There's a religion test on the web. After answering a series of questions, the test taker is matched with the religion most closely aligned with his or her answer set. When I took the test, my answers most closely matched those of a secular humanist. I was thinking about this in relation to prayer. Secular humanists get screwed on this front, we don't have the luxury of sending a prayer up (or out, whatever) and waiting for fulfillment. Our faith rests in ourselves, and a prayer of petition is little more than the summoning of strength and will. World peace or good health, it's up to us and our fellow human beings to accomplish the task. Yikes.
Sometimes, it would really be nice to have some supernatural assistance, but a secular humanist knows this kind of assistance isn't available. In our world, the strong must carry the weak; the wise must be thoughtful and find a way to excuse the dipshits wihout divine intervention. Our collective power must move the mountain when necessary, and individual concern and understanding must prevail on a personal level. Hearts, minds, and muscle are what we have to carry us through a crisis. We save ourselves and clean up our own messes. Hope is the closest thing we have to faith.
Secular humanism is not for wimps.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Promises to Ourselves
When I decided to start a blog, I did it because it looked like fun and I wanted a format in which to produce writing outside of emails and the stuff I do for school. I promised myself I would keep it up until the end of the year, and that time is fast approaching. There have been times I have been quite inspired to post, and others (is this one of them?) when I've posted mostly because I thought it was time. From what I understand from others who do this, regular posts are essential, some even say that it becomes addictive. At any rate, it seems important to post in order to keep the conversation going. The trouble is, there hasn't been much conversation! This isn't intended to produce a "guilt trip." I hear from friends that there are readers who aren't inclined to respond, and that's fine. I must admit I had visions of provoking lively discussion and conversation via the web, but reality has since set in, and I don't fault anyone for not finding the time or inspiration to respond. That may say more about the blogger than the readers!
Keeping promises to ourselves is often more difficult than keeping those me make to others. I can withstand the internal pressure of disappointing myself far more easily than I can face the idea that I've messed up with a friend or colleague. A therapist could have a field day with that one. Regardless, I decided today that I'll try to continue blogging through the winter. Midwestern winters can be desolate times, even for the optimists among us; I certainly am tempted to fall victim to demons that lurk in the the dark and the cold. In my Creative Writing class, we talk about the restorative, cathartic, and transformative effects of writing, so I'll keep at it for now. Bring on the restoring, the catharsis, and the transformation! At least until spring, when I'll consider letting nature take its course and do that work for me.
I guess I should say something about Christmas! I'll be leaving tomorrow to visit my family in northwest Iowa. I'm pouting a bit, as I had visions of spending the holiday with my daughter in Austin, Tx this year. I miss her terribly, but alas, it wasn't in the cards for me this season. So, I'll drive west over the flat geography of Minnesota, conjuring up some Christmas spirit as I dip down into Iowa. I'll find myself back in my hometown and the bosom of my family of origin. There's a soothing familiarity in that place where I'm always welcome and nothing ever changes much. I'm sure that after the holidays, friends and colleagues will ask about my time off. Garrison Keillor, in his wisdom about the somewhat droll personalities of those of us raised on the Midwestern prairie, provides an apt response for this half-Norwegian woman who now calls herself a Minnesotan: "Can't complain."
My wish this season is that you may say the same, and Peace, to all.
Keeping promises to ourselves is often more difficult than keeping those me make to others. I can withstand the internal pressure of disappointing myself far more easily than I can face the idea that I've messed up with a friend or colleague. A therapist could have a field day with that one. Regardless, I decided today that I'll try to continue blogging through the winter. Midwestern winters can be desolate times, even for the optimists among us; I certainly am tempted to fall victim to demons that lurk in the the dark and the cold. In my Creative Writing class, we talk about the restorative, cathartic, and transformative effects of writing, so I'll keep at it for now. Bring on the restoring, the catharsis, and the transformation! At least until spring, when I'll consider letting nature take its course and do that work for me.
I guess I should say something about Christmas! I'll be leaving tomorrow to visit my family in northwest Iowa. I'm pouting a bit, as I had visions of spending the holiday with my daughter in Austin, Tx this year. I miss her terribly, but alas, it wasn't in the cards for me this season. So, I'll drive west over the flat geography of Minnesota, conjuring up some Christmas spirit as I dip down into Iowa. I'll find myself back in my hometown and the bosom of my family of origin. There's a soothing familiarity in that place where I'm always welcome and nothing ever changes much. I'm sure that after the holidays, friends and colleagues will ask about my time off. Garrison Keillor, in his wisdom about the somewhat droll personalities of those of us raised on the Midwestern prairie, provides an apt response for this half-Norwegian woman who now calls herself a Minnesotan: "Can't complain."
