1/25/47
"The majesty of my thoughts this evening! Do all these things read alike as they seem to to? They all send a faint nausea thru me--albeit they were sincere at the time and I recant none of my articles of faith. This evening I picture theoretically myself at 70 saying it's done, it's finished, it's what it is, and being no nearer than I am. This moral turpitude at 70 won't be tolerable. I want a revolution now, a mild revolution, something that will put an even 20th century asceticism into me at least when I pass the grocery. The intellectual and artistic delights God gives us are visions and like visions we pay for them; & the thirst for the vision doesn't necessarily carry with it a thirst for the attendant suffering. Looking back I have suffered, not my share, but enough to call it that but there's a terrific balance due. Dear God please send me your Grace. "
4/14/47
"I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic flippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually-- like this today. The word craftmanship takes care of the work angle & the word aesthetic the truth angle. Angle. It will be a life struggle with no consummation. When something is finished, it cannot be possessed. Nothing can be possessed but the struggle. All of our lives are consumed in possessing struggle but only when the struggle is cherished & directed to a final consummation outside of this life is it of any value. I want to be the best possible artist it is possible for me to be, under God.
I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You."
--The ever so brilliant Flannery
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Another Wednesday at work.
"Crushing pain. He is having radiating, crushing pain!"
"Who is he? What's his diagnosis?"
Get off me. I can't breathe. Anything, anyone...
"Call his primary team STAT. Get them up here."
Half-dimmed eyes, incessant quivering, a mask taut to his face--inspiration, expiration--muddled in ultimate exhaust.
"He is having a massive STEMI."
"Yes, yes we're here. He was diagnosed with Stage IV adenocarcinoma this morning. Poor prognosis. No family present. He was boarded for a drain placement. Cath Lab declined intervention d/t poor prognosis."
Make it stop, please. Help me, for the love of God, help me.
2 mg Morphine IV.
"Sir, I need to know what you want right now. We can put a tube down your airway which you may never wake back up from. Or we can make you comfortable."
Please help me. Make it stop. Make me comfortable.
"Sir, you realize that if we don't put this tube down your throat you will die?"
YES. Please, pleaaaaase.
2 mg Morphine IV.
Stillness rippled through the bodies in the room like a pervading epidemic with one last kick. No dyspnea, no flailing extremities, no indeterminate pleas.
Silence raged onward, for what seemed like, an eternity.
"Who is he? What's his diagnosis?"
Get off me. I can't breathe. Anything, anyone...
"Call his primary team STAT. Get them up here."
Half-dimmed eyes, incessant quivering, a mask taut to his face--inspiration, expiration--muddled in ultimate exhaust.
"He is having a massive STEMI."
"Yes, yes we're here. He was diagnosed with Stage IV adenocarcinoma this morning. Poor prognosis. No family present. He was boarded for a drain placement. Cath Lab declined intervention d/t poor prognosis."
Make it stop, please. Help me, for the love of God, help me.
2 mg Morphine IV.
"Sir, I need to know what you want right now. We can put a tube down your airway which you may never wake back up from. Or we can make you comfortable."
Please help me. Make it stop. Make me comfortable.
"Sir, you realize that if we don't put this tube down your throat you will die?"
YES. Please, pleaaaaase.
2 mg Morphine IV.
Stillness rippled through the bodies in the room like a pervading epidemic with one last kick. No dyspnea, no flailing extremities, no indeterminate pleas.
Silence raged onward, for what seemed like, an eternity.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
"Stop that, you've made your point. Wilbur! Gert over here you turkey, come on. Stop eating the leaves and sticks. Do you want your stomach to blow up and butthole to burn like hell? I know, i know you want to play and go running, but we don't have the time.You're pent up with an escapade of energy, a inexhaustible drive to discover, to explore-- how am I suppose to help you? I let you go, you wait for me. Stop that neediness, would ya? You're your own creature expelled into my limited forbearing abilities--and you just look at me, despondent and trivialized, as if I yielded you the rags of my undergarments. What do you want from me? I've almost lost you time and time again. And the old destroyed tennis balls will fancy you for just a limited time... but then what? What next? Your companionship and loyalty and albeit yearnings in the morning at the window.. and for what? You don't even know. You just are."
Not everyone has to be literate, there are some great reasons for resisting language, and one of them is love.
Not everyone has to be literate, there are some great reasons for resisting language, and one of them is love.
Friday, November 15, 2013
My sweet, sweet Buechner.
Here he is. No introductory abstract necessary.
"If literature is a metaphor for the writer's experience, a mirror in which that experience is at least partially reflected, it is at the same time a mirror in which the reader can also see his or her experience reflected in a new and potentially transforming way. This is what it is like to search for God in a world where cruelty and pain hide God, Dostoevsky says-- "How like a winter hath my absence been from thee"; how like seeing a poor woman in a dream with a starving child at her breast; how like Father Zossima kneeling down at the feet of Dmitri Karamazov because he sees that great suffering is in store for him, and because he knows, as John Donne did, that suffering is holy. And you and I, his readers, come away from our reading with no more proof of the existence or nonexistence of God than we had before, with no particular moral or message to frame on the wall, but empowered by a new sense of the depths of love and pity and hope that is transmitted to us through Dostoevsky's words.
Words written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, can have as much of this power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alive within ourselves. That, I suppose, is the final mystery as well the final power of words: that not even across great distances of time and space do they ever lose their capacity for becoming incarnate. And when these words tell of virtue and nobility, when they move us closer to that truth and gentleness of spirit by which we become fully human, the reading of them is sacramental; and a library is as holy a place as any temple because through the words which are treasured in it the Word itself becomes flesh again and again and dwells among us and within us, full of grace and truth." --Buechner
Dear God, could it be said any more deliciously sweeter than aforementioned?
It was Dostoevsky who stated, "Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on Earth."
"If literature is a metaphor for the writer's experience, a mirror in which that experience is at least partially reflected, it is at the same time a mirror in which the reader can also see his or her experience reflected in a new and potentially transforming way. This is what it is like to search for God in a world where cruelty and pain hide God, Dostoevsky says-- "How like a winter hath my absence been from thee"; how like seeing a poor woman in a dream with a starving child at her breast; how like Father Zossima kneeling down at the feet of Dmitri Karamazov because he sees that great suffering is in store for him, and because he knows, as John Donne did, that suffering is holy. And you and I, his readers, come away from our reading with no more proof of the existence or nonexistence of God than we had before, with no particular moral or message to frame on the wall, but empowered by a new sense of the depths of love and pity and hope that is transmitted to us through Dostoevsky's words.
Words written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, can have as much of this power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alive within ourselves. That, I suppose, is the final mystery as well the final power of words: that not even across great distances of time and space do they ever lose their capacity for becoming incarnate. And when these words tell of virtue and nobility, when they move us closer to that truth and gentleness of spirit by which we become fully human, the reading of them is sacramental; and a library is as holy a place as any temple because through the words which are treasured in it the Word itself becomes flesh again and again and dwells among us and within us, full of grace and truth." --Buechner
Dear God, could it be said any more deliciously sweeter than aforementioned?
It was Dostoevsky who stated, "Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on Earth."
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
The month is October. And I say no! to the indoor encapsulating cascade (but I am inside this cozy trendy coffee shop off 8th and I am not leaving). Rather I intend to say yes! to the roaring wind (duh, when I leave here), dried out things, and early onset pumpkin spice fatigue. I have already produced pumpkin mac and cheese once and I can rightfully appoint myself CHEESEMASTER extraordinaire. I too often proclaim as Flannary insists, "I am but a cheese, God. Make me a mystic." I like being a cheese some days, and wonder why Flannery thinks cheese and mystics serve better to be polarized. Either way, a mystic would question his art in being a cheese, as do I, but am not resistant enough to deflect such a dairy-ing claim. Bring it all on, AUTUMN, and persuade me to think I am wading heartily in both the transition of seasons as well as perspective.
I have been readily addicted to the Scumbag brain memes recently (well, again). Maybe the psyche tells us to be intrigued by the psyche, both succinctly and periodically (ARE WE NOT ALL BEING TROLLED BY THIS ORGAN?), but my fascination usually hones in when the brain is being fed well enough to think about itself ( that self-righteous bastard!). I have been chewing on Nietzche's words “Did you ever say yes to a pleasure? Oh my friends, then you also said yes to all pain. All things are linked, entwined, in love with one another.” Making decisions or even PLANS for the future that can affect your current state of being a human bean. To be continued...
Anyways, I bought a new notebook about a month ago in hopes of stirring the wrist again, hoping to evoke the lady penmanship to try fitting a new type of ship with me (aka friendship). The task of doing so is still daunting-- I am as frozen as an Edward Scissorhand sculpture and lacking its artistic prestige. But one can still hope. Here's to the challenge at hand and in the head.
I have been readily addicted to the Scumbag brain memes recently (well, again). Maybe the psyche tells us to be intrigued by the psyche, both succinctly and periodically (ARE WE NOT ALL BEING TROLLED BY THIS ORGAN?), but my fascination usually hones in when the brain is being fed well enough to think about itself ( that self-righteous bastard!). I have been chewing on Nietzche's words “Did you ever say yes to a pleasure? Oh my friends, then you also said yes to all pain. All things are linked, entwined, in love with one another.” Making decisions or even PLANS for the future that can affect your current state of being a human bean. To be continued...
