Stupid internet humor

My favorite kind. I am so easily amused!

http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=830

a free book jubilee and other praise for personal artistic endeavour

There is a bookstore down the street from my 15x15 foot cell. (I'm mostly kidding about the cell, not the size, but the whole connotation that I'm monkish...although being cloistered occassionally strikes me as a capital idea. After all, Hildy Von Bingey was a nun, though not cloistered as far as I know.)

So there's a bookstore that has a box out front on the street, and in the box are free books

*angels choir, stream of light*

And today I lucked out not just once, oh no...but twice!

Both times I walked past the box I found books of interest that were also free

The words "free books" give me shivers every so often.

What books did I find, you might ask?

Linguistics and Theology (something about Noam Chomsky and religion)
Complete Poems of John Milton
Spencer's Faerie Queen
Holy Fire: Nine Visionary Poets and the Quest for Enlightenment by Daniel Halpern, including Rumi, William Blake, W.B. Yeats, Rilke and Allen Ginsberg
1000 Faces of God by Rebecca Hind (as sort of encyclopedia of religious art)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (a great novel, and I already own it but I thought I'd pick it up to gift it. First person to respond gets it for free)

Oh yes, I scored big time on the free books.

I've had an excellent week in the artistic wing of my soul. Thursday I walked to another local bookstore to peruse their poetry journals. You see, I am sending off some of my poems to be considered for publication at the urging of a classmate. So I was looking through some of the journals to decide which might be appropriate for me and my poetry. And in the name of self-care I also purchased a luxurious new journal. It has a "moleskin" (read leather minus the moo) cover, a silken tassel for keeping one's place, a elastic band for keeping the cover shut, and a pocket in the back for loose paper, photographs, napkins covered in poetry etc...

I feel decadent writing in the thing with the smooth black ink of my fancy pens. It makes writing feel like a holy act...perhaps like "spiritual practice." Ah Ha!

Anyway, while I was rockin' the life of the solitary writer I happened upon a reading by Irvin Welsh, author of Trainspotting and several other novels. He read from his new books in a thick Scottish accent. I adore Scottish accents and it made the writing sound better too.

I was a wee bit dissapointed in his Q&A after the reading. I am always interested in hearing writers talk about their work, their creative processes, their intentions behind their craft. But I have noticed that prose writers seem to be less intense about it. Maybe it's my poetic bias. But I have been to readings of Sharon Olds and Billy Collins and have watched an interview with Anne Carson (among many other poetry readings...these are just a few) and they are really "into" their writing and talking about their writing. Even Billy Collins with his jolly uncle who is secretly deep schtick spoke with a suprising amount of reverence about poetry and poetics.

It really probably is my bias.

And for the music side of things. I am auditioning for a number of choirs in the area in the hopes of getting to sing more this year. I am giddy with excitement about this, and substantially worried about my lack of sight-reading abilities (which have never been good, and continue to deteriorate since undergrad). Today I went to the downtown library and picked up several scores that contain some songs that I used to sing well back in the operatic days. These include: Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, John Dowland Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite, Menotti's The Medium and various others.

Singing will be a good hobby for me during another year of seminary. We'll see how age and lack of practice have effected the pipes.

trying this again

The first time I posted this poem something went wrong and there was html madness going on. So I'm trying again:

Trinity

I.

The boy pixilated

Pointed

Quickly scoops cold

Salt water

into the hole he has been carefully digging

since noon.

Dark arms of dusk

land long across the

Rocky sand

growing shadows meet

the boy’s heavy intention

His smooth brow furrowed

Grabs wildly at the tide

small hands cupped

to receive communion.

Instead the water continues to roll

Swirling

upon the sand

Leaving its memories behind

the boy, with few memories yet,

Bows before his work

Sweeping in every drop

Overflowing.

He is Icarus

Having never left the ground

already fallen.

II.

My eyes close to the chorus engulfing me.

I want to be the child again.

I say one sentence; the church falls away

I am left in the space of

Darkness between color on a pointillist canvas.

Awed by the spectrum of harmony

The continuous whisper.

I ache to share, but stay silent and still as can be.

III.

Wiley Coyote never won

Over the din of slurping milk he would run out

Over the canyon, trickling river and stop

mid-air, an apostrophe with no possession.

He would look down, I would crunch on a fruit loop

and the cereal would glide down my esophagus.

One of these days, they say, He will learn his lesson.

