read years ago (forget the author, sorry) who wrote about his daughter's response to a day camp at a local church: "How could I tell her the truth/That church was a place for people who wanted only/But to hurt other people with their holiness/And keep a Bible filled with rules she could never fathom." I think everyone who has spent time in our fellowship (though the men of my home church would have said "brotherhood" -- sorry ladies, you get only to cook for us) understands the perilous chasm between legalism and liberality. On the one hand, you have rules that can never be kept that seemingly exist only to prove your own worthiness; on the other hand, you've got a universalism that includes everyone, even those who don't ascribe to your values. Spirit AND truth? You've got to be kidding me.
Those more astute among you may be asking, "Great! What does this have to do with anything?" My history with the church reared its head just recently. While browsing other blogs and websites this weekend, I came across a public message forum that disguised itself as an open forum dedicated to discussion in the body of believers. After one post -- ONE post, and remember, I still quote exclusively from the KJV -- I had received a number of "corrective" e-mails that threatened to collapse my computer monitor under the weight of the scriptures included in them for the sake of eliminating my error. Wow. It seems God does not want us to sing a song during the passing of the Lord's Supper. That's apparently VERY bad.
Even reading those last two sentences I am forced to laugh at the outrageousness of their intimacy. Many of you may not know what I'm talking about -- heck, many ***Christians*** have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. In order to understand the concept of the debate, you and I have to be so close in doctrinal belief that the world would see no difference in us. Unfortunately, my new acquaintances on the message board certainly did. I am tempted to write back with some shocking sin -- "What does the Bible say about bestiality, friends? Should I be worried about my salvation if I keep eyeing my dog?" The saddest thing about this story is that they would be far more accepting of that struggle than the idea that our worship styles could be different. All of the old anger I felt at my home church came rushing back in a flood of memory. I literally shook with anger at my keyboard. "Don't they know?" I thought. "Don't they understand how much their inflexibility hurts other people?"
And yet, here I am. I'm still in the church, still looking for truth, still trying to understand.
That right there may be the greatest of the miracles of Jesus Christ. In a fallen world filled with flawed people who use the word of God as a defensive weapon to wall off their own faith, we still search for Him.
Crazy, isn't it?
Friday, August 06, 2004
I'm back . . .
This time, with an M.A. in English.
Thank you. Seven years . . . how can I fully express the futility and frustration I felt for seven years? It's more than a weight, more than a burden, more than an albatross. Maybe now I have the strength to unleash the burgeoning passion in my soul for interpretive dance.
Both of the regular readers of this blog have asked that I give you an example of the poetry I wrote to complete my creative thesis. As much as I would like to publish examples of my poetry, I am concerned that doing so would put this blog just a "This Page Under Construction" sign away from internet hokeyness. Still, my unimaginable need for attention drives me to post some poetry. Love it, hate it -- I don't care. Just send me money! (Ahem.)
Poem #1: Here's my ode to irony, specifically the air of detachment it assumes in a literary context. I love the juxtaposition of the "postmodern" world view, too -- hey, if nothing is real (or at least provable) through the problematic lenses of sensory perception, and if our engagement of the world must only take place from a distance, then why the heck does my hand ache so much?
IRONY
I cut my hand today; I can never seem
To operate the can opener without tragedy.
Blood pooled at my feet. I should have
Realized the beauty in the agony and
Used the greatest weapon in my arsenal
Of artifice: irony. Certainly Thomas Mann
Would elevate my mere misfortune to high
Farce: sure, Tom and Henry James would
Quickly telescope my hand to rest on some
Distant pedestal. Then we could observe together
In our witty detachment, removed from
The messiness that comes in the moment.
But I could not think to detach myself,
To observe and tease from afar. It hurt too much for poetic devices.
Poem #2: Is this over-the-top, or melodramatic? Sure it is. I wanted to write a poem using the second person and see if the intensity (and general furtiveness) it commands would translate well to poetry. Ah, well. It's an experiment.
CATALYST
Go quickly to the stair. You can almost hear
The voices below urging you to breakfast; your mother
Laughs without conviction, your father equivocates.
Go now, hurry! They are simply biding time, awaiting
Your appearance. Yours is the final entrance.
Have you not heard your cues? You know they are
Making small talk to pass the time until you arrive.
