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!