He won’t look down

and on that day he will the story goes,

make it across the vastness so easily

with a placard that reads “What the…?”

But before he reaches the Roadrunner

he will have achieved such momentum

He will sprout angelic wings,

fly high above that

Arizona painted cubist landscape,

straight up, never stopping.

IV.

In that flame, where Servetus died he learned the truth,

despite having lost his brain.

His skin separated, melted away

from his bones which cracked

like the hay beneath what were his feet.

There was the truth of the body and the spirit

nature of the flame and

the flaming heart pierced through with heat.

Zeal and politics.

What lay in that spark, in those ashes?

What was it he faced, when he had lost his face?

A cool darkness erupting from rock?

Sound of rushing water?

Or a perpetual melting that he couldn’t stop?

Maybe the fire went blue frozen and ceased

Maybe it all ceased.

V.

Rocks, like almost anything,

Are mostly space.

They are as empty as a glass of water,

a hand on a shoulder,

the moment before amen,

spiraling galaxies.

But the rock you gave me is more space than most

Dotted with holes, you could run golden thread through.

In this rock, how much ocean could we pour

careful not to spill.

I look through one hole

straight at you.

Our conversations can be underwater sometimes.

The spaces among words, heavy

as a rock.

More poems

This is not mine, but Dylan Thomas's. And it's not my usual speed of poem. The poetry I usually dig doesn't have so much even rhythm...nor does it typically make as much sense, or strike anyone as pastoral (in the green pastures sense, not the what I want to do for a living sense). I was thinking about it because I once performed it as a choral work back in college. The choral piece was written by John Corigliano...a still living composer fellow. Anyway, enjoy the poem.

FERN HILL

    Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
    About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
      The night above the dingle starry,
        Time let me hail and climb
      Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
    And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
    And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
        Trail with daisies and barley
      Down the rivers of the windfall light.

    And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
    About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
      In the sun that is young once only,
        Time let me play and be
      Golden in the mercy of his means,
    And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
    Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
        And the sabbath rang slowly
      In the pebbles of the holy streams.

    All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
    Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
      And playing, lovely and watery
        And fire green as grass.
      And nightly under the simple stars
    As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
    All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
      Flying with the ricks, and the horses
        Flashing into the dark.

    And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
    With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
      Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
        The sky gathered again
      And the sun grew round that very day.
    So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
    In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
      Out of the whinnying green stable
        On to the fields of praise.

    And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
    Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
      In the sun born over and over,
        I ran my heedless ways,
      My wishes raced through the house high hay
    And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
    In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
      Before the children green and golden
        Follow him out of grace.

    Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
    Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
      In the moon that is always rising,
        Nor that riding to sleep
      I should hear him fly with the high fields
    And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
    Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
        Time held me green and dying
      Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

I saw a man who danced with his wife...IN CHICAGO!

OK, so when I first moved here to Chicago I immediately had to call my mom (who is even more of a human MP3 player than yours truly, if you can believe it) and have the conversation that went thusly:

Me: Mom, you would never believe what a time I had today.
Mom: Oh yeah, did you have the time, the time of your life?
Me: Yes I did and guess what I saw...I saw a man, who danced with his wife
Mom: In Chicago?!?!
Me: Yes, in chicago, golly it's a tottlin' town!
(mom and I giggle uncontrollably and rather stupidly at the silliness of a joke so obvious but strangely satisfying in its simplicity)

Anyway, now that I've gotten that random flashback out of the way I can tell you about my totally enjoyable evening, and how I continue my love/hate/love/adore relationship with this city.

I went downtown with a new friend, who is disconcertingly similar to myself in a lot of ways including being queer and ex-Catholic. We took the Metra which, when it doesn't hit a semi-truck, is quicker, more punctual, cleaner and in many ways more pleasant than either El or bus. OH, for those who don't remember or know, the only other time I took the Metra it hit a semi and there were helicopters, police, ambulance and the whole thing. It was a whole ordeal and turned me off to the Metra for a little while.

Anyway, the trip down was nice, we found a lovely little gourmet chocolate shop and had yummy sundaes with chocolate covered cherries on top and then went to see the movie Little Miss Sunshine. It was an AMAZING movie, and completely lifted me out of the funk I've found myself in in the last few days. If you are the kind of person who likes really quirky, dark tragicomedy about dysfunctional people loving each other despite their foibles and eccentricities than this is the perfect film. I haven't laughed so hard all summer.

