tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80588643767579587312024-02-19T05:20:34.097-08:00All NineCollaborating with the Muses to inspire, create, and illuminate.We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-20550616525860423302012-09-09T18:11:00.000-07:002012-09-09T18:11:08.479-07:00All Nine Has Moved<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Check out our new digs at WordPress: </span></strong><a href="http://allninemuses.wordpress.com/"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">http://allninemuses.wordpress.com/</span></strong></a><br />
We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-5653443059687477502012-09-05T06:55:00.000-07:002012-09-05T06:55:37.581-07:00Mid-week Muse: What cows can tell us about inspiration<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5jvyxJdG61L3pBaAxztr4vnhpQXYxBdOBFVJAG3owTzOFEj_fOfsGuNC-R4U74sa0Bs-6IyfR7W2jxvc4sq7ffZKdbh03ULN9iuAtMdusWRoLCg6cata2ODlwJf79as4GQb9A1cG1JXc/s1600/cow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5jvyxJdG61L3pBaAxztr4vnhpQXYxBdOBFVJAG3owTzOFEj_fOfsGuNC-R4U74sa0Bs-6IyfR7W2jxvc4sq7ffZKdbh03ULN9iuAtMdusWRoLCg6cata2ODlwJf79as4GQb9A1cG1JXc/s320/cow.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image by Vladimir Lytvak - </span><a href="http://stock.xchng/"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">stock.xchng</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Where does inspiration come from? More specifically, how
does that lightning-in-a-bottle ah-ha-moment happen? I think the answer might
be found in the connection between cows and goddesses. Seriously.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bear with me a moment. Let’s muse a bit on, well, musing: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<b><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Muse<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">verb (used without object) </span></i></b><b><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
think or meditate in silence, as on some subject. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2. </span></b><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Archaic
</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. to gaze meditatively or wonderingly.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3. </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
meditate on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4. </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
comment thoughtfully or ruminate upon. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Thank
you, Dictonary.com!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The verb form of the word provides four definitions that to
me seem more a series of four sub-actions that define the overarching action of
“to muse.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You first meditate in
silence, gazing with wonder (with inner and/or outer eye) on a thing or
subject, considering it meditatively, just long enough to then comment on it
(for self, internally, or for others, externally) thoughtfully. Ironically, the
starting point of inspiration is silence, since many ground-breaking ideas end
up making a lot of noise (so to speak). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But we are a busy and noisy people. How can anyone find the
silence or time needed for the reflection that leads to anything resembling an
original thought? (I get this question a lot.) The only real answer is you have
to want it badly enough. However, the sort of silence that leads to meditative
wonder is less a lowered decibel level for any given span of time than it is a
stillness of spirit cultivated with practice that creates space for rumination.
It takes practice and intentionality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But where does that new thought come from? From whence the muse? I
believe the answer is hidden in the rumination. And here’s where the dictionary
is once again helpful. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<h2 style="background: white; margin: 0.83em 0in 0.83em 0.5in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ru·mi·nate<o:p></o:p></span></b></h2>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<strong><em><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="pg4"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">verb (used without object) </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></em></strong></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="dnindex1"><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><strong>1. </strong></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">to chew the cud, as a </span></span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ruminant"><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ruminant</span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> (a
cud-chewing quadruped, like cattle). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="dnindex1"><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><strong>2. </strong></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">to meditate or muse; ponder.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have rarely seen a cow do much of anything but stand and
chew. Slowly. Occasionally, they sit. Standing or sitting, they appear to be looking
at you or the fence or the grass and sky at the same time, taking it all in, or
none of it, with a certain amount of pondering disinterest. And they do all of
this while they chew, and chew, in magnificent silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To chew on, over and over again, to ponder, ruminate, like a
cow… interesting. It is thinking, but not the type of thinking we are much
taught how to do in school (particularly not business school). It is an “inefficient”
kind of thought, one that does not start with the end in mind, but simply
starts with the one chewy subject and allows itself to be led by that starting
point. And after a first round of chewing, of going down the uncharted pathway,
the thinking goes back to the beginning and starts chewing again, tasting the
topic all over again, allowing for alternative paths. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I tend to do this type of thinking through my pen or
keyboard. I write it out and follow the path the words mark out for me.
Conversation can also provide this perfect pondering, if the participants are
patient with the silences, tolerant of non-linear thinking, and not looking for
an instant solution to a particular problem. Some of my most memorable moments
of friendship – and inspiration – have occurred through such perfectly messy
banter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, back to the beginning of our muse at hand. Let’s now
chew on the noun form of Muse for a moment: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<strong><em><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="pg4"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">noun </span></span><span class="pg4"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></em></strong></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. </span></b><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Classical
Mythology </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a. </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">any
of a number of sister goddesses, originally given as Aoede (song), Melete
(meditation), and Mneme (memory), but latterly and more commonly as the nine
daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who presided over various arts: Calliope (epic
poetry), Clio (history), Erato (lyric poetry), Euterpe (music), Melpomene
(tragedy), Polyhymnia (religious music), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy),
and Urania (astronomy); identified by the Romans with the Camenae. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">b. </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">any
goddess presiding over a particular </span></span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/art"><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">art</span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2. </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(
<i>sometimes lowercase </i>) the goddess or the power regarded as inspiring a
poet, artist, thinker, or the like. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3. </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(
<i>lowercase </i>) the </span></span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genius"><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">genius</span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> or powers
characteristic of a poet. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The noun embodies the action of musing. Goddess, power, or
genius, it is that seemingly mysterious THING that inspires and characterizes
the poet, artist, or creative thinker. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I love that there are nine sister goddesses called muses,
representing a range of domain expertise from epic poetry to astronomy. Even
comedy gets its own muse! What it tells me is that there are certain core
disciplines that feed inspiration across all disciplines and stimulate the
musings of artists, poets, musicians, choreographers, comedians, and scientists
alike. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I like to think of it as the discipline of inefficient
thought. It is the patience of cattle that allows for the silence and the open
spaces and the chewing on over and over again. It is the genius that fearlessly
explores the inherently messy mind, not to put it in order, but to discover yet
another crumb to nibble. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So what about the lightning-in-a-bottle moment? I believe it
is a mystery we may never fully solve, but there are clues we can pick up along
the way. Surely it is magic, but a magic that comes to those ready and waiting.
And chewing.</span></div>
We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-52999541343893262162012-09-02T17:45:00.000-07:002012-09-02T17:45:27.388-07:00Failing to Find Words: Reflecting on C.S. Lewis’ The Apologist’s Evening Prayer
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<em><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">All Nine
contributor-muse Dr. Holly Ordway finds grace, if not words, in the poem “The
Apologist’s Evening Prayer” by C.S. Lewis. Holly is a poet, teacher, and
friend, as well as an apologist exploring the intersection of literature and
faith, reason and imagination. Follow Dr. Ordway's reflections on the practice
of living a holy life at her website at <a href="http://www.hieropraxis.com/"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #d8af3d;">http://www.hieropraxis.com</span></span></a></span></em><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">/<em> or on twitter @HollyOrdway<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<em><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p>****** </o:p></span></em></div>
<br />
<h3 class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Failing to Find Words: Reflecting on C.S. Lewis’ The
Apologist’s Evening Prayer</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>by Dr. Holly Ordway<o:p></o:p></strong></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtvlkd2UGjGitxB4EoDSW56HSi10Jcm_g9DGPC2wDHpOxh4OYUUPFdRhtbtKgfSyvULLibSJa-3BybeP3hvFVmJh7FygoG3uw1CCUH2uSy13uFHDOV4ZyUxrhIYVjRZ2NzC5lejVZ5ZM/s1600/lewisbook.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtvlkd2UGjGitxB4EoDSW56HSi10Jcm_g9DGPC2wDHpOxh4OYUUPFdRhtbtKgfSyvULLibSJa-3BybeP3hvFVmJh7FygoG3uw1CCUH2uSy13uFHDOV4ZyUxrhIYVjRZ2NzC5lejVZ5ZM/s200/lewisbook.JPG" width="199" /></a>
I struggled to find a poem to write about for this piece;
having chosen one, I found I had nothing good to say, so I tried again, and
then again, and ended up with yet more deleted drafts for my pains. Eventually,
I found myself circling back to a poem I had considered, and then set aside:
C.S. Lewis’ “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<em>From all my lame defeats and oh! much more</em><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
<em>From all the victories that I seemed to score;</em><br />
<em>From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf</em><br />
<em>At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;</em><br />
<em>From all my proofs of Thy divinity,</em><br />
<em>Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.</em></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<em>Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust,
instead</em><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
<em>Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.</em><br />
<em>From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,</em><br />
<em>O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.</em><br />
<em>Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,</em><br />
<em>Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.</em></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It's an odd choice, in a way, because it's not one of the
poems of Lewis’ that I particularly like as a poem. There are others that I
enjoy or find compelling and beautiful as poems, like “What the Bird Said Early
in the Year,” “Five Sonnets,” “The Dragon Speaks,” “Reason,” “Re-adjustment,”
or “Pilgrim’s Problem” to name a few. In contrast, “The Apologist’s Evening
Prayer” feels flat. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But in its very flatness it speaks to that feeling I get at
the end of a long day of talking, teaching, writing: as if my words fall
lifeless. It's a poem of poverty of language, in a way... of being unable to
say what I want to say (or even to think it). <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
As a teacher, a writer, an apologist, I find that it is too
easy to think that words and more words, arguments and more arguments, ideas
explained and defended, are all that matters. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All my lame defeats</i>” loom large, and at the end of that long day,
or week, of defending the faith, of teaching and talking and writing, even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“all the victories that I seemed to score”</i>
can feel hollow. I enjoy writing and know that I am good at it, yet when I tried
to write this piece, the words that came on the first, second, third attempts
were facile, shallow, and pathetic. I read them and was depressed in spirit. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But wait - am I even seeing the problem correctly? Lewis’
phrase got under my skin: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From all the
victories that I </i>seemed<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> to score</i>”
-- what I think of as victories and defeats may be something else entirely.
Certainly, Lewis says, what may pass as victory could be its opposite: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf /
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh; / ... deliver me.”</i> But if
the world’s idea of victory is unreliable, so too is the world’s (and my) idea
of failure. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Thoughts are but
coins” </i>-- and words, too -- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Let me
not trust, instead / Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.”</i> I must
remember to look to the Source of the image, not to the image... but I am
reminded by Lewis, here, that even while I remember that the coin is not the
original, and has no value of its own, yet it still has value in its use. And
when my own words feel like a debased currency, I am reminded to take refuge in
the liturgy that has rung true over centuries, in words of prayer that the
saints have spoken before me and will speak after me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“From all my thoughts,
even from my thoughts of Thee, / O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.”</i>
Fair Silence is a gift indeed: the hushing of the over-busy mind, not to say
‘no’ to my work of words and arguments and ideas, but to say ‘peace; rest.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Lord of the narrow
gate and the needle’s eye, / Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.” </i>The
OED defines “trumpery” as “worthless stuff, rubbish, nonsense” with an
additional meaning of “showy clothing; worthless finery.” Words and arguments
and ideas can become ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">trumpery’</i> if we
mistake the words themselves for the Truth they point toward. Yet I find it significant
that Lewis nonetheless describes God in Scriptural phrases that are themselves
metaphors: the “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">narrow gate</i>” and the
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">needle’s eye</i>.” As human beings,
word-bearers, we cannot express ourselves other than in words, we cannot think
without images, even while we know that all our images and words are “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">trumpery</i>” if we think they are true in
and of themselves. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It’s a narrow path, a delicate balance. No wonder Lewis ends
in a plea. And that honesty, that empty-handed, exhausted prayer for grace, is
what in the end makes this poem ring true for me. It is possible to over-think
everything, and that includes reflecting on one’s own inadequacy. Lewis reminds
me, here, of the depth of God’s grace, always renewed; by that grace, I can
rest in being present in the moment as it truly is. <o:p></o:p></div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
C.S. Lewis, “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer,” in <em>Poems, </em>ed.
Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964).<o:p></o:p><br />
We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-42392280046665829282012-08-26T17:33:00.000-07:002012-08-26T17:33:03.631-07:00Bishop’s Sandpiper: Taking the biggest gifts for granted
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Last week I found myself quite unexpectedly
in a moment of complete peace and silence, reading without interruption the
poem “</span><a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sandpiper/"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: blue;">Sandpiper</span></span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">” by Elizabeth Bishop, and enjoying it immensely. The images,
sounds, feelings she evokes are ones only to be captured through first hand
observation and experience of the Atlantic Ocean, by one who has seen many
times the “controlled panic” of the sandpiper running south along the
shoreline. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I thought, “Oh, she gets it. She must have lived
near here.” Turns out, sure enough, she did. She was New England born and bred
(with a short time in Nova Scotia), and died in Massachusetts in 1979, three
years after my first view of the Atlantic Ocean, a view that would change my
life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">You see, I live near the Atlantic now, but
it hasn’t always been this way. I live close enough to smell the
watermelon-seaweed saltiness as a storm comes up the coast; close enough to
feel the fog in my bones; close enough to watch the tide rush back through my
toes, to see the world as minute and vast in one moment as only the mighty Atlantic
allows. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">My childhood was spent in upstate
New York, four hours from the ocean. My first experience of the roaring surf
was in 1976. I was ten years old, and my family drove to Cape Cod for the rare
vacation beyond the borders of New York state. And there was one trip not long after that
to visit cousins in New York City, which included an afternoon trip to Long
Island. That is where I first experienced “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a
beach hissing like fat</i>” where the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“tide
was higher or lower” </i>but we couldn’t tell which. After that point, I would
not be completely satisfied living anywhere outside of a five-minute drive to
those “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">interrupting waters</i>.” It would
be another seven years before I would get back to the coast – for college – and
stay for the better part of my life (so far).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In preparation for this post, I read a
number of critical pieces and reviews of “Sandpiper” and I came up short. You
see, most analysts were looking for the “meaning” behind the words, as if the
words themselves were not clear enough. Maybe Bishop was telling about her own
life, as some suggest, that she is that sandpiper, all finical and awkward.
Maybe there is some more subtle reading to the Blake reference. But to me, the
meaning is all there, crystal clear. That is, it is clear if you have walked
the pebbled beaches of New England, paying attention to sandpipers and the way
the world is bound to shake as the wave pounds earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This poem captured me as much as it
captures the sandpiper for that very reason: I have been there, and I do take
it for granted. The roaring alongside as much as the millions of grains of
multi-colored sand are there every single day, waiting for me to take notice.
