Prayer and What's Related

I pray and pray and pray, and nothing ever happens. I pray for a second chance at getting to know you. Then I pray to meet someone like you. Someone who wants to think and change. Someone who loves books and art and music. Someone my size and cute. Someone who seems as perfect for me as you do. But then I think of how wretched I am and how wretched you probably are. I can't stand myself, and you probably can't stand yourself, so how could we stand each other? I think of how hopeless love is and am relieved. I am relieved that my prayers will go unanswered or at least unfulfilled. I don't want to be alone, but I don't want to hurt anyone. I suppose my only hope is the restorative love of Christ. But this love I've yet to see.

Oh, my God.

Catharsis

I look at what I've done and want to puke. This is getting stupid.

30 in 30: The End

Well, I think I have to end this series. Sad face, I know, but I'm just too far behind to catch up, especially given the amount of school work I have on my shoulders. Any writing I do should be for school, unfortunately. I'm not going to stop writing poems, of course, just for the time being. I'll try to squeeze some in here and there, but don't expect any consistency until I get some breathing room. I've learned from this endeavor, though, that I really enjoy poetry, regardless of how good I am at it. It's a very footloose vein of self-expression, despite its sometimes rigid format. I expect to be writing poetry on and off for, hopefully, the rest of my life, but expect more academic posts in the near future.

Whisnant on Moral Responsibility

Rebecca Whisnant, a radical feminist and professor at my school (University of Dayton), claims that one necessary aspect of any fully responsbile moral agent is self-value. In her essay "Woman Centered: A Feminist Ethic of Responsibility," she proposes her own theory of "self-centering" as a way of obtaining proper and actual self-value. She draws her theory partially from recent work by Harry Frankfurt, of which I'll provide an example:

This wholehearted identification means that there is no ambivalence in his attitude towards himself. There is no part of him - no part with which he identifies - that is opposed to or that resists his loving what he loves.

Moral Psychology: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory, p. 209

This particular picture of self-love, i.e., endorsing and identifying with what one loves, is viewed by Whisnant as "distinctive of how one must approach one's own loves in order to be properly self-valuing." (p. 209) Self-centering involves more than this brand of love, but no other aspect of her theory seems to me as controversial as this. Take, for instance, a man consumed and obsessed with pornography. He is ignorant of the relavent moral issues, so he feels no guilt or shame. In fact, he and his buddies all share in the same perverse enthusiasm. Assuming he is content with other aspects of his life, this man is, according to Frankfurt and Whisnant, self-loving, self-centered and a fully functioning morally responsible agent. Do you see the obvious problem here? Whisnant is full-heartedly opposed to pornography and has devoted much of her life to researching and uncovering the direct harms it causes. If she condemns this man, she contradicts her own theory, because he should be functioning as a morally responsible agent, but he is obviously not. This paradox applies not only to pornography but to other immoral habits as well, such as stealing, drug abuse, etc.

It seems to escape this dilemma we must either draw a line between love and immorality, finding a way to demonstrate their incompatibility, or declare those who profess love to any immoral acts as morally inhibited, diminished or incompetent in one way or another effectively disqualifying them as candidates of self-centeredness.

30 in 30: Day 13

Prompt: write a poem about a hobby.

Form: Rime Coueé

Beloved, comfort me this day,
Corrosive thoughts I must convey-
Piano, holy voice.

All my distress you will allay,
Such graceful, tonic notes you play-
Time and I, divorced.

30 in 30: Update

I know I'm still slacking. My classes are pretty intense at the moment, and they drain nearly all my energy most days. I will still write as often as I can and hopefully catch up to where I should be before day 30. Sorry!

30 in 30: Day 12

Prompt: (modified) describe a ritual.

Form: Elemental Ode

Rain! Today?
Why must you
Threaten
The resolute?
Soak the wills
Of us goodhearted
And lust for our despair?
Forced umbrellas
Resist your reign
Lest their hearts be drenched.
You feed the fields
But flood the streets,
A muddled pool
Of dampened spirits
In your wake.
Too ambitious,
You fill to overflow!
Don't you see?
We, composed of you,
Are destroyed by you!
Plop where you want;
The day is yours.

30 in 30: Day 11

Another stupid prompt. This site's program needs redeeming. Borrowing another from the same site as always.

Prompt: riff on the theme of origins.

Form: Fibonacci (They're short, so I wrote two.)

In
Vain,
Giant
Fingers point-
ed toward the Earth.
"At last," he said, "let there be life!"

---

Time,
Space-
To know
No other,
No one could achieve,
Bar each other, no one could be.

