O Maker-Of-Dreams
In the darkness of night;
Show me which holy things
Will endure in the light.
For a longing you grant
And a dream that you make;
The seedling you plant
And the love that's at stake,
Your Faithfulness borrow
So always reside
Beyond my tomorrow
On Faith's other side.
And the resolute pilgrim
Who lets go of pride
Will awaken the dawn
On Faith's other side.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Good Work of Death
Artists are almost always improperly appreciated in their own time. I am quite sure that exceptions can be found, but they are bound to be rare, given the fact that it is almost always necessary to let history stretch out behind a life before passing objective judgment upon it. Artists are particularly prone to the fallacy of being given either too much credit, or not enough, while they live and work. How many painters worked in obscurity, unaware that their real influence would only come after death? How many new and interesting artists become all the rage for a season, only to sink into obscurity and oblivion after they are gone? It is a constant curse of the arts that critics are so blinded by the present. Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Vincent Van Gogh - all lauded from the grave. Examples are legion.
Therefore, ironically, death is the ultimate freedom for art, for it is only after death that the worth and effect of an artist's work become measurable. Where too much has been made of a small creator, the applause dies down and the works are forgotten. They are relegated to a footnote of our common story to collect dust. They could not rise above faddism. Death closes the door upon an empty room; the curtain is lowered over a play of no substance. This is liberating, for the art and the artist are revealed, and death is unforgivingly honest.
It also sets free the truly exceptional from the bondage of a merely earthly existence. The artist dies, but her poetry, his paintings, the book lives on! Here it is not a door shutting upon an empty room, but rather a cage being opened wide; the life of the creator no longer limits the value of their own work. It is like the unfolding of a chrysalis, unknown to the one who has gone. This too is necessry, and just.
So the artist (the poet, the writer, the painter, the sculptor, the composer) ought always to welcome death; nothing of substance can be determined until he has come. Behold the coming of the pale horse - will we learn to welcome him? His verdict is inevitable.
Therefore, ironically, death is the ultimate freedom for art, for it is only after death that the worth and effect of an artist's work become measurable. Where too much has been made of a small creator, the applause dies down and the works are forgotten. They are relegated to a footnote of our common story to collect dust. They could not rise above faddism. Death closes the door upon an empty room; the curtain is lowered over a play of no substance. This is liberating, for the art and the artist are revealed, and death is unforgivingly honest.
It also sets free the truly exceptional from the bondage of a merely earthly existence. The artist dies, but her poetry, his paintings, the book lives on! Here it is not a door shutting upon an empty room, but rather a cage being opened wide; the life of the creator no longer limits the value of their own work. It is like the unfolding of a chrysalis, unknown to the one who has gone. This too is necessry, and just.
So the artist (the poet, the writer, the painter, the sculptor, the composer) ought always to welcome death; nothing of substance can be determined until he has come. Behold the coming of the pale horse - will we learn to welcome him? His verdict is inevitable.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Sack Of Rome - or - How To Make A Fine Young Barbarian
Smoke ascended in greedy gusts from the great city, now in its third day of pillage. The buildings have long since caught fire and continue to smolder in ruinous ash-heaps. Some of the sturdier buildings, those composed much of stone, still stand tremulously, more as though they were leaning than standing, waiting for just the right gust of wind to bring them, too, down.
A handful of scavengers have begun to brave the smoke and the heat, and circle down into the broiling mass of victims, savage stomping warriors and crumbling debris. Here and there some fortunate citizen creeps along from hole to hole, hiding as they go, trying to salvage some piece of their fortune in a fold of their tunic, or in a small sack on their back. Most of the houses have been emptied by the conquerors, piles of gold and silver have been thrown into carts and canvass bags and moved out of the city. The sounds now are muted and infrequent. Earlier, it was one massive, jumbled, horrifying shriek of savage greed and panicky resistance. Now the weapons are mostly quiet, and the losers are silenced by their desperate plight. The victors sing and chant their exuberance as they enslave and rape and abuse the few living remnants they happen to find. It is a gory episode, one which is winding down now. Much of the energy is used up; much of the fun has passed on.
One barbarian has found himself a fine horse in all of this babble. It is a good, solid warhorse, bred for speed and strength and treated well for several years now, showing the effects of better food than its new master has ever enjoyed. This horse will be his transportation back home, and once there, it will be hitched to a plow, only being ridden when it is necessary to travel, which is seldom. His name is not important; what is important is that he has his prizes, his small handful of baubles and jewelry which he will share with his mistresses and his wife. He has his horse, and has enjoyed his fill of the local beauties. He considers himself a lucky and satisfied man. The barbarian’s way of life is filled with a few simple needs, and even fewer, simpler concerns. In short, he was feeling happy and magnanimous when he ran across the youth hiding in the lee of a ruined temple wall, clutching a burnt and soiled chunk of bread to his chest. While the barbarian had been ignoring other survivors whom he had seen, this one made him stop for a moment. In fact, there was something about this youth and the time of day which made him positively conversant.