Anyways, I bought a new notebook about a month ago in hopes of stirring the wrist again, hoping to evoke the lady penmanship to try fitting a new type of ship with me (aka friendship). The task of doing so is still daunting-- I am as frozen as an Edward Scissorhand sculpture and lacking its artistic prestige. But one can still hope. Here's to the challenge at hand and in the head.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Quoters Gonna Quote
Anne Lamott has been my non consensual priest again this month, well for months-- I suppose. We met back in 2009-- (well one of us met the other without the other's knowledge). Neither of us have been the same since... (One being unconscious of the other is irrelevant here).
I am wholly convinced that in my postmodern, pseudoreligious state of mind that we have many soul mates out there-- out there as in "Earth." That antiquated Zeus tale that infers an ideal of a perfect partner was just Plato pulling the regular 'tard card. No duh we live in a world starved for silence and connection-- so why would we have one iconic and other tangible whole awaiting our completion? Our lives wreaking havoc until that damn human shows up to the game.. no matter how late. Undoubtedly, it remains another egregious Greco claim.
Back to Anne--- she is one of the few soul mates of mine. How? Why?
I'll make a list...as every sharpened and linear mind tends to make (note the sarcasm here...NOTE IT):
1. She is funny. Idiosyncratic. Neurotic.
“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”
2. She writes. She takes time and effort in translating her thoughts into imaginative and formative pieces of art.
“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”
3. She recognizes the truth of her personhood, grapples with it, and let's grace have her way with her.
“I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us."
"Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us."
4. She is honest with her own illusions, dreams, expectations.
“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”
5. She is committed to the process. The human process as well as the transcending process.
"We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.”
And with the limitations and the bounty of rich words, I find myself and God amidst her. The very echo of thoughts and reminiscences of something I do not understand, but long for. A sweetness awaiting to be found.
Anne just did a year on Match. com-- and her ventures continue to parallel thoughts on my own. Read for yourself: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/my_year_on_match_com/
I revel in my skin the family crest of "We Don't Give Up." Highly kickass.
After being on Match.com and experiencing the utter exhaustion of trying to connect and be who you are while trying to impress, I was convinced that having utter self-respect in the midst of things not working is okay. To rush away moments at hand for idealized things of the future seems a bit asinine. Hanging on to something for the sake of mere self-preservation seems to be a cop out. But learning to love yourself, having grace for you and others, giving to people among you the gift of you, and letting go of what life was suppose to give you is a worthwhile whirlwind. Sometimes it feels like a bloodsucking whore to the mind, but what the hell, we press on.
Soulmate review to be continued...Flannery, Hesse, Buechner...all coming soon. (Being that they're already dead, I take great heed in procrastinating with great subjugation over such reviews).
I am wholly convinced that in my postmodern, pseudoreligious state of mind that we have many soul mates out there-- out there as in "Earth." That antiquated Zeus tale that infers an ideal of a perfect partner was just Plato pulling the regular 'tard card. No duh we live in a world starved for silence and connection-- so why would we have one iconic and other tangible whole awaiting our completion? Our lives wreaking havoc until that damn human shows up to the game.. no matter how late. Undoubtedly, it remains another egregious Greco claim.
Back to Anne--- she is one of the few soul mates of mine. How? Why?
I'll make a list...as every sharpened and linear mind tends to make (note the sarcasm here...NOTE IT):
1. She is funny. Idiosyncratic. Neurotic.
“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”
2. She writes. She takes time and effort in translating her thoughts into imaginative and formative pieces of art.
“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”
3. She recognizes the truth of her personhood, grapples with it, and let's grace have her way with her.
“I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us."
"Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us."
4. She is honest with her own illusions, dreams, expectations.
“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”
5. She is committed to the process. The human process as well as the transcending process.
"We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.”
And with the limitations and the bounty of rich words, I find myself and God amidst her. The very echo of thoughts and reminiscences of something I do not understand, but long for. A sweetness awaiting to be found.
Anne just did a year on Match. com-- and her ventures continue to parallel thoughts on my own. Read for yourself: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/my_year_on_match_com/
I revel in my skin the family crest of "We Don't Give Up." Highly kickass.
After being on Match.com and experiencing the utter exhaustion of trying to connect and be who you are while trying to impress, I was convinced that having utter self-respect in the midst of things not working is okay. To rush away moments at hand for idealized things of the future seems a bit asinine. Hanging on to something for the sake of mere self-preservation seems to be a cop out. But learning to love yourself, having grace for you and others, giving to people among you the gift of you, and letting go of what life was suppose to give you is a worthwhile whirlwind. Sometimes it feels like a bloodsucking whore to the mind, but what the hell, we press on.
Soulmate review to be continued...Flannery, Hesse, Buechner...all coming soon. (Being that they're already dead, I take great heed in procrastinating with great subjugation over such reviews).
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
"An honorable human relationship--that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"--is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few to go that hard way with us."
--Adrienne Rich
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few to go that hard way with us."
--Adrienne Rich
"Laughing At the Word Two"
Only
That Illuminated
One
Who keeps
Seducing the formless into form
Had the charm to win my
Heart.
Only a Perfect One
Who is always
Laughing at the word
Two
Can make you know
Of
Love.
Monday, July 8, 2013
I am a writer.
And my faith in the world of art is intense.
But not irrational, nor naïve.
Because art takes us – and makes us take-
A journey beyond price
Beyond costs
Into bearing witness to the world as it is, and as it should be.
Art invites us to know beauty, and to solicit it, summon it,
from even the most tragic of circumstances.
Art reminds us that We Belong Here.
And if we serve -- We Last.
My faith in art rivals my admiration for any other discourse.
Its conversation with the public, and among its various genres
Is critical to understanding
what it means to care deeply
And to be human completely
I believe.
-Toni Morrison
Vanderbilt University Senior Day Chancellor’s Medal Address
May 9, 2013
"And if we serve-- we last. And if we serve-- we last. And if we serve--- somehow, we last."
All I got from her is that hope must be an intoxicating and resilient condition of the soul. Imbued, rendered tenderly, yet fiercely determined.
And my faith in the world of art is intense.
But not irrational, nor naïve.
Because art takes us – and makes us take-
A journey beyond price
Beyond costs
Into bearing witness to the world as it is, and as it should be.
Art invites us to know beauty, and to solicit it, summon it,
from even the most tragic of circumstances.
Art reminds us that We Belong Here.
And if we serve -- We Last.
My faith in art rivals my admiration for any other discourse.
Its conversation with the public, and among its various genres
Is critical to understanding
what it means to care deeply
And to be human completely
I believe.
-Toni Morrison
Vanderbilt University Senior Day Chancellor’s Medal Address
May 9, 2013
"And if we serve-- we last. And if we serve-- we last. And if we serve--- somehow, we last."
All I got from her is that hope must be an intoxicating and resilient condition of the soul. Imbued, rendered tenderly, yet fiercely determined.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
The Lady in Disguise
Early prevails, early assimilation.
Greetings of gentiality along with fineness!
A cup of destiny accompanying
Thy discrete and pervading Highness.
Dress me in thy righteous code,
Propriety! and sophistry too!
My salient companions of extremism
Befitting upon her relentless woo---
Flow, glisten--petal of exuberant beauty!
For implacable fanaticism is the light to see--
Do not dissolve the distinguishable, never!
And do not fall...between the idea and the reality.
From thine a blessed inheritance I receive!
Prescribed expectations with noted piety,
An impetus for insanity and vexing tension--
No recourse to adapt to beyond my destiny.
Displace her quickly! Hide her from me.
An absolute depravity quickly absolving--
She does not befit me.
But I hear her: this is the way to be free?
(This poem is in response to William Faulkner's consistent theme in his novels regarding the externalistic driven Southern moral code. Insenuated into the hearts of her occupants, the South's pervading coersion of expectations and duties has conflicted the hearts and minds of many who felt entrapped and enslaved to relent on in such despair. Some are unaffected without awareness of the code or it's inhibitions, while others have no skills to acclimate to another path other than that preceding through his/her line of blood. We consistently discover that one's greatest tragedy is the inability to transform amidst despair. Likewise, humanity's greatest sign of intelligence is illustrated as such: to adapt, to evolve, to endure.)
Greetings of gentiality along with fineness!
A cup of destiny accompanying
Thy discrete and pervading Highness.
Dress me in thy righteous code,
Propriety! and sophistry too!
My salient companions of extremism
Befitting upon her relentless woo---
Flow, glisten--petal of exuberant beauty!
For implacable fanaticism is the light to see--
Do not dissolve the distinguishable, never!
And do not fall...between the idea and the reality.
From thine a blessed inheritance I receive!
Prescribed expectations with noted piety,
An impetus for insanity and vexing tension--
No recourse to adapt to beyond my destiny.
Displace her quickly! Hide her from me.
An absolute depravity quickly absolving--
She does not befit me.
But I hear her: this is the way to be free?
(This poem is in response to William Faulkner's consistent theme in his novels regarding the externalistic driven Southern moral code. Insenuated into the hearts of her occupants, the South's pervading coersion of expectations and duties has conflicted the hearts and minds of many who felt entrapped and enslaved to relent on in such despair. Some are unaffected without awareness of the code or it's inhibitions, while others have no skills to acclimate to another path other than that preceding through his/her line of blood. We consistently discover that one's greatest tragedy is the inability to transform amidst despair. Likewise, humanity's greatest sign of intelligence is illustrated as such: to adapt, to evolve, to endure.)
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Thoughts As Of Lately
I have heard it said before that speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.
I've always wondered about that, as the act of verbalizing an idea or thought takes great heed, or affirmation, in comparison to our aforementioned perception of something.