30 in 30: Day 10

Another stupid prompt... stealing one from here again.

Prompt: write a poem about a memory.

Form: Shadorma

Crippled girl
Alone by the wall,
Her soft face
In mourning.
Crippled not by broken bones,
But by my leaving.

30 in 30: Day 9

Prompt: use the word "secret" twice in your poem.

Form: Rondelet

My heart will break
Like theirs, such secret deaths they die
My heart will break
Innocent lives you need not take
Like glass concealed, a clever guise
The secret shatter, helpless cries
My heart will break

30 in 30: Day 8

Just so you know, day 8's prompt was stupid, so I borrowed a prompt from a different site.

Prompt: write a poem about something that's missing.

Form: Roundel

I wish, for once, for starry skies,
Hovering winds to carry us
Into warm air and cricket's cries,
A whisper from your lips.

Sing leaves to sleep, dark specs of dust,
Whilst awake, shield from them your eyes.
Come close to me, dear, if you must.

Night-flames, I beckon thee arise!
Release your voice in this bright gust
And seek to soothe the fireflies,
A whisper from your lips.

30 in 30: Day 7

Prompt: write a poem that involves an animal.

Form: Prose Poetry (warning: extreme alliteration)

Beefcake, be that befitting, is what you'll be, you bag of bones bound in blubber. You bait my heart and benumbing hands with your bulldogged begging. Your batty eyes bewilder me and beckon the laceration of my nails. Your body beats and jerks as I blemish your black and brown brush. You thump your bunion against the boards- relentless banging, you brash beast! Be still. The bumping in the basement will bother the boys. Alas, I bid farewell but bereave you not of your badgered bliss. Barge to his bedroom and beseech my brother; beguile that bairn, the master of the pugs.

30 in 30: Day 6

Prompt: use the same (or similar) words in both your first line and last line, but change the order or the meaning of the words from the first line to the last line.

Form: Free Verse

You look at me, I look away.
The table sprung for miles
As the head's gaping mouth
Took freedom from our necks
With paralyzing fire.
It bullied the bulletin
And ripped the racks,
Spilling markers to the matting.
It flipped our folders
And gripped our pens,
Filling empty space between blue lines.
Seven and a half decades of minutes
Crawled from face to face. They
Left their mark with bloodshot eyes,
Making for the door.
The auricularly mannered ingress
shut. It's shut for but two days.
I look at you, you look away.

30 in 30: Day 5

Prompt: pick three words that you absolutely love the sound of and set out to use them in your poem.

My words: beyond, salvation, colossus.

Form: Distich

My time is dying, a death unfair, moving
Beyond the scope of books and study.

Beyond the standing pen and paper,
The soaring colossus that is my room.

Beyond that colossus, that fetid death,
It dies to find salvation.

Salvation found beyond itself, hidden
In hearts unseen. Unseen by that colossus!

That hungering beast, with such false passion,
Seeks pretentious looks and grandeur.

To that I die, admit my loss, no more
Time to waste. I meekly seek my savior.

30 in 30: Day 4

Prompt: write the final line to your poem first, and then write the poem to get to that ending.

Form: Tanka

Beckon me once more,
Chilled air. How the light dances,
Swings between the trees!
Guided by a curling hand,
A willful wind tossing leaves.

30 in 30: Update

I know that I'm behind a few days, and for that, I'm sorry. My excuse is that I've been home for fall break and have been terribly preoccupied with old friends and a paper on Kant due Monday. Tomorrow, though, I'm going to make it top priority to catch up to where I'm supposed to be. Just giving you guys (however few you are) an update and apology.

Special thanks to Angie for holding me to my word!

30 in 30: Day 3

Prompt: write a poem that begins with a proclamation.

Form: Kyrielle

I will not let my body rot!
To waste I know that I will not.
Like if to then I have forgot,
Day's sweat and blood my body needs.

Such simple food I should intake,
Yet I never fail to mistake
Nutrients of green beans with cake.
And so for this my body pleads.

A day spent out below the sun,
An afternoon spent on a run.
Why do I fail to see this fun?
Such a healthy bodily deed.

I hate the type of man I am,
One who does not do what I can.
Instead of heeding healthy plans,
On trash and filth my body feeds.

30 in 30: Day 2

Prompt: write a poem that begins with you waking up.

Form: abababcc, no meter

Down my face, a sweat bead slips,
A moistened trail, a salty stain.
An ardent smile, brown hair to miss,
So surreal and full of pain.
A jolt of life as her hair flips,
Lucid à lonely once again.
Too many times, this splendid love
Is day's first blush, too quickly snubbed.