And most days I do not notice. But let’s be honest, the ocean is not really
waiting for me, either. I like to think we have a healthy respect for each
other that allows for this taking for granted. The beach is there with its
pounding and roaring and misting, and I am here with my finite controlled
efforts to capture that experience in words. Unlike the sort of taking for
granted that discards and destroys, we take these gifts for granted from a
sense of place, and balance, and gratitude.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">When I do make it down to the beach, the
experience of it is the same as the sandpipers, except without the panic or the
searching obsession. There is a sense of the infinite and the finite that comes
together, the vast and the minute. I walk slowly, not running to the south, but
walking first east (toward the water), then slowly north and turning around to
come back slowly to the south. Toes tingling with the sixty-five degree tide, I
bend slowly to pick up then pocket a mottled stone, reddish-gray with lines of
white running through, and a piece of broken shell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I am both focused and preoccupied, caring
too much for a broken piece of a seagull’s lunch, and not caring much at all as
my thoughts bounce along the beach, following the sandpipers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In my life, there has been nothing but
walking along a New England beach to make me feel this way.</span></div>
We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-38610463869020771622012-08-20T05:30:00.001-07:002012-08-20T05:30:57.698-07:00Standing and Waiting: John Milton’s “On His Blindness”<em>Note: By day, through most of the year, All Nine contributor <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://andrewlazo.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d8af3d;">Andrew Lazo</span></a></span> works as a high school
English teacher, regularly cajoling, threatening, wooing, enticing, bribing, and
even tricking teenagers into reading thoroughly and, if and when at all
possible, enjoying their reading, especially poetry. As such, he covets such
kind thoughts and prayers as you might send his way; here he offers some
thoughts as a kind of war correspondent on the front lines of the battle to make
poems matter.</em><br />
<br />
<h2>
Standing and Waiting: John Milton's "On His Blindness"</h2>
<em>Andrew Lazo</em><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRRRHQLPzYQkkDClOQny5qQwsr0soWYbaj7Px6N0z3dFSRnyT07Vcx62mp_xGuzP1zq27fhS-W4BvksQ2HVwuIVogBvhs53kSbwvk81YcogZ6Ihyphenhyphen27-WX3ydtVyZvfIqtMr3c58BgEo54/s1600/andrew+milton.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRRRHQLPzYQkkDClOQny5qQwsr0soWYbaj7Px6N0z3dFSRnyT07Vcx62mp_xGuzP1zq27fhS-W4BvksQ2HVwuIVogBvhs53kSbwvk81YcogZ6Ihyphenhyphen27-WX3ydtVyZvfIqtMr3c58BgEo54/s320/andrew+milton.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
I find myself a little swoony about the latest
addition to my poetry library: a few slim volumes from the <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/classics/sets.php?id=3"><span style="color: blue;">Everyman’s
Pocket Poets</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>,</u></span></span> including the lovely
little Milton volume pictured here. My favorite of Milton’s Sonnets, “On His
Blindness,” makes its debut on page one, and since it occupies the pride of
place, I thought I’d have a look at some of its stanzas and phrases and see if
I can’t make sense of it for the week ahead. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
This poem offers a pretty decent example of a
Petrarchan or Italian sonnet: it has an octave (eight lines) followed by a
sestet (six lines), and the ideas often contrast or even oppose each other. Many,
such as Petrarch’s poetry for Laura, focus on the unattainable (the two may
have had little contact; she was married to another). The octave rhymes <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a b b a b b a</b>; the sestet has a number
of rhyming options, including the one here, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">c d e c d e</b>. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Milton went blind as an adult, losing his vision
over many years. He composed the whole of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise
Lost</i> after losing all of his sight; some suggest he dictated it to his
daughters. So here’s the whole poem; afterwards I’ll take it in bits and wander
my way through.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<strong>When I
consider how my light is spent<o:p></o:p></strong></div>
<strong>Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,<o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<strong>And that one talent which is death to hide,<o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<strong>Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent<o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<strong>To serve
therewith my Maker, and present<o:p></o:p></strong></div>
<strong>My true account, lest he returning chide,<o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<strong>“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”<o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<strong>I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent<o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<strong>That
murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></strong><strong>Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></strong></div>
<strong>Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> <o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<br />
<strong>Is kingly.
Thousands at his bidding speed, <o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<strong> And post o’er land and ocean without rest;<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> <o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<strong>They also serve who only stand and wait.”<o:p></o:p></strong><br />
<br />
<br />
Let me pull apart a few of the key moments that
move me in the poem as I walk through these fourteen lines in search of some help
from this blind poet who somehow saw so well.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When I
consider how my light is spent<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyTextCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Here we find Milton
doing what most of us would: contemplating and even lamenting a loss, made all
the more poignant because he lived out so much of his vocation as a poet in
utter darkness. It certainly reminds me of the fact that Beethoven went deaf.
And while my own little life in some ways cannot compare the lives of these
giants of creativity, I too know a bit about “this dark world and wide.” I
imagine we all do. Milton reminds that sometimes staring deeply enough into
darkness helps me notice even the smallest scrap of light. And sometimes that’s
the only good thing darkness does for me.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And that one talent which is death to hide,</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To serve
therewith my Maker, and present<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My true account, lest he returning chide,<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyTextCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Here Milton alludes to
the parable of the talents—a talent is a measure of gold equaling about twenty
years’ wages. Think of having a great pile of money plopped in your lap. A
wealthy master goes away, leaving five talents with one servant, two with
another, and one talent with a third. The first two play the ancient Israeli
version of the stock market and double their money, but the third just buries
the gold and does nothing—not even investing it in a sixty-day low-yield
interest-bearing account. He literally hides it away, burying it in the ground.
And then the master returns, and rewards the two profitable servants, but casts
the last one into outer darkness. Now if a stock broker faced the death penalty
for a bear market, you might get me watching CNBC—that’s the kind of reality
show that has some teeth: unlimited wealth or certain death!<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
Milton certainly understood the implicit pun in
English—his “talent” means his ability and gift with which to make much of his
life; and he has seen it snuffed out, and would likely trade a world of wealth
for it if he could. That’s what he means—he finds his gift of reading and
writing useless, though his soul desires all the more to serve his Master. But as
I thought deeply about this poem, all of a sudden the next line seemed to open
itself up, offering me a key or maybe even a fulcrum to this whole sonnet. <o:p></o:p></div>
Milton expresses an urgency to serve God to avoid
the penalty of (according to the parable) eternal darkness. Perhaps he’d had
enough darkness for this lifetime and could not contemplate an eternity of the
stuff. Notice too his tone as he laments his condition and fears God’s
criticism. His blindness seems to prevent Milton from being able to serve as
best he could, to “present [his] true account, lest he [that is, God] returning
chides.” Milton wishes he hadn’t gone blind because he fears that God will come
to him at the end of his life and upbraid him for not doing enough. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Wait—what? Milton fears that God will give him
grief over all he has not done? His talent lies buried, useless inside him. His
hands are tied. A grief he can hardly express overwhelms him, drives him into
darkness and despair and his big concern consists in not doing more? And Milton
had so much more to do, although out of an ever-increasing deficit as the years
of his terrible blindness wore on.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
To me, this rings all too true. How often have I
climbed the weary stairs at the end of a too-long day, having labored in the
classroom, and labored at the grading desk, and trudged home only to grouse at
myself for not having done the breakfast dishes? How often have I, when bearing
great grief, chided myself for not doing more, or for getting tired of the
burden I cannot help but bear. And all the more, how many of those times have I
blamed that screechy, never-satisfied voice in my head on God?<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
But Jesus ended his work on the cross saying, “It
is finished.” The cross carried all grief, all care, all of the heavy burdens.
And it wiped out once and for all any cruel and idolatrous image of a God
tapping his foot, looking at His watch, impatient with all of my never-enough.
The cross allowed grace to become sufficient for me, and His power to be made
perfect in my weakness. It turned the world upside down—which of course means
right-side up. And though God will surely return, He will not chide those of us
He has hidden in the shadow of the cross, however we cower and cling to it.
Christ finished the job for us, and He Himself provides the return on our
investment, even if, like a mustard seed, we trust Him with the littlest bits.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
And of course, the rest of the sonnet says the
same thing. Patience speaks—and Patience here serves as the sound of the true voice
of God, satisfied by the saving work of the death of His Son. Patience prevents
my murmuring. Patience reminds me that I must bear as best I can the mild yoke,
the easy burden—and in so doing Patience wisely whispers that, when I grow
weary of carrying the heavy load, I have somehow been fooled into carrying the
wrong one. God’s gift and His burden should ride lightly on my shoulders—and
when it does not, I can know surely that I’ve swapped out my heavy load for His
light one.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
No, God neither needs my work, nor the gifts He
has given me. Frederick Buechner says, “God’s love’s all gift, for He has need
of naught.” And slipping this burden reminds me of my royal state—that, by
adoption, the king of this universe has claimed me as His own, and that His
power, wealth, and even His deep joy can come upon me.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
So what remains? Milton reminds me that I also
serve when I can do only two things. I must stand up. I stand for truth, I
stand simply so that I do not let whatever burden I bear bow me down to the
ground. I stand up, vertical against this horizontal earth in which I will someday
sleep, and in doing so, I get my head just that much closer to Heaven.<br />
<br />
And then I wait. I cry “how long?” with the
Psalmist. I wait for the coming kingdom, I wait for the next few words to
write. I wait for good gifts to fall into my hands so that I may do my best
this day and the days to come. I read poems and I make poems, even as I await
the ones who need to hear them most, like water in a weary land.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
And so with Milton, I acknowledge my want, my lack,
the darkness in and around me. And patiently I wait for the day of the Lord.
And until then, I celebrate songs in the darkness, where I stand and wait, and
so serve God, who chideth not His children.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-62364895769973767722012-08-14T13:05:00.000-07:002012-08-14T13:05:01.452-07:00Writing from the wellI am thrilled to be starting a new writing workshop next month in southern Maine. <strong>Writing From the Well </strong>is a unique workshop experience providing a safe and inspiring space for creative exploration. Are you ready to collaborate with your Muses to inspire, create, and illuminate? Please join me for two dedicated hours each month to draw on your internal well of creativity and courage, and break through the writing wall.<br /> <br />
WHO: Courageous word wranglers <br /> WHEN: 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., 2nd Thursday monthly, starting September 2012 (next month!)<br /> WHERE: Natural Care Wellness Center, 6 Seely Lane, Eliot, ME<br /><br /> REGISTER TODAY: <br /> Class size is limited to 12. Call <a href="http://naturalcarewellness.com/custom_content/c_185459_classes.html" target="_blank">Natural Care Wellness Center</a> at 207-439-9242 to reserve your seat.<br /> <br /> WORKSHOP FEE: <br /> $35 per session OR $290 for 9 sessions.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7AyU74WeLh0e1rHPta7F4agNwn0EgvDx99oz1SunmctfyQr05WWNwrBeANl74mC6JtRA8tSX9iNqE9EWcj0G0dqxM85D98GSXRpOW-UN1lfOaM1Rf9pBY-CVfgi0G1m5f11aV3O64Vq0/s1600/all+nine2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7AyU74WeLh0e1rHPta7F4agNwn0EgvDx99oz1SunmctfyQr05WWNwrBeANl74mC6JtRA8tSX9iNqE9EWcj0G0dqxM85D98GSXRpOW-UN1lfOaM1Rf9pBY-CVfgi0G1m5f11aV3O64Vq0/s640/all+nine2.jpg" width="492" /></a></div>
We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-59364471693183776432012-08-12T13:56:00.001-07:002012-08-12T13:56:39.399-07:00The ABCs of Poetry: Musing on Guite's Spell<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">All Nine </span></i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">contributer Rebekah Choat takes us back to school with Malcolm Guite’s
“Spell.” Becka is a reader, a writer, a lover of the printed word,
dedicated to bringing people books to nourish mind, soul, and spirit. Her
website is <a href="http://www.booksbybecka.com/"><span style="color: windowtext;">www.booksbybecka.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong>Spell<o:p></o:p></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><em>Summon the summoners, the
twenty-six<o:p></o:p></em></span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">enchanters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spelling silence into sound,<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">they bind and loose, they find
and are not found.<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Re-call the river-tongues from Alph to Styx,<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">summon the summoners, the shaping
shapes<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the grounds of sound, the
generative gramma<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">signs of the Mystery, inscribed arcana<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">runes from the root-tree written
in the deeps,<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">leaves from the tale-tree lifted,
swift and free,<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">shining, re-combining in their
dance<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the genesis of every utterance,<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">pattering the pattern of the
Tree.<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Summon the summoners, and let
them sing.<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The summoners will summon
Everything.<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><em>~ <span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><a href="http://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Malcolm Guite<o:p></o:p></a></span></em></span></o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZm_ZJHDN1iwUn0XN_kVjMLo7rWdXdGm_vy4AmLVL8ul1_9z-sg5dHb79AOOBy6WmIkA8I73DErHcdim6dEPjE1B58JQjm4JTaxgLi96rVf-y_0CWZKx1VYDIXK5CZn0I_Nxfzjm9S_Vo/s1600/down+the+path+spring+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZm_ZJHDN1iwUn0XN_kVjMLo7rWdXdGm_vy4AmLVL8ul1_9z-sg5dHb79AOOBy6WmIkA8I73DErHcdim6dEPjE1B58JQjm4JTaxgLi96rVf-y_0CWZKx1VYDIXK5CZn0I_Nxfzjm9S_Vo/s320/down+the+path+spring+2012.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by Rebekah Choat</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I’m preparing to start kindergarten again, for
the fourth time. I’d thought our homeschooling season would end when Baby Girl
the First finished high school last year, but you know what Mr. Burns said
about the best laid plans of mice and men…Baby Girl the Second came along just
in time for my fortieth birthday, giving me one more opportunity to begin at
the very beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">When you read you begin with ABC, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">summon the summoners, the twenty-six
enchanters</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a motley set of
characters – only a couple of them able to stand alone, but let them start
joining up, and there they go, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spelling
silence into sound</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do they do
that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do a bunch of little black
marks on a white page bring forth purple mountain majesties and amber waves of
grain?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that’s just the most obvious
manifestation of their powers.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">They
bind: </span></i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>once you know a rose is a rose you can’t very
well imagine it by any other name; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and
loose</i>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the rose isn’t just a rose,
it’s velvet and fragrance and innocence and my luve is like a red, red
rose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the shaping shapes</i>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>sometimes they actually do take on something of the shape of the object
they signify – </span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Aharoni; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">bed</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">, for instance, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hollyhock </i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How cool is that?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">These
twenty-six little bits of code are s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">igns
of the Mystery</i> – like the Word that is from the beginning, they lend form
to the intangible, showing us glimpses of things beyond our comprehending; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">runes from the root-tree</i>, searching down
to the bedrock of our knowledge; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">leaves
from the tale-tree</i>, spreading, reaching, leaping greenly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And speaking of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">re-combining</i>, do they mean the things they name, or do they name
the things they mean?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In a strange, fascinating book I read a few
years ago (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Libyrinth</i>, by Pearl
North), I came across an alternate ending that I really like:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Now I know my ABC’s, all the books are mine
to read.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
genesis of every utterance</i>, the keys that open the books that open the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this September I’ll be
starting down that path again, to teach Baby Girl the Second how to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">summon the summoners, and let them sing</i>,
and see the magic light up her eyes as she discovers how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the summoners will summon Everything</i>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-69287946213334603722012-08-05T14:03:00.000-07:002012-08-05T14:03:21.251-07:00The Road Not Taken<em><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">All
Nine contributor-muse Dr. Holly Ordway shares her fascination with “The Road
Not Taken.” Holly is a poet, teacher, and friend, as well as an apologist
exploring the intersection of literature and faith, reason and imagination.