But then again, my male puppy has been conspicuously intrigued by his own nipples. What affirmation of such a thought can be sustained?
Plithing ponderings.
I spent the last two days in an alcove between two semi-acutely ill patients. This is normal routine. Sit, look, watch, chart, and...repeat. Luckily and thankfully, I was by the window in the hole. Just a moment to catch a play-by-play liner of the crane man who moves the crane once before lunch and then once after. Other than that, he sits there. Maybe watching something, maybe just sitting. Probably watching, sitting, and farting...as all good humans play the part ever so well.
Where did it ever reach the point of sitting and watching another person sitting? A year ago this Betty would be in her patients' rooms-- talking, engaging with family, feeling friendly, feeling compelled that care involves persistent reiteration of one being "loved "and affirming one's presence of existence.
"If only they knew they were loved...", "If only they knew their special place here..." would be my motivators. Fear in my own heart that they wouldn't know. Which--yes, of course-- were readily progressed with the incessant conditioning of the Protestant ethic. And by no means was that a binding motivator. It was merely limited. And limited are we all!
It's different now. My care is different, as am I.
To usher in motion the very stillness within--this may be the most elusive and transient experience to inarticulately convey.
A tenderness that extols. A silence of being that evokes. A moving meditation.
I felt over these past few days all my insides stewing. Sitting there watching outside that window. Thinking how comforting it is to know someone enough to be at peace in silence, and to appreciate that words unsaid are most uncommonly felt and noteworthy.
I just reread Brave, New World, and it is one that channels new blood and oxygen to the brain. New sourness, and satirical provocation of how we are and who we are becoming.
Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty–they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?
.......................................
"Stability," said the Controller, "stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability." His voice was a trumpet. Listening they felt larger, warmer.
The machine turns, turns and must keep on turning–for ever. It is death if it stands still. A thousand millions scrabbled the crust of the earth. The wheels began to turn. In a hundred and fifty years there were two thousand millions. Stop all the wheels. In a hundred and fifty weeks there are once more only a thousand millions; a thousand thousand thousand men and women have starved to death.Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to
tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient
men, stable in contentment. And then I forgot how much I fell in love with Bernard like I did back in high school.
"Two hundred repetitions, twice a week from fourteen to sixteen and a half," was all his comment. The mad bad talk rambled on. "I want to know what passion is," she heard him saying. "I want to feel something strongly."
"When the individual feels, the community reels," Lenina pronounced.
"Well, why shouldn't it reel a bit?"
"Bernard!"
But Bernard remained unabashed.
"Adults intellectually and during working hours," he went on. "Infants where feeling and desire are concerned."
"Our Ford loved infants."
Ignoring the interruption. "It suddenly struck me the other day,"
continued Bernard, "that it might be possible to be an adult all the time."
"I don't understand." Lenina's tone was firm.
"I know you don't. And that's why we went to bed together yesterday–like
infants–instead of being adults and waiting."
"But it was fun," Lenina insisted. "Wasn't it?"
"Oh, the greatest fun," he answered, but in a voice so mournful, with an
expression so profoundly miserable, that Lenina felt all her triumph suddenly
evaporate. Perhaps he had found her too plump, after all." .................................................................................................
My tendency would be to take the conspirator route and conjour up all things for the sake of man to be so-called "stable." Instability, affliction, struggle, challenge-- what we yearn not for, but is what puts hair on our chests (and maybe some other places, too, if ya know what I mean).
How faint and yet toxic of a persuasion! That a means to an end-- an expedited end--whose goal of stability would transpire into an implorable and induced state of being. The obscurity! (Here, I feel similarly the bestial rage of Gibson in Braveheart...They may take our minds, but they will never take our freedom!)
And yet the thought is so instinctly engraved within? "But Betty, I know you're having a hard time. Just do what makes you happy." "Are you happy, Betty?" This advisory force is not solely and instrinsically hedonistic, but scarcely understood. It is tiresome and misguided, that indefinite and opaque term.
Like in an instance, I feel so intensely provoked to protest our very progression and evolution. Can we control it? Is their another direction apart from self-transcendence?
"A New Theory of Biology" was the title of the paper which Mustapha Mond had just finished reading. He sat for some time, meditatively frowning, then picked up his pen and wrote across the title-page: "The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive. Not to be published." He underlined the words. "The author will be kept under supervision. His transference to the Marine Biological Station of St. Helena may become necessary." A pity, he thought, as he signed his name. It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose–well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes–make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere, that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible. He picked up his pen again, and under the words "Not to be published" drew a second line, thicker and blacker than the first; then sighed, "What fun it would be," he thought, "if one didn't have to think about happiness!"
I've always wondered about that, as the act of verbalizing an idea or thought takes great heed, or affirmation, in comparison to our aforementioned perception of something.
But then again, my male puppy has been conspicuously intrigued by his own nipples. What affirmation of such a thought can be sustained?
Plithing ponderings.
I spent the last two days in an alcove between two semi-acutely ill patients. This is normal routine. Sit, look, watch, chart, and...repeat. Luckily and thankfully, I was by the window in the hole. Just a moment to catch a play-by-play liner of the crane man who moves the crane once before lunch and then once after. Other than that, he sits there. Maybe watching something, maybe just sitting. Probably watching, sitting, and farting...as all good humans play the part ever so well.
Where did it ever reach the point of sitting and watching another person sitting? A year ago this Betty would be in her patients' rooms-- talking, engaging with family, feeling friendly, feeling compelled that care involves persistent reiteration of one being "loved "and affirming one's presence of existence.
"If only they knew they were loved...", "If only they knew their special place here..." would be my motivators. Fear in my own heart that they wouldn't know. Which--yes, of course-- were readily progressed with the incessant conditioning of the Protestant ethic. And by no means was that a binding motivator. It was merely limited. And limited are we all!
It's different now. My care is different, as am I.
To usher in motion the very stillness within--this may be the most elusive and transient experience to inarticulately convey.
A tenderness that extols. A silence of being that evokes. A moving meditation.
I felt over these past few days all my insides stewing. Sitting there watching outside that window. Thinking how comforting it is to know someone enough to be at peace in silence, and to appreciate that words unsaid are most uncommonly felt and noteworthy.
I just reread Brave, New World, and it is one that channels new blood and oxygen to the brain. New sourness, and satirical provocation of how we are and who we are becoming.
Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty–they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?
.......................................
"Stability," said the Controller, "stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability." His voice was a trumpet. Listening they felt larger, warmer.
The machine turns, turns and must keep on turning–for ever. It is death if it stands still. A thousand millions scrabbled the crust of the earth. The wheels began to turn. In a hundred and fifty years there were two thousand millions. Stop all the wheels. In a hundred and fifty weeks there are once more only a thousand millions; a thousand thousand thousand men and women have starved to death.
"Two hundred repetitions, twice a week from fourteen to sixteen and a half," was all his comment. The mad bad talk rambled on. "I want to know what passion is," she heard him saying. "I want to feel something strongly."
"Well, why shouldn't it reel a bit?"
"Adults intellectually and during working hours," he went on. "Infants where feeling and desire are concerned."
How faint and yet toxic of a persuasion! That a means to an end-- an expedited end--whose goal of stability would transpire into an implorable and induced state of being. The obscurity! (Here, I feel similarly the bestial rage of Gibson in Braveheart...They may take our minds, but they will never take our freedom!)
And yet the thought is so instinctly engraved within? "But Betty, I know you're having a hard time. Just do what makes you happy." "Are you happy, Betty?" This advisory force is not solely and instrinsically hedonistic, but scarcely understood. It is tiresome and misguided, that indefinite and opaque term.
Like in an instance, I feel so intensely provoked to protest our very progression and evolution. Can we control it? Is their another direction apart from self-transcendence?
"A New Theory of Biology" was the title of the paper which Mustapha Mond had just finished reading. He sat for some time, meditatively frowning, then picked up his pen and wrote across the title-page: "The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive. Not to be published." He underlined the words. "The author will be kept under supervision. His transference to the Marine Biological Station of St. Helena may become necessary." A pity, he thought, as he signed his name. It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose–well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes–make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere, that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible. He picked up his pen again, and under the words "Not to be published" drew a second line, thicker and blacker than the first; then sighed, "What fun it would be," he thought, "if one didn't have to think about happiness!"
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Nom Nom Nom Nom
The clustered repetition seems banal, infantile, even a bit vapid in a sense of description, yet in consideration of WHO is saying it, somehow it is perfectly appropriate.
Books. NOM NOM
Puppies. NOM NOM
Old people. NOM NOM
Sillyness. NOM NOM
Ideas. NOM NOM
Community. NOM NOM
Garden. NOM NOM
Intimacy. NOM NOM
Get chu sum new teeth thar sonny, thar a'rottin' cauz ya ben nibblin' on too much schweetness!
A presupposed Hunger Games of sorts to which I find myself adhered. Yet, it is no game, since I always win. (Ask to see my moves, post-blog read). Always hungry...which in some case may just be a vain allusion in appearing passionate or overzealous. It should be rather, ALWAYS HUNGRY. All caps to communicate the fleeting sense of extreme intensity. But that is my predisposition-- I cannot refrain from that honest fact. And to compensate in being overzealous, I hunger for knowledge to somehow equate some sort of balance in my brain.
It's such a silly question to pose, to question why you hunger for such things and ideas. Is it consummated from an unknown deficiency to which you can never quite fill? Is it your own irreconcilable and dissented disposition? One in which you are hastened to for your blood, for your very breath, for some mild sense of sanity?