30 in 30: Day 1

Today I found this blog series called "30 Poems in 30 Days." The idea is obvious: to write 30 poems - one each day - in thirty days. The catch is that the author of the series announces a topic, prompt or guideline each day that you must follow. The series is annual, and it's already been concluded for this year, but I'm going to undertake it a month late, anyway. Call me out if I start to slack! I really want to do this.

Day 1's prompt is to "use the word Pattern in the first line and/or the last line of your poem."

Form: Free Verse

Patterns of a private campus,
Like muck, grimy and malodorous.
An infectious disease with the greatest of ease
Spreads the plague of uniform thinking.

In vain I left my coat at home,
My aegis from the sludge.
My boots, as well, sit in my room;
My body is a sponge.

Every day I tread the waters,
A straw in my mouth just in case.
I absorb the foreign manners of life
Unwillingly, but am sure to throw them up.

Be transformed! Renew your mind!
I hate what I see,
Such thoughtless thought.
Do not conform to the patterns of this world.

You are the music while the music lasts.

One of the most elegant, profound passages I have ever read:

But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint-
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses ; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
Of that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement-
Driven by dæmonic, chthonic
Powers. And right action is freedom
From past and future also.
For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised ;
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying ;
We, content at the last
If our temporal reversion nourish
(Not too far from the yew-tree)
The life of significant soil.

Four Quartets, pp. 44-45

Untitled Poem 2

A ghost to me
Thou shalt be
One walking through the walls
I squint to see
The back of thee
Fading down the hall

The ground is mine
The Earth is thine
A house thou'rt surest free to haunt
Pass through my blinds
Into my mind
Do with me what thou want

Without a trace
Yet full of grace
Thou hate to see my loss
To see thy face
Thou took my place
Upon that sturdy cross

And so for thee
I'll try to be
A lantern for the lost
But first if ye
Would so kindly
Allow me to accost

I'd have no fear
If thou were near

Untitled Prose 1

That point of intimacy, treading on the core of privy interests... That look of indubitable love, harboring an inescapable dream that brings so much despair, affirming only the thought that you'll be alone forever. But you are resilient.

Untitled Poem 1

Leave me, shadow
Stay and die
Clouded veil
Why here you lie

Flee not, heart
I doubt you fly
I doubt
I die

Friedman on Caring

John Doris summarizes Marilyn Friedman's opinion of a certain "care ethic" delegated between men and women as such:

While men's caring, as revealed in earning a paycheck and providing material goods for the family, has to do with protection and material forms of help that men control, women's caring, as revealed in emotional work, has to do with admitting dependency and sharing or losing control, which contributes to their own oppression (Friedman 1993, 175 and 177).

Feminist Moral Psychology, p. 5

At the very least from a Christian perspective, this is outrageous. Ask the next stay at home mom you talk to if she thinks she's oppressing herself by raising her children. Then, after she most likely affirms you of her love for her kids and family and her desire to be there for them, ask her husband if he loves his family. Then, after he tells you the same thing, only that he must subject himself to long days of work in order to provide the basic, necessary materials of life for them, go tell Marilyn Friedman that she is a paranoid, sociopathic propagandist who must be experiencing a reality distorted from the cross so far as to exclude love from the underlying motive of human relations.

Perhaps I am asserting an overly optimistic image of the modern day family, but I assure you that I am aware of the alarming amounts of brokenness that exist today. I am rather, just as Friedman seems to be doing, targeting the "healthy" or "normal" homes of the world. Regardless, the fact remains that this excerpt and the context from which it was taken are not only very far-fetched but also quite dangerous and threaten to tear families apart with, ironically enough if you read the article in its entirety, what could be seen as "deformed desires" of neglecting their families' needs to "reclaim their autonomy" in the minds of household mothers everywhere.

Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
by John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Eagleton on Nietzsche

This is why we would fail as God:

There is a sense in which replacing a transcendent God with an omnipotent humanity alters surprisingly little, as Nietzsche scornfully pointed out. There is still a stable metaphysical center to the world; it is just that it is now us, rather than a deity. And since we are sovereign, bound by no constraints which we do not legislate for ourselves, we can exercise our newfound divinity by indulging among other things in that form of ecstatically creative jouissance known as destruction. In Nietzsche's view, the death of God must also spell the death of Man - that is to say, the end of a certain lordly, overweening humanism - if absolute power is not simply to be transplanted from the one to the other. Otherwise humanism will always be secretly theological. It will be a continuation of God by other means. God will simply live a shadowy afterlife in the form of respectable suburban morality, as indeed he does today. The infinity of Man would simply end up doing service for the eternity of God. In Faustian spirit, Man would fall in love with his own apparently boundless powers, forgetful that God in the doctrine of the Incarnation is shown to be in love with the fleshly, frail, and finite. Besotted by his own infinity, Man would find himself in perpetual danger of developing too fast, overreaching himself and bringing himself to nothing, as in the myth of the Fall.