“Hello there my lad. How did you manage to last three whole days through this madness?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t know! Well that’s a fine thing. Don’t you know that I ought to kill you?”
“Yes, but I don’t know why.”
“Why? Why! Why not, rather. That’s the question these days my lad. ‘Why not?’”
“I suppose because I don’t want to die.”
“Well there is that. I’m not sure it’s good enough, to tell you the truth, but I’ve given my sword enough work these last three days, and I don’t think you’ll be any great trouble if I let you go on your way.”
“Of course not sir. I’m leaving the city.”
“Wise. Where will you go?”
The young man made no reply. He looked down at his feet.
“Afraid to tell me? Ha! I won’t be looking up any more mischief tonight – or tomorrow for that matter. It’s back home for me, at least for now.”
“I’m going to my uncle’s estate. It’s far from here.”
“You tell them ‘No hard feelings’ will you? Just had to be done.”
“What had to be done, sir?”
“What? Why, this battle here. It had to be fought, don’t you see? Had to be. There was a right good reason, I recall, when we started, but I’m jiggered if I can tell you what it is now.” He paused to pick at his teeth with his little finger. “Must be all the ale I found in that basement over yonder,” and he waved with his hand in the general vicinity of a large, burned neighborhood.
“If you wouldn’t mind, sir, could you tell me what those reasons are?”
“Weren’t you listening, you cloth-eared urchin? I just said I can’t remember!”
“I’d really like to know. I need to know.” He looked as if he would cry, huddled there grasping his tiny loaf tighter.
“Oh, so that’s it, eh? Hm. Let me think on it a moment. It was... something to do with oppression. Yes, that’s it. We were oppressed. And hungry.” He slapped his sides with two hands, laughing heartily.
“Who was oppressing you?”
“Can’t you tell? You were! Well, not you personally, but the city. Everyone knows the city here was the cause of all our problems. Now we’ve given you all a few problems of your own.” He laughed.
“Was that it?” the boy asked, “because I noticed an awful lot of – what’s the word – looting going on.”
“Can’t be helped, my boy. You’ve got to pay for a major war somehow, and we’ve got no money you see. At least, we used to not have any money. I’ve got a full purse today, though.”
“So is that it? You came for our money and our food?”
“Well now it’s not as simple as all that. You see, this here city has been too almighty proud, too high and mighty for too long. Do you know how many slaves have been taken away from my country and brought here to work? Do you know how long soldiers from this city have lived in my home land? Have you any idea how long this blooming city has just been sitting here, bloody well telling everybody else how to live? No more. From now on, there’s no more orders from any stuck-up emperor, no more armies tramping back and forth, no more of the silly dresses you all wear. From now on things are going to be much more like they should be.”
“If you don’t mind, sir, may I ask you a few questions?”
“Certainly my boy.”
“If there are no more soldiers, who will keep the roads safe?”
“Safe? Who needs them safe? Not me, I can tell you that. Nobody would have the cheek to attack us as we go back home; there’s too many of us. Think for a minute, boy. Use that head of yours.”
“That’s fine, but what about next year when you want to travel by yourself. Who will protect you then?”
“I don’t plan on needing to travel alone boy. That’s a simple question to answer.”
“I was taught that it’s only because of our borders being patrolled that we have peace in our empire. It’s called Pax Romana.”
“It might have been called that, I don’t know. But I do know that it’s still safe enough for me today, and that’s all that matters. You’ve got to live in the present, child. You can’t go speculating off down the distant future. No good comes from that.”
“I always used to feel safe when I knew the armies were keeping a watch on things.”
“Well you can still feel safe, boy. Now that we’ve been through here, there’re not enough rascals left standing within one hundred miles to fill my hat with.”
“Won’t they come back?”
“There’s nothing to come back to! It’s all gone.”
“So instead of Pax Romana, it’s Nihilo Barbarica?”
“I’m not sure what that really means, but it has a nice ring to it.”
“Can I also ask why you are breaking down the gates and tearing chunks out of the walls?”
“Well that should be obvious. Can’t have you go putting up walls again, can we. You’ll learn to live like us, without a bunch of bothersome walls to hedge you in. A man needs space to move, to expand, to grow. No good comes from sticking stone walls up around and trying to keep business out that way. It’s not good – keeps new ideas, new truths from getting in. Keeps commerce out. These are the realities of the present boy!”