Follow Dr. Ordway's reflections on the practice of living a holy life at her
website at <a href="http://www.hieropraxis.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-style: normal;">http://www.hieropraxis.com</span></a></span></em><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">/<em> or on twitter
@HollyOrdway.</em></span><br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<em><span style="color: #5a5a5a; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p>********</o:p></span></em></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcgxcmshGWBcl87JOFvGblVaKwgUXudYZxvHgn3AV9eH5EIUeh9SH0gOypcDjoNlxQpx3ZwAclwXpJ5W6UqsmJcO0b1vDZy3UPXe07NDj4xcquAsBFRPPgVZF8t4F_vU6X2Ud_Z3GMD_o/s1600/DSC05460.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcgxcmshGWBcl87JOFvGblVaKwgUXudYZxvHgn3AV9eH5EIUeh9SH0gOypcDjoNlxQpx3ZwAclwXpJ5W6UqsmJcO0b1vDZy3UPXe07NDj4xcquAsBFRPPgVZF8t4F_vU6X2Ud_Z3GMD_o/s320/DSC05460.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert
Frost’s great poem “<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536"><span style="color: #d8af3d;">The
Road Not Taken</span></a>” is fascinating to me in part because of the way that it is
consistently mis-read.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I
took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.</i>”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These
lines from the poem appear on many a t-shirt and poster. They seem to affirm a
spirit of self-determination, and what’s more, the intrinsic rightness of going
one’s own way. Wherever the mass of people are going – the well-traveled way –
the truly independent spirit will go the other way, take the road less traveled
by, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">because</i> of that contrary
choice, will flourish.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Frost’s
poem is great for many reasons, such as the understated description that
perfectly evokes an autumn walk in New England woods, but one reason it is
great is that it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> the poem most
people take it to be. Frost has something to say about making choices in “The
Road Not Taken,” but what he says cannot be summed up in those often-quoted
lines. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When the
narrator makes his choice, he takes the road that, in the last stanza, he
describes as “the one less traveled by.” But was it? Here is how he describes
it as he makes his choice:</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[I] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">took the other, as
just as fair, </i></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And having perhaps the better
claim, </span></i></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Because it was grassy and
wanted wear; </span></i></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Though as for that the
passing there </span></i></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Had worn them really about
the same, </span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And both that morning equally
lay </span></i></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In leaves no step had trodden
black...</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The road
he chooses is equally lovely, equally untrodden, and only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">perhaps</i> has less wear than the other. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sometimes
our choices really are between good and bad, or better and worse. Sometimes we
do need to take the road that no one else is taking; if all the world is
rushing headlong into madness, “the road less traveled” is the best road. But
in this poem the two choices are each “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as
just as fair</i>” as the other. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What do
we do when choosing between two good things? What do we do when the turnings
ahead are such that we truly cannot tell where the path we choose will lead us?
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have
an analytical mind; I like to weigh things out, to know that what I am doing is
the best path, the best approach. But I’ve come to realize over the last few
years that I never have all the information. Some things cannot be known until
they are experienced: relationships, job choices, even choices about what to
write or what to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so I have to
choose my road knowing that I can only see a short distance ahead before the
path bends “in the undergrowth.” If I wait until I have all the information, I
will never go anywhere.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
narrator here is, in fact, almost paralyzed by choice – “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could</i>” – but in the
end, he chooses. He goes forward. He <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">takes</i>
one of the roads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could say that the
act of choice is what, in the end, makes all the difference. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet the
poem is hardly a paean to decisiveness, for “The Road Not Taken” ends on a
curiously hesitant note. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I shall be
telling this with a sigh</i>,” the narrator says. He still thinks of the other
road as an option – “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oh, I kept the first
for another day!</i>” – even while admitting that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come
back.</i>” </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t
want to be telling my own story with a regretful sigh, "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ages and ages hence</i>," having chosen
my road hesitantly, dragging my feet, looking back, always wondering if the
other road is better. Whether my choices take me on a road less traveled, or a
good road well-traveled, I hope to be fully present to the path before me and
to my fellow travelers.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am
reminded of the words that C.S. Lewis gives to the lion Christ-figure Aslan in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Prince Caspian. </i>The little girl Lucy is
regretful that she had disregarded Aslan's call to her, and had made excuses
for not following him. She asks Aslan to tell her how things would have
unfolded if she had chosen otherwise. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“To know
what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would</i> have happened, child?”
said Aslan. “No. Nobody is ever told that... But anyone can find out what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i> happen.” </span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-66430874185903544502012-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:002012-07-29T13:27:44.679-07:00A Bevy of Blogs: The Delight of Unintended Outcomes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOY5hcv-DyfPWFSt1U1ImRuypUsWsMo0Z0zmTQuqeeSPLjmAFyiz4P_bP7_IFBAWXrrayzCiQDtQb_K4MkVIHdHEchWDmo5prnvuoAoe8InzFJwytAW8EYAPzJz-UOPKYBTZ2cmq-ryOQ/s1600/DSC07084.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOY5hcv-DyfPWFSt1U1ImRuypUsWsMo0Z0zmTQuqeeSPLjmAFyiz4P_bP7_IFBAWXrrayzCiQDtQb_K4MkVIHdHEchWDmo5prnvuoAoe8InzFJwytAW8EYAPzJz-UOPKYBTZ2cmq-ryOQ/s320/DSC07084.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Life is full of unexpected delights.
For example, I have been delighted by the many unintended outcomes of my simple
New Year’s decision to post weekly on the theme of poetry. The most delightful
surprises have come in the form of opportunities to contribute to the efforts
of other bloggers that are tipping the balance toward goodness in the
blogosphere.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is my honor to introduce you to these
portals of positivity:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Write Hook. </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Early
on in this year’s poetry-themed blogging adventure, I blog-swapped with Scott
Morgan of </span></span><a href="http://www.write-hook.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">WriteHook</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. Scott is
the best kind of pest, constantly nudging and cajoling his readers to stop with
the lazy excuses, stop with the weak words, and duke it out on the page. His writing
is refreshing, bold, and kind, and I was thrilled when I had the opportunity to
contribute my bit to his blog on why </span></span><a href="http://www.write-hook.com/blog/2012/3/4/guest-post-kelly-belmonte-the-muse-is-a-sloth.html"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Muse is a Sloth</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Conspire Coaching & Consulting.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> My friend </span></span><a href="http://www.conspirecoaching.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jen Walper Roberts</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
conspires with talented and energetic parents to succeed and thrive in their
careers and lives. I have benefitted greatly from Jen’s conspiratorial coaching.
Early last month I contributed to her blog as a way to give back with a few </span></span><a href="http://www.conspirecoaching.com/2/post/2012/06/i-want-a-lot.html"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">reflections on Rilke’s “I
want a lot.”</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Hieropraxis</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.
</span></span><a href="http://www.hieropraxis.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hieropraxis.com</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
is the brain child of my friend and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All
Nine</i> contributor Dr. Holly Ordway. I’m now a regular contributor to
Hieropraxis, writing on the creative process alongside several brilliant
apologists, authors, artists, and all-around awe-inspiring talent. I’m humbled
to my boots. My first effort was a tip of the hat to the modern movie classic
“Romancing the Stone,” in which I explored a tendency toward </span></span><a href="http://www.hieropraxis.com/2012/06/romancing-the-poem/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">romancing the poem</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> as a way of avoiding the hard work of
actually writing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">12Most</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.
</span></span><a href="http://12most.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12Most.com</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> is, in their own words, a mecca of “savvy
smartitude for busy professionals,” and man-o-man am I chuffed to be writing in
the same virtual room as some truly heavy hitters in the social media arena. My
first post for them featured my cut at the </span></span><a href="http://12most.com/2012/06/18/excuses-for-reading-poetry-daily/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12 Most Practical Excuses for
Reading Poetry Daily</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Given the
unexpected (and truly unplanned) exposure I’ve been given over the past several
months as a result of one simple step toward intentionality, I look forward
with great anticipation to what the rest of 2012 holds. If you have a dream, my
word for you from my own experience is to wake up from the dream and make a
commitment that you can keep. Then keep it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No big deal.
No magic. Just keep your word to yourself, for yourself. You’ll be amazed at
what delights await you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-59000144146367111002012-07-23T18:04:00.003-07:002012-07-24T06:56:37.279-07:00Brave: Regarding Yevtushenko's "Talk"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVhJaGorkUhxKO4R8jCP7iw2P74OP5_qxRSr-PdfAQf_3xF1NI_WvBP172b673rXKGnbQsX9FljezAv264DGfIv0FleECiWIDplniMj7GYqVbpCWKt6EQEgejn0z59F_aLmCbDlBtJ1A/s1600/DSC05641.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVhJaGorkUhxKO4R8jCP7iw2P74OP5_qxRSr-PdfAQf_3xF1NI_WvBP172b673rXKGnbQsX9FljezAv264DGfIv0FleECiWIDplniMj7GYqVbpCWKt6EQEgejn0z59F_aLmCbDlBtJ1A/s320/DSC05641.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yevgeny Yevtushenko unnerves me. Perhaps
the less-than-sympathetic picture I get of him through his poem “</span></span><a href="http://asuddenline.tumblr.com/post/19631042115/talk-yevgeny-yevtushenko"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">Talk</span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">” puts me off, half-contemptuous of his contemporary
readers who call him brave. What else unnerves me about approaching Yevtushenko
is how little I know of Russian literature. So thick with culture and language,
the words tie me in knots. It took me six months, nearly two decades ago, to
read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Brothers Karamazov, </i>and
after the long slow slog to completing the book, I have never looked back.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet now I am drawn into “Talk<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,” </i>in spite of my reluctance. The topic
itself – courage – draws me in, and the respect with which the poet holds it. I
have great admiration for risk-takers, mainly because, like Yevtushenko,
“courage has never been my quality.” Mine is a low-risk personality, taking on
what may look occasionally like a brave act out of sheer necessity to meet
basic responsibilities. I am not the one who runs into a burning building to
save a life. I’m the one who dials 9-1-1. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="color: black;">Such bravery astounds and
mystifies me. I study what I can of courage, thinking one day I may learn what
it takes to run in, not just dial out.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So I read Yevtushenko’s “Talk” as
he tells us a few things about courage by saying what it is not: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;">A courageous act
causes foundations to tremble.</span></b><span style="color: black;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No
foundations trembled.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">A true act of
bravery makes a real and lasting impact.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>It’s
not extreme sport for the sake of adrenaline high. Courage is a game-changer.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;">Bravery requires
an element of danger.</span></b><span style="color: black;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I did no more than write, never denounced” </i>Denunciation implies
risk. Yevtushenko was writing in the context of a totalitarian society in which
denouncing someone in power was guaranteeing great risk to self. Bravery is
dangerous. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;">Courage is art,
not a job description.</span></b><span style="color: black;"> “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(doing what anyhow had to be done)” <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Yevtushenko
says here that he did his job as a writer – he called 9-1-1 – nothing more,
nothing less. Courage moves beyond the basic job description. As Seth Godin
said (in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Linchpin), </i>“The job is what
you do when you are told what to do… </span><span style="color: black;">Your art is what you do when no one
can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal
responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.”</span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;">Bravery goes past
basic human decency to self-sacrifice.</span></b><span style="color: black;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“…common integrity could look like courage.”
<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The last line
of this poem comes with a sting to the reader. The poet is basically saying,
“If this looks like courage to you, you should get your moral glasses checked.”
