Some Poetry

I was reading through some older posts and I noticed that I mentioned the fact that I took Poetry Writing this semester. THEN I thought, well what do you know, I did write some poetry this semester, and maybe someone out there would appreciate some of it. So, without further ado, two of my fledglingest (what??) poems from a callow poet.

______________________

“__________”

my bones rebel against this song.
surely it would have been better
to be born still. did You deem it worth
your while to whimsy us into existence
and let the record play?
i try to dance around the
dis-concert that is everywhere,
limbs strewn askew, splayed naked as they came.
it seems this massacre is
Your twisted pleasure.
the appeal must be in the struggle, the floundering—
who doesn’t enjoy a good match?
we were equally happy in eternity or
oblivion until we came to know what those were,
the smell of a lover, or the color of blood.
i was robbed the choice of choosing.
so.
i set my face to path before me and
avert my eyes from the bodies
lying along the way.

______________________

(try reading this next one out loud)

"Wor[l]ds"

A word gnaws in my mind, I find;
Soon it shapes itself to be into being
A thing, an entity, a form, a fluid,
A trickling dabble little brook.

This word, it has color that pops
Little explosions, bright lights in the night
Fluorescently effervescent like
Gaudy flaunt dazzle jazz.

Now my word begins to bud; with flavor, a cuisine,
Its tangy skin ruptures and bursts, splashing juice,
Tasting of rose buds or forest’s raw berries, or
Cappuccino chocolate cookie crumbs.

Fully alive, proportionate with weight and breadth,
Amassing magnitude and colossal clout and
Bellowing under the burden of being,
My worlds swirl luminous and immense.

______________________

Thanks for reading :)

Oops.

Many apologies to you all out there, hanging on the edge of your seats in anticipation of a new blog entry from me. I think the delay can be due, in part, to my getting a Twitter account. I kicked the bucket about two weeks ago, and it has been interesting reading about the personal life of John Mayer, for example. Actually the primary reason I got Twitter is because I found out that Josh Scogin (The Chariot's front man) has one. So I read his stuff. And sometimes he posts pictures of himself and the band doing things that aren't very normal but interesting nonetheless. So.

What am I up to these days? At this point, scrambling to get a bunch of things pulled together and accomplished at the last minute before I head off for Minnesota. What am I doing in Minnesota? Well, besides telling Minnesotan jokes, I will also be doing a week of training for my upcoming summer job with YouthWorks. I will be based in the south side (SOWTH SAAAAYYYYD. What Up), doing ministry and service projects there. So that should be pretty interesting.

And now I am going to go do writing that I actually have to do for class.

I am almost done with school for the year, and my grades are mostly intact, so I conclude that God does exist and he does answer prayer. Have a lovely summer, everyone.

A Long Overdue Scrap of Writing

I was in El Salvador for a week over spring break, and I wrote this thank you letter to my supporters about it. It is fairly long, and instead of writing another unique piece about the trip, I thought this would suffice to give some idea to you blog-type-people what my trip was like. Here it is.