“So the walls offended you?”
“They did indeed. Yes they did. They had to go.”
“You destroyed our defenses, and you took all of our treasures.”
“That’s war!” he replied with a laugh. “War is all about those two things, I expect: the walls without and the treasure within.” He reached up with his hand and pulled a small book from a sack on his horse’s back. “Take this here curiosity I found. It’s lousy with writing and words. I can’t make out heads or tails of it, and I don’t suppose it would matter if I did. I’m taking it back to my home so my wife can set it up in our library. We’ll be the only house with a real book in our library. I’ll be able to show visitors this book and tell them about the war, and the great deeds I proliferated upon you and your fellow citizens. But do you know, it doesn’t matter what’s inside this book?”
“It doesn’t?”
“Of course not! It’s written in your language, that’s like a wall. It keeps folks like me who can’t read, out. So the wall has to come down – I take the book. But inside there’s thoughts, right? I anticipate that some fat Roman went and had some thoughts one morning and put them down on these pages. Now the secret of plundering, as you see all around you, is to know what to take. I found these trinkets here,” he produced a stunning golden necklace with a pearl pendant as an example, “and I determined that they were of value, so I took them. But,” he continued, “that broken chunk of bread you’re holding onto, well, you can have that! It’s all about figuring the value of a thing. I’m taking this here horse, but not the toga I saw laying on the ground behind me. The thoughts in this book are worthless, like your bread. I don’t need them.”
“I don’t understand. If you don’t think the book is valuable, why take it?”
“Goodness, don’t you use your head boy? Don’t you use your ears? They told me this was an educated city but I doubt it now! I just told you it was a curiosity. It’s not worth a thing, but it’s not an ugly thing to have laying around either. It’s not practical. You can’t buy a thing with it, and you can’t eat it. Furthermore,” he continued, “the man who wrote it’s dead, isn’t he? How clever can he be if he’s dead!?”
The young man had no response for this.
Then the barbarian continued, “Back in my home, a man is valued for what he can do with his hands, and what we can do is pull down your walls, take your things, and burn the lot of it once we’re done. That makes us better. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, and you can’t have nothing to say to us who live. You see that makes sense? It’s only what’s still living that counts.”
“So, you’re saying that you don’t care one bit what’s written in that book?”
“Course not. How could I? It’s nothing but some scribbling from a dead Roman. Don’t look back to the past, boy. You’ve got enough problems in the present! The present is where things happen. You could say it’s like a philosophy.”
“So now we are at your mercy.”
“Sure, for now. But you’re young, and despite the fact you’ve got more questions than a ten year old girl, and despite the fact you’re our natural enemy, I like you. Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but I like you. Now here’s what I’d do in your sandals: I’d get me to a safe place, find a way to collect some folks together who are strong and who don’t worry too much about other people’s walls and such. I’d put those folks into a group which can go out and get what you need from other people. I’d stop worrying so much about whether they’re ‘our people’ or ‘their people,’ and I’d make everybody in a thousand miles afraid of me. Stop worrying about books and such. A book never stopped a sword. Don’t think so much about the good old days and what some old fraud wrote in a book. Don’t worry about the things that might happen tomorrow or you’ll be afraid to do anything constructive today. Don’t worry about walls and gates, and don’t forget that the only things worth taking are the things that are practical – food and money and such. You don’t forget that nobody really matters except yourself. You’ve got to look after yourself before you do anything else. That’s the secret to success. You remember that, and you’ll make it just fine.”
“I’ll think about that, all the way to my uncle’s estate.”
“I know you will; you’re a clever lad for a Roman.” He let out another tremendous laugh as he began to lead his horse through the ruined town, towards the large barbarian encampment on the edge of the city.
It would be fair to say that the boy did think about those things on his way to his uncle’s estate, including during the brief interlude when he was, in fact, robbed of his bread, for it seemed that the very destruction of the city had created brigands to replace the ones scared away by the invading army. And as he left the city of his birth, he was everlastingly impressed by two compelling arguments which seemed somehow to bolster the confident assertions of the barbarian: The devastation without, and the smoke within.