Hell if I know. Really it seems asinine to analyze the thought. How unfortunate the yearning to be made aware-- and then the powerlessness to which your very awareness catalyzes.
I remembered life back in West Virginia, living with my 50 year old landlord with whom I haggled on about politics and we smoked out our angst like we were first years at an Ivy League university. We prompted so much pretense, so much forethought as if our opinions would further enlighten the godforsaken ignorant world. I was restless as hell, on my own, uncertain and unsure of my direction with deep longings for clarity. She was going through her third divorce, dissuading my cultural conditioning and pushing me to pursue my own individuality and independence. I did not lack avidity for independence. She unsettled me greatly, maybe because she hadn't figured "it" out despite our similar hungers. Or that her life was inexhaustibly messy, and hers was perhaps a precursor to my own. She was tall, strong, stubborn, and intelligent. Why would I not want to end up like her? Was her struggle with men unnecessary or preventable? What distressed me most was that she did not choose her struggle, her fight. Let me be clear: I want struggle. I want challenge. But I desire it the way I yearn for it, not as it is designed for me. But who has that ability...to design an appropriate destiny by one's will? One infallible with a remnant of livability?
At that time,I was so sparked by Edward Abbey, of course, the infamous outdoor enthusiast. He was a sad soul, someone who echoed the long aura of aloneness, but one akin to my own and who remained surprisingly comforting. His confession reverberated back to my own: “Gluttony - that's my vice and my curse. I want too much of everything. Books... Love... Music... Color.. Form... Philosophy... Travel and Adventure... the result of this bestial lust is the indiscriminate and promiscuous splaying of my energies - wanting all, I accomplish nothing; desiring everything, I satisfy nothing and am satisfied by nothing.”
Could it be said any better? There are those out there that understand this, and others who do not. And Edward Abbey could have gotten lost out in the woods and died and yet HE STILL WROTE THIS QUOTE so he sure as hell accomplished something. What a beautiful, magnificently turd-ish soul.
And then back to Chile, a mesmerizing time when I lingered in the presence of strangers. I remember an evening at a lounge in La Serena where I met a charming German man. Suave, alluring, confident...and he spoke the endearing language of words. I don't quite remember how we came upon the topic, but we spoke of our places in life, amidst time and the process. It was an unusually strange initial conversation, but I was all in, no doubt. He talked about this word in German called "sehnsucht." It referenced the deep, unimaginable longing within--as if anticipatory and in expectation, an indicator that excites. I loved sehnsecht. I didn't know what this guy was expecting in relaying a word about expectation to me, but I didn't care. I was in a love affair with this word. It was as if there was this innate confirmation that if you know hunger, there must be food. "To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." So, research shows.
I want to remain angry. Angry and bitter that I YEARN (reference note: Seinfeld, Season 3, Unknown episode). Oh poor baby Betty-- her self-imposed martyrdom is just a projection for a future prolific obituary... she just wanted so much, especially the articulation of her own juxtaposition with the physical and spiritual realm.s So verrrry poignant. It's so arrogant!! How to love yourself amidst your wants? How to fulfill your own needs with sound judgment and realistic expectation? Is this suppose to occur naturally? Yet we find our desires coalesced with our blood-- risking arrogance, risking disappointment. Feeling something. And that seems like terrible, terrible philosophical rubbish, but what philosophy is not?
Something tethers goodness in our souls. And that reminds me of that word, that ethereal and exuberant word, Shalom--the ushering of some sort of universal flourishing, or wholeness. Shalom, the life blood to what we are and what we crave and where we are going.
“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
All I can ask is that grace be my prevailing constituent and sweet patience my closest companion. And also to yearn for Toblerone more frequently... well all the time, preferably..anddd a regular bowel pattern...and maybe a puppy. Wait a second.....is this real life?!?!
Books. NOM NOM
Puppies. NOM NOM
Old people. NOM NOM
Sillyness. NOM NOM
Ideas. NOM NOM
Community. NOM NOM
Garden. NOM NOM
Intimacy. NOM NOM
Get chu sum new teeth thar sonny, thar a'rottin' cauz ya ben nibblin' on too much schweetness!
A presupposed Hunger Games of sorts to which I find myself adhered. Yet, it is no game, since I always win. (Ask to see my moves, post-blog read). Always hungry...which in some case may just be a vain allusion in appearing passionate or overzealous. It should be rather, ALWAYS HUNGRY. All caps to communicate the fleeting sense of extreme intensity. But that is my predisposition-- I cannot refrain from that honest fact. And to compensate in being overzealous, I hunger for knowledge to somehow equate some sort of balance in my brain.
It's such a silly question to pose, to question why you hunger for such things and ideas. Is it consummated from an unknown deficiency to which you can never quite fill? Is it your own irreconcilable and dissented disposition? One in which you are hastened to for your blood, for your very breath, for some mild sense of sanity?
Hell if I know. Really it seems asinine to analyze the thought. How unfortunate the yearning to be made aware-- and then the powerlessness to which your very awareness catalyzes.
I remembered life back in West Virginia, living with my 50 year old landlord with whom I haggled on about politics and we smoked out our angst like we were first years at an Ivy League university. We prompted so much pretense, so much forethought as if our opinions would further enlighten the godforsaken ignorant world. I was restless as hell, on my own, uncertain and unsure of my direction with deep longings for clarity. She was going through her third divorce, dissuading my cultural conditioning and pushing me to pursue my own individuality and independence. I did not lack avidity for independence. She unsettled me greatly, maybe because she hadn't figured "it" out despite our similar hungers. Or that her life was inexhaustibly messy, and hers was perhaps a precursor to my own. She was tall, strong, stubborn, and intelligent. Why would I not want to end up like her? Was her struggle with men unnecessary or preventable? What distressed me most was that she did not choose her struggle, her fight. Let me be clear: I want struggle. I want challenge. But I desire it the way I yearn for it, not as it is designed for me. But who has that ability...to design an appropriate destiny by one's will? One infallible with a remnant of livability?
At that time,I was so sparked by Edward Abbey, of course, the infamous outdoor enthusiast. He was a sad soul, someone who echoed the long aura of aloneness, but one akin to my own and who remained surprisingly comforting. His confession reverberated back to my own: “Gluttony - that's my vice and my curse. I want too much of everything. Books... Love... Music... Color.. Form... Philosophy... Travel and Adventure... the result of this bestial lust is the indiscriminate and promiscuous splaying of my energies - wanting all, I accomplish nothing; desiring everything, I satisfy nothing and am satisfied by nothing.”
Could it be said any better? There are those out there that understand this, and others who do not. And Edward Abbey could have gotten lost out in the woods and died and yet HE STILL WROTE THIS QUOTE so he sure as hell accomplished something. What a beautiful, magnificently turd-ish soul.
And then back to Chile, a mesmerizing time when I lingered in the presence of strangers. I remember an evening at a lounge in La Serena where I met a charming German man. Suave, alluring, confident...and he spoke the endearing language of words. I don't quite remember how we came upon the topic, but we spoke of our places in life, amidst time and the process. It was an unusually strange initial conversation, but I was all in, no doubt. He talked about this word in German called "sehnsucht." It referenced the deep, unimaginable longing within--as if anticipatory and in expectation, an indicator that excites. I loved sehnsecht. I didn't know what this guy was expecting in relaying a word about expectation to me, but I didn't care. I was in a love affair with this word. It was as if there was this innate confirmation that if you know hunger, there must be food. "To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." So, research shows.
I want to remain angry. Angry and bitter that I YEARN (reference note: Seinfeld, Season 3, Unknown episode). Oh poor baby Betty-- her self-imposed martyrdom is just a projection for a future prolific obituary... she just wanted so much, especially the articulation of her own juxtaposition with the physical and spiritual realm.s So verrrry poignant. It's so arrogant!! How to love yourself amidst your wants? How to fulfill your own needs with sound judgment and realistic expectation? Is this suppose to occur naturally? Yet we find our desires coalesced with our blood-- risking arrogance, risking disappointment. Feeling something. And that seems like terrible, terrible philosophical rubbish, but what philosophy is not?
Something tethers goodness in our souls. And that reminds me of that word, that ethereal and exuberant word, Shalom--the ushering of some sort of universal flourishing, or wholeness. Shalom, the life blood to what we are and what we crave and where we are going.
“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
All I can ask is that grace be my prevailing constituent and sweet patience my closest companion. And also to yearn for Toblerone more frequently... well all the time, preferably..anddd a regular bowel pattern...and maybe a puppy. Wait a second.....is this real life?!?!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
You arrived again last night.
You arrived again last night.
Void of emotion, void to feel,
You appeared before me with no appeal.
I asked you how it was, Life after life.
One glance, one crease of the mouth, elevated, neither sullen nor trite.
How much longer must you speak and hasten to me?
The hue of your golden mirage again engulfed my sea.
I despised your pain! I detested your condition!
You were stuck, contained, concealed! A heart imprisoned with inhibition.
And I begged for your mercy, pleaded for your freedom!
For the captor's injustice foretells the iron oven.
And I was useless, stone cold with mere eyes to see.
To watch you suffer, like a small pup chained from his mother-- I resented the will to be.
"If there is no peace for you, there can be no peace for me."
And I laid my head down slowly, tenderly into my bed.
Without bombs exploding or muscles atrophying or ruptures to my head.
Void of emotion, void to feel,
You appeared before me with no appeal.
I asked you how it was, Life after life.
One glance, one crease of the mouth, elevated, neither sullen nor trite.