Then we strolled around Millenium Park and the reflective bean glowed with the city lights and looked as if it were covered with tiny stars and the big waterfall tower thingeys were luminescent in the darkness.

I'm feeling very content at the moment. Good conversation, a wonderful movie and a fantastic city where people are actually around at night.

Although right now I feel the need to go into the country and lay in a big field looking up at the stars. The city is lovely, but I'm craving that peaceful sinking of your body enveloped by the grass and ground and the only sound being your breathing and crickets.

There's a wasp in my room that I discovered this afternoon, so I'm wondering about how I'm going to sleep. Speaking of, is there some symbolism about the wasp or other stinging insects. Because this is the second time this summer that such an encounter has happened. At GA there was a wasp in my hotel room and security came up with a big stick. So it is probably just coincidental and a summer thing, but I just want to cover my kooky new agey bases, ya know?

I think that I shall never see a poem as beautiful as a tree

But this one comes close...

by Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
From the book Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing--
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones--
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

Gotta crawl to the Ugly Bug Ball

So right now I'm watching a very large, hairy and multi-legged bug crawl up the wall. Actually I'm trying desperately not to watch said bug because it gives me the proverbial willies.

It's the kind of bug that only exists in old houses, and particularly in basements. Ya know the type, you've seen it. I wonder what it is about old houses that makes it hospitable to insects of this nature. My parent's house back in the Cleveland (which was built pre-1930) has these bugs. I have sucked one up in a vacuum cleaner whilst squealing like a little girl.

Problematically, this present hairy bug has disappeared off the wall which has made it more willy-inducing then when it was visable.

You know you've watched too much sci-fi when you imagine an insect leaping up toward your face hissing. Most bugs are not that atheletic nor interested in making you a host body.

It's reassuring really.

The point of this post was not to wax poetic about the creepy insect...actually at this point I don't quite recall what the point of this post was. So I'll talk about what came to mind.

When I began this blog I intended on having every post be titled with a song lyric. Right now I'm having trouble thinking of a title for this post.

This past week I've been working in the school's library. Starting an archive of all the sermons, pamphlets and bits of ephemera that have accumulated over the years. As many people know if I wasn't in seminary (or if seminary doesn't work out) I would/will be getting my masters in library science. So sorting and categorizing and filing and all that is supremely interesting to me.

Not only that but doing this work is like sorting through the history of Unitarian Universalism, and at times being present for it.

This week I've gone through some personal papers of James Luther Adams, read sermons dating back to at least 1815 about a variety of interesting topics.

I've seen Unitarianism and Universalism deal with issues of slavery, temperance, women's suffrage, racism (both insitutional and otherwise), disarmament, enviromentalism, 2nd wave feminism (there was one interesting pamphlet whose audience had to be a staunch, rationalist, Unitarian in a staunch and rational suit about using gender-inclusive language) and gay rights (including a sermon from a minister that, as a queer person, gave me more willies than the aforementioned insect due to it's clueless but well-meaning attempt to wrestle with his homophobia.)

I've read a report circa 1958 from the Commission Oppossing Consolidation and wondered what we'd be like had we not become UU...where would the two separate U's be now?

I also found out from a pamphlet from 1963 that I can indeed be a mystic and a UU which is a good thing because otherwise I'd have to change the name of my blog.

In general this job has made me feel a certain pride in being UU that I haven't felt all year at seminary. I am part of a tradition and while that tradition has it's faults and weaknesses it is still rich, oftentimes progressive and always thoughtful.

And while, as a former and cultural Roman Catholic, I occassionally snicker when the words "history" and "tradition" are used in relation to Unitarian Universalism. I feel connected to a history and tradition that I am excited about representing through my ministry. I would be proud to emulate the work of Dorothea Dix in my chaplaincy and community ministry, or to have the prophetic power of Channing or JLA in my writing and preaching. That would, as they say, rock.

And this fall I'm starting a New Brook Farm...for anyone who's interested in hoeing and being utopian. If we're playing transcendentalists I get to be Margaret Fuller. Though I've learned I share my birthday with Orestes Brownson.

Anyway, this is proof once again that yellowing, moldy and crumbling pieces of paper are awesome and big time fun.

This post makes no sense to anyone who isn't UU. Or I should of made links on each name to like Wikipedia or something. Go, learn, be happy.

The title of this post comes from a song in an old Halley Mills Disney movie called Summer Magic.