A handful of scavengers have begun to brave the smoke and the heat, and circle down into the broiling mass of victims, savage stomping warriors and crumbling debris. Here and there some fortunate citizen creeps along from hole to hole, hiding as they go, trying to salvage some piece of their fortune in a fold of their tunic, or in a small sack on their back. Most of the houses have been emptied by the conquerors, piles of gold and silver have been thrown into carts and canvass bags and moved out of the city. The sounds now are muted and infrequent. Earlier, it was one massive, jumbled, horrifying shriek of savage greed and panicky resistance. Now the weapons are mostly quiet, and the losers are silenced by their desperate plight. The victors sing and chant their exuberance as they enslave and rape and abuse the few living remnants they happen to find. It is a gory episode, one which is winding down now. Much of the energy is used up; much of the fun has passed on.
One barbarian has found himself a fine horse in all of this babble. It is a good, solid warhorse, bred for speed and strength and treated well for several years now, showing the effects of better food than its new master has ever enjoyed. This horse will be his transportation back home, and once there, it will be hitched to a plow, only being ridden when it is necessary to travel, which is seldom. His name is not important; what is important is that he has his prizes, his small handful of baubles and jewelry which he will share with his mistresses and his wife. He has his horse, and has enjoyed his fill of the local beauties. He considers himself a lucky and satisfied man. The barbarian’s way of life is filled with a few simple needs, and even fewer, simpler concerns. In short, he was feeling happy and magnanimous when he ran across the youth hiding in the lee of a ruined temple wall, clutching a burnt and soiled chunk of bread to his chest. While the barbarian had been ignoring other survivors whom he had seen, this one made him stop for a moment. In fact, there was something about this youth and the time of day which made him positively conversant.
“Hello there my lad. How did you manage to last three whole days through this madness?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t know! Well that’s a fine thing. Don’t you know that I ought to kill you?”
“Yes, but I don’t know why.”
“Why? Why! Why not, rather. That’s the question these days my lad. ‘Why not?’”
“I suppose because I don’t want to die.”
“Well there is that. I’m not sure it’s good enough, to tell you the truth, but I’ve given my sword enough work these last three days, and I don’t think you’ll be any great trouble if I let you go on your way.”
“Of course not sir. I’m leaving the city.”
“Wise. Where will you go?”
The young man made no reply. He looked down at his feet.
“Afraid to tell me? Ha! I won’t be looking up any more mischief tonight – or tomorrow for that matter. It’s back home for me, at least for now.”
“I’m going to my uncle’s estate. It’s far from here.”
“You tell them ‘No hard feelings’ will you? Just had to be done.”
“What had to be done, sir?”
“What? Why, this battle here. It had to be fought, don’t you see? Had to be. There was a right good reason, I recall, when we started, but I’m jiggered if I can tell you what it is now.” He paused to pick at his teeth with his little finger. “Must be all the ale I found in that basement over yonder,” and he waved with his hand in the general vicinity of a large, burned neighborhood.
“If you wouldn’t mind, sir, could you tell me what those reasons are?”
“Weren’t you listening, you cloth-eared urchin? I just said I can’t remember!”
“I’d really like to know. I need to know.” He looked as if he would cry, huddled there grasping his tiny loaf tighter.
“Oh, so that’s it, eh? Hm. Let me think on it a moment. It was... something to do with oppression. Yes, that’s it. We were oppressed. And hungry.” He slapped his sides with two hands, laughing heartily.
“Who was oppressing you?”
“Can’t you tell? You were! Well, not you personally, but the city. Everyone knows the city here was the cause of all our problems. Now we’ve given you all a few problems of your own.” He laughed.
“Was that it?” the boy asked, “because I noticed an awful lot of – what’s the word – looting going on.”
“Can’t be helped, my boy. You’ve got to pay for a major war somehow, and we’ve got no money you see. At least, we used to not have any money. I’ve got a full purse today, though.”
“So is that it? You came for our money and our food?”
“Well now it’s not as simple as all that. You see, this here city has been too almighty proud, too high and mighty for too long. Do you know how many slaves have been taken away from my country and brought here to work? Do you know how long soldiers from this city have lived in my home land? Have you any idea how long this blooming city has just been sitting here, bloody well telling everybody else how to live? No more. From now on, there’s no more orders from any stuck-up emperor, no more armies tramping back and forth, no more of the silly dresses you all wear. From now on things are going to be much more like they should be.”
“If you don’t mind, sir, may I ask you a few questions?”
“Certainly my boy.”
“If there are no more soldiers, who will keep the roads safe?”
“Safe? Who needs them safe? Not me, I can tell you that. Nobody would have the cheek to attack us as we go back home; there’s too many of us. Think for a minute, boy. Use that head of yours.”
“That’s fine, but what about next year when you want to travel by yourself. Who will protect you then?”
“I don’t plan on needing to travel alone boy. That’s a simple question to answer.”