My wish this season is that you may say the same, and Peace, to all.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Freshmen and Frost
It's snowing in Minnesota, so I read "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" to my English 9 class. It's a lovely poem, perfect for freshmen in this weather. They were restless, complaining about the superintendent having the nerve to require our attendance when there was such blowing and drifting on the other side of the classroom window. They didn't seem patient enough, today, for my favorite Frost.
Here it is:
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Here it is:
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
The Way I Remember Pinsky
I was thinking about the time I saw Robert Pinsky, poet laureate at the time, read at the U of I. My buddy, Chick, called and said he'd run by (literally) and pick me up; the reading started in fifteen minutes. I balked. The conversation went something like this: "We won't make it in time.. I have a paper due...I've been up late this week and I'm tired." I distinctly remember Chick saying, "He's the poet fucking laureate, for chrissake! Get off your lazy middle-aged ass, you old bag. Get outside right now; we're going."
It was useless to take a car. I learned, early on, there was no parking that made the trip faster than walking the eight blocks from my apartment to the most far-flung building I frequented on campus. Chick arrived in minutes, and we started off on a run. By the time we reached the Old Capital I was gasping for air. Luckily, the trip was all down hill from there.
"Have another cigarette, Rox," he said, as he pulled me along. It was spring, our shoes squished deep into soft grass and mud as we made our way down the west lawn of the Pentacrest. I wasn't happy.
"Good plan; these were decent shoes."
Chick and I met when we worked an overnight job keeping high school students, on campus for a summer program, in a dorm and away from the college night life most of them longed to sample. They usually gave up by about 3 a.m., and that allowed Chick and I to spend a few hours each night to getting to know each other. He seemed fascinated by the idea that a fortyish woman would leave her life behind to enter college. I had liked him instantly; I wasn't fascinating many of the 20-somethings who were my colleagues at the time. We laughed about the discomforts of being raised in the tiny Iowa towns we came from, but he was smart enough to understand the precious marks those places left on us. We cried when Jer, another of the beautiful, talented boys who worked for the program that summer, died in a freak motorcycle accident.
The door was closing when we arrived at the reading. Jori Graham, the revered, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, pride of the University of Iowa's creative writing program, introduced Pinsky. She was bone thin with a fantastic mop of grey-streaked hair, wearing something hand-loomed and expensive-looking. Very poet. In a soft, distracted voice, making eye contact with no one, she read one of her poems. I thought it was affected, over-wrought, filled with obscure metaphors and vague references. I probably just didn't get it.
When Pinsky appeared, I was charmed. He spoke with muted pride about a project he was involved in that asked ordinary people to name their favorite poems. I understood everything he read, and particularly liked one with the central image of a green upright piano in his boyhood home. For him, it evoked memories of an injury his mother suffered that changed his family. It made me think about my dad's protracted illness and how it shaped my view of life. Not all of what he read touched me as personally, but an hour later I was thanking Chick for his invitation.
Chick acquired a hermit crab and named it Pinsky. I thought that was clever. When he went off to spend a semester in London, I babysat the crab. It spent its time scooting around its habitat, eating flakey crab food and sucking a sponge. About a week before Chick got back, I noticed no movement and realized the crab was dead. I felt terrible about it. I hope he doesn't think I murdered Pinsky in retaliation for the ruined shoes.
It was useless to take a car. I learned, early on, there was no parking that made the trip faster than walking the eight blocks from my apartment to the most far-flung building I frequented on campus. Chick arrived in minutes, and we started off on a run. By the time we reached the Old Capital I was gasping for air. Luckily, the trip was all down hill from there.
"Have another cigarette, Rox," he said, as he pulled me along. It was spring, our shoes squished deep into soft grass and mud as we made our way down the west lawn of the Pentacrest. I wasn't happy.
"Good plan; these were decent shoes."
Chick and I met when we worked an overnight job keeping high school students, on campus for a summer program, in a dorm and away from the college night life most of them longed to sample. They usually gave up by about 3 a.m., and that allowed Chick and I to spend a few hours each night to getting to know each other. He seemed fascinated by the idea that a fortyish woman would leave her life behind to enter college. I had liked him instantly; I wasn't fascinating many of the 20-somethings who were my colleagues at the time. We laughed about the discomforts of being raised in the tiny Iowa towns we came from, but he was smart enough to understand the precious marks those places left on us. We cried when Jer, another of the beautiful, talented boys who worked for the program that summer, died in a freak motorcycle accident.