Reason, Faith, and Revolution, pp. 15-16

the King Beetle on a Coconut Estate

The boys of mewithoutYou have outdone their selves (the case with most of their songs, really) with "the King Beetle on a Coconut Estate." While the lyrics are taken almost directly from a tale told by the Sufi poet Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Aaron still makes them his own, and the accompanying melodies amp the allegory's... ahem, "epic-ness" nearly tenfold. The alternating background instruments, though subtle, suit each character of the story they follow so perfectly. If you don't have goosebumps by the end of the song, you will. The finale is flawless.

Take some time to listen to the song, read the lyrics and reflect upon it. Please, it's so worth it. Then, if you so choose, my thoughts, interpretation and research will be at the bottom of this post.

Here is the song:

http://www.last.fm/music/mewithoutYou/_/The+King+Beetle+on+a+Coconut+Estate

And here are the lyrics:

As the Moon rose and the hour grew late, the day help on a Coconut estate raked up the dry leaves that fell dead from the Trees, which they burned in a pile by the lake. The Beetle King summoned his men, and from the top of the Rhododendron stem: Calling all volunteers who can carry back here, the Great Mystery’s been lit once again. One Beetle emerged from the crowd in a fashionable abdomen shroud, said: I’m a Professor, you see, that’s no mystery to me... I’ll be back soon, successful and proud. But when the Beetle Professor returned he crawled on all six, as his wings had been burned, and described to the finest detail all he’d learned. There was neither a light nor a heat in his words. The deeply dissatisfied King climbed the same stem to announce the same thing, but in his second appeal sought to sweeten the deal with a silver Padparadscha ring. The Lieutenant stepped out from the line as he lassoed his thorax with twine, thinking: I’m stronger and braver and I’ll earn the King’s favor. One day all he has will be mine! But for all the Lieutenant’s conceit he, too, returned singed and admitting defeat: I had no choice, please believe, but retreat... it was bright as the sun, but with ten times the heat! And it cracked like the thunder and bloodshot my eyes, though smothered with sticks it advanced undeterred. Carelessly cast an ash cloud to the sky, my Lord, like a flock of dark, vanishing birds.

The Beetle King slammed down his fist: Your flowery description’s no better than his! We sent for the Great Light and you bring us this? We didn’t ask what it seems like, we asked what it IS! His Majesty’s hour at last has drawn nigh! The elegant Queen took her leave from his side, without understanding but without asking why, gathered their Kids to come bid their goodbyes. And the father explained: You’ve been somewhat deceived... We’ve all called me your dad, but your True Dad’s not me. I lay next to your mom and your forms were conceived, your Father is the Life within all that you see. He fills up the ponds as He empties the clouds, holds without hands and He speaks without sounds, provides us with the Cow’s waste and coconuts to eat, giving one that nice salt-taste and the other a sweet. Sends the black carriage the day Death shows its face, thinning our numbers with Kindness and Grace. And just as a Flower and its Fragrance are one so must each of you and your Father become. Now distribute my scepter, my crown and my throne and all we’ve known as ‘wealth’ to the poor and alone... Without further hesitation, without looking back home, the King flew headlong into the blazing unknown! And as the Smoke King curled higher and higher, the troops, flying loops ’round the telephone wires, they said: Our Beloved’s not dead, but His Highness instead has been utterly changed into Fire!!!

Why not be utterly changed into Fire?

As mentioned before, the lyrics are Aaron's rehash of an excerpt from "The Divine Luminous Wisdom That Dispels the Darkness" by Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi poet. The story itself is about seeking truth and what that entails. When the King Beetle's subjects fail to retrieve or reveal to him what the "light" is, he is forced to pursue it himself. He realizes that it's an all-or-nothing decision and even gives up his possessions to the needy before flying head on into the unknown.

An examination of the last line, "Why not be utterly changed into fire?" helps to dispel the song's ambiguity. This line is a quote from "The Sayings of the Desert Fathers."

Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: ‘Father, to the limit of my ability, I keep my little rule, my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and to the limit of my ability, I work to cleanse my heart of thoughts, what more should I do?’ The elder rose up in reply, and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: ‘Why not be utterly changed into fire?’