Oh, and the bug never reappeared...so thankfully I've not become a hairy insect zombie or anything...at least that I know of....

We've got sttteeeam heat

This raffleflaffing heat (last night's low was 78 degrees) is getting to me. Today is like the 10 billioneth day with temperatures over 90. OK more like a week or so. But after all this time I think it's finally driven me to the brink of my sanity. I woke up this morning and started blogging. I figured out that my livejournal would now be my friends only blog and this will be my public "Hey everyone read about my life" blog.

I'm totally writing because I have nothing better to do and it's cooler down in the building's basement which is where the computer is. I should be writing an incomplete paper on Schleiermacher, RW Emerson and the pitfall of individual transcendent experience in creating cohesive communal theological expression, but I'm too tired and hot.

The school installed an air conditioner in my building. ...In the communal dining room... Yes, I actually considered how I could sleep comfortable on the dining room table. I still might do that. Or maybe I'll just drag my papasan chair into the room and get a crick in my neck for one more night.

So I was just reading a friends blog at www.dorklepork.livejournal.com and it got me thinking about my mom and the nature of families and illness.

Back in 1999 my mom had a brain hemmorrage. This was a completely lifechanging event for her and for the whole family consequently. My mother is really quite amazing. She's a math teacher, artist, athlete, carpenter, she sews (she created all my costumes growing up and made me the red cape that I am sometimes seen wearing. The one that makes people start singing Into the Woods or "Hey there little red riding hood" at me). She's a doer and a fixer and a true Renaissance woman.

When she had what she calls her "Brain explosion" and the associated surgery she came out of all of it significantly changed. The first 6 months or so she was blind in one eye and could not drive. She had trouble concentrating and finishing simple tasks. She became frustrated daily. This was hard to see because she was the one who would make things better or be able to do anything she put her mind to and all of a sudden all of it was a struggle.

We were not supportive in the right way. My friend talks about the family not "getting" what her mom is going through and this was certainly the case with my family. We kept telling her "but we're just happy you're alive" (because she really did almost die) while she struggled with so many things that used to be ridiculously simple for her. We were telling her to be thankful and she was struggling with being thankful for another day of helplessness and frustration.

As you might suspect, this time in the life of my family came up a lot during my chaplaincy. I saw so many families trying to maintain a false sense of normalcy while their loved one was dying or facing a serious medical condition. It is amazing how everyone in a family system is affected by a disease and everyone takes on different roles in coping with it. Sometimes the sick person becomes the healer. There's often a person who avoids it completely who is seen as cold or distant, but is usually very scared and quite preoccupied with the entire thing. There's the person who uses humor or some other technique to distract from the gravity of the situation (this was me in the case of my family. My mom asked me to make her laugh because, in all honesty, my mom is my best audience.). There's a fixer who is rearranging the furniture (redolent of Titanic deck chairs) in the hospital room, or asking lots of questions of everyone, or bringing goodies and making sure everything is taken care of.

We can't help ourselves and all of these are really human ways of coping with medical crises, or any other crisis for that matter. Really what we can do in these situations is be present with our loved one. To listen as well as we can to their experience and love them. And also to take care of ourselves. To know when we need to not go to the hospital and when we need to veg in front of a tv or go take a walk or see a friend. My role as chaplain had to do with acknowledging the patient and the family with where they were "really at" emotionally. Because we take on these roles, but the trueness of the situation is not that far beneath.

My family's story really impacted my ministry and my life and continues to do so.

We are powerless to change so many things and we have to trust, we have to have faith that whatever happens there will still be love and family and a life that is livable. Sure things will not be the same in a lot of cases, and we often lose things that are desperately important to us. Like my mom lost some of her independence, vigor and wickedly smart intelligence. Like I lost the security that my mom will always be there for me and that she can do anything. But at the same time we are losing things, something else is being gained though it may be impossible to see in the moment, in a couple of years or ever. For my family we gained a renewed love for one another. I'll never forget watching my typically stoic and not at all touchy-feely aunts fall into a pile of joyous tears when the surgeon came out and said the surgery had been successful. I gained things I use everyday in my ministry and in my own life. I have to ask my mother is she feels she's gained anything from it.

How to end this post? Well, I could just say "The End"

I could also mention that in unrelated news I've been writing a lot. Lots of poetry and it seems to be coming out really well. I love when poetry comes out well. It feels like a long glass of cold water. There's a physical ease that accompanies successful creativity. I may post some.

You have been warned.