*Disclaimer*: This is a very long letter

Dear Friends, April 2, 2009

First, I want to thank you so much for the prayer and financial support that you have so graciously given for me and the team as we went to El Salvador over spring break! It was a wonderful week of hard work, growing friendships, and showing God’s love to the people of El Salvador in any way that we could. We were prepared beforehand to be flexible and ready to deal with anything that we were asked to do, and I am glad to look back and see that the Lord was pleased to use us and our willingness to serve him.
There are so many things I could write about that happened on the trip, and I will try to write mostly about the important things, but I may include a few superfluities just to give a little color to it. Of course, for anyone who has ever been on a missions trip, there is always a sense that one can’t fully communicate the essence of the trip with mere words, but there is nothing that says one should not try. So, here goes!
The first thing that struck me about El Salvador was the thick, warm, nearly tropical atmosphere. Coming from Taylor University in the middle of ice-stricken Indiana, it was definitely a change for all of us (in this case, the word “change” is synonymous with “sweat”). We arrived at the airport in San Salvador late at night and met our missionary host, David Hawk, at whose house we would be based for the rest of the week. We piled all of our luggage into the back of a quaintly-sized bus (and this should hint to you at the seating space available to twenty-some-odd American college students) and ended up singing Christmas carols and camp songs during most of the 1 1/2 hour ride to Jucuapa, a smaller town in the south eastern part of the country. This was David’s first hint that we were, in fact, loud noisy Americans. It was straight to bed for us when we arrived, with the girls staying at the Hawk’s church just a block away from their house, and us Men staying at another house about a five minute’s walk away from the Hawks.
Waking on my first full day in El Salvador is worth mentioning, because it went the same as every other morning the rest of the week. At the Man house, four of us guys thought it would be cool to sleep outside so we took our mattresses and camped out on the back porch of the inner courtyard, an area that looks much like a miniature tropical jungle, complete with palm and mango trees. This is what happens: at about 6:00 a.m. the sun is starting to peek out from behind the trees in the yard, and the cacophony is only just beginning. If the equatorial sunlight at 6:00 a.m. does not wake you up, the sound of insects/animals/nature will. There are raucous parties of crickets and bugs that fills the air with their drinking songs (if insects could drink, that is what they would have sounded like). Sometimes a mango will fall from a tree and crash on the tin roof in the yard, sounding uncannily like a gunshot; this will definitely get you out of bed. If you are still determined to sleep any later than the aforementioned hour, there are the birds. These barbarians will chase each other around the yard, flapping their wings at the speed machine-gun fire; we found that this sound can be replicated by rolling your tongue as fast as you can. That is what the birds sound like.
All this to say that we got out of bed like clockwork every morning, no need for an alarm, no sir. Breakfast was then served at 7 at the Hawks house, and much coffee was usually consumed. Mrs. Hawk was a wonderful cook, and she was very gracious to cook for all twenty of us usually at least twice, if not three times, every day. So, the mornings were more or less the same thing, but each day was its own.
The days we spent either doing presentations for youth or working on a construction project, both of which happened at several schools in Jucuapa and the surrounding area. The first school that we went to was also the poorest in the entire community. They had a large area in the courtyard/outer area of the classrooms that was dust and dirt, which turns into a giant mud pit during the rainy season. We spent two days leveling the ground (with pickaxes and shovels. No fancy machinery here) and then laying a concrete slab over this area for the kids to play on and use to walk to class. We also did two presentations at this school, one for the morning students and then again for the afternoon students, and followed this pattern of doing two presentations in a day for each of the other two schools.
At the next school, we ended up tackling two different projects at the same time: half of us painted school classrooms and office which surrounded the inner courtyard area, and the other half took apart old moldy wooden desks and rebuilt them with fresh materials. One thing that will stick out to me a lot about this school was that when dinnertime came around, the work was mostly done except for some touchup that needed to be done on the walls, and which required only three or four people.