The Desert Fathers and Mothers were among the very first Christian monastics to abandon their homes and possessions to seek God in the solitude of deserts and wastelands. As you can see above, Abbot Lot, in the pursuit of holiness, inquires Abbot Joseph about what more he can do. Abbot Joseph, rather mystically, replies, "Why not be utterly changed into fire?" This sentence represents the inevitable, utter loss of oneself in search of the Great Mystery that is God.

Just as the King Beetle was forced to give up his family, his kingdom, his riches, his entire being for the sake of knowing the truth, we face the same fate in knowing Christ. Jesus tells us to disperse our wealth and become our neighbors' servants. When slapped on the cheek, reveal the other. When credit is due, deny it. We are to love one another, and the definition of love alone is enough to wear oneself out (please refer here).

This song is no aesthetic gem. This is serious, heavy stuff. I could make parallels all day, but this will be my final note. If we want to know the truth, there is a long, abusive road ahead of us. Constant rejection of our bodies' desires, endless, toilsome work at the feet of others and a whole slew of counter-intuitive, irrational Christian ethics are at hand for any Christ follower. Jesus is a stubborn refusal of the world and an utter denial of oneself. It's impossible to answer his call and not lose sight of anything you want to do, see or become in this world, and that is what it means to "be utterly changed into fire" - to virtually vanish altogether. Yet, this is the cost of truth.

But, if it's really worth it, then why not be utterly changed into fire?

Ya subhannallah!

I once saw an interview on YouTube with Aaron Weiss (I'd find and share it with you if my computer had working sound..) in which he diverted any praise or glory cast upon him to God. The media present seemed at least slightly confused, so Aaron explained that any "good" he did (I quoted good because Aaron would surely question the word) came from God and was not his own. He intended it to be very clear that he was a simple instrument of God and deserved no credit for any of his laudable work.

"And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.'"

Mark 10:18 E.S.V.

I must admit that I am many times guilty of this borderline idolatry (quite often, ironically enough, with Aaron himself!). If even Jesus denies being capable of good, it's dreadfully obvious that God is at work within the world, and we ought to give credit where credit is due.

it's all crazy! it's all false! it's all a dream! it's alright

As I sit and cringe in unbearable anticipation of mewithoutYou's fourth full-length album (see title) set to release on May 19th (Tuesday!), I figure it'd be at least entertaining, if not serving some unseen purpose worth even a penny more, to compose a list of my absolute favorite mwY quotes.

But first, a brief word.

Aaron Weiss, the lead singer and songsmith for mwY, is, in my opinion, the single most profound, insightful and aesthetic lyricist/poet of the last decade or so. His use of antique, humble imagery has often served as a gateway to some of the most personal epiphanies and abstruse revelations I've ever experienced. Not only has his inspired mind led to many spells of seclusion from the rest of the world just to dwell on perhaps a single line or verse, but it has all been relevent! I can relate so well with the angsty, existential struggles in "[A-->B] Life (2002)," the soteriological realizations and diminishing self-loathings in "Catch for Us the Foxes (2004)," and the paradigmatic shift from a sorrowful belief in Jesus Christ to a joyful one in "Brother, Sister (2006)." Sometimes I fear this man's words resonate within me more impactfully than Christ's do. Aaron Weiss is an honest Christ-seeker in a day quite inconducive to taking the gospel seriously. So, without further ado, I present my list of significant A. Weiss quotes with hopes that we will learn from him what he has learned from God.

"You were a song that I couldn't sing,
You were a story I couldn't tell.
I've only ever loved myself,
But I've loved myself so well.
And how defeated I return!
(you're nice and blue, you're nice and blue)
I missed what I was supposed to learn,
As all I learned about was missing you."

Nice and Blue - [A-->B] Life

"When she stands before your throne,
Dressed in beauty not her own,
All soft and small, you'll hear her call,
'You brought me here, now take me home.'"

Silencer - [A-->B] Life

"We'll be like torches... with whatever respect our tattered dignity demands,
Torches together, hand in hand."

Torches Together - Catch for Us the Foxes

"My forehead no longer sweet with holy kisses worthy of your fiery lips,
I was floating in a peaceful sea 'rescued' by a sinking ship.
If I could become the servant of all... no lower place to fall."

January 1979 - Catch for Us the Foxes

"You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect love,
And I'm the living example of 100% the opposite of this."

Tie Me Up! Untie Me! - Catch for Us the Foxes

"God is love, and love is real,
But the dead are dancing with the dead.
And whatever's charming disappears,
While all things lovely only hurt my head."

The Soviet - Catch for Us the Foxes

"I said 'water' expecting the word would satisfy my thirst,
Talking all about the second and third,
When I haven't understood the first."