How much longer must you speak and hasten to me?
The hue of your golden mirage again engulfed my sea.
I despised your pain! I detested your condition!
You were stuck, contained, concealed! A heart imprisoned with inhibition.
And I begged for your mercy, pleaded for your freedom!
For the captor's injustice foretells the iron oven.
And I was useless, stone cold with mere eyes to see.
To watch you suffer, like a small pup chained from his mother-- I resented the will to be.
"If there is no peace for you, there can be no peace for me."
And I laid my head down slowly, tenderly into my bed.
Without bombs exploding or muscles atrophying or ruptures to my head.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Bien Venidos 2012!!!
It's been awhile for ole Betty to enter the big girl blog realms again.
And so, news of my adventure has taken another direction. I am leaving beloved West Virginia for the state of Tennessee. To the city of Nashville to be exact. To the institution of Vanderbilt, precisely. I'll be back in school and in the SICU. Oh dear Dolly!!! This is exciting, yet clearly sad. My heart made it's home here for a while and when you love something or someone in a way that has changed you, you never stop loving. It's impossible to try. It's there. It's invested. It's a gift given freely and willingly. You can only say goodbye and bid it good tidings for the future.
I've had an irreplaceable 1.5 years here in West Virginia with people with more character than I have ever met in my life. With towns with 80% of the population below the poverty line, I have seen The Great Ache rage through hearts and lives in a place where people forget that their value supercedes the coal, supercedes the land, that truly, they are the hidden treasure of this place. They are rooted and fortified in Appalachian roots. Ain't nobody gonna taint that shit!
Through my weenie roast and hollar expeditions, my late night square dancing, meals shared with strangers, sick patients who unexpectedly passed, and moments with my precious geris, I have learned a bit about the pilgrimage of us...the journey of our own human nature...and a bit about me. Here are some thoughts:
-We all deeply, deeply want to hope in something or someone. We want to hope that our lives will work out, that the world will work for our children, that we will have played the game right and not failed to a measurable degree. We want to hope that in the end, we won't be alone. That somehow, we have been INTIMATELY connected to someone or something. That be a person, God, or an overwhelming feeling of understanding will convey that we're alright, we've made it, and grace has prevailed. Somehow, someway, grace has won.
-Our deepest cry is for compassion, understanding and respect. We forget that though we're different, we're so much the same. To listen to the human heart, and WANT to listen to all it's follies and beauties. TO be honest about our insecurities, our mistakes and issues, and being ACCEPTED and loved by something...this reminds us of the possibility of being redeemed. YOU ARE WORTHY OF ADORATION.
-We absolutely wail over in hunger for an engagement with life. This means everything: with people of all ages, with nature, with arts and crafts, agriculture, laughter and silliness, with community, with serving others and giving of our time. We want so badly to engage, but often get paralyzed with self-interest and fear. Most times we are our worst enemy, but we can learn together how to fight that innate tendency, so we can let life further birth life IN us.
-NEVER STOP EXPLORING. We must share our wacky discoveries and opinions. Embrace the youness of you. Boring is safe. I say we grow a pair and dive in!!!! And Let Captain Vulnerability take you where it needs to go.
I will miss you big honkin state of WV-- you've made me a hell of a Betty Coughlin-- and even though the path doesn't produce the change, it puts us right there where the change can occur-- to grow, to change, to see, to become fully who were we made to be.
You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago. --Donald Kaufman
Also, 2014, I'll be back. Patch Adams' hospital will be finished in Pocohantas County... possibly the first real hospital since Florence Nightingale. I'll be there, guaranteed.
And so, news of my adventure has taken another direction. I am leaving beloved West Virginia for the state of Tennessee. To the city of Nashville to be exact. To the institution of Vanderbilt, precisely. I'll be back in school and in the SICU. Oh dear Dolly!!! This is exciting, yet clearly sad. My heart made it's home here for a while and when you love something or someone in a way that has changed you, you never stop loving. It's impossible to try. It's there. It's invested. It's a gift given freely and willingly. You can only say goodbye and bid it good tidings for the future.
I've had an irreplaceable 1.5 years here in West Virginia with people with more character than I have ever met in my life. With towns with 80% of the population below the poverty line, I have seen The Great Ache rage through hearts and lives in a place where people forget that their value supercedes the coal, supercedes the land, that truly, they are the hidden treasure of this place. They are rooted and fortified in Appalachian roots. Ain't nobody gonna taint that shit!
Through my weenie roast and hollar expeditions, my late night square dancing, meals shared with strangers, sick patients who unexpectedly passed, and moments with my precious geris, I have learned a bit about the pilgrimage of us...the journey of our own human nature...and a bit about me. Here are some thoughts:
-We all deeply, deeply want to hope in something or someone. We want to hope that our lives will work out, that the world will work for our children, that we will have played the game right and not failed to a measurable degree. We want to hope that in the end, we won't be alone. That somehow, we have been INTIMATELY connected to someone or something. That be a person, God, or an overwhelming feeling of understanding will convey that we're alright, we've made it, and grace has prevailed. Somehow, someway, grace has won.
-Our deepest cry is for compassion, understanding and respect. We forget that though we're different, we're so much the same. To listen to the human heart, and WANT to listen to all it's follies and beauties. TO be honest about our insecurities, our mistakes and issues, and being ACCEPTED and loved by something...this reminds us of the possibility of being redeemed. YOU ARE WORTHY OF ADORATION.
-We absolutely wail over in hunger for an engagement with life. This means everything: with people of all ages, with nature, with arts and crafts, agriculture, laughter and silliness, with community, with serving others and giving of our time. We want so badly to engage, but often get paralyzed with self-interest and fear. Most times we are our worst enemy, but we can learn together how to fight that innate tendency, so we can let life further birth life IN us.
-NEVER STOP EXPLORING. We must share our wacky discoveries and opinions. Embrace the youness of you. Boring is safe. I say we grow a pair and dive in!!!! And Let Captain Vulnerability take you where it needs to go.
I will miss you big honkin state of WV-- you've made me a hell of a Betty Coughlin-- and even though the path doesn't produce the change, it puts us right there where the change can occur-- to grow, to change, to see, to become fully who were we made to be.
You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago. --Donald Kaufman
Also, 2014, I'll be back. Patch Adams' hospital will be finished in Pocohantas County... possibly the first real hospital since Florence Nightingale. I'll be there, guaranteed.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
This is why. This, is why
Thanksgiving prayer: Thank you God for this world and your love. Thank you for this life and the ability to dream and love and laugh and cry. Thank you for the Sun and stars. Thank you for every person who has come before me and will come after me. Thank you for music and art. Help me to continue to listen for your guidance. Thank you for your animals, trees and water. For the food we eat, the clothes on our backs and the roofs over our heads. For community. Thank you for the Mystery within the Mystery. The light within the light. The darkness within the darkness. May we remain in awe and wonder, in your balance and presence forever and ever. In peace and gratitude.
Amen.
Mason.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
To Ms. Leons.
There you are again.
Sinking sulkily in your bed with the basin tray next to your brows.
The blinds are raised, and the dusty, stained heater chirps forth it's air.
The paint-chipped walls, the blown out bulbs, the ole 1960's finest toilet bowl.
They await in standstill, those that inoculated me with grace over and over and over again.
The room presented it's finest findings! You got the crown! as it's prize treasure.
I could have sworn you were Sophie, but in person and non-wagging form.
With the widening of your eyes I was greeted with the sign. Yes, I saw the sign.
The sign. That weird, inexpressibly esoteric sign. Familiarly esoteric, though.
And I had not forgotten you, nor your smelly vomit.
And to be socially adept and polite, I anticipated my mindful inquiries with "How have you been? How are you feeling? What's been going on in your life lately?"
But I don't want to ask those questions. I don't want to talk. I don't even like talking, really.
I wanted to tell you that I've watched you Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday through Friday. Every time I came into the room, you've tried to raise your neck up a little farther to see more past my big head. Your bodily function odor held it's own up in this joint. Even so, your flatulence became my normal background music and secretly, I jammed to the beat.
And you lie there. And lie there. There. There. There in that bed. And you tell me how you've been married four times, how your daughter is gay and now in your life, you think. Day in and day out. Lying there. Thinking.
And you try to nutshell yourself to me. Signifying marriage, fetus' sexuality, and your current practices. But I didn't come for the nutshell, I came for the nut. I like you, the nut.
And I fill your cup full of pills and you smile, indicating, "Wow, I'm excited you're young and have life to live and I know you." That's what you tell me, all the time.
And now I do want to talk. I do want to ask you some questions. How do you do it? How do you take me as a big bally munch of gooeyness, thrown into the swirly lands of depravity and redemption, insanity and complete lucidness meeting up for lunch, and onward to a land where I feel a wound healed without any skin? I beg of you, why?
And so, as the swanky heater cranked itself through the wall, so too the heavens raged on chanting, knowing that their light could no longer be concealed.
Sinking sulkily in your bed with the basin tray next to your brows.
The blinds are raised, and the dusty, stained heater chirps forth it's air.
The paint-chipped walls, the blown out bulbs, the ole 1960's finest toilet bowl.
They await in standstill, those that inoculated me with grace over and over and over again.
The room presented it's finest findings! You got the crown! as it's prize treasure.
I could have sworn you were Sophie, but in person and non-wagging form.
With the widening of your eyes I was greeted with the sign. Yes, I saw the sign.
The sign. That weird, inexpressibly esoteric sign. Familiarly esoteric, though.
And I had not forgotten you, nor your smelly vomit.