I found myself just standing around with nothing left to do, and I noticed a group of neighborhood guys also standing around watching us white people do manual labor. And then I realized that these guys probably play soccer (futbol), since that a requirement to being a male in El Salvador; so we started a pick up game and played until it got dark. I really connected with these local guys because I felt like I was back in Albania, where I grew up playing soccer in the dusty streets just like I was there in El Salvador. I know a little Spanish and was able to say a few things while playing, such as “Goal!”, “Yes!”, and “You have the soccer skills of a tortilla!”, and they always got a few laughs out of it. I realized that doing things like painting and laying concrete to serve these people is just as important as building relationships with them, and I hope that they were able to see the heart behind what we were doing.
I have forgotten to mention anything about our presentations up to this point. They essentially consisted of dramas, skits, puppet shows, and songs that we had ready to perform in front of a group. Some of these things were funny, loud, and hilarious, while others were more sober and thoughtful; all focused on Christ and his redemptive love for us, showing a world that is hurting and broken and in need of a savior. We spent a substantial amount of time preparing for the various parts of the presentation before the trip, and we were well-equipped to use our talents and skills to share the Gospel in this way once we made it to El Salvador.
I feel like there are many more things I could write about the trip, such as people we met and the experiences we had, but there is one more specific episode that I want to share with you. It was Friday morning, and we had been working hard all week with manual labor and presentations, and this day had been put aside to kick back a little by going shopping and visiting a local coffee plantation. At breakfast that morning we heard that we had the chance to be a part of another ministry opportunity, if we were willing to go. Earlier that week a boy of 17 had been climbing over the wall of his house because the front door had been locked. In the process of doing so he fell and cut his neck on the razor wire that was on the top of the wall, and he bled to death a little while later. Jucuapa, being a relatively small community, was hit pretty hard by this horrible tragedy. We learned that Miguel, the pastor of the Hawks church where the girls were staying, had been invited to give the eulogy sermon at the memorial service that would be held later that morning at the local high school. Miguel, in turn, asked us to perform our “Everything” drama, based off of the song by Lifehouse (if you haven’t seen this skit before, I would encourage you to look it up on YouTube, because it is a very powerful drama; just search “Lifehouse Everything skit”, and there are probably a lot of different versions of it on there). This was a huge opportunity for us because the boy’s family were not believers, and we would be performing at a non-Christian public school. Miguel gave an impassioned sermon, and from the bits and pieces that I understood, it was about the beauty in God’s creation of man, the precious gift of life that he has given to everyone, and the urgency that we should have in living our lives in obedience to the Lord. After this, we got up to perform our skit. Things were going smoothly, but then as it neared the end of the song the CD suddenly skipped and stopped working. I had a moment of panic as we were all up there, in front of hundreds of people, in the middle of the skit without music at the crucial part in the song. But, the panic passed as we continued the skit in silence, and with a few minor revisions, we improvised and finished it successfully. The crowd roared in applause, and it even seemed like they clapped louder after this final performance than any of the previous ones that we had done that week at other schools. I left wondering if perhaps it had been more powerful for them to see us continue the skit with the unexpected difficulty of the music stopping. Only the Lord knows. Another praise that can be given is that since then, Miguel has been invited back to speak at the school at least once a month. This is hugely unexpected, coming from a non-believing public school!
I hope that this long (maybe unnecessarily long) letter has been able to show a glimpse of what happened on our spring break trip to El Salvador. In addition to the doors that we were opened for the Hawks continuing ministry in Jucuapa, there were some wonderful friendships formed within the team that are continuing back here at Taylor. The Lord blessed us with safety, general good health, energy, and the privilege of being a part of what he is doing in El Salvador. Thank you again for your support, in whatever capacity, and may the Lord bless you in return.