Kind of harsh, but wake-up calls can feel that way. Honesty and integrity feed
the soul, sustain the self. They are good and necessary. But bravery launches
itself from this strong foundation and offers self as sacrifice for a greater
good, for another. Courage gives it all away.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="color: black;">Yevtushenko was addressing the pre-Khrushchev Soviet Union
political and social situation, not 21<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>st</sup> Century America, but these
principles still work for me. The stakes may be different, but courage looks
the same as it did back then: self-sacrificing, risk-taking, art-making,
game-changing, “I can’t believe she did that” acts of goodness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">While Yevtushenko may have been more concerned about
politics, I would argue that bravery of this sort is a very personal and
individualized thing. What represents risk to one person may prove as
undaunting as falling out of bed to another. Traveling to the heart of India
might not require courage from a regular world traveler, but for someone
suffering agoraphobia, walking out the front door poses a very real and present
danger demanding extreme bravery. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">
At times, the most foundation-shaking acts occur in moments
of quiet courage between two people. For some those might be the “I’m sorry”
moments, the “you were right” admissions, that cost everything for the teller and
turn worlds upside down. Or right side up.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">I believe we all have it in us to rise to this level of
courage. I believe it is part of our wiring, the stamp of a self-sacrificing
foundation-shaking Creator. Most of the time, though, we forget about the
Creator’s watermark. Most days we do our job and call 9-1-1 and tell almost all
of the truth. Most days we stand fairly steady on unmoving floors.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="color: black;">Most days we are so busy meeting our responsibilities that
we forget to look in the mirror. We forget our wiring. Until we have to
remember. Until someone else helps us remember.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">I would like to remember and reclaim courage as my own
quality. Maybe instead of carrying contempt for ourselves, like Yevtushenko, we
can help each other be brave. What do you say?</span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-31991134477762984922012-07-15T14:38:00.000-07:002012-07-15T14:38:54.721-07:00Admitting Impediments: Engaging Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116<em>Note: By day, through most of the year, All Nine contributor <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://andrewlazo.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d8af3d;">Andrew Lazo</span></a></span> works as a high school
English teacher, regularly cajoling, threatening, wooing, enticing, bribing, and
even tricking teenagers into reading thoroughly and, if and when at all
possible, enjoying their reading, especially poetry. As such, he covets such
kind thoughts and prayers as you might send his way; here he offers some
thoughts as a kind of war correspondent on the front lines of the battle to make
poems matter</em>.<br />
<br /><br />
<h3>
Admitting Impediments: Engaging Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116</h3>
<em>Andrew Lazo</em><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqExbnbrU1MIob_m2lzHZpLtsghmEJclViEIEFJF7Cm5MlVIXrEPop9m-MbKdXNCBAN-qsvGacT3Kxk9fFwk3kXzMEfyz-to1BBdAUokM7w4khMGKyryvPyBZ1pNbIQcyWuxQvjRTYj8/s1600/AndrewL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqExbnbrU1MIob_m2lzHZpLtsghmEJclViEIEFJF7Cm5MlVIXrEPop9m-MbKdXNCBAN-qsvGacT3Kxk9fFwk3kXzMEfyz-to1BBdAUokM7w4khMGKyryvPyBZ1pNbIQcyWuxQvjRTYj8/s1600/AndrewL.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="http://www.lanciaesmith.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d8af3d;">Lancia Smith</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
My favorite recent CD purchase came from listening to <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/03/24/149160526/shakespeares-accent-how-did-the-bard-really-sound"><span style="color: blue;">an
NPR report about William Shakespeare’s original pronunciation (OP)</span></a>. The British
Library has put forth a record of thirty passages, and the first track has
grabbed me and has not let go: Sonnet 116. You probably know it; you might well
have heard it recently at a wedding:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<strong>Sonnet 116<o:p></o:p></strong></div>
<strong>
</strong><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<em>Let me not to the marriage of true minds</em></div>
<div>
<em>
Admit impediments. Love is not love</em></div>
<div>
<em>
Which alters when it alteration finds,</em></div>
<div>
<em>
Or bends with the remover to remove:</em></div>
<div>
<em>
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark </em></div>
<div>
<em>
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;</em></div>
<div>
<em>
It is the star to every wandering bark,</em></div>
<div>
<em>
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.</em></div>
<div>
<em>
Love’s not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks </em></div>
<div>
<em>
Within his bending sickle’s compass come: </em></div>
<div>
<em>
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, </em></div>
<div>
<em>
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.</em></div>
<div>
<em>
If this be error and upon me proved,</em></div>
<div>
<em>
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. <o:p></o:p></em></div>
<em>
</em><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
“Ahhh,” we all sigh prettily. Who doesn’t love this sonnet?
I surely do, but it also sets me to thinking about these impediments Shakespeare
speaks of. I have friends with great marriages; I know folk not so fortunate.
And I wonder what this sonnet has to say to all of us. Let’s have a look.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
First of all, please let me clarify the key phrase in line 2:
“admit impediments.” On the surface, the premise of the poem appears to call
for the speaker to practice denial when looking at the sober realities of “the
marriage of true minds.” It seems to show the poet begging himself to turn a
blind eye to all the unpleasant realities he faces in his relationship. But in
fact I don’t believe that Shakespeare means this at all.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
And here my immensely practical Latin minor comes in handy
again. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad</i>” means “to, toward.” “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mitto mittere missus sum</i>” are the
principle parts of the verb “to send.” “Admit” therefore mostly means, “send
towards.” Think of a ticket that allows you admission—to be sent toward the
action. And “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">impedimentum</i>” literally
means “something that snares the feet.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So to not “admit impediments” in this sense surely doesn’t
imply that I should deny the downfalls, but rather means, literally, “Don’t
allow me to send toward my good relationship things that will trip us up.” I
think Shakespeare means to marvel at the goodness of love and murmur a quiet
prayer against jeopardizing it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Surprisingly, for such a popular wedding selection, this
poem has an alarmingly large number of negatives, of dire warnings about
fearful fates. While of course the poem serves as a praise of steadfast love,
the poet manages to do so dangerously, with statements and images that, taken
by themselves, might alarm us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“Love is not love,” the
poet says (before of course qualifying it—but there those words stand, right at
the end of the line). “O no!” he cries. The poet finds his beloved altered,
finds some force trying to “remove” the best bits. Tempests come. Ships (that’s
what a “bark” is—think “disembark”) wander, and who has any idea how much such
steady love is really “worth”? The beloved with her rosy lips will breathe her
last, felled by Time’s inexorable “sickle.” It flies all too fast, and in the
end of its “brief hours and weeks,” it slips silently over “the edge of doom.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
And at the end, the uncertain poet even allows that his high
view of love might be a provable error; and if that’s true, it means that all
poetry and love itself unwinds and proves false. Dire prospects indeed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Perhaps a measure of Shakespeare’s greatness surfaces when
we see how deftly he manages to laud love while using such apparently negative
language. In the fourteen lines, the poet uses “no,” “never”, and “not” eight
times—or about once every other line. He paints in this poem a kind of
negative-space picture, portraying the very height of love by all these nay-saying
verbal brushstrokes, displaying how very fragile we sometimes find our love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Wow. Gulp. Such a wedding blessing, this. Mazel tov. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But I think this quality of potential danger circles us back
around to the beginning of the sonnet, and makes that first two lines, the lover’s
admonition to himself, absolutely vital (and “vital,” you know, means
“life-giving”). What can give life to love? What can make marriages last? <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Although I’m surely no expert, I believe that the frank
internal dialog, this self-exhortation the poet offers in lines one and two,
just may hold the key.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
When he urges “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” I
think the poet means a number of things:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Oh, please oh please, don’t let me ruin this sweet thing we’re striving to assemble! </div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Keep me from my own choices that might sabotage this tiny limited company, this business we build in our home. </div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Keep my mouth shut when an unkind remark might swamp our small boat. </div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Help me let go of my obsessive need to keep score.</div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Help me take with good humor, with open-hearted laughter even, the very things that bug the living fire out of me about this person I chose. And while I’m at it, let me choose this same person again. Today. Right now.</div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
And please let them find us equally ludicrous, and so let us laugh at each other, and help to choose each other again. </div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Let me, each new day, soften my heart towards this one I have married, for how easily can these little hardnesses calcify until I’ve made my heart a stone? And how well we know that a stone in a shoe can cause the horse to throw the rider and, before almost any time has passed, the horse, the battle, the war, and thus the kingdom, are lost. </div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Maybe if I learn not to admit or let in anything that snags or tugs, that sin that so easily besets, maybe then I shall find myself dwelling in the kingdom in which I’ve always longed to live. Maybe Solomon had this in mind when he warned his beloved to “catch the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom” (Song of Songs 2:15). For sometimes foxes run through our blooming vines with their tails afire, ruining years of good wine with all of its attendant future joy.<o:p></o:p></div>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
A dear friend remarked to me not long ago that a good
marriage absolutely requires “two very good forgivers.” I often say that
anytime one has two perfectly good sinners under one roof, things can go
downhill fairly fast. I’ve visited several friends this summer with great,
solid, loving, and lifelong marriages, and they all have about them a kind of
vigilance against impediments, impediments that usually come from their own
foibles. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
They have several things in common, these contented couples:
selflessness, the profound sense in each of their own individual
ridiculousness, and a deep-seated sense of humor about, and tenderness towards,
one another’s failings—these mark the most successful marriages of true minds
that I know. Not admitting impediments. Oh, they confess such things <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exist</i>. They just decide vigilantly to keep
them outside the door so that they starve and slink away.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This dear, sweet, difficult sonnet leaves us all with
something. To the married, it offers a kind of primer on how to hold it
together, an artful exhortation to watch the gates. To those who have lost
love, it may offer an instructive and even actionable way to understand what
went wrong. And to those who have never married, I think it offers both a heady
warning and a hearty hope about what potential glories a marriage of true minds
might offer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I believe that this sonnet itself offers a star to all our
wandering barks, which just might make navigable a dark night at sea.<o:p></o:p></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-2040481011461479042012-07-08T14:26:00.000-07:002012-07-08T14:26:19.389-07:00The Swing of Poetry: Musings on Stevenson<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">All Nine </span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">welcomes
Rebeka Choat to share her musings on Robert Louis Stevenson. Becka is a reader,
a writer, a lover of the printed word, dedicated to bringing people books to
nourish mind, soul, and spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
website is <a href="http://www.booksbybecka.com/"><span style="color: blue;">www.booksbybecka.com</span></a>. </span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR66RefSeBY0JRoL_DkY4qqbk2S-DYIp7OGiLOrtJbAhf_PH_fl8sid-Yyo7b7s9FarN46sAa3-vkgxC6DEVOm0-5tvoWRkZrqis__drf4H3fRUPdLH32L3eiFP34366lafJ1sqFWeSaU/s1600/the+swing+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR66RefSeBY0JRoL_DkY4qqbk2S-DYIp7OGiLOrtJbAhf_PH_fl8sid-Yyo7b7s9FarN46sAa3-vkgxC6DEVOm0-5tvoWRkZrqis__drf4H3fRUPdLH32L3eiFP34366lafJ1sqFWeSaU/s320/the+swing+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by Rebeka Choat</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p>The Swing of Poetry: Musings on Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Swing" </o:p></span></h2>
<h4>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p>by Rebeka Choat </o:p></span></h4>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">How do you like to go up in a swing,<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Up in the air so blue?<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ever a child can do!<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Up in the air and over the wall,<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></i></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Till I can see so wide,<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">River and trees and cattle and all<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Over the countryside ---<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Till I look down on the garden green,<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></i></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Down on the roof so brown ---<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Up in the air I go flying again,<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span>Up in the air and down!</span></i><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">~ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Robert Louis Stevenson<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Early
some mornings before it gets too hot, Baby Girl the Second and I walk to the small
park near our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She heads straight
for the swings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I push, she pumps, we
find our rhythm, and this rhyme always comes into my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s
such a summer poem:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>light and carefree,
flying effortlessly into the blue, a simple child-like invitation to be
wholeheartedly in the moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this
moment, me standing here pushing my little girl on a swing, melts into other
moments and it’s my seven-year-old self soaring, hair streaming, Daddy pushing
me, Mama saying the words somewhere in the background.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That still-small Becka was chubby and slow
and clumsy on the ground, already always the last to be picked for any team
sport, but oh! on a swing I could fly!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve
only ever been thin during one brief, almost-anorexic period of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m still invariably slower than whomever I’m
walking with, and I’ve rarely been accused of being graceful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But oh! words give me wings!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poetry lifts me <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">up in the air and over the wall/Till I can see so wide</i> – see woods
on a snowy evening, and Addison’s Walk, and Innisfree, and Camelot, and Hatley
St. George.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it shows me familiar
things from a new perspective – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Till I
look down on the garden green, down on the roof so brown</i> – a pitchfork, a
certain slant of light on winter afternoons, an old tree growing in the place
that is my own place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It reminds me to
take time to enjoy simple, pleasant things; and when I come back – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">up in the air and down</i> – I’m relaxed and
reinvigorated, ready to look at the world with fresh eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reference: </span><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171919"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171919</span></a></span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-52691426686644141742012-07-02T05:47:00.000-07:002012-07-02T05:47:46.412-07:00Paradise Found: Reading Milton in the Company of Friends<em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">All
Nine contributor-muse Dr. Holly Ordway shares her insights on the reading of
(and listening to) John Milton’s </span></em><em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Paradise
Lost</span></em><em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">.
Holly is a poet, teacher, and friend, as well as an apologist exploring the
intersection of literature and faith, reason and imagination. Follow Dr.
Ordway's reflections on the practice of living a holy life at her website at <a href="http://www.hieropraxis.com/"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.hieropraxis.com</span></span></a></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">/<em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> or on twitter @HollyOrdway</span></em><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">*****</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">It’s
been twenty years since I read any of John Milton’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174002" target="_blank">Paradise Lost</a></i>. In 1992 I was a college sophomore in Major British
Writers I, and selections from<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Paradise
Lost</i> were on the syllabus. I know that I did the reading; I also know that
I neither understood nor enjoyed what I read, and the paper that I wrote was
probably awful and certainly careless. When I got my essay back, I saw marginal
notes from the professor pointing out where I’d misquoted Milton; I remember
thinking “How could she have noticed? This poem is about a million lines long,
and she notices that I get a word or two wrong?!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I
hadn’t yet fallen in love with poetry, because I had not yet learned how to
read it. It was the following semester (in Major British Writers II) that poetry
“happened” for me, because my professor read the poems out loud to us. Robert
Browning, Percy Shelley, John Keats, Gerard Manley Hopkins - the music of
poetry sank in, deeply, and after that I continued to read poetry and find the
ways in which it showed me the world in new ways, and showed me the truth of my
own heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">But
apart from teaching the sonnet “On His Blindness,” I never returned to Milton.
I’d filed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise Lost</i> under the
heading “Works of Literature That Are Somehow Important But Certainly Not
Interesting.” With so many other things to read, why go back to a poem I’d
found dull?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Then
I started to get some inklings that the failure was mine, not Milton’s. C.S.