“I was taught that it’s only because of our borders being patrolled that we have peace in our empire. It’s called Pax Romana.”
“It might have been called that, I don’t know. But I do know that it’s still safe enough for me today, and that’s all that matters. You’ve got to live in the present, child. You can’t go speculating off down the distant future. No good comes from that.”
“I always used to feel safe when I knew the armies were keeping a watch on things.”
“Well you can still feel safe, boy. Now that we’ve been through here, there’re not enough rascals left standing within one hundred miles to fill my hat with.”
“Won’t they come back?”
“There’s nothing to come back to! It’s all gone.”
“So instead of Pax Romana, it’s Nihilo Barbarica?”
“I’m not sure what that really means, but it has a nice ring to it.”
“Can I also ask why you are breaking down the gates and tearing chunks out of the walls?”
“Well that should be obvious. Can’t have you go putting up walls again, can we. You’ll learn to live like us, without a bunch of bothersome walls to hedge you in. A man needs space to move, to expand, to grow. No good comes from sticking stone walls up around and trying to keep business out that way. It’s not good – keeps new ideas, new truths from getting in. Keeps commerce out. These are the realities of the present boy!”
“So the walls offended you?”
“They did indeed. Yes they did. They had to go.”
“You destroyed our defenses, and you took all of our treasures.”
“That’s war!” he replied with a laugh. “War is all about those two things, I expect: the walls without and the treasure within.” He reached up with his hand and pulled a small book from a sack on his horse’s back. “Take this here curiosity I found. It’s lousy with writing and words. I can’t make out heads or tails of it, and I don’t suppose it would matter if I did. I’m taking it back to my home so my wife can set it up in our library. We’ll be the only house with a real book in our library. I’ll be able to show visitors this book and tell them about the war, and the great deeds I proliferated upon you and your fellow citizens. But do you know, it doesn’t matter what’s inside this book?”
“It doesn’t?”
“Of course not! It’s written in your language, that’s like a wall. It keeps folks like me who can’t read, out. So the wall has to come down – I take the book. But inside there’s thoughts, right? I anticipate that some fat Roman went and had some thoughts one morning and put them down on these pages. Now the secret of plundering, as you see all around you, is to know what to take. I found these trinkets here,” he produced a stunning golden necklace with a pearl pendant as an example, “and I determined that they were of value, so I took them. But,” he continued, “that broken chunk of bread you’re holding onto, well, you can have that! It’s all about figuring the value of a thing. I’m taking this here horse, but not the toga I saw laying on the ground behind me. The thoughts in this book are worthless, like your bread. I don’t need them.”
“I don’t understand. If you don’t think the book is valuable, why take it?”
“Goodness, don’t you use your head boy? Don’t you use your ears? They told me this was an educated city but I doubt it now! I just told you it was a curiosity. It’s not worth a thing, but it’s not an ugly thing to have laying around either. It’s not practical. You can’t buy a thing with it, and you can’t eat it. Furthermore,” he continued, “the man who wrote it’s dead, isn’t he? How clever can he be if he’s dead!?”
The young man had no response for this.
Then the barbarian continued, “Back in my home, a man is valued for what he can do with his hands, and what we can do is pull down your walls, take your things, and burn the lot of it once we’re done. That makes us better. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, and you can’t have nothing to say to us who live. You see that makes sense? It’s only what’s still living that counts.”
“So, you’re saying that you don’t care one bit what’s written in that book?”
“Course not. How could I? It’s nothing but some scribbling from a dead Roman. Don’t look back to the past, boy. You’ve got enough problems in the present! The present is where things happen. You could say it’s like a philosophy.”
“So now we are at your mercy.”
“Sure, for now. But you’re young, and despite the fact you’ve got more questions than a ten year old girl, and despite the fact you’re our natural enemy, I like you. Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but I like you. Now here’s what I’d do in your sandals: I’d get me to a safe place, find a way to collect some folks together who are strong and who don’t worry too much about other people’s walls and such. I’d put those folks into a group which can go out and get what you need from other people. I’d stop worrying so much about whether they’re ‘our people’ or ‘their people,’ and I’d make everybody in a thousand miles afraid of me. Stop worrying about books and such. A book never stopped a sword. Don’t think so much about the good old days and what some old fraud wrote in a book. Don’t worry about the things that might happen tomorrow or you’ll be afraid to do anything constructive today. Don’t worry about walls and gates, and don’t forget that the only things worth taking are the things that are practical – food and money and such. You don’t forget that nobody really matters except yourself. You’ve got to look after yourself before you do anything else. That’s the secret to success. You remember that, and you’ll make it just fine.”