And to be socially adept and polite, I anticipated my mindful inquiries with "How have you been? How are you feeling? What's been going on in your life lately?"
But I don't want to ask those questions. I don't want to talk. I don't even like talking, really.
I wanted to tell you that I've watched you Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday through Friday. Every time I came into the room, you've tried to raise your neck up a little farther to see more past my big head. Your bodily function odor held it's own up in this joint. Even so, your flatulence became my normal background music and secretly, I jammed to the beat.
And you lie there. And lie there. There. There. There in that bed. And you tell me how you've been married four times, how your daughter is gay and now in your life, you think. Day in and day out. Lying there. Thinking.
And you try to nutshell yourself to me. Signifying marriage, fetus' sexuality, and your current practices. But I didn't come for the nutshell, I came for the nut. I like you, the nut.
And I fill your cup full of pills and you smile, indicating, "Wow, I'm excited you're young and have life to live and I know you." That's what you tell me, all the time.
And now I do want to talk. I do want to ask you some questions. How do you do it? How do you take me as a big bally munch of gooeyness, thrown into the swirly lands of depravity and redemption, insanity and complete lucidness meeting up for lunch, and onward to a land where I feel a wound healed without any skin? I beg of you, why?
And so, as the swanky heater cranked itself through the wall, so too the heavens raged on chanting, knowing that their light could no longer be concealed.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
The Buck of the buck.
Last night I had a dream I was "buck" at Buckhorn. And. it. was. awesome. I dreamed I was running with Hank and Frieda past the kitchen, past the sun-drying laundry being blown by the wind and into the meadow. I ran through the wild-flowered meadow and past the confluence and headed up to the ridge. By this time my dream became even better because I dreamed that the dogs weren't with me anymore but that I was now a dog running up on the ridge. (Yea, of course I was a mutt/lab mix...goes without question people). I got up to the ridge just in time before the sun was setting and I laid down in the grass. Then in my dream I started having a dream while I was a dog. I heard a British woman's voice that sang me a song, or a poem of sorts. Her voice began out way too high-pitched and opera-like, which made me want to strangle my dog ears. But then softly and gently I heard her singing words all too familiar. It was a poem I had written there quite a time ago. I had been obsessing over Emily Dickinson's style-meter and her proper and beautifully ornate English words. Her style made me tingle inside, mmmm mmmm. Her words were full of poignancy and like beloved Flannery's stories, I never knew what would come of it in the end.
Oh beautiful blades of grass
How you sway to and fro,
And to sways you
You seldom hither to know
But yet your graceful movement
Does much to catch the eye
And if you did so alone,
I'm afraid I would rather pass on by
And alas as a chorus of dancers--
As waves of elegance collide
So do I, join you, in this perpetuating
mystery, well disclosed, well disguised.
And then I woke up. It was so nice to revisit Buckhorn. It was so nice to hear me try to be like Emily Dickinson. And it is always nice to receive that little nugget of peace that God whips out onto ya. Just because it was a dream was it not real? Things outside of this world happen to us all the time. And they are completely and perfectly real and unreal all at the same time.
Oh beautiful blades of grass
How you sway to and fro,
And to sways you
You seldom hither to know
But yet your graceful movement
Does much to catch the eye
And if you did so alone,
I'm afraid I would rather pass on by
And alas as a chorus of dancers--
As waves of elegance collide
So do I, join you, in this perpetuating
mystery, well disclosed, well disguised.
And then I woke up. It was so nice to revisit Buckhorn. It was so nice to hear me try to be like Emily Dickinson. And it is always nice to receive that little nugget of peace that God whips out onto ya. Just because it was a dream was it not real? Things outside of this world happen to us all the time. And they are completely and perfectly real and unreal all at the same time.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wanting Change So Badly, Quality Road Humps on How to Get There.
Change. BIG word, many meanings. And if anything transparently obvious has occurred since the last election in 2008, the people have utilized the constitutional right to speech. I do get this edge of tingly excitement inside me when i think of my generation implementing it's own genre of "populist movements." Major pump fist, America. And by this I'm not just referring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, but also the Tea Party movement that initiated itself in early 2009. Also, the hundreds of thousands of protesters who made their voice known against policy changes of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who cut thousands of public government workers' pensions and benefits as a means for appropriate state growth.
When you stop and look at so much of the kind of activism that has been triggered, the Tea Party and the like, as a result of Obama's efforts - TARP, the stimulus package, and now the health care reform - there is a lot of sense this government is changing.
And if we even look more globally, we see the beginnings of the Egyptian democratic movement unfolding, leading continued democratic trends in the Libyan ruling class against Gaddafi and now into Saudi Arabia. And interestingly so, how articles published by the very wealthy ruling families of these countries confirm the need for meaningful and significant social and political changes in Arab nations.
Well I'll be damned. "Change" becomes the number one trendy word of the era. And fun to spice up, occasionally, like, "No, no, we want EPIC change!" or "REAL change is happening."
To me, this appears absolutely mind-blowing. It's fascinating, truly. And I think we can all relate significantly to this feeling-- partisan feelings aside. When we feel wronged, we respond. Some of that takes action differently... some people feel it strongly and adamantly enough that emotions shoot through the roof and they act in the first way that makes sense and can commonly make their subjective proclamation reflect adequately.
And I always laugh when I am with my ladies, we're looking pretty spiced up walking down the street, and men honk or yell out the windows at our raging, unbelievable hotness. And I always laugh and ask, "Why in the world do they do that?" And sometimes when I ask guys why they do that, they don't know. They just do it because they feel like doing it to get our attention. I keep telling my friends I can't wait for one day when some hawt stud does that to me and I take off after him in his vehicle and say, "You sure did capture my heart with that sexy, sexy honk." It could happen.
Strange. But it doesn't hit far from home, right? Something moves us and we respond. Protesting has become a key element of our response, and we have seen it hit all over the place.
I think deep down, we are disappointed. Deeply, deeply disappointed in a system that albeit known to us, has failed. Failed us in our dreams. Failed us in our hopes. Failed us in attempting to be human together as a nation. And even though I make fun of the word change, I really think it's a word to translate our deepest urges to try another way, to repent, to let go our greed and consumerism and remember what makes us who we are at the deepest level. We're the United States of America, significantly founded on premises so extreme-- that our roots we're to supposedly propel us towards greatness.
And I am in favor of change-- to our economical policies and our relinquishment of lobbying bureaucracies to determine what our country cares about. We want to remind others, as well as ourselves, what we care about. And by looking at "them," I am also look at me. Little ole betty. I want to act against the injustices that corrupt, the daily inequalities that forgo human rights and ignite despair in the lives of the helpless and powerless, and I yearn to give to aid the well-being of us, together.
I have to admit--- my life is pretty chaotic. I used to be super disciplined and super all-knowing (duh) but then life kept bitch slapping me all the time that my brain would fill with lots of thoughts all the time (and sometimes really awesome magical thoughts) and presumably making the realization that I didn't know anything (such a shame). It would be so much better if I was married and had 2 and half kids and lived somewhere mightily awesome with a really fat chunky dog because then I could attribute my chaos to that. But I'm not married. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A DOG. Just a killer great stuffed elephant named Hermie (who comes alive at night). Sometimes I need a vacation from myself. But I'm with myself day by day, and sometimes--even for just moments--I can set aside my chaotic brain and act in small ways towards the just and goodness of our people and land.
So, what I am getting at is that practical action initiated into our day-to-day awesome lives is where the most effective, and potentially feasibly, collective change can occur. And by God, we can do this.
BUT HOW?
Here are my ideas:
1. Curb that appetite, homegirl. The fact of the matter is not that we will not consume as American people, but on WHAT will we consume. Will we buy those jeans that are made by cute children laboring from poor working environments while we rage in super trendiness in American style? Which matters? And honestly, when we take the time to care about our choices and the rippling effect of our choices, it takes effort. SERIOUS effort. And that is when we decide between what we care about and laziness/comfort. Most of the time we buy to boost our self-esteem and remake some sort of value to our "value." Look good, dangit, but do some good while lookin it. And the whole "localvore" is not for raging liberal hippies. It's caring about the community around you and supporting them through intentional economic endeavors. (Though I do admit that the raging liberal hippies have stunned me with some awesome ideas before)
2."I'm a lover, not a fighter," once said Michael Jackson. And I'm pretty sure that today the saying to lead the way of change would be, "I'm a giver, not a taker." And that essence, truly I think we know we are alive when we give, and especially to those who are in legitimate need. Though I'm a Pinterest junkie and junk junkie connoisseur, I truly don't want to live a narrow-minded life that forgets my neighbor and hesitates to see past my own interests. You are your brother's keeper, and that is s gift beyond compare. Who are the marginalized in your community-- who are just as hungry for love and acceptance and care as you are?
3. Discipline in the Financial Realm. It speaks for itself. And I am not saying much because me and Dave Ramsey need to spend a little more time together.
4. Make it, bake it, CREATE it! Surely most of us feel stifled in our creative process a lot of the time, but you can be renewed in that by returning make to the basics. Again, this take effort. I am attempting to learn how to knit (I have fat fingers so it's been a process) and also learning how to relish certain ingredients to whip up a convenient and healthy meal anytime. I first encourage you to hit up trying to grow your own food! There is such a beautiful thing about eating things in which you've witnessed the process of it's growth (This is not a statement to encourage you to eat your cat). Use your farmer's markets-- farmers really are the coolest people I know. Not a lie. Go to junkyards, check it at goodwill, find treasures that are considered "junk." All matter of perspective, people.