Lewis, whose writing has been and is so important to my own life and work,
intensely admired<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Paradise Lost </i>and
even wrote a book about it: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Preface to
Paradise Lost.</i> As I began to read and study Charles Williams, I realized
that Milton was extremely important to him as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">This
past winter, I had a Miltonic paradigm shift. I was visiting my friend Malcolm
Guite in Cambridge, and in the course of an afternoon’s conversation about
poetry, he pulled out a copy of Milton’s poem “Comus” and proceeded to read aloud
to me a long extract from the poem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I
was spellbound. Here was music, philosophy, wit, beauty - wow! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And
so when I got home I read “Comus” for myself - and loved it. But it wasn’t just
that I’d been encouraged to read what I’d formerly dismissed: what made all the
difference in my encounter with the poem was that I had heard the poem being
read with vitality and understanding; the words had been incarnated for me,
given to me in all their richness as something to be savored and rejoiced in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right now</i> as a present experience -- the
complete opposite of ‘studying’ an ‘important poem’ and ‘understanding its
significance’ and the like. A quarter-hour of hearing Milton read aloud that
way opened the door to understanding his poetry in a way that countless hours
of reading books <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about</i> Milton’s
poetry never could. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I
knew I needed to read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise Lost </i>-
and now I wanted to as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">But
this time, I also knew I needed a friend to help me engage with the poem. So I
turned to Lewis’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Preface to Paradise Lost</i>
- because although Lewis is dead, through his writing he is almost as present
to me as a living friend. He loves the poem; he tells me why, and he explains
how I can best come to love the poem too: by understanding what it is. It’s an
epic, not a lyric: to enjoy it, I should read it in long stretches, feeling the
sweep of it, being caught up in it - not stopping to analyze or linger over
particular lines or images. Each of the poem’s twelve books has its own arc
from beginning to end, and within each book there are long scenes of
description or action, and long speeches by various characters, all of which
are much more powerful if read through steadily - a book or at least a
half-book at a time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And
that is how I have been reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise
Lost</i> - and oh, it is a delight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Reading
it in a steady flow gets me into the rhythm of the blank verse and the music of
the language, so that Milton’s words call up vividly in my imagination the
scenes he describes: war in heaven, with Michael the Archangel leading the
heavenly hosts against the rebel angels; the creation of the world and all its
creatures, with the animals bursting forth from the womb of the earth; the
conclave of Satan and the other fallen angels, each in their own twisted way
attempting to justify their place in hell as better than heaven. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Reading
it steadily has also helped me see the spiritual depth of the poem. If one
reads just short extracts, Satan seems to have a certain grandeur and dignity;
“better to reign in hell than serve in heaven” seems almost plausible. But the
grand sweep of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise Lost</i> builds
up, layer by layer, a clear-eyed and vivid picture of Satan that shows us the
enemy of God as a constant liar, a vindictive spirit who would rather destroy
anything he cannot rule, a narcissist who constantly returns to his
self-created grievances with pettish indignation. It is a powerful picture and
a chilling one, because everything that Milton puts into his character of Satan
can be found close to home, in the human heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Now
that I’ve been swept up by this grand poem, I know I’ll be back again, many
more times: this, like Dante’s Divine Comedy, is not a book to read once and
then shelve for another twenty years. I look forward to those future readings:
all the more so, because now I know that I am reading in the glad company of
friends: past, present, and future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Audio References</span></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">For your listening pleasure:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">NPR Books: <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97831678"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97831678</span></a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">University of Cambridge: <a href="http://sms.cam.ac.uk/collection/668015"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://sms.cam.ac.uk/collection/668015</span></a></span></span></li>
</ul>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-24727291843457951792012-06-24T11:45:00.000-07:002012-06-24T11:45:41.074-07:00Radishes pointing my way: Musings on Issa at the farmers market<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOAMkjwufRCRBXw_X3Y0a9umeqNm9-yuHb7vP_kmTN3grrVcrKSs08wz4wYIlSaicIuJIxMvPEK4N5pALKJnd5_E3lcw-JVkDj4xgl3GBzdz7Idoq2XP4edr6W5TGc8oprg1qA93Dg3Iw/s1600/radishes2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOAMkjwufRCRBXw_X3Y0a9umeqNm9-yuHb7vP_kmTN3grrVcrKSs08wz4wYIlSaicIuJIxMvPEK4N5pALKJnd5_E3lcw-JVkDj4xgl3GBzdz7Idoq2XP4edr6W5TGc8oprg1qA93Dg3Iw/s320/radishes2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: black;">The man pulling
radishes<br />
pointed my way<br />
with a radish.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~ Kobayashi Issa<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(</span><a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-man-pulling-radishes/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-man-pulling-radishes/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found myself in the parking lot of the York Chamber of Commerce farmers
market this morning, picking my way through the stalls of organic farmers,
bread bakers, soap makers, jewelers, artists one and all. On a practical level,
I was seeking tonight’s dinner (and my missed breakfast). Deeper still, my soul
sought the moment’s moment. The new. The now. The fresh.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s when I saw the radishes. Or perhaps they saw me, pointing
my way as in Issa’s picture perfect poem. It is particularly apt in this case
that you can read “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pointed my way</i>” in
this haiku at least two ways: “pointing at me” or “pointing me to the right
way.” The first interpretation allows for an almost aggressive interpretation,
the farmer brandishing the radish in my general direction. At the very least it
could be seen as a bit overly friendly, waving a benign yet mildly threatening radish
at me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second potential meaning, as in guiding me on the best path,
is the more likely.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Either way, I could not pass them by, the radishes. They beckoned
me. A halo hovered over their rosy gloriousness. I could hear choirs singing.
They were cool and hard to the touch. I never drooled over the thought of
eating a radish before, but these rosy orbs called my name. I could barely wait
to cut them into spicy thin slivers over my garden-picked swiss chard and beet
greens. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I scooped them up quickly (before I lost my way, before the farmer
threw the overly friendly radish at me), paid, and moved as if in a dream to
the next stall. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It must have been that Disney film we watched last night, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ratatouille,</i> about a rat who wants to be
a chef. At a high point of drama, these grand words were placed in the mouth of
a hardened food critic:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“…the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand
scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than
our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks
something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is
often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed. Even these new radishes need a friend. That friend shall
be me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, the critic was talking about culinary prowess disguised
in the form of the most humble peasant food. But this could have been said
about any priceless piece of art, poetry, music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the critic goes on to say, “Not
everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so I found great artists called farmers in a parking lot this
morning, pointing my way, with a radish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now to the garden to pick my greens on which my perfect radish will rest.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-64498906695137955682012-06-18T05:38:00.000-07:002012-06-18T05:38:15.378-07:00Pressing His Ear Against the Hive: Andrew Lazo Reflects on Billy Collins' Introduction to Poetry<em>Note: By day, through most of the year, All Nine contributor <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://andrewlazo.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d8af3d;">Andrew Lazo</span></a></span> works as a high school English teacher,
regularly cajoling, threatening, wooing, enticing, bribing, and even tricking
teenagers into reading thoroughly and, if and when at all possible, enjoying
their reading, especially poetry. As such, he covets such kind thoughts and
prayers as you might send his way; here he offers some thoughts as a kind of war
correspondent on the front lines of the battle to make poems matter</em>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqExbnbrU1MIob_m2lzHZpLtsghmEJclViEIEFJF7Cm5MlVIXrEPop9m-MbKdXNCBAN-qsvGacT3Kxk9fFwk3kXzMEfyz-to1BBdAUokM7w4khMGKyryvPyBZ1pNbIQcyWuxQvjRTYj8/s1600/AndrewL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqExbnbrU1MIob_m2lzHZpLtsghmEJclViEIEFJF7Cm5MlVIXrEPop9m-MbKdXNCBAN-qsvGacT3Kxk9fFwk3kXzMEfyz-to1BBdAUokM7w4khMGKyryvPyBZ1pNbIQcyWuxQvjRTYj8/s320/AndrewL.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="http://www.lanciaesmith.com/" target="_blank">Lancia Smith</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<strong>Pressing His Ear Against the Hive: Reflections on Billy Collins' <em>Introduction to Poetry</em></strong><br />
<em>Andrew Lazo</em><br />
<br />
Ahhh...summer break. For a teacher, this steamy season of
blissful rest and recuperation promises so much more than it can ever deliver—no
alarms, no complaints, no Sisyphean and self-replenishing piles of papers. In
their place, I draw a contented breath, relishing glorious hours of reading my
way down the tower of books by my bedside. Last week I shamelessly indulged in
the luxury of pushing everything else aside in favor of a long, captivating book.
I didn’t even eat until afternoon, so swiftly did the pages flip before my
eyes. And when I was done, I found I’d forgotten about that curious hangover, a
kind of stupor that settles over me for a day or two after I’ve submitted to a
long book that will not let me go till I’d given it full due.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Summer also affords me
the chance to browse lazily through those books I’ve bought not to read right
away, but to keep on some shelf in the other room for those insomniac hours
that the T’ang Dynasty poet Chang Chiu-Ling calls “the long thoughtfulness of
night.” </div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Do you know such books?
Products of casual rambles through a used book store, drifting to the poetry
section, or past an author I vaguely remember someone raving on about. I’ll often
slip the book off the shelf, roam around inside its covers, check to see if the
pages have room for some penciled notes and an almost creamy quality. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
And if the random paragraphs
or first few stanzas leave me with a little grin broad enough to begin to feel a
little self-conscience about visibly enjoying the book in front of others, I
buy it. Such a shameless kind of public courtship often enough leads me to
hours of delighted engagement once I’ve got such books safely home and into my
dark and sometimes sleepless rooms.</div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
So one night this week
after pushing the little paper boat of another school year out into the pond, I
did a little late-night browsing of my shelves. The results kept me up long
past my now non-existent bedtime, and brought me delighted to former Poet
Laureate Billy Collins. I must confess a fairly new but rapidly-growing
obsession with his poetry, which I plan to indulge until I own every one of his
works.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
One poem in particular
quite literally helped me survive more than one day of cajoling my teenage
charges to read and enjoy poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
talking about teaching poetry to his own reluctant students, Collins begins his
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176056"><span style="color: blue;">“Introduction to Poetry”</span></a>
like this:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I ask them to take a poem<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and hold it up to the light<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">like a color slide<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">or press an ear against its hive.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
And he ends it saying:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But all they want to do<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">is tie the poem to a chair with rope<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and torture a confession out of it.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They begin beating it with a hose<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to find out what it really means.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
As if anyone, even poets
themselves, knows what a poem “really means.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
In general, rather than trying
to trap some neat and easily-defined “meaning,” I invite my students to explore
instead a poem’s ambivalence, its arresting images, and its particular and powerful
sounds. I do whatever I can to see that at least once in their lives they’ve
read a real poem in an authentic way that might speak to them. I’m happy to
report some success, if their end-of-the-year journals are to be believed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Collins’ poem has helped
me to understand why I go to all this effort, for myself deep in long nights
and for my students early on bright mornings. It’s all right there in line
five. That one line in the poem stands by itself as if holding up its hand and
waving it about in the middle of the classroom. Collins asks his students (who
by now surely include me, and hopefully you too) to take a poem and “press an
ear against its hive.”<br />
<br />
Now there’s an image to ponder or to conjure with. Let’s just say for a second
that a poem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> a hive, and we press
our ears against it. What might we hear? <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
First of all, it implies
that, when pressing an ear to a poem, I’ll likely hear only indistinctly what
happens inside of it. I find some comfort in the fact that I quite often come
away from even the best of poems with only some vague notion about the import
of all the activity happening inside it.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Next, it hints that in that
hive of the poem, I may well discover that praiseworthy situation where a lot
of males scurry busily about, attending to and providing for one female. This refreshing
reversal of gender roles and pay equity, this way of turning of things upside
down—don’t these alone suggest excellent reasons for visiting and revisting
such a poem?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
What else do I find by
examining the inside of a poem? The structure of beeswax, of course, as
deliberately made as it is fragile. Precise and repeated order, all made out of
stuff that will easily melt away even as we might make candlelight out of it. Delicate
and carefully-constructed containers of a rich and slow liquor—this too gives
me an excellent way of thinking about poetry.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
And these precise hexagons
of course hold a thick, sweet, and golden goodness that will likely get all
over me unless I wash it off well. Treasure, and a treasure increasingly rare
as something is happening to the honeybees in the world. It occurs to me that
poets may be disappearing at a similar rate to bees, much to my distress. Listening
to a poem might just make honey drip out into my ears, and slowly sweeten the
things inside my head.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
I think I like this
summer break. I think I like making a little space and time to wander through the
pages of a book, as a bee ambles through a drowsy summer meadow. </div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
And so I suggest that you
find some new poems, and press your ear against them, especially if some time
opens up before you during these swarthy months. And if you do, perhaps you’ll
let me know and share some of the rich goodness you happen to find. And maybe
that’s what the poem “really means.”</div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-37547482553154737412012-06-10T12:19:00.000-07:002012-06-10T12:19:18.115-07:00Pen phobia: writing through the fear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWp2l67AEkuxFh0KOrjpxQUMe_iU9L51H-4rYT1OJOx9KtJJA4lNaG6WFDFsI88nK1VhQDYIg3o5TAx1a7YFCl4Y5zPDS4UTcuM8_GFv8ot6zF9GG-lpoxwovDHtPoo_YOCHLJLBSoxfc/s1600/I'm+a+writer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWp2l67AEkuxFh0KOrjpxQUMe_iU9L51H-4rYT1OJOx9KtJJA4lNaG6WFDFsI88nK1VhQDYIg3o5TAx1a7YFCl4Y5zPDS4UTcuM8_GFv8ot6zF9GG-lpoxwovDHtPoo_YOCHLJLBSoxfc/s320/I'm+a+writer.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The real writer is one <br />
who really writes. … <br />
Work is its own cure. You have to <br />
like it better than being loved.” <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Excerpt from “</span><a href="http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/marge_piercy_for_the_young.html" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">For the Young Who Want to</span></b></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">” </b>by Marge Piercy)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember like it was yesterday not being afraid to write.
Maybe because it was yesterday. It may even have been this morning or two hours
ago that I wasn’t afraid. But I am afraid now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is what it’s like when the bogey man sneaks up, silent,
invisible, and pounces with a completely unanticipated panic, this weird phobia
of picking up the pen, of moving it across the page. It’s a bizarre fear-feast
that combines several sub-fears:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>The fear of having nothing to say<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>The fear of having too much to say that is
unresolvable, disturbing, or life-altering (in some nameless though painful
way)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>The fear of writing crap<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are a number of logical ways to poke holes in these
fear bubbles. On point 1, since when have I ever had nothing to say with my pen?