My Exit, Unfair - Catch for Us the Foxes

"Rehearsed indifference tossed aside,
Our narrow arms spread wide,
What unseen pen etched eternal things on the hearts of human kind,
But never let them in our minds?"

My Exit, Unfair - Catch for Us the Foxes

"Oh, but I'm so small, I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside of me?
Look at your eyes, they're small in size,
But they see enormous things."

Four Word Letter (Pt. Two) - Catch for Us the Foxes

"If there was no way into God,
I would never have laid in this grave of a body for so long."

Carousels - Catch for Us the Foxes

"Oh Christ, when you're ready to come back,
Then I think I'm ready for you to come back,
But if you want to stay wherever exactly it is you are,
That's okay, too.
It's really none of my business."

Carousels - Catch for Us the Foxes

"I do not exist, we faithfully insist,
While watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew.
If ever you come near, I'll hold up high a mirror,
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you."

Messes of Men - Brother, Sister

"A fish swims in the sea,
While the sea is in a certain sense contained within the fish.
Oh, what am I to think of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
Could not explain if all the forest trees were pens
And all the oceans ink?"

The Dryness and the Rain - Brother, Sister

"Wolf am I... no, 'shadow' I think is better,
'Cause I'm not something, more like the absence of something,
So shadow am I!"

Wolf Am I! (And Shadow) - Brother, Sister

"In the clarity of such grace,
You'll forget all about me."

Nice and Blue (Pt. Two) - Brother, Sister

"What good is each good thing we think we do?"

The Sun and the Moon - Brother, Sister

"If I was Samson I'd have found that harlot's blade
And cut my own hair short!
Then in a market dimly lit,
I come casually to pay,
You see my coins are counterfeit,
But you accept them anyway."

In a Market Dimly Lit - Brother, Sister

Now, for my absolute, all-time favorite, I am going to throw up the entire song, because it really is that good. Oh, and I really encourage you to go listen to mewithoutYou if you've never given them a chance (start with "Catch for Us the Foxes"). Nearly each and every song is a masterpiece by itself. I have been heavily, heavily influenced by the wonders of this band (i.e., God!).

"And not one motion or gesture could I forget,
The prettiest bag lady I ever met...
Pushing her cart in the rain, then gathering plastic and glass,
She watched the day pass,
Not hour by hour... but pain by pain.
I was a basket filled with holes, and she was the sand I tried to hold
That ran out behind me as I swung with some invisible hand.

I stopped believing, you start to move,
(and she was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine)
I stopped my leaving, and the better man bloomed.
(and you can pour us out and we won't mind)

I was dead then alive,
She was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine.
You can pour us out, we won't mind,
A scratch around the mouth of the glass, "My life is no longer mine."

And if you're still looking for a blanket, sweetie,
I'm sorry, I'm no sort of fabric.
But if you need a tailor... then take your torn shirt, stumble up my stairs
And mumble your pitiful prayers, and in your tangled, knotted sleep,
Our midnight needles go to work until all comfort and fear flows in one river
Down in the shop by the mirror where you see yourself whole... and it makes you shiver.

I stopped believing, you start to move,
(and she was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine)
I stopped my leaving, and the better man bloomed.
(and you can pour us out and we won't mind)

I was dead then alive,
She was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine.
You can pour us out, we won't mind,
A scratch around the mouth of the glass, "Our lives our not our own."

Even the wind lay still,
Our essence was fire and cold... and movement, movement!
Oh, if they ask you for the sign of the father in you,
Tell them it's movement, movement, movement and... repose."

Paper-Hanger - Catch for Us the Foxes
(The best song of all time.)

A Restrictive World

There are some people I've met or know of whom I'd love to get to know. I think we have a lot in common and could become great friends. But, whether it's social status, age, location or whatever, there are certain factors that prevent it from happening. Sometimes life is stupid, and these instances are great examples. What's worse is when you can tell that the other person is interested in you, too. It's so frustrating!

My question is, then, is there nothing we can do? Can I visit one of my professors at his office just to talk, or is that too socially inappropriate? Does it even matter if we'd both enjoy each other's company? Can I say hi to someone on the other side of the country without seeming like a total creep? I feel like there are so many potential relationships and friendships out there that are suppressed by social stigmas and calumnies. It's very perturbing, and if anyone reading this feels that way about me, that they want to say hello but can't because of some bogus reason, please do. I will not think you're a creep or stalker or weirdo or anything other than a normal human being. In fact, the odds are that I've probably wanted to talk to you, too.