Pleasures involving guilt

I am currently in class, supposedly working on the final draft of a short story that will be due in a couple weeks. Yes, well. I am writing, and maybe this will stimulate more creativity for the story. Speaking of stories, here is the thing. More often than not, when someone finds out that I am a writing major, he or she will say, "Oh I could never do that! I'm just not creative enough." Hmmm. Come to think of it, neither am I, if we are all to be perfectly honest. But I still write. Sometimes I do not write enough, and sometimes I write more than I should because it is better to leave some things left unsaid, but new things take shape that I never imagined would be.

So I am convinced that everyone DOES have an imagination, and that everyone's imagination is equally awesome. The other night I was at a pizzeria restaurant tucked into a little booth with a checkered tablecloth (pizza requires checkered table cloths) and three other friends. We were sitting there talking about I dont know what, and I had the idea that we should collectively make up a story, by taking turns telling it in scenes. The usual objections. No, I insist. Ok, here we go.

It turned out to be a great story, and we were in stitches by the end of it! I don't remember many of the details, but it was mostly about a guy named Bob. It turns out that Bob lives the basement of a barbershop, and he makes a living sweeping up hair upstairs in the shop during open hours (though he doesn't actually own the place, or cut any hair. he is a finicky person). Of central focus and interest to the story is that Bob owns a duck. Her name is Susie. For a couple minutes we started calling her Debbie for no reason, but Susie was the poultry's nom de plume (although she does not write). Ok. Bob loves Susie to death (this is foreshadowing), and he takes her out on walks regularly. Now, stick with me here. Bob doesn't realize this, but he is allergic to ducks. He has owned Susie for quite a while, and he is usually sneezing at most hours of the day because of her. But, as it was said, he loves her, and would not think to ease his own suffering if it meant harm to her. In addition to the fact that Bob is allergic to Susie, it is also pertinent to mention that he has a metal stud pierced into his nose. These two facts combine to produce the major point of conflict in the story. What happens is this: One day, Bob's duck allergies have become terribly acute, and he actually sneezes so hard that the metal stud is dislodged from his nose. Now, a word about setting. Although they live in a basement, there is a high window at one corner of his room which looks out into the street, and from the pedestrian point of view, is at eye level with the gutter. Ok. So, the metal stud explodes from its position on Bob's nose, careens up through the air, shatters the glass of his basement window, and strikes an unhappy/unlucky/fated passerby in the temple of his head, killing him. This is unfortunate, and it is especially unfortunate because this man was walking with his family. They are not pleased with this act of hostility on Bob's part. They confront him about the death of their family member and they demand blood. Now, the reason that this family demands propitiation is that they are descendent from an ancient race of shepherds who ritually sacrificed sheep. So, the family wants blood, but in this case they are content to settle for the blood of a duck. Bob is in a quandary now because Susie is about to become duck fillet. However, he realizes that there are many ducks in the world, and he could just as easily find another (this point is inconsistent with his previously mentioned undying love for Susie, but these kinds of problems arise when there are multiple people speed-writing the plot of a story), and so he disowns his relational ties to Susie. Of course, Susie is quickly relieved of her head and becomes the family's dinner. And the story ends there. It is not all bad, all things considered, because 1) The family's bellies were filled, and 2) Bob did not have to deal with his duck allergies any more. We did agree however, that Susie got the short end of the stick in this story.

Now you should go and make up a story with some friends, because there is really no telling what will happen; imagination is its own locomotive. Barney was right.

speaking of harangues

I have not written for a few weeks, which means that a few things have been ruminating for a while, and others have only just caught a snag in my brain and I have to write something somewhere about it. Sometimes it is my journal and sometimes it is this place. You get to read the leftovers. One thing that has been there for a little while is this: I notice that it is a requirement among the great artists, of any genre, to have somewhat of a unique lifestyle, or habits, or persuasions. A man may pluck his own nose hairs and enjoy setting them on fire, but he is also probably a Michaelangelo. Or a legendary Halo gamer on Xbox who eats EasyMac his entire life. To each his own form of art, I guess. But the point is, you have to be crazy to be good. And, unless you count enjoying both metalcore in the music section and Spongebob in the movie section, I am not crazy. I could pretend to be crazy, maybe. Like only picking my nose with my left hand. Maybe it would turn into a real craziness, if I tried it long and hard enough. That is like Aristotle's idea that one can turn habits into virtues. Or quirks. I am rambling.

Something else has snagged my brain, very recently. It is raw. Last night a man called Brian McLaren came and spoke in our chapel building, though it wasn't a chapel service because he would not be allowed to speak his views in that setting (this whole idea and the ideas connected to it set me on fire). I love the truth, and talking about the truth, and how it affects how we live. I understand that McLaren should not be allowed to speak in chapel because he does not hold to the same theological views as Taylor and so we do not condone his ideas entirely, but it is good that there is another venue, like IFC, through which we might still be exposed to his views. Let me take another side route and say that I hardly know what he believes, and so I am no authority on Brian McLaren. But, I can write about what he said last night.

There was a fairly sizeable group of Taylor students there. I looked around online a little beforehand to see what was said about him, what he had written and produced, etc. I got very little introduction to him but did get the sense that he is fairly well known in the States, and even campaigned a little with Obama this year. I also understood a little that his name is connected with the emergent church, though he explicitly disconnected himself from that name (part of being emergent is not making connections. You may tell an emergent church that they are emergent and they will say no we are not, we would not put it that way, and then they would not put it any wayy. But now I am making absolute statements which are not absolutely true. This is one example of how my preconceptions inform my view of absolutes, which is dangerous. Case in point, point in case, whatever.) So, no one told me, He Believes This Thing, or He Is A Satan Worshiper, or He Is Ugly. The first thing I noticed is that he is bald. Baldness is respectable because probably means you are old, which usually means that you are older and wiser than me. So I listened to him.