“I’ll think about that, all the way to my uncle’s estate.”
“I know you will; you’re a clever lad for a Roman.” He let out another tremendous laugh as he began to lead his horse through the ruined town, towards the large barbarian encampment on the edge of the city.
It would be fair to say that the boy did think about those things on his way to his uncle’s estate, including during the brief interlude when he was, in fact, robbed of his bread, for it seemed that the very destruction of the city had created brigands to replace the ones scared away by the invading army. And as he left the city of his birth, he was everlastingly impressed by two compelling arguments which seemed somehow to bolster the confident assertions of the barbarian: The devastation without, and the smoke within.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Considering what poetry is, and what it means to enjoy poetry, I find myself in the wrong century. At some point - I'm not sure when - poetry stopped including banal concepts like rhyme and meter. This is another way of saying that poetry has, for decades now, been struggling along without integrity. Let me explain. Integrity means wholeness. When a building is well built according to a plan, we say it has integrity. When a person's actions match their beliefs and values, we say they have integrity (especially if their values are high and admirable.) Both instances require conformity to a pattern for the sake of structure and consistency. At some point (I'm not sure exactly when, but I suspect it may involve Walt Whitman somehow) poets began to utterly disregard structure. There was no pattern to make their words conform to. This was and is seen, I believe, as progress. Why? Because it allows ideas and words to be completely unrestrained. And this lack of restraint is a very modern romance. We are in love with the idea of living without boundaries. More precisely, we think we love the idea of living without boundaries, but as a philosophy that ideal is so impossible that we cannot conceive of it on any level. Every cell in your body will die unless it maintains its boundaries. Your skin provides a safe haven for your organs. Every law exists to keep people out of someone else's boundaries. You lock the doors of your home at night because you cannot live without the protection of boundaries. All of life and all of creation displays the absurdity of unrestrained impulses and the impossibility of living without borders.
Only in the realms of ethics and the imagination do we crudely believe we have eradicated the need for fences and walls. This is reflected in modern poems which disdain order so that the mind may roam free, and the result is like watching a drunken giraffe try to run hurdles. It may seem deep and intellectual to try and plumb the depths of such poems, but it is rarely worth the effort. Allow me to site one example. The following poem is one which won a national award for student poetry while I was in high school. See if you can relate to the subject, or fathom the deeper meaning here:
As we were laying in bed
us was murdered.
I cannot remember who wrote this poem, but if I could speak to that person I would tell them that the only thing murdered in this verse is the English language. I obviously cannot comment on every single modern poem, but every time I read one which follows this sort of thinking I am struck by the same inevitable thought: modern poetry has exchanged integrity for lack of content.
One of the advantages of writing in a disciplined manner is that it forces us to think in a disciplined way. Anybody who has achieved anything substantial can testify that discipline is mandatory for success, and no discipline is possible until our thoughts are disciplined. My great fear is that we no longer write poetry in an orderly way because we no longer think in an orderly way.
The lynch-pin for getting moderns to understand the necessity of integrity in this arena may actually be music. Music is a field which requires stringent discipline, and the form of the words must match requirements created by the order of the composition. Every student who groans under the weight of a long poem is ecstatic over the release of a new song by their favorite artist. The only difference is that the proximity of music makes the comprehension of the lyrics either easier, or non-essential. It is amazing how many people today don't stop to think about what the lyrics of a song actually mean!
One of my favorite songs illustrates how music may help to lead modern minds into an affinity for real poetry. One of the verses goes like this:
I heard there was a secret chord
David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It went like this; the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall - the major lift
The baffled king composing 'hallelujah'
Unless I am mistaken, there is an obvious and easily identified structure to these words. The fact that they can work apart from any accompaniment is testified by the fact that when this song was recorded, it was really recited more than sung, and the instruments were limited to the chorus with nothing more than soft percussion behind the artist's voice on each verse.
As one very worthy professor recently noted, one reason that modern poetry seems to blather on and on is that there is no structure to force them to stop! Nothing within the poem itself creates a necessity for actually communicating the idea adequately, or in a timely manner. Sure, it takes a little effort to understand well-written poetry, but that is the worst reason of all for avoiding it. As soon as we can't be troubled to think about things which have been written well, we might as well swing wide the gates, for the barbarians have already won. They are no longer approaching the city, they are disappearing over the hill with their plunder, amazed at how easy the sacking of our culture really was.
I am finding that the alarm was sounded in various places and at various times, but nobody was there to hear it.