5. Broaden your civic engagement. Find volunteer opportunities that vary in accordance with groups of people where you can learn how things are run and voice inequalities that may exist in different lines of policy. We think we know, but really we don't know much because we don't get involved with those that make decisions and are geared toward tomorrow's future. Read your local history. Let's learn where we've been to see where we can go.
6. Brainstorm continuous ideas for change right where you are.
7. Live simply in content. Get over yourself and your expectations. Today is the best thing that's ever happened to you.
I think our influence on how we incorporate change is more contagious than we realize. I suck at these things a lot-- knowing the small yet heavy power they have in the small movement of things is incredible and sometimes overwhelming. But when we sow into the things of true life and goodness, we will surely bring a change in ourselves, and the mighty change in us as a people.
“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.” ― Paul Hawken
When you stop and look at so much of the kind of activism that has been triggered, the Tea Party and the like, as a result of Obama's efforts - TARP, the stimulus package, and now the health care reform - there is a lot of sense this government is changing.
And if we even look more globally, we see the beginnings of the Egyptian democratic movement unfolding, leading continued democratic trends in the Libyan ruling class against Gaddafi and now into Saudi Arabia. And interestingly so, how articles published by the very wealthy ruling families of these countries confirm the need for meaningful and significant social and political changes in Arab nations.
Well I'll be damned. "Change" becomes the number one trendy word of the era. And fun to spice up, occasionally, like, "No, no, we want EPIC change!" or "REAL change is happening."
To me, this appears absolutely mind-blowing. It's fascinating, truly. And I think we can all relate significantly to this feeling-- partisan feelings aside. When we feel wronged, we respond. Some of that takes action differently... some people feel it strongly and adamantly enough that emotions shoot through the roof and they act in the first way that makes sense and can commonly make their subjective proclamation reflect adequately.
And I always laugh when I am with my ladies, we're looking pretty spiced up walking down the street, and men honk or yell out the windows at our raging, unbelievable hotness. And I always laugh and ask, "Why in the world do they do that?" And sometimes when I ask guys why they do that, they don't know. They just do it because they feel like doing it to get our attention. I keep telling my friends I can't wait for one day when some hawt stud does that to me and I take off after him in his vehicle and say, "You sure did capture my heart with that sexy, sexy honk." It could happen.
Strange. But it doesn't hit far from home, right? Something moves us and we respond. Protesting has become a key element of our response, and we have seen it hit all over the place.
I think deep down, we are disappointed. Deeply, deeply disappointed in a system that albeit known to us, has failed. Failed us in our dreams. Failed us in our hopes. Failed us in attempting to be human together as a nation. And even though I make fun of the word change, I really think it's a word to translate our deepest urges to try another way, to repent, to let go our greed and consumerism and remember what makes us who we are at the deepest level. We're the United States of America, significantly founded on premises so extreme-- that our roots we're to supposedly propel us towards greatness.
And I am in favor of change-- to our economical policies and our relinquishment of lobbying bureaucracies to determine what our country cares about. We want to remind others, as well as ourselves, what we care about. And by looking at "them," I am also look at me. Little ole betty. I want to act against the injustices that corrupt, the daily inequalities that forgo human rights and ignite despair in the lives of the helpless and powerless, and I yearn to give to aid the well-being of us, together.
I have to admit--- my life is pretty chaotic. I used to be super disciplined and super all-knowing (duh) but then life kept bitch slapping me all the time that my brain would fill with lots of thoughts all the time (and sometimes really awesome magical thoughts) and presumably making the realization that I didn't know anything (such a shame). It would be so much better if I was married and had 2 and half kids and lived somewhere mightily awesome with a really fat chunky dog because then I could attribute my chaos to that. But I'm not married. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A DOG. Just a killer great stuffed elephant named Hermie (who comes alive at night). Sometimes I need a vacation from myself. But I'm with myself day by day, and sometimes--even for just moments--I can set aside my chaotic brain and act in small ways towards the just and goodness of our people and land.
So, what I am getting at is that practical action initiated into our day-to-day awesome lives is where the most effective, and potentially feasibly, collective change can occur. And by God, we can do this.
BUT HOW?
Here are my ideas:
1. Curb that appetite, homegirl. The fact of the matter is not that we will not consume as American people, but on WHAT will we consume. Will we buy those jeans that are made by cute children laboring from poor working environments while we rage in super trendiness in American style? Which matters? And honestly, when we take the time to care about our choices and the rippling effect of our choices, it takes effort. SERIOUS effort. And that is when we decide between what we care about and laziness/comfort. Most of the time we buy to boost our self-esteem and remake some sort of value to our "value." Look good, dangit, but do some good while lookin it. And the whole "localvore" is not for raging liberal hippies. It's caring about the community around you and supporting them through intentional economic endeavors. (Though I do admit that the raging liberal hippies have stunned me with some awesome ideas before)
2."I'm a lover, not a fighter," once said Michael Jackson. And I'm pretty sure that today the saying to lead the way of change would be, "I'm a giver, not a taker." And that essence, truly I think we know we are alive when we give, and especially to those who are in legitimate need. Though I'm a Pinterest junkie and junk junkie connoisseur, I truly don't want to live a narrow-minded life that forgets my neighbor and hesitates to see past my own interests. You are your brother's keeper, and that is s gift beyond compare. Who are the marginalized in your community-- who are just as hungry for love and acceptance and care as you are?
3. Discipline in the Financial Realm. It speaks for itself. And I am not saying much because me and Dave Ramsey need to spend a little more time together.
4. Make it, bake it, CREATE it! Surely most of us feel stifled in our creative process a lot of the time, but you can be renewed in that by returning make to the basics. Again, this take effort. I am attempting to learn how to knit (I have fat fingers so it's been a process) and also learning how to relish certain ingredients to whip up a convenient and healthy meal anytime. I first encourage you to hit up trying to grow your own food! There is such a beautiful thing about eating things in which you've witnessed the process of it's growth (This is not a statement to encourage you to eat your cat). Use your farmer's markets-- farmers really are the coolest people I know. Not a lie. Go to junkyards, check it at goodwill, find treasures that are considered "junk." All matter of perspective, people.
5. Broaden your civic engagement. Find volunteer opportunities that vary in accordance with groups of people where you can learn how things are run and voice inequalities that may exist in different lines of policy. We think we know, but really we don't know much because we don't get involved with those that make decisions and are geared toward tomorrow's future. Read your local history. Let's learn where we've been to see where we can go.
6. Brainstorm continuous ideas for change right where you are.
7. Live simply in content. Get over yourself and your expectations. Today is the best thing that's ever happened to you.
I think our influence on how we incorporate change is more contagious than we realize. I suck at these things a lot-- knowing the small yet heavy power they have in the small movement of things is incredible and sometimes overwhelming. But when we sow into the things of true life and goodness, we will surely bring a change in ourselves, and the mighty change in us as a people.
“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.” ― Paul Hawken
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Here, finally here, again.
She's here. FINALLY. I couldn't leave here without embracing her wide-eyed scheme of colors and fancies that make my heart want to explode. Autumn has come once again and there is no where in this entire world I'd rather be than here in Appalachia-- in these mountains with these mountain folk. Life is incredible. Love is incredible. And the way in which God is... even sweeter.
Having moments of nostalgia-- where all my homey feelings and moments of sweetest pleasure burst to the surface. I feel like ghosts of close family and friends are all around me. Seeing what I see, feeling what I feel. It's the journey we take on together in the most willing pursuits. And our family only grows bigger with new strangers every day.
About a month ago I got to attend a sort of seminar called School for Conversion.. eh, but not really a school of sorts. My friends here laughed at me going to such a thing to learn how to create a "community." They think one day I will have a host of communes filled with sick old people and hippies. And I say, I'm okay with that. :) Anyways, the weekend SFC blew me out of the waters. I was fueled by the passion, by the willingness to not just rage out against a broken system, but to be the forerunners of hope in a broken system. I was inspired and encouraged in the deepest ways. The vision at the School for Conversion is to work toward beloved communities where people unlearn social divisions through experimentation in a way of life with God that makes surprising friendships possible. I remember not being so much a fan of the title of the weekend, "School for Conversion." I had asked the director why he called it that-- mostly because I strongly refuted that word-- "conversion." But Jonathan, in his remarkable humility and understanding in the evangelical realm, stated, "It's not this one-time conversion as most hold onto that the title references. Though, in many eyes, that one time event is very meaningful. But rather this sort of conversion refers to a sort of continuous conversion. Continuing to turn towards God, to turn and remember, to fall in love over and over and over again. Forever turning. Forever converting." We are cyclic beings, seasonally changing. Seasonally turning. And that's what I experience with the trees, with this color, with this expansive realm of what God only knows. I convert without even realizing it at times. And sometimes I want to say damnit because I want to still be a rebellious little girl. But what happens when your heart has been sold, long gone into the family of things?
As my absolute favorite favorite Mary Oliver writes,
"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
Well, what will it be? You know what it is nudging at your soul. GO. FOR. IT. And don't look back.
Having moments of nostalgia-- where all my homey feelings and moments of sweetest pleasure burst to the surface. I feel like ghosts of close family and friends are all around me. Seeing what I see, feeling what I feel. It's the journey we take on together in the most willing pursuits. And our family only grows bigger with new strangers every day.