The door was closing when we arrived at the reading. Jori Graham, the revered, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, pride of the University of Iowa's creative writing program, introduced Pinsky. She was bone thin with a fantastic mop of grey-streaked hair, wearing something hand-loomed and expensive-looking. Very poet. In a soft, distracted voice, making eye contact with no one, she read one of her poems. I thought it was affected, over-wrought, filled with obscure metaphors and vague references. I probably just didn't get it.
When Pinsky appeared, I was charmed. He spoke with muted pride about a project he was involved in that asked ordinary people to name their favorite poems. I understood everything he read, and particularly liked one with the central image of a green upright piano in his boyhood home. For him, it evoked memories of an injury his mother suffered that changed his family. It made me think about my dad's protracted illness and how it shaped my view of life. Not all of what he read touched me as personally, but an hour later I was thanking Chick for his invitation.
Chick acquired a hermit crab and named it Pinsky. I thought that was clever. When he went off to spend a semester in London, I babysat the crab. It spent its time scooting around its habitat, eating flakey crab food and sucking a sponge. About a week before Chick got back, I noticed no movement and realized the crab was dead. I felt terrible about it. I hope he doesn't think I murdered Pinsky in retaliation for the ruined shoes.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Call me lazy
Okay, I'm determined to keep this blog going, and I haven't posted for awhile, so how about these thoughts and observations on the world of modern romance:
Lately, I have come into contact with people who are using internet sites to find a romantic partner. I enjoy hearing about how this works for them, but that's about the extent of it for me. I've particularly noticed that for those who take it quite seriously, it's a lot of work! It seems like sending notice of interest, keeping track of those who express interest, and following up with those they aren't interested in, out of consideration, takes a lot of time and effort. I wonder if I would ever feel willing to make such an effort to create a meeting that may lead to romance. Maybe I'm lazy, but just hearing or reading about their experiences nearly wears me out- ha!
I don't consider myself to be a romantic, one who holds the belief that the perfect "match" exists and somehow the gods will create our romantic destiny. I understand that to meet a partner, one has to be available and approachable. But should it take such an effort to find a special someone? A long time ago, a therapist friend of mine told me that in our society, no one should hold onto the idea that finding an appropriate mate will just "happen." And that one who wants a quality relationship must be willing to work as hard at finding the right person as they are willing to work at preserving the relationship after they become involved. I disagreed with that statement. I believed then, and still do, that the most important work takes place maintaining the relationship after it has been established.
I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that I think I'm in a place, at least right now, where I wouldn't be willing to work so hard at initiating romance, yet I admire those who do! They put themselves "out there," make the effort, even spend money to give themselves a chance at something valuable and precious. They aren't waiting for their romantic desires to be met, they're willing to take action!
Any thoughts?
Lately, I have come into contact with people who are using internet sites to find a romantic partner. I enjoy hearing about how this works for them, but that's about the extent of it for me. I've particularly noticed that for those who take it quite seriously, it's a lot of work! It seems like sending notice of interest, keeping track of those who express interest, and following up with those they aren't interested in, out of consideration, takes a lot of time and effort. I wonder if I would ever feel willing to make such an effort to create a meeting that may lead to romance. Maybe I'm lazy, but just hearing or reading about their experiences nearly wears me out- ha!
I don't consider myself to be a romantic, one who holds the belief that the perfect "match" exists and somehow the gods will create our romantic destiny. I understand that to meet a partner, one has to be available and approachable. But should it take such an effort to find a special someone? A long time ago, a therapist friend of mine told me that in our society, no one should hold onto the idea that finding an appropriate mate will just "happen." And that one who wants a quality relationship must be willing to work as hard at finding the right person as they are willing to work at preserving the relationship after they become involved. I disagreed with that statement. I believed then, and still do, that the most important work takes place maintaining the relationship after it has been established.
I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that I think I'm in a place, at least right now, where I wouldn't be willing to work so hard at initiating romance, yet I admire those who do! They put themselves "out there," make the effort, even spend money to give themselves a chance at something valuable and precious. They aren't waiting for their romantic desires to be met, they're willing to take action!
Any thoughts?
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