Only in the realms of ethics and the imagination do we crudely believe we have eradicated the need for fences and walls. This is reflected in modern poems which disdain order so that the mind may roam free, and the result is like watching a drunken giraffe try to run hurdles. It may seem deep and intellectual to try and plumb the depths of such poems, but it is rarely worth the effort. Allow me to site one example. The following poem is one which won a national award for student poetry while I was in high school. See if you can relate to the subject, or fathom the deeper meaning here:
As we were laying in bed
us was murdered.
I cannot remember who wrote this poem, but if I could speak to that person I would tell them that the only thing murdered in this verse is the English language. I obviously cannot comment on every single modern poem, but every time I read one which follows this sort of thinking I am struck by the same inevitable thought: modern poetry has exchanged integrity for lack of content.
One of the advantages of writing in a disciplined manner is that it forces us to think in a disciplined way. Anybody who has achieved anything substantial can testify that discipline is mandatory for success, and no discipline is possible until our thoughts are disciplined. My great fear is that we no longer write poetry in an orderly way because we no longer think in an orderly way.
The lynch-pin for getting moderns to understand the necessity of integrity in this arena may actually be music. Music is a field which requires stringent discipline, and the form of the words must match requirements created by the order of the composition. Every student who groans under the weight of a long poem is ecstatic over the release of a new song by their favorite artist. The only difference is that the proximity of music makes the comprehension of the lyrics either easier, or non-essential. It is amazing how many people today don't stop to think about what the lyrics of a song actually mean!
One of my favorite songs illustrates how music may help to lead modern minds into an affinity for real poetry. One of the verses goes like this:
I heard there was a secret chord
David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It went like this; the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall - the major lift
The baffled king composing 'hallelujah'
Unless I am mistaken, there is an obvious and easily identified structure to these words. The fact that they can work apart from any accompaniment is testified by the fact that when this song was recorded, it was really recited more than sung, and the instruments were limited to the chorus with nothing more than soft percussion behind the artist's voice on each verse.
As one very worthy professor recently noted, one reason that modern poetry seems to blather on and on is that there is no structure to force them to stop! Nothing within the poem itself creates a necessity for actually communicating the idea adequately, or in a timely manner. Sure, it takes a little effort to understand well-written poetry, but that is the worst reason of all for avoiding it. As soon as we can't be troubled to think about things which have been written well, we might as well swing wide the gates, for the barbarians have already won. They are no longer approaching the city, they are disappearing over the hill with their plunder, amazed at how easy the sacking of our culture really was.
I am finding that the alarm was sounded in various places and at various times, but nobody was there to hear it.
Monday, April 21, 2008
the Sound of Weeping and Laughter
Ezra lived in exile. Ezra was a son of the defeated, humiliated Hebrew nation. He lived under the control of a pagan emperor who inherited the territory of Judah when it was a smoldering, ruined wasteland. The destruction that Nebuchadnezzar had brought down on that tiny nation before Ezra's birth was so very complete that today it has been called the Babylonian gap; a blank, uninhabited void in the history of the Jews, a desolate empty parenthesis when nobody lived there, and nobody settled there. The houses were burned, the gardens and farms were razed, the walls were thrown down, the palaces were obliterated and the temple was annihilated.
Worship - the link that was not so much missing as torn away from them. They could, of course, express themselves to God anywhere, and they strove to do so; yet at the same time, they could not. At least, not right away. Once the survivors and the exiles had straggled into the precincts of Babylon and settled down, they were asked for music. Their conquerors demanded a song. Can't these Jews, so famous for their singing, manage to whip up one quaint old hymn of theirs to perform for us? But the Jews knew, as all oppressed people know, that tragedy can overwhelm the impulse to sing. They'd had the music torn out of their souls. The symbol of their close relationship with God, the temple, was destroyed. While they lived through that impoverished waiting time, they learned what it is they had undervalued for too long. Life has a way of taking the things you hold too lightly, and it is still true that you don't really know what you have until you lose it.
So when they were permitted to return, naturally many of their children and grandchildren jumped at the chance. Imagine, finding that corner of the old city which grandfather told us about so many times when we were growing up! We'll build a fine home there; we'll be the first to return, we will be settlers in the land God promised to Abraham! It must have felt like the conquest of Canaan all over again. They left in groups and in caravans, disregarding the safety of the pagan empire for the adventure of re-taking their promised land.
Ezra made it there with them. He followed along at some point, confronting them with the failures of their forefathers and the primacy of worship. While he was there, under his constant encouragement, plans were made for rebuilding the heart of their nation and their religion: the temple.