Coming to Terms

I've accepted my vain attempts at being intellectual as futile and inadequate. I am wholly dissatisfied with anything I write about; I am not smart enough to compete. Instead, I am going to speak from the heart and try not to care.

The Elitism of Absolutism

Some growing issues I must address:

1) Just recently, whenever I find myself engaged in an intellectual conversation, whether it fall under either of the voluminous categories of philosophy or theology, and unless I know the person is either on or above my level, I can't help but assume a pretentious, regnant position. I take on this elitist attitude and talk down to whoever's with me. This happens often in Bible studies when I interpret the given scripture radically different than anyone else. I see myself as really getting to the core of the passage, while everyone else just gets the gist of it or, sometimes, even misinterprets it. Sometimes I don't realize it's happening until it's too late, other times, when I catch myself, it prevents me from saying a word. I don't want to argue if it's just going to feed my ego or possibly patronize someone, but I do want to share my thoughts with people and receive feedback. It's creating a sort of Catch-22 that needs to stop.

2) Closely related to the first issue, I am struggling with the futility of non-Christian thought, specifically concerning morality and ethics. Is there any worth to it? How am I going to treat my array of non-Christian friends this summer? I fear the same elitist, absolutist condition will haunt me in the inevitable ideological culture clashes between myself and my old friends. I don't want to appear a close-minded, bombastic highbrow to them. I want to embrace my old community with love, concern and appreciation. I am hoping, God willing, to be a light unto them, but I fear this will not happen if I can't get rid of my intellectual pretensions.

I need a remedy for this. I don't know how to prevent myself from feeling like such an intellectual vigilante, but, like I said, it needs to stop.

The Distance

A brilliant blue made room for Roquentin's Nausea in the dimly lit pub, cool sand shifting about my feet. An eerie ocean wind pitched a perfect withdrawal into his world, but the foreigners held me back. A French party of no less than eight had settled merely a yard or two above my head, the elderly and infants residing near the towels while two older children and their parents did their best to emulate a game of American football on the capacious shoal beneath me.

I couldn't focus. My eyes were transfixed on the off-white pages, but the rest of my head was stuck to the beach, tied down by immaculate French and severed English.

--

I can't write anymore. What I want to describe has struck without notice. The only way to overcome it is to embrace it - entwine it with my words - watch my fingers exhaust themselves. My vision keeps going blurry. I can control it, but I don't.

...that's it! Embrace it! In the words of Roquentin himself, "What is there to fear in such a regular world? I think I am cured."

--

I gave up. There was no hope in breaching the reality mes amis had delivered. I lowered my book and arched my neck forward to loll and mind the game. That's when it returned. I was no stranger to it, I knew it well, in fact, but it had never felt so real, so palpable, so intrinsic to the human mode of perception. I suddenly had no presence, no substance; I was a simple vantage point. It seems existence really does precede essence.

What was I seeing? It felt like The Sims - a quirky, four person family vacationing at the beach. I managed to follow the dialogue only by recognizing certain words and phrases I had experienced in their appropriate contexts countless times before (this was the French!). The Sims cast and caught the ball so gawkily, just as they always do. A touchdown was followed by a victory dance so outrageous; if I wasn't sure it was a video game, I never would have believed it. The pixels were perturbing - I couldn't see them, but I knew they were there! I was an inherent panorama of a seamless dreamworld. I had no control, no power, no authority. I was there to watch.

This "distance" haunts me almost daily. I can't elude it. Though routinely ephemeral, it takes its toll. It usually comes when I'm alone, devoid of anything amiable, any camaraderie. It's not as if I'm going mad, but fading away, dispersing through the rifts of physical space. I can't feel during the spell, and that's what hurts the most - I don't know if it's good or bad.

Wealth & Luxury: A Latent Virtue

I sat secure and comfortable in a well cushioned arena chair at the Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis, scrutinizing the functionality of my friend's new iPhone between the sets of Israel Houghton and Chris Tomlin, two artists I'm not particularly fond of, but I was there for God, not myself. I loaded the PhotoSwap application and held the phone up to take a picture of the thousands of people filling the stade in return for, most likely, the lonely bed sheets of a spoiled, angst ridden American teen (quite like myself, although I'm nearly 21). Whilst reviewing the picture after it processed, I noticed something that kept me from hitting "swap." The sea of silhouettes contained across the court and into the opposing stands were blurred and distorted by cell phone lights and camera flashes of their own. In all likelihood, I could've swapped my photo for one nearly identical and then, without noticing the subtle differences, enticed those around me by preaching, "I swapped photos with myself!"