Let’s move on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nat Goldberg (though I’ve never met this blessed woman, I
call her “Nat” because I feel like I know her, having read so much of her work
on this subject that I have yet another fear – of plagiarizing her without
realizing it) says that (re: point 2) the disturbing stuff is where the energy
is, and (point 3) that those of us who consistently practice writing will write
crap a good deal of the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crap is
fertilizer. Be grateful for what grows out of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since those fears are bogus and neatly dealt with, what is
eating at me today? I realize even as I write that last question, the big
“What’s-The-Point” horror is hounding me – the terror of meaninglessness. The
world is already drowning in too many words. Everybody wants a platform, wants
to be heard. What is so special about my words that anyone should read them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now I see the elephant in my peripheral vision. It’s
over there, in the shadowy corner of my office, snickering. The big hairy
elephant with pink bunny slippers, mocking me, taunting me, swaying his
ludicrously large gray trunk back and forth, back and forth, slowly while he
chants, “So, she wants to be a writer. So, she thinks she is a writer. So, the
world could care less.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, let’s reason with the elephant. Maybe he’s right – I
should give up my delusion. What does the world need with another writer? Maybe
I can go back in time to a point when I wasn’t a writer, when I didn’t care
about writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sure. Maybe I can crawl back into my mother’s womb.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, I do not remember a time when my hand did not ache to
hold the pen, to move the ink across the page, to find out what my mind was
holding out on me. For me, meaning is not a reason to write or not to write. I
write through the fear of meaninglessness, even as I breathe through it.
Neither the words nor the breath create meaning, but somehow I find it, on the
other side of the fear. At the far end of the page.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only cure to the fear of writing is to write. The “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">work is its own cure. You have to / like it
better than being loved</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apparently I do like the work of writing better, since here
I am still tapping away at this keyboard, meaninglessness yet unresolved. Me,
I’m the one still in the room. The elephant… well, he’s long gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-55225476661328711872012-06-03T13:07:00.000-07:002012-06-03T13:07:10.418-07:00The Poet’s Work: A Reflection on Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Windhover”<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><em>I am honored once again to welcome
poet, teacher, and friend Dr. Holly Ordway back to</em> All Nine <em>to share her insights and musings, this time on the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Holly is an apologist exploring the intersection of literature and faith, reason
and imagination.</em></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><em>
Follow Dr. Ordway's reflections on the practice of living a holy life at her
website at </em><a href="http://www.hieropraxis.com/"><span style="color: windowtext;"><em>http://www.hieropraxis.com/</em></span></a><em> or
on twitter @HollyOrdway.</em></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJO1GlWt6uBqb_Y-8SJTGgqXpzlQYpE4Psr4qCsU_kOFyjnfBCXyQmOshmKHhA_BOn_2x2gx9qr4xDa00KYP1T2YJEy5NJHVROJ-bCU9djdu_dX_aVO-ZoCc-C0ISwAPRNJRWTs7NygDE/s1600/Hopkins.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJO1GlWt6uBqb_Y-8SJTGgqXpzlQYpE4Psr4qCsU_kOFyjnfBCXyQmOshmKHhA_BOn_2x2gx9qr4xDa00KYP1T2YJEy5NJHVROJ-bCU9djdu_dX_aVO-ZoCc-C0ISwAPRNJRWTs7NygDE/s320/Hopkins.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Holly Ordway</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">One of my college English professors remarked
about <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173667" target="_blank">The Windhover</a>, “Nobody really knows what that poem is about.” At the
time, I let that relieve me from the obligation to wrestle with it, even while
admitting its beauty. Looking back, I wonder if I was simply unwilling to see
what Hopkins was waiting to show me, for he tells us at least one thing pretty
straight, in dedicating the poem “To Christ our Lord.”</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">I’ve traveled a lot of ground since I was an
eighteen-year-old English major, and close on twenty years since I first
encountered this poem in the pages of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Norton
Anthology of English Literature, Volume II</i>, I find it one of my favorites,
a poem that speaks to me in many moods and on many levels. Hopkins always gives
me more than I can take in at any one reading. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">One of the things he gives me is a taste of
pure joy, so that I can recognize it when I feel it in my own life. I need the
image of Christ as the windhover, the soaring bird of prey, free and dangerous
and beautiful, because in my work as a Christian apologist, it is too easy to
forget that my defense of the faith is the work of cooperating with the Spirit;
God does not need my protection. Whatever I say or know about Him, He is “a
billion / Times told lovelier, more dangerous.”</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">Most recently Hopkins has helped me as I
learn how to be a poet. “My heart in hiding / Stirred for a bird, - the achieve
of, the mastery of the thing!” When I feel that my heart will break for sheer
joy, Hopkins shows me in the exuberance of his language that this joy can be
expressed; that finding the right words and shaping them into the precise and
constrained form of a sonnet, can be my response, as his was. “Brute beauty and
valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume here / Buckle!”</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">When I do not feel that joy, what then? The
Psalmist says, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil.” He does not say that the Lord will keep him from the shadow, but
only that he need not fear it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">Hopkins gives me two images that show me
that the dark and weary days, when the spirit is in the valley of the shadow of
death, are not wasted days. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">He says, “sheer plod makes plough down
sillion / Shine”: as the plough’s blade is pulled through the earth, step by
weary step, breaking up the hard soil so that it can be planted and yield the
harvest, the grinding of the soil will polish the buried blade, removing any
rust, so that when it is pulled from the earth at the end of the row, it will
be bright and shining. </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">And again, with another image: “blue-bleak
embers, ah my dear, / Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.” The
fire is at a low ebb, the embers seeming almost cold; they are dull, ashy. But
when the fire is prodded the embers fall out of the grate, and break - and in
breaking, show their glowing insides, “gold-vermillion,” the color of blood and
royalty. </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">From a falcon wheeling joyously in the sky,
to ashy coals falling from a grate, Hopkins finds beauty and words to frame
that beauty. Not a bad way to think about the calling of the poet. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><strong>Reference</strong> </span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">Gerard Manley Hopkins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Major Works</i>. Oxford World’s
Classics. </span><span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-64447967888735765492012-05-27T13:11:00.001-07:002012-05-27T13:11:37.656-07:00Listening to far-off fields: The Man Watching<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYkcdxI59AAqTpYxHGHCw95LKukkvmzvl4fMNYdFfvEKRux2lLjR3Umkx9FPvdOJ5Um2orQeOghjPMFJaXos2XKzP3fBTEFDIHbmzWwJuipekBJNdq8BNYxtKF_TLU1XY5GTa5sUq8cao/s1600/Circle+Water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYkcdxI59AAqTpYxHGHCw95LKukkvmzvl4fMNYdFfvEKRux2lLjR3Umkx9FPvdOJ5Um2orQeOghjPMFJaXos2XKzP3fBTEFDIHbmzWwJuipekBJNdq8BNYxtKF_TLU1XY5GTa5sUq8cao/s320/Circle+Water.jpg" width="302" /></a></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Man Watching<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I
can tell by the way the trees beat, after<br />
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes<br />
that a storm is coming,<br />
and I hear the far-off fields say things<br />
I can't bear without a friend,<br />
I can't love without a sister<br />
<br />
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on<br />
across the woods and across time,<br />
and the world looks as if it had no age:<br />
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,<br />
is seriousness and weight and eternity.<br />
<br />
What we choose to fight is so tiny!<br />
What fights us is so great!<br />
If only we would let ourselves be dominated<br />
as things do by some immense storm,<br />
we would become strong too, and not need names.<br />
<br />
When we win it's with small things,<br />
and the triumph itself makes us small.<br />
What is extraordinary and eternal<br />
does not want to be bent by us.<br />
I mean the Angel who appeared<br />
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:<br />
when the wrestler's sinews<br />
grew long like metal strings,<br />
he felt them under his fingers<br />
like chords of deep music.<br />
<br />
Whoever was beaten by this Angel<br />
(who often simply declined the fight)<br />
went away proud and strengthened<br />
and great from that harsh hand,<br />
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.<br />
Winning does not tempt that man.<br />
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,<br />
by constantly greater beings.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">~ Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was another Friday pepperoni-mushroom-onion-pizza
night, home at last from my long commute, talking about the week with my
husband. But it wasn’t just another Friday night. It was a Friday night in October
of 2001, a month after the world collapsed in on itself, after the storm
arrived, the storm that we should have known was coming had we been listening
to the Man Watching. If we had only listened to what the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">far-off fields </i>were saying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My recollection of that period in history is one of
both hunkering down and moving on. Many folks I knew dug in, put up bunkers,
mainly emotional ones, but also ones with real ramifications, like choosing to
not do anything (not travel, not trade in stock, not make big purchases, not change
jobs, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even more people I knew
made really big decisions within the six months after 9/11, life changing
decisions. The sudden then steady images over the news of the immovable being
permanently moved, of dust-covered people we could have known (we could have
been) running for their lives, created this wave of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>realization that life is too short to fight
such tiny battles and put off the big dreams. It was a national catalytic
moment.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My husband and I were among the dreamers and the
deciders, the catalyzed. That Friday night over our usual pepperoni, mushroom,
and onion pizza with a couple Diet Cokes thrown in for good measure, we decided
to put our house on the market. Just like that. After years of talking about moving to Maine,
as we nibbled on the last bits of crust that momentous evening, we looked
at each other and said, “What are we waiting for?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You see, before that point (I can easily say now in
retrospect), what we had been fighting was “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so
tiny,”</i> to borrow from Rilke. The “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">far
off fields” </i>had been saying things to us that we needed to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bear with friends</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love with sisters</i>. We had not loved our
dreams well enough until then. Until we had been dominated by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">immense storm</i>, we could not move past
the small fights that only made us weaker with every win.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, a decade-plus older and hopefully the wee bit
wiser, even my more noble fights still look petty when I stop and realize my need
to be “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dominated /as things do by some
immense storm.” </i>As <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">things</i> do.
Like trees that bend in the wind. Like a river that floods then contracts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If only I could always pick the really big and
important fights, the ones with eternal consequences, the ones that are not so
newsworthy, but really matter. Perhaps then I “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would become strong too, and not need names.”</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Another slice of pizza couldn't hurt, either.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*****<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I dedicate this post to the countless warriors (the
ones who no longer need names) who chose to fight not the tiny but the greater,
to let themselves be dominated, ultimately “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">being
defeated, decisively</i>” for this country and for freedom. Let them grow in
our memory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Reference<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Selected
Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">, ed. and trans. Robert Bly (Harper & Row, New York,
1981)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-28084598492636816332012-05-21T04:47:00.002-07:002012-05-21T04:47:58.326-07:00A World Aflame with WordsMusing on Malcolm Guite’s “On being told my poetry was found
in a broken photo-copier”<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Note: By day, guest blogger </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://andrewlazo.com/" target="_blank">Andrew Lazo</a></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> works as a high school English teacher, regularly cajoling,
threatening, wooing, enticing, bribing, and even tricking teenagers into
reading thoroughly and, if and when at all possible, enjoying their reading,
especially poetry. As such, he covets such kind thoughts and prayers as you
might send his way; here he offers some thoughts as a kind of war correspondent
on the front lines of the battle to make poems matter</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
As another school year closes and
graduations descend upon us, I’ve found myself thinking about beginnings and
endings. The sermon I heard Sunday marked another such end, as we celebrate the
last Sunday in Easter and look towards Pentecost next week, the longest season
of the church calendar. Endings and beginnings. Words, in the form of greeting
cards and speeches and yearbook signings, fond farewells and a welcome in to
the summer season. I’m changing jobs, moving to a high school next year, and so
as I draw this year to a close, thoughts of my first day in a new place fill me
even as I face the last moments with these people, some of whom I shall surely
never see again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Ah, that first day of school.
As a teacher, I love that day. I’ve found nothing in the world so potent with
possibility as that first-day-of-class terror. Not my fear, anxious though I
always am, but the fear of my students. Thick and palpable, I can almost feel
it as I walk into the room and write my name on the board. Potent with
possibility. And a faint whiff of panic.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
It’s always puzzled me that
so many teachers let such a powerful moment slip by. So many of us follow the
same format: we pass out a syllabus and then proceed to read the most
stultifying prose known to man to these unwitting students in such terrific
terror. As if they cannot read, at least well enough to register for and find
their way to our classes. As if we need a way to lose their attention at once,
providing them papers full of rules and deadlines. “Dead lines” indeed—a sort
of crisp white boundary to immediately insert between themselves and us. Such a
promising moment, so sadly squandered.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Fully confident of the
fact that I have plenty of time, however inadvertently, to bore them in the
future, I seize this first moment that I open my mouth before them and then dare
something different. I stare at them a moment and then begin telling them about
my dear friend, the <a href="http://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">ReverendDoctor Malcolm Guite </a>of Girton College, Cambridge. He <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.cslewis.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Andrew-Lazo-and-Malcolm-Guite1.jpg" target="_blank">lookslike a half-sized, happy Hagrid</a></span>, rides a Harley, plays guitar and sings
lead in a pub band, and writes poetry in form. Everything you want in an
Anglican priest, no?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
One day at Girton
College, one of Malcolm’s poems gummed up the Xerox rather badly and elicited
this terse comment from the woman in charge of said copy machine: “Dr. Guite, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">your poetry is jamming my machine!</b>”
After freeing his verses (haha!) from the maw of the copier, Malcolm recognized
that she had uttered a perfect line of iambic pentameter: “My poetry is jamming
your machine.” He walked away musing, and soon thereafter produced the
following villanelle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
I cannot begin to say how
grateful I am that he did. I’ve memorized this wonderful piece, and I quote it
to bookend the entire class. Each start and end of term, the opening words my
students hear out of my mouth on the very first day of class and the last thing
they hear as they head for the door come in the form of this poem. These lines
for me perfectly take advantage of those vital moments of creative fear or of
weary accomplishment. I have memorized through years of good use (and suggest
you do the same):<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">On being told my poetry was found in a broken photo-copier<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
My poetry is jamming your
machine<o:p></o:p></div>
It broke the
photo-copier, I’m to blame,<o:p></o:p><br />
With pictures copied from
a world unseen.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
My poem is in the works
-I’m on the scene<o:p></o:p></div>
We free my verse, and I
confess my shame,<o:p></o:p><br />
My poetry is jamming your
machine.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Though you berate me with
what might have been,<o:p></o:p></div>
You stop to read the
poem, just the same,<o:p></o:p><br />
And pictures, copied from
a world unseen,<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Subvert the icons on your
mental screen<o:p></o:p></div>
And open windows with a
whispered name;<o:p></o:p><br />
My poetry is jamming your
machine.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
For chosen words can
change the things they mean<o:p></o:p></div>
And set the once-familiar
world aflame<o:p></o:p><br />
With pictures copied from
a world unseen<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
The mental props give
way, on which you lean<o:p></o:p></div>
The world you see will
never be the same,<o:p></o:p><br />
My poetry is jamming your
machine<o:p></o:p><br />
With pictures copied from
a world unseen.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b><br />
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Let’s look at the poem. Several
phrases of course leap out right away. These “pictures copied from a world
unseen” slyly suggests several things at once. To those of us involved in the
daily struggle to grow inside ourselves some kind of a spiritual life, this
phrase might suggest the next world, new life. Heaven peeking through the thin
places of the world. C. S. Lewis writes that the scriptures are “rustling with
the rumor” that a new world awaits us. And the creative arts, poetry,
architecture, dance, all the products of all the Nine Muses, these are the pictures
we imperfectly create of a world we long to see.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Next I love the quite cunning
phrase “we free my verse” all the more because I’ve never known Malcolm to
write free verse at all. I feel justifiably certain he’d write EXCELLENT free
verse; that he’d suggest it in so complex a form as a villanelle points to the
sheer weight of gleeful creativity this poet brings to bear in his outstanding
work.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
“Subvert the icons on
your mental screen” of course points to what both art and the Holy Spirit long
to do—turn over the tables in our temples and present the world a new way for
us to see into ourselves and into the lives of others. New eyes. Flipping
things around. The irony, the paradox of a savior in a stable. And the subtle
invitation to turn from the outer screens that bombard us daily and to pay
close attention to the images inside. New eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
And new ears, for here
again Malcolm’s sensuous spirituality slips in and “opens windows with a
whispered name.” I think I know that name. Do you? Might it be my name? Might
it be yours? Might it be the name at which we all will kneel in joy and wonder
one day?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
And now we come to the
heart of the poem, of course: “chosen words can change the things they mean.”