You can almost hear them now. How does the script
Read today? Will this lovely, cloud-filled morning
Bring your mother of compromise, who will allow peace
By temporarily ignoring every wound she's carefully salted
For years? Or will the unforgiving eternal sunbeams reveal
Your mother of retribution: a withered, tattered figure held
Together by secret cunning and an awesome mechanical hatred?
It is the same with your father. "Peace, peace at all costs" is his
Credo, though he confuses peace with avoidance. Will he
Play the part of the blustering, expansive patriarch, eager to
Appease and assert? Or will he assume the role of the sniveling
Conniver, excusing himself on the basis of the world's
Conspiracy against him? How will it be between these two,
Who know no other roles than these? What awaits?
Go. Their world hangs upon your entrance.
Poem #3: I won an award for the following poem. Okay, it's an award I made myself with Microsoft Works, but it's an award nonetheless. Oh, it contains a bad word, that I will star out. (My African-American thesis advisor adored this poem and told me it lost its power if I blunted the word in the first line, but I informed him that not starring it here might annoy some AND cause me to lose my job -- please accept my apologies for equivocating, Doc.)
Achilles in Reformatory
I remember: "n**ger" was the word
He craved, like the chaplain craved for Christ;
instant justification
For all the horror of twelve years
Of warfare to flood over his body
Like the Styx --
We watched as he donned
The breastplate of depravity,
The shield of torment,
And the mighty sword of smoldering rage
Forged all those years ago
By Hephaestus's foundry in East St. Louis --
One time, in the cafeteria, it took six guards to put him down.
Sunlight glinted off of forks and food trays.
Chaos reigned.
When his blood lust was sated,
He shared a laugh with Ares
As they walked him down to solitary.
White Hector they carried to Baptist Memorial.
I was secretly relieved when they
Made good on their threat to keep
Him confined, alone: that way
He could make no friends to avenge.
Poem #4: This poem is a villanelle; a villanelle is a chiefly French verse form running on two rhymes and consisting (typically) of five tercets and a quatrain in which the first and third lines of the opening tercet recur alternately at the end of the other tercets and together as the last two lines of the quatrain. Metrically, you're looking at good old iambic pentameter. Remember Dylan Thomas in Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night?
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas.)
Well, I had to write a number of verse forms: x number of sestinas, x number of Petrarchan sonnets, x number of Elizabethan sonnets, x number of Spenserian sonnets, etc. I had to submit one villanelle. Interestingly enough, I have only ever written one villanelle, and I wrote it as a response to James Joyce's autobiographical novel The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Though I adored the book, I did occasionally tire of his portrayal of Stephen Daedalus as the uber-intellectual youth. Thinking back, I decided to write of my heroic childhood in a villanelle.
Villanelle: A Portrait of This Artist as a Young Man
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
Old ladies weep when burdened by your snot --
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
Yes, every week the ladies swoon, for they
Believed at first you had some kind of clot.
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
The worst is when you bow your head to pray:
Must we buy you some kind of chamber-pot?
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
We talk about this every week, I say!
This you will learn if I must force the thought --
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
And even if MY anger is allayed
You know what happened to the wife of Lot!
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
I tell you son, this is the only way.
(Your father teaches lessons best forgot.)
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
Thus endeth the boredom. If you wish to taunt me, go ahead. Only know that I am, with a graduate degree from THE Georgia Southern University, sufficiently academically accomplished to ignore your cruelty.
This time, with an M.A. in English.
Thank you. Seven years . . . how can I fully express the futility and frustration I felt for seven years? It's more than a weight, more than a burden, more than an albatross. Maybe now I have the strength to unleash the burgeoning passion in my soul for interpretive dance.
Both of the regular readers of this blog have asked that I give you an example of the poetry I wrote to complete my creative thesis. As much as I would like to publish examples of my poetry, I am concerned that doing so would put this blog just a "This Page Under Construction" sign away from internet hokeyness. Still, my unimaginable need for attention drives me to post some poetry. Love it, hate it -- I don't care. Just send me money! (Ahem.)
Poem #1: Here's my ode to irony, specifically the air of detachment it assumes in a literary context. I love the juxtaposition of the "postmodern" world view, too -- hey, if nothing is real (or at least provable) through the problematic lenses of sensory perception, and if our engagement of the world must only take place from a distance, then why the heck does my hand ache so much?
IRONY
I cut my hand today; I can never seem
To operate the can opener without tragedy.