About a month ago I got to attend a sort of seminar called School for Conversion.. eh, but not really a school of sorts. My friends here laughed at me going to such a thing to learn how to create a "community." They think one day I will have a host of communes filled with sick old people and hippies. And I say, I'm okay with that. :) Anyways, the weekend SFC blew me out of the waters. I was fueled by the passion, by the willingness to not just rage out against a broken system, but to be the forerunners of hope in a broken system. I was inspired and encouraged in the deepest ways. The vision at the School for Conversion is to work toward beloved communities where people unlearn social divisions through experimentation in a way of life with God that makes surprising friendships possible. I remember not being so much a fan of the title of the weekend, "School for Conversion." I had asked the director why he called it that-- mostly because I strongly refuted that word-- "conversion." But Jonathan, in his remarkable humility and understanding in the evangelical realm, stated, "It's not this one-time conversion as most hold onto that the title references. Though, in many eyes, that one time event is very meaningful. But rather this sort of conversion refers to a sort of continuous conversion. Continuing to turn towards God, to turn and remember, to fall in love over and over and over again. Forever turning. Forever converting." We are cyclic beings, seasonally changing. Seasonally turning. And that's what I experience with the trees, with this color, with this expansive realm of what God only knows. I convert without even realizing it at times. And sometimes I want to say damnit because I want to still be a rebellious little girl. But what happens when your heart has been sold, long gone into the family of things?
As my absolute favorite favorite Mary Oliver writes,
"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
Well, what will it be? You know what it is nudging at your soul. GO. FOR. IT. And don't look back.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Tiger.
Proverbs, parables, stories. I read these sometimes, displace myself…. And dream my way to bettyland.
Kudos to a dear friend who gave me this one particular parable and commentary by Buechner that is incessantly unwavering in beauty and metaphor. So overwhelming that I couldn’t help but share—
Sri Ramakrishna, the great Hindu saint of the nineteenth century, told a parable regarding a grass-eating tiger:
“Once a tigress attacked a herd of goats. A hunter saw her from a distance and killed her.
The tigress was pregnant and gave birth to a cub as she expired. The cub began to grow in the company of the goats. At first it was nursed by the she-goats, and later on, as it grew bigger, it began to eat grass like the goats. Gradually the cub became a big tiger; but still it loved and ate grass. When attacked by other animals, it would run away, like the goats. One day a fierce-looking tiger attacked the herd. It was amazed to see a tiger in the herd eating grass and running away with the goats at its approach. It left the goats and caught hold of the grass-eating tiger, which he began to nervously bleat and continued nibbling at the grass.
But the fierce tiger dragged it to the water and said: 'Now look at your face in the water. You see, you have the face of a tiger; it is exactly like mine.' The tiger refused to recognize the similar reflections. Next the fierce tiger pressed a piece of meat into the grass eating tiger's mouth. At first the grass-eating tiger refused to eat the meat. Then it got the taste of the meat and relished it. Finally as he ate and ate, the truth gradually became clear to him. As he forcefully dug his muscular claws into the ground, the young beast raised his head as he unleashed an exultant roar that trembled the Earth and flooded the jungle with awe.”
That was the shortened version. So there seems to be this idea that all the religions in the world recognize the simple basic understanding that humans in how they exist now are not what they were created or even evolved to be. The tiger is not really a goat at all—he is actually a tiger--- but perceives himself as a goat. Just like the tiger, maybe the image we were to reflect never was clear, or invariably distorted. Maybe here we get insight into the tiger’s problem and so it may be: the human condition problem. If the tiger who thinks he is a goat could convert himself into an actual goat, everything could be fine. But I mean come on, what do we do with ourselves when we find out we’re really another type of species other than we thought? Besides piss our pants in disbelief? IF we even find this out? We may even realize that we are tigers but just keep a nibblin’ the grass because we don’t know what the hell else to do, or how the hell to start to living like as a tiger. We eat the grass. We bleat well. But by God, Heaven knows we feel the roar inside our bones. But some say, “Oh just accept what you know!” because maybe this was what was to happen and that goathood is all we are supposed to know. And maybe this is true and right but sometimes still the deep cries out from the deep…
Others rage “Might as well get living as a goat! Enjoy it, try new grasses, drink crazy kinds of water. Get cute little luxuries to make you feel warm and tingly and nice.” But maybe the ache, the intuition of the waking up and life within as yourself, as a tiger, remains.
And then our stomachs really begin to ache because we know. God, we know! We have seen the Tiger—the terrible roaring mighty fella who people call Jesus—this explosion of a man, this explosion of Life itself into actual life. We can only glance up for a fleeting moment from our grazing to see what a real human being looks like. And if we aren’t terribly paralyzed or pissing our pants in rolling amounts of fear, then the rippling painful tide of contrast becomes inevitably clear.
Speechless. “Oh shit,” we think. “If this is what it means to be human, then what am I? If this is what it is to be alive, am I even living?” The thought lingers--that terrible quality of full life that resonates from that magnificent being—--what will it do to us?
We could all just feel miserable and sub-par and be grumpy groany goats and feel like the way of that Tiger is ultimately the way of despair.
But the beauty of this Tiger, of this Christ, of the many thousand names that all just try to convey so messily and beautifully is this: that this man has power to give. To give life to the half-alive. To give tigerhood back to the tigers. “To them I will give a white stone with a new name written on the stone”—and this new name is the life, the self, that in our moments of truth we as humans yearn, above all else perhaps, to find. What he gives us is ourselves. What he tells us is our names and who we really are—our brother’s keeper, God’s children. And he offers us food and drink to warm our blood and make us drunk with the mystery and joy of it all.
--Buechner (though semi-edited with curse words and questions by yours truly, :D betty)
Kudos to a dear friend who gave me this one particular parable and commentary by Buechner that is incessantly unwavering in beauty and metaphor. So overwhelming that I couldn’t help but share—
Sri Ramakrishna, the great Hindu saint of the nineteenth century, told a parable regarding a grass-eating tiger:
“Once a tigress attacked a herd of goats. A hunter saw her from a distance and killed her.
The tigress was pregnant and gave birth to a cub as she expired. The cub began to grow in the company of the goats. At first it was nursed by the she-goats, and later on, as it grew bigger, it began to eat grass like the goats. Gradually the cub became a big tiger; but still it loved and ate grass. When attacked by other animals, it would run away, like the goats. One day a fierce-looking tiger attacked the herd. It was amazed to see a tiger in the herd eating grass and running away with the goats at its approach. It left the goats and caught hold of the grass-eating tiger, which he began to nervously bleat and continued nibbling at the grass.
But the fierce tiger dragged it to the water and said: 'Now look at your face in the water. You see, you have the face of a tiger; it is exactly like mine.' The tiger refused to recognize the similar reflections. Next the fierce tiger pressed a piece of meat into the grass eating tiger's mouth. At first the grass-eating tiger refused to eat the meat. Then it got the taste of the meat and relished it. Finally as he ate and ate, the truth gradually became clear to him. As he forcefully dug his muscular claws into the ground, the young beast raised his head as he unleashed an exultant roar that trembled the Earth and flooded the jungle with awe.”
That was the shortened version. So there seems to be this idea that all the religions in the world recognize the simple basic understanding that humans in how they exist now are not what they were created or even evolved to be. The tiger is not really a goat at all—he is actually a tiger--- but perceives himself as a goat. Just like the tiger, maybe the image we were to reflect never was clear, or invariably distorted. Maybe here we get insight into the tiger’s problem and so it may be: the human condition problem. If the tiger who thinks he is a goat could convert himself into an actual goat, everything could be fine. But I mean come on, what do we do with ourselves when we find out we’re really another type of species other than we thought? Besides piss our pants in disbelief? IF we even find this out? We may even realize that we are tigers but just keep a nibblin’ the grass because we don’t know what the hell else to do, or how the hell to start to living like as a tiger. We eat the grass. We bleat well. But by God, Heaven knows we feel the roar inside our bones. But some say, “Oh just accept what you know!” because maybe this was what was to happen and that goathood is all we are supposed to know. And maybe this is true and right but sometimes still the deep cries out from the deep…
Others rage “Might as well get living as a goat! Enjoy it, try new grasses, drink crazy kinds of water. Get cute little luxuries to make you feel warm and tingly and nice.” But maybe the ache, the intuition of the waking up and life within as yourself, as a tiger, remains.
And then our stomachs really begin to ache because we know. God, we know! We have seen the Tiger—the terrible roaring mighty fella who people call Jesus—this explosion of a man, this explosion of Life itself into actual life. We can only glance up for a fleeting moment from our grazing to see what a real human being looks like. And if we aren’t terribly paralyzed or pissing our pants in rolling amounts of fear, then the rippling painful tide of contrast becomes inevitably clear.
Speechless. “Oh shit,” we think. “If this is what it means to be human, then what am I? If this is what it is to be alive, am I even living?” The thought lingers--that terrible quality of full life that resonates from that magnificent being—--what will it do to us?
We could all just feel miserable and sub-par and be grumpy groany goats and feel like the way of that Tiger is ultimately the way of despair.
But the beauty of this Tiger, of this Christ, of the many thousand names that all just try to convey so messily and beautifully is this: that this man has power to give. To give life to the half-alive. To give tigerhood back to the tigers. “To them I will give a white stone with a new name written on the stone”—and this new name is the life, the self, that in our moments of truth we as humans yearn, above all else perhaps, to find. What he gives us is ourselves. What he tells us is our names and who we really are—our brother’s keeper, God’s children. And he offers us food and drink to warm our blood and make us drunk with the mystery and joy of it all.
--Buechner (though semi-edited with curse words and questions by yours truly, :D betty)
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