Isn’t that what all of us who labor in language long on our best days to do? I
exhort my students never to underestimate the power of language to change the
world, because from where I stand, ultimately, language offers us the only
thing that ever does change the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
In class as I round my
recitation toward home, I pick out the most reluctant and least-likely faces
and make eye contact, and even point a little, pressing home the truth that
“the world <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> see will never be the
same” for having allowed my poetry to jam up their machines. And by now, even
the dullest among them realize that we are speaking here of more than machines,
that a profound and purposeful metaphor has slipped into their soul by way of
words.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Their machine may be an
Xbox or an iPod, or a football field or a lifelong loathing of English class.
It may prove something more primal, like fear of failing, or years of
disapproval in the form of red-pen corrections. I tell my students that the
books we read are not boring. Properly contextualized and opened up, any book
one finds in the current school curricula might well offer wonders <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and beauties, riches of several kinds. Perhaps
the machine that this poetry will jam is their too-quick dismissal of a beauty
that takes time and silence to unfold.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
I exhort my freshmen
reading Shakespeare for the first time that this searching for its sunken
treasure takes time, and effort, and silence. A dictionary, and no
distractions. A pencil to parse out the pages. And believe it or not, when they
push open their lives to make space for the poetry of the play to arise, they
find themselves both powerful in their ability to understand, delighted by the
cleverness of it all, and even sensitive to the searing truths that the Bard
always touches upon. After opening one passage recently, one young man
literally shook in his seat for the joy of it all—both because of the lovely,
intricate delight in the excellence of expression and meaningfulness, and
because of the proud sense of power that he had understood it. He shook in his
seat for joy. A world had opened up before him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
And so, as I face final classes this week, I shall recite this poem again to
them, and pray somehow that for more than just one, my poetry has jammed their
machines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although it may smolder awhile
before each knows what to do with it, I hope they have found in their reading,
in my poetry that I’ve pressed upon them, a spark that just may set their whole
worlds aflame. And, come fall, we’ll try it all again. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
Until then, next Sunday
on Pentecost many of the churchfolk I know will wear clothes of yellow and red
to remember the fire that comes down till it sits on our heads—and sets the
world aflame, with pictures copied from a world unseen. Thank you, Malcolm.
Your poetry is jamming our machines. <o:p></o:p></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-76700088234719645662012-05-13T12:19:00.001-07:002012-05-13T12:19:20.612-07:00Rock me to sleep: Guest Blogger Sarah Flaherty on a Mother’s LoveIt is an honor to welcome
social media maven and talented wordsmith Sarah Flaherty to share her best
Mother’s Day thoughts for readers of <em>All Nine</em>. A self-described bookworm and
work-out junkie, Sarah is also one of those rarest of individuals: a quietly
insistent and steady voice for kindness, fair play, and quality work. Follow
her tweets at @<span class="screen-name">SarahLiz815</span><span class="js-username"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="js-username"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></span><o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhXWFoymvIiHQVub4NYCdr9Qw-4esvpKhbqV_E0GkOUz8WrKZvsrH_qDvnWy56FnWu2KPBafu6moJtf_b3N-JblIMvr0uGPqzz-6BbRQ0AY36xOFoEvAb7Ahq6HiNE8QaUO7tLchRaAk/s1600/sfpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhXWFoymvIiHQVub4NYCdr9Qw-4esvpKhbqV_E0GkOUz8WrKZvsrH_qDvnWy56FnWu2KPBafu6moJtf_b3N-JblIMvr0uGPqzz-6BbRQ0AY36xOFoEvAb7Ahq6HiNE8QaUO7tLchRaAk/s200/sfpic.jpg" width="200" /></a><strong>Rock me to sleep:
Sarah Flaherty on a Mother’s Love</strong><br />
</o:p><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Over my heart, in the days that are flown, <br />
No love like mother-love ever has shone; <br />
No other worship abides and endures,— <br />
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours: <br />
None like a mother can charm away pain <br />
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain. <br />
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;— <br />
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! <br />
</i><br />
From "Rock Me to Sleep" by Elizabeth Akers Allen<br />
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182732" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182732</span></a><br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">When I was young, my mother used to hold her
hand to my forehead and rub her thumb in the space between my eyebrows. It was
as though she had hit my own personal "Relax" button—a switch that
would calm my breathing, stop my tears, ease my mind. I wouldn't be able to
stop my eyes from closing. I do the same thing now to my husband when he has a
headache, and I'm sure one day I'll do it to our children. It's more than just
a soothing movement; it's an expression of love. <br />
<br />
For Mother's Day, I wanted to find a poem that would express the gratitude and
love I have for my mother. The passage above was a little too Hallmark-card for
me at first pass, but what I love is its simple message. So many of the poems I
found were too complicated, too modern, too focused on the <i>memories </i>of a
mother who has passed, or the <i>complications </i>of dealing with a mother's
illness, or the intricacies and faults of a mother/child relationship.
All true expressions, in their own rights—but not what I was looking for. <br />
<br />
With a few exceptions, I don't normally connect with poems published before the
20th century. They feel too grandiose (case in point: the exclamation point at
the end of the stanza above), too large to find a way in. The camera is
"zoomed out," as one of my college professors would have said. I
can't get close enough to see the intimacies, the brushstrokes, the
imperfections that invite me into the poem in a human way. <br />
<br />
As I write this now from my husband's parents' house, I hear my mother-in-law
on the phone upstairs speaking to one of her other three children (all in their
40s). "Love you, kid," she says as she hangs up. <i>That's what I'm
looking for</i>, I thought. A poem that expresses the purest, tender love a
mother has for her child that prompts her, 40+ years after their birth, to
still call them "kid." And that's what I like about the excerpt
above: it gets at that timeless love, the love that remains regardless of
illnesses, passings, disagreements. It's beyond that. It's above that. <br />
<br />
In <i>Eat Pray Love</i>, Elizabeth Gilbert describes writing in her journal
when she felt scared, lost, or drained. It's been a few years since I read the
book, but I remember she talked about a voice that would emerge from the page
and guide her forward. It was her own voice, of course--but a wiser, more
honest part of herself that spoke only when she was willing to listen. I'm
blessed that my mother lives just a few miles from me and I can call her or
stop by when I'm overwhelmed with life, irrational fears, or anxiety. And
she's always there to help me dig for what's true, to tell me (and, more
importantly, help me <i>believe</i>) that everything will be okay. But
when she's not immediately available and I have to find that voice to help me
move forward, the voice of wisdom in my head is my mom. If I can think
about what she would say, what advice she would give, I'm always better
off. It's just one of the gifts she's given me, but it's one of the most
valuable, guiding my writing, my work, and the way I live my life. <br />
<br />
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there—and to my own, I love you. <br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-51066866861773885402012-05-06T05:57:00.002-07:002012-05-06T05:57:54.074-07:00Sweet Accord: 4 writing tips from Wyatt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5hSqEUlxmgRgsnvToRzwCUXCtTzGrQ0gj6UUARTa4ApC215oPiKpgNpuuBguJsqj_yN2eyzOmHus1ZGOGy1V16n11_O7uX1X3fVNLSDbDZ1jYoQUIuNt2z44kVkMuCKCaXQHkG2X9t8/s1600/accord.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5hSqEUlxmgRgsnvToRzwCUXCtTzGrQ0gj6UUARTa4ApC215oPiKpgNpuuBguJsqj_yN2eyzOmHus1ZGOGy1V16n11_O7uX1X3fVNLSDbDZ1jYoQUIuNt2z44kVkMuCKCaXQHkG2X9t8/s320/accord.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Throughout the world if
it were sought,<br />
Fair words enough a man shall find,<br />
They be good cheap, they cost right nought,<br />
Their substance is but only wind,<br />
But well to say, and so to mean,<br />
That sweet accord is seldom seen. <br />
</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—Sir Thomas Wyatt
(1503-1542)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For those of us in the business of
communicating concepts through words (and when you get right down to it, aren’t
we all?), it helps to review some basics about getting our messages heard
through the cacophony of noise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for
the rest of us who have to sort out all the competing messages, we would give
anything for that priceless “sweet accord” that Sir Thomas Wyatt refers
to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The words that will get noticed are
those that are “seldom seen,” those fair few that meet at the intersection of
“well said” and “well meant.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sir Thomas Wyatt provides us a few timeless
lessons on finding that priceless “sweet accord” of fair words and truth:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Leave white
space.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> “Fair words enough a man shall find…”
Say/write only enough to get your message to your intended listener/reader. It
is always better to leave people wanting more than to suffocate them with well-intentioned
words.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On the other
hand… don’t be stingy with your fair words.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
“They cost right nought…” There may be a day, a moment, an opportunity when you
are the one person who is there in the right place at the right time to say
something very true, very well, and very much needed. That is not the time for
white space. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Say your
most important things very well.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
“Well to say…” Honor your best efforts by giving them your best words. You are not
going to change the world with your ground-breaking study of newfound truth if
no one can understand what you are saying (or if they are too bored by it to wait
for the punch line).</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Use fine
words fittingly.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> “So to mean…”
Your loyal readers honor you with their eyes. Don’t betray that trust with
empty words or half-truths. If you have nothing of substance or meaning to
offer at this time, take a pass and leave space for the next messenger bearing
the substance of sweet accord.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-1044589373183341102012-04-29T14:20:00.000-07:002012-04-29T14:20:53.859-07:00We exist: A response to Stephen Crane<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvqsIFpO5STKS-3RPZ5we2kGM-rRh8StvQtCFS4-fXBqwhvw9SJwUv_x2cdTym8gS37tn0QlfFH36fz_buIoWZl6ZR5R7PBppUAnXUfdy2Ws2Z8A8d0Etm1otlks8Jz0NvwSsVt8Ipy9k/s1600/DSC07207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvqsIFpO5STKS-3RPZ5we2kGM-rRh8StvQtCFS4-fXBqwhvw9SJwUv_x2cdTym8gS37tn0QlfFH36fz_buIoWZl6ZR5R7PBppUAnXUfdy2Ws2Z8A8d0Etm1otlks8Jz0NvwSsVt8Ipy9k/s320/DSC07207.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
man said to the universe: <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Sir
I exist!" <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"However,"
replied the universe, <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"The
fact has not created in me <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
sense of obligation." <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">~Stephen Crane (1871-1900)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Stephen Crane was twenty-eight when he died, and he
wrote this poem just barely a year earlier. He wrote this poem after
experiencing numerous life traumas, including shipwreck, scandal, and
tuberculosis. That’s not to say he wrote this because of those experiences (I
don’t believe poetry can be subjected to causal analysis), but context can be
illuminating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When I first read this poem, many years ago, I
thought it was interesting, funny, and ironic in the way a political cartoon is
all of those things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I pictured a
scrawny prophet railing at an impersonal and very large universal force that
responds with amused and slightly cruel indifference. I didn’t know about
Crane’s bio at the time, but the image that came to mind is consistent with
such a hard life.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What Crane’s “man said” and how Crane’s universe
replied is also consistent with a view of the world which puts man somehow
outside of – or a passive object of – the universe, as opposed to part of or
co-existent with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would propose a
different conversation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Last Sunday morning it was just beginning to rain,
that soft drizzle that feels like a cool sauna, or like Scotland in Springtime.
I had some planting to do, nonetheless. (“You’re not made of sugar,” said my
heartier self to my fear of melting in the rain.) Sam had brought carrot
seedlings home from kindergarten in a plastic baggie, and they were growing at
a scary rate in their cramped mock-greenhouse environment. They needed to get
into the ground. There also was a packet of sunflower seeds that I had been
wanting to plant, so I figured while I was getting dirty, I might as well do
both.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So, out to the garage I trudged to gather trowel in
one hand, carrying seeds and seedlings in the other. Down to the garden, then
down on my knees, where I dug in soft, cold dirt. I pulled weeds, I made holes,
I scattered seeds, I spread dirt back over seeds. My fingers were numb and my
feet had that buzzy feeling of falling asleep as the blood was cut off from
kneeling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I was content. It was so quiet, it seemed I could
hear the worms moving under the ground. The only steady and evident sounds were
the dull thud of heavy stones being dropped into wheelbarrow by my father-in-law
somewhere across the yard, my scraping at loose dirt, and the distant highway.
The weedy earthy aroma was intoxicating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For a brief moment, I felt completely alive and as if that moment <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> all the world and all time.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In that moment, I felt my soul exclaim, “I exist.”