He was very engaging, as I would expect a well-known and travelled author to be. He spent about a half hour outlining problems in the world, and how our reactions to living our lives in the larger societal context are shaped by what he called "frame narratives". For example, Islamic extremists might fit into an "domination" frame narrative, which means that they would take over everyone and enforce a specific set of doctrines or beliefs. Or another similar group might fit into an "isolationist" frame narrative, and simply push away everything that does not agree with their own worldview. The point that he drew from this was that all world religions, including Christianity, have been informed by these frame narratives, and that we need to get away from them and simply focus on the Kingdom as Jesus Christ described it. To go back to the beginning of his talk, he explained how he had come to where he is today. He noticed many years ago that the church was very concerned with one certain list of things, such as homosexuality, drinking, swearing, and that it was completely disconnected from real world problems, such as poverty and environmental issues. He saw a separation between these two lists of specific issues, and wondered why we as Christians were not concerned with the things on this second list. I disagree that the second list was irrelevant to Christianity, but this was one of his major points.

Now, through all of this, he did not make any profound theological statements, and I did not hear anything that I felt disagreed with Scripture. However, he did not once reference Scripture, and he vaguely avoided questions from the audience about what he believed to be the message of the gospel, and the central role of Christ in our lives as Christians. In general, he was simply evasive and vague. In the end, much of what he said was fluff and nothing new, at least to me.

What strikes me, though, after hearing some discussion about it among friends, has to do with the way we reacted to him as a student body. Having heard and read a little more about Brian McLaren's theological views and positions, I can say that I probably disagree with him on a lot of things. However, in the course of asking questions, I feel that the student body in general came with many presuppositions and simply a poor attitude. Some of the questions were pointed and loaded, more with the intent to publicly paint him in a bad light than to earnestly engage in discussion. I say this as the devil's advocate, though I disagree with Brian's theological views (which he did not state last night). I am concerned that we as Christians are more worried about being right than having a gentle, open, discerning heart. Here at Taylor we hear from many people that already agree with our worldview, and these things are reinforced for us; I feel as though last night shows that we are not very prepared to engage other worldviews, ones that might be contrary to the Bible, in a way that is representative of Jesus and his love. I would prefer to be known as a listener, than a talker, though if you have read this far I have already proven myself wrong. But I think you understand what I mean.

These things make me think quite a bit, and I could write a lot more about this and related topics, but I'll end here. Thanks for reading this far, this was definitely a harangue.

it's blowing swaths outside

I wrote this title because it sounds alluring and interesting, which it must be because you are still reading. I have you now. But really, it is very, very windy outside. The weather is transitioning from being pleasantly cool to exhumingly (a word? I make my own, little child) cold. I learned in physical geography class that this happens because the warm air is being very rapidly sucked in under the approaching cold front, and it creates something of a mini hurricane. Well, that last part isn't true, but it sure feels like it.

This semester I am taking poetry writing, so maybe I will be spouting and sprouting poetry in a few months. I am so sorry, if this turns out to be the case. Speaking of classes, today I had one canceled, and this coincided perfectly with my spontaneous decision to go outside and run around barefoot in the drenching rain. Also, we played frisbee, and at one point I was offered a nickel to belly flop into one of the huge puddles in the field. He still hasn't paid me.

I really have to go to bed now. Really truly so. I am got the short straw on sleep. And I am having a wicked sweet breakfast date with one certain Ben "Ben" Taylor, so I have to be at my very best if I am going to make a good impression. So, beauty sleep, here I come.

an aroma which wafts

i am drinking coffee, which i might add is the primary motivator for writing. anyway, this coffee. it is ethiopian. straight from the rich soil of africa, and i hear that coffee was actually invented there. that was a funny sounding thing because it seems to be the same as saying that philosophy was invented in ancient greece. true, but not entirely. in addition to drinking coffee and writing, i feel guilty, because i've adulterated this beautiful thing with cream and sugar, and someone pointed out to me that i should be drinking it black. this is also true, because i could be ravaging any sort of coffee with condiments (condiments is a funny word. also, masticate. and moist.). ethiopian coffee stands alone.

no meta-writing today. or, wait. dang it.

do you put two spaces after every period, or one? i watched someone typing the other day and noticed they only put one space to separate sentences from each other, and then i wondered which of us was the abnormal one. i use two, by the way. it mostly serves to take up space on the page and make it seem as though i am writing more than i am.

ok. meta-writing is already in full swing, so i will keep going with the flow. one last thing before i end this blog post.

here is the thing. i could write a lot, and say very little. or, i could write less, and probably (hopefully) say more. words are a curious universe, and maybe writing about this universe helps me understand it better. there are many people with many things to say, and mine is only one more voice in the myriad. i will do us both (you, and me) a favor by trying to write much by writing little. let's see what happens.

