All of It

 

He asked me how much I wanted.
I replied, “I want the whole ball of wax.”
I immediately sensed I had made a mistake.
I was right. It took several people
to deliver it the following day.
It was huge, yellow, sticky,
and it smelled. Where would I store it?
Too ungainly and foul to spread on my floors,
how would I use it?
I vowed that the next time
someone asked me, “How much?”
I’d try simplicity and moderation.
No more wax balls for me.

The Language of Poetry

 

At an intercultural poetry reading, a man from the audience challenged me: “Aren’t you frustrated at having to write your poetry in English?” he asked. “Such a harsh, irregular language. Spanish, on the other hand is lyrical, sensual, musical, and more logical than English. And the sounds match the letters.”

He had a point, but he had missed several others. I sensed his question was more than rhetorical so I responded as kindly yet as honestly as I could:

“I’ve listened to you and others for whom English is a second language, and you’re right. The language is unsuited to poetry. The English taught in countries around the world focuses on business, industry, academics, or medicine. Most of those studying want to migrate to the US or England for further education. Or to make money. That English, however, doesn’t make poems.

“You’re also right about the irregularities of English, a great frustration to many learners. Coming from so many cultural roots, borrowing from such a multitude of languages, it does seem like a mongrel tongue.

“That’s one of the reasons I love it. Those who live the English language at a deep level, experience its twists, contradictions, impossible puzzles, and incredible variety as a delight, a playground of words with possible poems filling the silences between the words.

“Poetry in Spanish, Arabic, or Japanese is often beautiful, lyrical, following the logic of its language. It’s like walking in a sunlit garden. The splendor of the flowers, laid out in orderly beds, overwhelms. The paths curve and meander in expected, or unexpected, ways. If one gets lost, it’s likely because of the beauty, not the lack of order. The paths eventually lead home. There are poems for the picking.

“Writing poems in English is taking a hike in the wilderness. I may begin on a trail, but it soon peters out among the scrub brush and high altitude keswara trees. The upward climb challenges my strength and energy. Deep chasms surprise the unwary. Danger lurks. But condors and eagles soar overhead, and tiny alpine flowers peak out in more varieties than I knew existed. As I approach the glacier, poems are hiding everywhere.” 

Which language is better for poetry? is probably the wrong question. Each mother tongue carries its own music. For a full-blown symphony of poetry, we need them all.

Eating My Words

"If it doesn't pan out exactly
as I've said," I told him,
"I guess I'll just have to eat
my words."

The very next day, as a matter
of fact, I started in
on the nouns. I plopped them whole,
one at a time, in my mouth.
First I sucked the juice out,
then I swallowed the pulp.
One caught in my throat
and I had to wash it down
with a few slurpy adjectives.

The verbs crunched and crackled
as my teeth bit down. I seasoned
them with a few unattached
but tasty articles.

In a small gesture of rebellion
I saved the prepositions
for dessert. As any sous chef
knows, you can't end anything
with a preposition, so that's exactly
what I did.

All in all, it was a most
satisfying meal.

The joy of linguistic error

I love catching myself at linguistic mistakes. Some of them are pretty funny.

Yesterday I was cleaning the bathroom and I ran out of one of my supplies. When finished, I went to the kitchen and added to my grocery list, “toilet boil cleaner.” Then I looked at what I had written and thought, “Something’s not right.” After a few seconds, I recognized the error of my ways and laughed, wondering, “What might a toilet boil be?”

Next, of course, I wrote a poem. This is a very short poem with a very long title. It may never end up in a published collection of my works, but it made me laugh. That’s worth something.

On My Sense of Indignation

Upon Learning that My Local Pharmacy

Does Not Carry Toilet Boil Cleaner

 

 Let's just say that I was

really really

ticked off.

My face actually

flushed. 

On being a Weighty Friend

It finally happened. Just last week, in fact. In an elders meeting, someone referred to me as a weighty Friend, and everyone there solemnly agreed. No one even snickered.

So I guess I’ve arrived. But the question is—where?

“Weighty Friend” is one of those delightful Quaker terms that’s fun to say, but whose meaning slips and slides around a bit. Is this remnant from early Quakerism still meaningful? Helpful? And what does it mean in reference to me?

My first reaction was shock (unexpressed in typical quakerly fashion). My second reaction was laughter (silent, of course). I thought of “Fat Quaker” as a likely synonym, but my need to diet is not extreme. If the pudgy-cheeked man on the oatmeal box were only frowning, he would be the perfect model.

My third reaction has been a week of pondering and, now, journaling.

I love the old terms, even the archaic ones. Some of them carry an ambience of holiness, order, and, yes, Quaker culture. Some of them still manage to be useful, even after all these years. Maybe “weighty Friend” is one of these.

As I understand the term, it refers to long-time Quakers whose words and lives have made them worth listening to. These people have earned a reputation for wisdom. In my own setting in the Northwest, people like Arthur Roberts, Ralph Beebe, Paul Anderson, and Howard Macy (who will chuckle if he reads this) come to mind. (Actually, Howard might just be too funny to be a weighty Friend, at least in the solemn sense of the term.)