Blood pooled at my feet. I should have
Realized the beauty in the agony and
Used the greatest weapon in my arsenal
Of artifice: irony. Certainly Thomas Mann
Would elevate my mere misfortune to high
Farce: sure, Tom and Henry James would
Quickly telescope my hand to rest on some
Distant pedestal. Then we could observe together
In our witty detachment, removed from
The messiness that comes in the moment.
But I could not think to detach myself,
To observe and tease from afar. It hurt too much for poetic devices.
Poem #2: Is this over-the-top, or melodramatic? Sure it is. I wanted to write a poem using the second person and see if the intensity (and general furtiveness) it commands would translate well to poetry. Ah, well. It's an experiment.
CATALYST
Go quickly to the stair. You can almost hear
The voices below urging you to breakfast; your mother
Laughs without conviction, your father equivocates.
Go now, hurry! They are simply biding time, awaiting
Your appearance. Yours is the final entrance.
Have you not heard your cues? You know they are
Making small talk to pass the time until you arrive.
You can almost hear them now. How does the script
Read today? Will this lovely, cloud-filled morning
Bring your mother of compromise, who will allow peace
By temporarily ignoring every wound she's carefully salted
For years? Or will the unforgiving eternal sunbeams reveal
Your mother of retribution: a withered, tattered figure held
Together by secret cunning and an awesome mechanical hatred?
It is the same with your father. "Peace, peace at all costs" is his
Credo, though he confuses peace with avoidance. Will he
Play the part of the blustering, expansive patriarch, eager to
Appease and assert? Or will he assume the role of the sniveling
Conniver, excusing himself on the basis of the world's
Conspiracy against him? How will it be between these two,
Who know no other roles than these? What awaits?
Go. Their world hangs upon your entrance.
Poem #3: I won an award for the following poem. Okay, it's an award I made myself with Microsoft Works, but it's an award nonetheless. Oh, it contains a bad word, that I will star out. (My African-American thesis advisor adored this poem and told me it lost its power if I blunted the word in the first line, but I informed him that not starring it here might annoy some AND cause me to lose my job -- please accept my apologies for equivocating, Doc.)
Achilles in Reformatory
I remember: "n**ger" was the word
He craved, like the chaplain craved for Christ;
instant justification
For all the horror of twelve years
Of warfare to flood over his body
Like the Styx --
We watched as he donned
The breastplate of depravity,
The shield of torment,
And the mighty sword of smoldering rage
Forged all those years ago
By Hephaestus's foundry in East St. Louis --
One time, in the cafeteria, it took six guards to put him down.
Sunlight glinted off of forks and food trays.
Chaos reigned.
When his blood lust was sated,
He shared a laugh with Ares
As they walked him down to solitary.
White Hector they carried to Baptist Memorial.
I was secretly relieved when they
Made good on their threat to keep
Him confined, alone: that way
He could make no friends to avenge.
Poem #4: This poem is a villanelle; a villanelle is a chiefly French verse form running on two rhymes and consisting (typically) of five tercets and a quatrain in which the first and third lines of the opening tercet recur alternately at the end of the other tercets and together as the last two lines of the quatrain. Metrically, you're looking at good old iambic pentameter. Remember Dylan Thomas in Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night?
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas.)
Well, I had to write a number of verse forms: x number of sestinas, x number of Petrarchan sonnets, x number of Elizabethan sonnets, x number of Spenserian sonnets, etc. I had to submit one villanelle. Interestingly enough, I have only ever written one villanelle, and I wrote it as a response to James Joyce's autobiographical novel The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Though I adored the book, I did occasionally tire of his portrayal of Stephen Daedalus as the uber-intellectual youth. Thinking back, I decided to write of my heroic childhood in a villanelle.
Villanelle: A Portrait of This Artist as a Young Man
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
Old ladies weep when burdened by your snot --
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
Yes, every week the ladies swoon, for they
Believed at first you had some kind of clot.
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
The worst is when you bow your head to pray:
Must we buy you some kind of chamber-pot?
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
We talk about this every week, I say!
This you will learn if I must force the thought --
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
And even if MY anger is allayed
You know what happened to the wife of Lot!
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
I tell you son, this is the only way.
(Your father teaches lessons best forgot.)
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
Show manners once in your young life, okay?
Thus endeth the boredom. If you wish to taunt me, go ahead. Only know that I am, with a graduate degree from THE Georgia Southern University, sufficiently academically accomplished to ignore your cruelty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)