But quietly. No exclamation point. More like a prayer. I felt my place within
and beside the universe, and I required no response. In fact, a response of
obligation (or lack thereof) from the universe would not have been welcome in
that moment. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You see, I and the rest of the universe… we are
among the created, together. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If anyone
has an obligation to respond, it is me.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reference<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Oxford Book of Short Poems, </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Chosen and
Edited by P.J. Kavanagh and James Michie (Oxford University Press, 1987)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-43600120772780658262012-04-22T12:44:00.001-07:002012-04-22T12:44:38.240-07:00On Cat Naps and the Poverty of More<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BPmAwkW59PBU06h0ZZtg0Ucz0wZfvEZhu-Go9Z7w2w_sIExmsH16Pl-dXi2mdruZt-5bkCZDjnZFIrwz7EirL25UGgWfwzKIkwBTUfLUA2hyphenhyphenYqMeDMKV1P0f1PfnIUt_WIRyWow6XLs/s1600/DSC07140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BPmAwkW59PBU06h0ZZtg0Ucz0wZfvEZhu-Go9Z7w2w_sIExmsH16Pl-dXi2mdruZt-5bkCZDjnZFIrwz7EirL25UGgWfwzKIkwBTUfLUA2hyphenhyphenYqMeDMKV1P0f1PfnIUt_WIRyWow6XLs/s320/DSC07140.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Peace maketh plenty;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Plenty maketh pride;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Pride maketh plea;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Plea maketh povert;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Povert maketh peace.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">~
Anonymous (circa 15<sup>th</sup> century)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As
I write, two tortoise shell cats curl on the bed by my knees. They have no
sense of want. They sleep, they eat, they have occasional cat frenzies at
midnight. Life is simple for them. Some days I wish to be one of their kind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
cyclical and seasonal nature of life is always with us. Cats seem to grasp this
intuitively. The words of this anonymous Brit testify to it, and I have to
agree. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, while peace can provide
a place for plenty, I confess that I do not always take advantage of it. In
fact, I tend to rapid cycle on to pride, which leads to a feeling that I
deserve more (the “plea” part), which drives me into a deeper more grinding
poverty of the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
stop to consider now the number of times I have felt that I have earned all
that I have. On the surface, I certainly have earned it. I have studied hard
and worked hard and made the necessary sacrifices to attain a certain measure
of achievement and comfort for myself and my family. But all that I have earned
has been made possible by the efforts of those who have gone before, and by the
collaborative efforts of those working in concert with me, and first and
foremost by the grace and gifts of a giving God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That
is what I believe in my core.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet how
easily I forget and move to pride and then plea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as I am in a position of “Give me
more” I am poor. It is as simple as that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
I get to the last line from Anonymous and stumble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea that poverty in itself provides the
conditions for peace to me seems highly naïve, uninformed, and even patronizing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe in those old days before running water
and central heating and democratic capitalism, sure, I could see how one might
need to get philosophical about such things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But do you seriously expect me to buy into the notion that not being
able to feed your family will give you inner peace?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sudden
slap on the back of my head – that was my better, smarter self saying, “You
know better.” This poem is not talking of material poverty, not really, not
just that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So
how is it that “povert maketh peace?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m still working on that. I admit peace can be elusive as I worry about
paying the bills or making deadlines or ensuring a perfect life for my perfect
child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think maybe the poverty that
leads to peace is the sort that has poured itself out and is no longer striving.
It is a spiritual state of having nothing left to lose. It is the emptiness
that says, “I am poor in spirit and deserve nothing” rather than “I have earned
it by rights, give me more.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It
may be the secret of being content in plenty or in want that the Apostle Paul wrote
of to the Philippians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I could write
a letter back to Paul, I’d ask him to tell me more about that secret. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Or
maybe I’ll just have a chat with my cats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reference<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Oxford Book of Short Poems, </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Chosen and
Edited by P.J. Kavanagh and James Michie (Oxford University Press, 1987)<o:p></o:p></span></div>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-40358591803404114432012-04-16T04:51:00.002-07:002012-04-16T04:51:16.808-07:00Some Time Still<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Once again my thanks goes out to C.S. Lewis scholar and teacher, Andrew
Lazo, for his musings on the poetry of Emily Dickinson. For
more insights from Andrew, visit his website here: <a href="http://www.andrewlazo.com/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.andrewlazo.com</span></a>. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhil_CwDWjQkjffdpfWVIKIIfuaIHSYjQ5pPCEahEDsYmicTymMXsNU18M13teQ6C2lMH5Q0hUq-lzGycap30kvUAKbtEnGxX63fnZjrH6UPmj2or4o6Fq7Kgb4xXe5MYvXqnROHJmQmQ/s1600/AndrewL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhil_CwDWjQkjffdpfWVIKIIfuaIHSYjQ5pPCEahEDsYmicTymMXsNU18M13teQ6C2lMH5Q0hUq-lzGycap30kvUAKbtEnGxX63fnZjrH6UPmj2or4o6Fq7Kgb4xXe5MYvXqnROHJmQmQ/s320/AndrewL.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image of Andrew<br />
by <a href="http://www.lanciaesmith.com/" target="_blank">Lancia E. Smith</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Some Time Still<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Emily Dickinson says:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><em>The soul selects her own society,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
Then shuts the door;<br />
On her divine majority<br />
Obtrude no more.<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<em>
</em><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><em>Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing<br />
At her low gate;<br />
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling<br />
Upon her mat.<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<em>
</em><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><em>I’ve known her from an ample nation<br />
Choose one;<br />
Then close the valves of her attention<br />
Like stone.<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<em>
</em><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Let’s spend a few moments thinking about just those first
seventeen words (and by the way, </span><a href="http://www.yourdictionary.com/obtrude"><span style="color: blue;">“obtrude” means to thrust forwards,
to force oneself upon others unasked</span></a><span style="color: black;">): <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The soul selects her own society, / Then
shuts the door; / On her divine majority / Obtrude no more.</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;">Though it may prove the height of hypocrisy for a man like
me to say it, I suggest that we need to pull the plug, and on a much more
regular basis. I know I do. Smartphone, iPad, two screens at work, two screens
at home, laptop, radio, car radio, TV monitors everywhere—each grocery store
and restaurant and airport terminal or almost anywhere I go. Input. Noise.
Language and image and sound.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;">It’d be easy to dismissively wave it all off and long for
the olden days, to lament the news (or the rumor mill passing for it these
days), to sigh for a quieter time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;">I suggest, in spite of all this, a very mild form of
asceticism. Seek silence. On a regular basis. Or, if we cannot bring ourselves
to that, at least let us notice the small pockets of silence offered to us,
even in this busy world. Turn off the TV or the radio in the morning. Most of
us can do very little indeed about Syria or the upcoming elections. Everyone I
know feels whirled round by how much remains yet to do at the end of a too-long
day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;">Maybe we need, as Emily says, to shut the door, to allow
nothing to obtrude. I don’t really know what she means about “divine majority”
of the soul, but to me I always assume it means those minutes when I quiet
myself and acknowledge God here with me. And then nothing else matters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;">So let’s greedily seize silence, craft quietness, carve out
a few moments to hear nothing more than our own good selves breathing. Just for
tomorrow, don’t sing in the shower, don’t go for the on switch, or at least without
thinking. And perhaps let us practice a mindfulness of this little moment, just
for ten seconds to push back and draw breath and close up the shop of our eyes
and their eagerness, and softly, for a beat or two, dwell on our own “divine
majority.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black;">God may slip in like the wind or like water. He might fill
up the silence we craft when we try for this moment to shut up the eyes of our
heads, that we might for a minute pry open the ears of our hearts. Michael Card
once remarked that the silence of prayer is God straining to hear us; perhaps
we can strain toward Him too with nothing on our lips, nothing in our ears. To
me this means that I “select my own society,” that I choose the company of only
the Maker and myself. And shut the door on all else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;">In </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Heart-Spirituality-Fathers/dp/0060663308"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">The Way of the Heart</span></i></a><span style="color: black;">, his wonderful little book about the Desert Fathers, Fr.
Henri Nouwen reminds us that “silence is the mystery of the future world. It
keeps us pilgrims and prevents us from becoming entangled in the cares of this
age. It guards the fire of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It allows us to speak a word that
participates in the creative and recreative power of God’s own Word.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">He’s right, at least in my own poor experience.
Abba Arsenius redemptively, wryly challenges <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>us: “I have often repented of having spoken,
but never of having remained silent.” Ironically enough, instead of practicing
this great wisdom of the sealed lips and the sanctified inner fire, I have
blabbed these quotes to dozens of acquaintances over the years. But this day is
not yet done, and there remains unto us some time still to unplug, to
acknowledge, to invite God Himself to speak into a silence we may yet today
even help to create. </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=rW4GiB5dFu4C&pg=PA129&dq=apologist's+evening+prayer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=f3iLT4vZCsnO2wWDg7HrCQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=apologist's%20evening%20prayer&f=false"><span style="color: blue;">C.
S. Lewis steers us well here</span></a><span style="color: black;">, away from “the
coinage of [our] own unquiet thoughts.” Lewis implores the Spirit, who groans
too deeply for words: “From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee, / O
thou fair silence fall, and set me free.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">It’s Easter. Certainly sing out, and greet people
with the greatest of news, that Christ is risen indeed. But maybe this week we
might find in a moment the grace to push back, to unplug, to “shut the door.”
We mindfully might yet seize onto some unassigned minute and listen as deeply
as this jarring world will allow, to the silence. To the wind. To Emily’s “divine
majority,” here in this room, alone with the one Word that this whole world
hangs on. <o:p></o:p></span><br />We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058864376757958731.post-18732205899288107442012-04-01T18:08:00.001-07:002012-04-01T18:13:09.905-07:00Poetry Redeemed: JRR Tolkien’s “Mythopoeia”<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><em>It is my pleasure to welcome poet,
teacher, and friend Dr. Holly Ordway back to</em> All Nine <em>to once again share her insights
and musings, this time on the poetry of JRR Tolkien. Holly is an apologist
exploring the intersection of literature and faith, reason and imagination.</em></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><em> Follow Dr. Ordway's reflections on the
practice of living a holy life at her website at </em><a href="http://www.hieropraxis.com/"><span style="color: windowtext;"><em>http://www.hieropraxis.com/</em></span></a><em>
or on twitter @HollyOrdway.</em></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDypHaBPIxC2h-f2uT_kMkff5fPkeBzh375EXbhrYn8AzJvCgo5v6KaARpy7B8Ywcow1syC_yBJy3A1EpYxrb90L7NukephncO2oARiUaHtOXlIDfiXr0JxkvZ5Cyillgig469E58XQ_c/s1600/Holly+in+a+tree+on+Addison's+Walk,+Oxford+(Aug+2011).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDypHaBPIxC2h-f2uT_kMkff5fPkeBzh375EXbhrYn8AzJvCgo5v6KaARpy7B8Ywcow1syC_yBJy3A1EpYxrb90L7NukephncO2oARiUaHtOXlIDfiXr0JxkvZ5Cyillgig469E58XQ_c/s320/Holly+in+a+tree+on+Addison's+Walk,+Oxford+(Aug+2011).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Dr. Ordway up a tree on Addison's Walk, Oxford, UK, August 2011 </span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(image by Kevin Belmonte)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><strong>Poetry Redeemed:
JRR Tolkien’s “Mythopoeia”<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
The closing
stanza of JRR Tolkien’s poem “Mythopoeia:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">In
Paradise perchance the eye may stray<br />
from gazing upon everlasting Day<br />
to see the day illumined, and renew<br />
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.<br />
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see<br />
that all is as it is, and yet made free:<br />
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,<br />
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.<br />
Evil it will not see, for evil lies<br />
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,<br />
not in the source but in malicious choice,<br />
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.<br />
In Paradise they look no more awry;<br />
and though they make anew, they make no lie.<br />
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,<br />
and poets shall have flames upon their head,<br />
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:<br />
there each shall choose for ever from the All.<o:p></o:p></span></em></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">(the whole
poem can be read here: <a href="http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Sometimes I
write poetry when I suppose I ought to be doing other things: grading papers,
answering email, doing laundry, making dinner. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As I write
this, it is almost Easter; we are beginning Holy Week. The long penitential
season of Lent is hurrying toward the celebration of the Resurrection. Easter marks
what has happened and what is to come: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ
will come again.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When he does,
when all creation is made new and the Body of Christ is resurrected into eternal
life, will there be a place for poetry?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">JRR Tolkien’s
long poem “Mythopoeia” answers that question with a profound Yes. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Tolkien wrote
this poem to his friend CS Lewis, when Lewis was wrestling with the claims of
Christianity. At that point, Lewis believed in God, but he was having
difficulty with grasping the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross. He did not
yet see that in Christ, both Reason and Imagination are fulfilled; that, as
Lewis himself would later write, in the Incarnation and Resurrection “myth
became fact.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Tolkien was
wise enough to know that fairy tales, myths, and indeed poetry can speak truth
in ways that reasoned argument alone cannot. And so he wrote this poem to his
friend, urging him to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">apprehend</i> the
truth that the Imagination opened up to him.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">While
Tolkien’s words were intended first for the reader of imaginative literature, I
think these words are of great value to the makers of story and poetry as well.
</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><em>In
Paradise perchance the eye may stray<br />
from gazing upon everlasting Day<br />
to see the day illumined, and renew<br />
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">These words
remind me that truth and beauty have an ultimate Source. Even now, this side of
Paradise, as a poet I can try to mirror “the likeness of the True.” While this
may at first seem limiting, in truth it is not: since that Source of truth and
beauty is the Source also of all creation, I have in Christ an inexhaustible
wellspring for poetry. And a good thing too, since my own imaginative resources
would run dry immediately if I could only look to myself for inspiration. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><em>Salvation
changes not, nor yet destroys,<br />
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When I write,
sometimes the poem comes together, but other times it remains a jumble of lines
and fragments, the meaning slipping between my fingers and escaping. Tolkien
hints that perhaps the poems I try and fail to write are not for nothing after
all. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We are
temporal beings, and so each moment’s beauty slips into the past almost before
we realize it; but God is eternal. Could it be that all good things, all
beauty, all moments of joy are never lost? I think so. Whatever I make that has
any value (however flawed) will be redeemed. All those broken lines and
half-grasped images: perhaps I will be able, one day, to make them into the
poems they ought to be.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><em>Be
sure they still will make, not being dead,<br />
and poets shall have flames upon their head,<br />
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:<br />
there each shall choose for ever from the All.<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Best of all
in this poem, I love Tolkien’s calm confidence that we who make poetry do so
because we are, in our turn, made in the image of a Maker, the divine Artist
whose canvas (or blank page) is the cosmos. If we are made so, we will not
cease to make simply because we have been redeemed. And that being so, the
poets will be honored in heaven, with “flames upon their head” recalling the
flame of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; and each one of us will choose our words
and frame our lines, rejoicing. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Perhaps when
I set my busy-ness aside and waste time on a poem, I’m doing exactly what I
ought to be doing. <o:p></o:p></span>We're over here now...http://www.blogger.com/profile/10975200706187123785noreply@blogger.com1