How am I to hold this term in reference to myself? To be honest, I don’t feel ready to adopt this as part of my identity. Perhaps this is part of my admitted resistance to growing older. Do I also have to grow more solemn, stern, and stereotypically Quaker? I certainly don’t always feel wise.

The following words come to mind: “By the grace given me, I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you” (Romans 12:3). And, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). (If the Apostle Paul had had the foresight to have become a Quaker, he would have indeed been a weighty one.)

This gives me perspective. I think “weighty Friend” is a helpful concept, as long as I apply it to other people. But I will not wonder whether I am or am not. It’s not for me to say. And if anyone ever calls me that again, I’ll chuckle out loud or keep it silent, depending on the sensibilities of the person addressing me.

Having worked that through, I feel so much lighter.

On being an expert

Hal and I are once again in the throes of preparation for a trip to Latin America. This time we will be in Bolivia for the month of September. The big event is a consultation we are calling “The Gospel and Culture in the Aymara Context,” and seeks to address one of the crucial issues Aymara Christians face in this time of an indigenous revitalization movement. The Bolivian Friends Church (an Aymara church) invited us to lead this consultation, partly based on Hal’s anthropological background and years of experience among Aymara peoples. We strongly sense God’s leading and have been preparing for some time now.

It’s turning into a very participatory event, with five sponsoring organizations and many leaders. Hal is the coordinator, always a challenge when done over the Internet, but things seem to be coming together.

We received the event poster this week, and it’s impressive. But we are having a very Quaker reaction. It features us as the special invited guest experts and makes it clear that we have our doctorates, thus, I suppose, qualifying us to lead. Actually, what excites us about this consultation is the level of participatory leadership. What up-front leading is done will be shared with six others, all of whom are Bolivian, five of whom are Aymara, all of whom could be called “experts” in the topics they will be sharing. And most of the work of the consultation will be done by all the women and men who show up, bringing their own experiences, concerns and dreams.

The poster gives the idea that we’re coming to lecture. Some of my least favorite words include “lecture,” “expert,” and “doctor.” In Spanish the word for “lecture” is “ponencia,” and is linguistically related to “imponer,” or “impose” in English. It’s what the expert doctor, usually someone from outside the context, comes to do to the passive but eager learners. Ouch.

Okay! Okay!  So I’m exaggerating a little. My Quaker preference for understatement is now clicking in.  But I do wish the publicity could underscore the names of all the people who are giving time and leadership. And someone needs to warn people that they are coming to work, not passively listen to lectures.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us all.

Lugubrious times five

I just finished one of my airport-waiting-room novels for this trip: Isabel Allende´s Island Beneath the Sea (2010). Historical fiction, the story takes place in colonial Saint-Domingue, which later became Haiti.  Following the life of a slave woman who faces great challenges with courage and creativity, it gives an insider´s view of slavery in Haiti, as well as in Louisiana.  As usual, Allende tells a compelling story.  The English version is a translation from the original Spanish.

But a funny fact poked me in my literary ribs, something probably no one else would notice. Believe it or not, Allende uses the word lugubrious five times in this one novel.  Five times!

So what, you say? Well, you need to know that lugubrious is not the most popular word in the English—or the Spanish—language.  In fact, its use is so rare that it leaps out at me every time I run across it.

I remember the first time. About twenty years ago Hal and I were reading aloud Jacob Have I Loved, Katherine Paterson’s award winning novel for young people about growing up on a small island in the Chesapeake Bay.  It was Hal’s turn, and as he read, he came across the sentence, “This piano is lugubriously out of tune.”  That stopped us, and he read it again. We rarely pause to look up new words when we read together, especially if the context hints at the meaning. But the sound of this word captured and delighted us.  It’s one of those words that you don’t just say; you chew it out loud.  So we looked it up and again were delighted to discover that lugubrious refers to something exceedingly gloomy or morose.  What a good word to have available if you ever need to say something exceedingly gloomy or morose.  No harm in being prepared. (My delight led me to write a poem in honor of the word lugubrious, which I’ll add to the end of this reflection.)

But it’s true that one doesn’t come across it much in contemporary literature.  So Allende took me by surprise.  Even with a great word, once is probably enough; twice is permissible.  But five times?

Granted, the author wrote in Spanish, and while lúgubre is not common in that language either, it’s used more frequently than its English counterpart.  Even so…..

I would still recommend Island Beneath the Sea. It provides a rich literary banquet. But beware.  The heavy use of words like lugubrious is like adding too many hot peppers to your lunch.  Even with a skillful word chef behind the creation of the dish, you’re apt to burn your mouth.

Mine is still tingling.

*********

A WORD LIKE LUGUBRIOUS 

needs a poem of its own.

Consider the slime and the slink of it,

the slightly sinister wink of its eye

as it peeks from behind potted plants at wakes,

lingers at the altars of Protestant revivals,

or sobs with soap opera heroines.