But what's the point of this ostensibly feckless literature? The point is that everyone present had phones, cameras, watches, iPods - you name it. I was immersed in the pinnacle of upper-middle class American consumerism. "These are the people who have what T.V. wants us to have," I thought. We were there to worship God! "Any spoken word of praise or thanksgiving is vain. God isn't the one we really love. He isn't the one we're really thankful for. It's this phone, or that mp3 player, or the instruments and equipment on stage!" That's all I could think about.

I realized the stupendous amounts of money spent on superficial needs and requisites by the American social stratum that I shamefully admit to. Such hypocrisy, such guilt (a reoccurring theme these days). How do I deal with this? Can I deal with this? 2 Corinthians 8:14 says, "At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality..." Equality is a Christian theme and an ideological construct impossible of existing solely within the empirical realm. Though we might not see every man as equal, much less even be capable of such a task, God does, and his vision for us is clearly a community of reliability and interdependence. If we have more than we need, i.e., excess, we should give it to those who need it. Timothy J. Keller gives a terribly convicting sermon on 2 Corinthians 8 & 9, dealing with generosity, hope and money, and his articulations are much more insightful than mine are, so I will simply paraphrase and summarize his wonderful, Biblical account of "Christian Hope & Money."

Keller addresses the "excess" that I have distinguished and agrees that it should be distributed where it's needed (otherwise it rots within us), but he also points out that Paul is not telling us (or the Corinthians) to do just that. Paul's message is that such acts of generosity should be done willingly. 2 Corinthians 8:12 says, "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have." It doesn't matter how much you give; what matters is that you want to give it. The reason for this, Keller explains, is that our society, nay, humanity, is divorced by class distinctions, wealth and poverty. This is not what God intended. We are all equal in his eyes, and we should want to "reweave" the threads of our lives with the threads of others to become whole and fully realized in the Kingdom of God (shalom). This is the basic message of 2 Corinthians 8 & 9, though Keller goes into greater detail, covering problems like the realization of greed and excess and actualizing the power to overcome the material world. I highly recommend listening to the full sermon called, once again, "Christian Hope & Money." I would be delighted to share it with you.

What, then, are my conclusions? It is true that I am disgusted with the excess of material filth and toxins that we live with, but I cannot be bitter about it nor hold it against my neighbor. As Keller points out, most people are unaware of the vice money has over us and the alienation and suffering it causes our fellow man. This is because people aren't regularly immersed in social classes separate from their own, and therefore, since the only communities they're involved with are spending all their money on themselves, it's a justified, guiltless and, most sickening of all, normal and expected act. It's a shame that humanity has become so divided to the point where we're blinded to our own greed. The only thing it seems I can do is change my own monetary habits and try to become the concerned, anxious, generous giver that Paul describes and hope that others will learn from my example, provided that God let my example really be an example at all.

But I see something else. I see deep, underlying human potential - a latent virtue, if you will. I see money being donated, iPods being given away, that third T.V. in your house being given to someone without even a cell phone. I see potential for a sweeping movement of grace, God providing, that could change the hearts of not only young, aspiring romantics like myself, but of any person who believes in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I see a capacity of unity and responsibility in the body of Christ that embraces the frightful words of John the Baptist in John 3:30, "He must become greater; I must become less." So, come! For the glory and wholeness of God and his people, for the holy equality of all mankind, let us say, "No!" to the American consumerist mentality. Let us see the deceit and harm in T.V. commercials telling us how much greater our lives will be with the newest phone model, video game or clothing accessory. We don't need it, and we don't want it. Instead, let us use our money to support our brothers & sisters in Christ who struggle to stay warm during the winter, provide food for their families and even those who struggle to maintain any shred of hope in the goodness of God. Let's show them that goodness willingly, for they are every bit deserving of our wealth as we are.

Our money, friends, is a gift from God that we need not hoard for ourselves.

Guilt: An Introduction

If only I hadn't ordered that side of "apples & grapes," I would have been able to cover a homeless man's bus fare. And if only I wasn't vegan, I would have ordered a large enough meal to pay with a credit card and maintain the three dollars I spent on fruit to offer to that homeless man. However, the latter would have compromised my moral convictions towards animal cruelty, but would it have been worth it? Is a cow's life worth sparing for a poor man's bus ride? These questions can remain unanswered, for there is but one sure way out of this mess: selflessness. I should not have eaten anything. It seems Gandhi was right, whether concerning bovine or vagabond, when he said, "live simply so others can simply live."

I cannot, though, let this peculiar sense of guilt prevent me from functioning in ways necessary to survive and, God willing, flourish, but I can ask myself, "do I really need this?" the next time I consider dropping a buck or two.