A Consummate Effort

I said, "Not much." We will take turns writing sentences. Ok, go.
You are always saying "Not Much." sometimes you need to try to say Much. But maybe there is not much to ever be said.
That is not so true, otherwise we would not be blogging.
Maybe that is not true. I do not think it matters. I think the act of saying anything is what matters.
Hmm. My cerebellum exploded with these thoughts. Sometimes I think about thinking so much that I forget the point of thinking.
Adam, you live a meta-life.
There it is! You have poked me in the right place.
ha! I think i also live a meta-life. In a shroud. In a tv screen.
Is it wrong that I am deeply concerned about the improper capitalization of the previous sentences? I wish I could get beyond that kind of crap. Dammit Chloe.
now you are lance hill. i don't know if it's wrong. i think capitalization is overrated. maybe you should move beyond it, though. if you read ee cummings and got frustrated with how he was saying things, you wouldn't hear anything he was saying. also, the way he is saying it helps him say it. so. yes. you have problems, i think.
you are right. i have hearden of this papal figure in the realm of writing things, ee cummings. very good at saying things. britani, i am constantly dethroned from my idea of how great writing could be. will you be my writing idol?
do i have to be made of wood or stone?
you must be made of. . . lint.
dammit chloe.

Oooooh its the first one.

Grand heady thoughts about how aweSOME this blog experience will be are outrageous. I may or may not have ever written for a blog before, and if I had I would have tried to write some pretty awesome stuff. Enough meta blogging now.

I guess doomsday is officially on December 21, 2012, and this is according to CNN which means it must be true. If we can't trust the internet, what can we trust? They give several reasons for this conclusion. First, the ancient Mayan calendar ends on that day, the Winter Solstice, and since it has proven itself to be frightfully accurate so far, why should it stop being for real now? Second, and this is the cool part, the sun will be perfectly aligned to the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It sounds like the thing out of Disney's Hercules classic when the planets align and all the huge bad monsters (called Titans) come out of the bad dark pit and wreck havoc on stuff. But of course the gods win in the end because it is Disney, where the guy gets the girl, and everyone who believed in themselves are re-affirmed for doing so, and you get to the end credits of such a movie feeling like you watched something to the equivalent of consuming fourteen metric tons of cotton candy. Its all fluff. But, back to what I was originally talking about. By the way, don't mix topics in one paragraph. That is crucial to your ability to write, otherwise you will fail. Doomsday, yes. I will be slightly to very surprised if that is the end of the world as we know it, which could also be put into motion by Cosgrove retiring from his professorship. I wonder what the Mayans had going for them in figuring out stuff like their calendar that is so accurate. I mean, they didn't have the internet. They didn't even have drinking fountains, or iPods, or seat warmers. How did they survive? Who knows.

Actually write now I am sposed to be doing aych dubs while sitting here at Payne's, and I still haven't figured out how to smell the smell that is rampant here, but the real reason is that I love the atmosphere. I could live in a coffee shop if they just gave me a computer to type stuff on. Dont end sentences with a preposition. Writing in a cofffffeeee shop has always been a good experience for me, and now that I think about it, my best writing has come from doing it here as well. I don't know what it is about the whole thing, except maybe it is the sense that I am here to intentionally do something other than goof off, and so I am motivated. Last time I was here I was doing homework and sitting in a booth behind this couple that was having a spat. They weren't being terribly vocal but I couldn't help overhearing some of the stuff they were saying. After they left I realized I could have some pretty funny material if I had written some of it down, because as it turns out, writing down real-life dialogue is hilarious. Try it some time. Sit around with your friends/boyfriend/mother/pet lizard and surreptitiously type stuff that is said. It sound so normal in speak, but in writing it looks and feels different. Anyway, that is my tidbit of thoughts for the writing sphere of things.

Whoa too much on a first entry. But it is a harangue, so you knew what you were in for.

I randomly thought of an awesome quote I read, and since it IS awesome, I will end with it.

"Don't drink water. Fish have sex in it."