An irreverent Uriah Heapish word,

a marbles-in-the-mouth sound,

it offers no apologies

for its lumpish singularity.

Some suggestions for everyday use:

--"This piano is lugubriously out of tune."

--"He shed a lugubrious tear

            as she passed him the marmalade."

--"This morning at exactly 5:37,

            a lugubrious lummox was sighted

            at the corner of 11th and Lucerne

            in downtown LA.  We have investigators

            on the scene and will interrupt our broadcast

            to bring up-to-date coverage

            on this fast-breaking story."

--"Not tonight, dear.  I'm feeling lugubrious."

Wrestling with inclusive God-talk

I struggle with inclusive God-talk.  The word ambivalence describes how I feel. It’s a good word, a word that includes the idea of a dual between values and the resulting confusion. That’s me.  I value knowing that God is not a male, and I value the theologians and seminaries that want to communicate this to the wider body of Christ.  But I also value beauty in language.  My editing hand slashes unmercifully at clunky constructions, in my own work and when I’m editing someone else’s article. As a poet, I know that form has to embrace and embody meaning if a good poem is to result. Both/and, not either/or.

It’s the form part that bothers me when I read something like, “God communicates God’s will in God’s own time to God’s people.”  When I complained that there was just a little too much God in that sentence, a theological friend piously replied, “Can one ever have too much of God?” 

Well, no….I guess not.  But that’s not the point.  It just sounds so awkward—almost ugly—to say it like that.

I remember well when I first became fanatical about applying inclusive language to people. I happened during the sermon one Sunday morning years ago. As usual, my restless spirit seemed to be putting up a block against the barrage of words, my definition of preaching at that time in my life. The pastor was urging us to be “mighty men of God.” I knew he was meaning all of us, men and women alike, and I was trying to mentally accommodate the language.

For some reason, I just stopped trying that morning and began paying attention to the images in my head. As we were encouraged to be men of prayer, the picture in my brain was of a group of white men, dressed in business suits, kneeling in prayer. All the mighty men of God were just that, white men in business suits.  I watched the images come and go through each point of the sermon, and every reference to men carried its corresponding male image.

Realizing that for our pastor, the word “men” was a collective plural noun that automatically included women, I tried putting women into the pictures in my head. It didn’t work. I simply could not force my brain to picture women under the covering label of men. I was nowhere in the images that Sunday morning.

I realized that this was part of my problem with church and sermons, that the intuitive sub-conscious center of my brain, the place where the pictures are born, was not cooperating with my efforts to apply the male words to myself. That’s why church made me so tired and restless (or at least that was one of the reasons; immaturity may also have had something to do with it).

So I applaud efforts to make language about people inclusive, although this becomes awkward at times. I also applaud efforts to be more accurate in our language about God. So why do I struggle so much with inclusive God-talk?

Since the books of the Bible were originally written in patriarchal contexts, it’s not surprising that so much of biblical language portrays God with male images, “Father” and “Son” being primary examples.  But the deeper revelation behind the stories and images whispers the mystery of God who is transcendent and Spirit and so far beyond language that words can only falter and trip.

The book of James marvelously illustrates the gender issues that surround our understanding of God.  In one of my favorite images, James calls God “the Father of lights,” the giver of all good gifts (1:17). A decidedly male image.  But James follows this with a description of what this Father of light does for us.  He gives us birth through the word of truth.  There you have it!  A Father who gives birth!  God our Father/Mother. Creator/birth-giver.  Source of all life.

This doesn’t settle my dis-ease with modern amorphous God-talk, but it does make me smile.  And it reminds me that this mystery runs deeper than words.

My lips are sealed

Right now Hal and I are in Springfield, Oregon at our daughter’s home, helping out with the grandkids. We are giving Kristin time to do her online courses, while we care for three-year-old Peter. Peter is legally blind and autistic. Other than that, he is a bright, beautiful, active toddler. And life is an adventure.

Among the many things we’re learning about autism are the unique ways people with this condition process language. They think in pictures and take things very literally. They have trouble with metaphors and imagery.

The other morning I was getting Peter up and I said something that irritated him. He ordered me to “No Grandma talk!”

I responded with, “You don’t want me to say that? All right. My lips are sealed.”

He immediately sat up in bed, dug his stuffed seal out of the covers, found its mouth and said, “Seal’s got lips. Seal’s got lips.” (Repetition is another characteristic, usually more than twice.)

I laughed and tried to explain what I meant. We then got him dressed and headed down the hall to breakfast. Entirely out of context, he said, “Peter’s lips are sealed,” then changed it to a question, “Are Peter’s lips sealed?”

We enjoyed his remark so much that he has adopted this phrase and at various times throughout the day, always out of context, he will inform us that “My lips are sealed.” The new bed time ritual involves picking up his seal and making some comment on his lips, after which he’s free to go to sleep.

Life is indeed an adventure, and young Peter is teaching us much. He certainly keeps me on my toes. (Now how would he picture that phrase? Grandma in a tutu, doing pirouettes?)

Though his lips may be sealed, Peter can still grin.