A crowd was there the day they dedicated the ground anew to the Lord. Many of them had never been to Judah. They had been born as subjects. But there were others in the crowd who had spent their childhood in the days before the fall of Jerusalem. Old now, they were perhaps the few hardy elders who could not countenance one more day apart from the land of promise. They had been torn away, and the tear had never fully healed for them. So they took the perilous, unlikely gamble of travelling along with the youth, the young families, the adventurers and the discontent. And they were all together when the outline of the temple foundation was identified, and the rubble and grass and the brush were all cleared away. They reinforced the stones and inspected the joints and corners, perhaps even replacing beams which would form portions of the walls. And when the foundation was ready to hold the walls, when construction was about to begin, they came together to celebrate.
They were celebrating a new beginning, of course. They were wiping away the memory of God's judgment by building again on the basis of his promise. The very project was a living picture of grace (already finished in their imagination).
Here I see an attitude I recognize, for there are so many young people coming into the kingdom in this day and age. As they come, many of them are gravitating towards the newest expressions of worship, the most recent books, the most popular speakers - we Americans believe in the future! We look forward, not back! Perhaps there is something of the ruined, ineffective exile period in our recent Christian heritage. Didn't uncle Tozer say that the church in America was in a modern Babylonian captivity? We haven't lost our promise or our relationship with God, he observed, but we have surrendered the power of our independent subservience to the King of the Universe. We are waiting for a deliverance from apathy, fear and self-interest, he said. Many young people left the church because of what they witnessed in the adults they knew who professed Christ. I have spoken with teenagers who want to believe in God, but simply don't believe most of the Christians they've met! As many of those youth come back, they want to build something new for God. They want to create an edifice which faces the future - a new century and a new hope.
But we have to realize that the foundation is already there, and has been there for centuries. You can't build on nothing. The Jews who returned could build because they were not the first; the young believers of today are not the first either. I see ages and ages of holy men and women whose examples must continue to illuminate and model true faith down through the centuries. They have crafted our creeds and fueled our evangelistic endeavors. Their stories are more nourishing than a stadium full of newspapers and magazines filled with current events. Their lives and their sacrifices will (if we let them) enrich the very soil on which we build our little hamlets for God's glory. But those saints are gone, their lives and stories are finished.
In that great celebration, Ezra tells us that the sound of rejoicing rose up over the crowd because of the newcomers who saw only the future. Mingled with it, and indistinguishable from it, was the sound of weeping as the elders remembered the former glory. Perhaps no other verse so perfectly embodies the current state of the church in America, for we see every reason to hope as we go through transitions and metamorphoses - yet we have every reason to weep for the effectiveness we abandoned during a crucial and dark period in our nation's history. We can remember the giants who stood out from the crowd once upon a time, who are now merely history; we can remember the institutions they built out of nothing but faith and sweat; we can still read the books with which they shook the world; we can remember the songs that have lasted for centuries; the devotions thoughts they were considerate enough to record for our benefit; the impetus given to evangelism and the force of their work for the Lord...
Some of us think that the world has yet to see, in this generation, anything equal to the greatest saints who went before us. And maybe we can be forgiven for the tears we shed when we look at the potential of the present, and remember the glory that used to be. It could be that God will raise up something even more glorious, but for the moment the sound of laughter mingles with the sound of weeping, and nobody can tell the two apart, for both of them are equally true.
Worship - the link that was not so much missing as torn away from them. They could, of course, express themselves to God anywhere, and they strove to do so; yet at the same time, they could not. At least, not right away. Once the survivors and the exiles had straggled into the precincts of Babylon and settled down, they were asked for music. Their conquerors demanded a song. Can't these Jews, so famous for their singing, manage to whip up one quaint old hymn of theirs to perform for us? But the Jews knew, as all oppressed people know, that tragedy can overwhelm the impulse to sing. They'd had the music torn out of their souls. The symbol of their close relationship with God, the temple, was destroyed. While they lived through that impoverished waiting time, they learned what it is they had undervalued for too long. Life has a way of taking the things you hold too lightly, and it is still true that you don't really know what you have until you lose it.
So when they were permitted to return, naturally many of their children and grandchildren jumped at the chance. Imagine, finding that corner of the old city which grandfather told us about so many times when we were growing up! We'll build a fine home there; we'll be the first to return, we will be settlers in the land God promised to Abraham! It must have felt like the conquest of Canaan all over again. They left in groups and in caravans, disregarding the safety of the pagan empire for the adventure of re-taking their promised land.
Ezra made it there with them. He followed along at some point, confronting them with the failures of their forefathers and the primacy of worship. While he was there, under his constant encouragement, plans were made for rebuilding the heart of their nation and their religion: the temple.
A crowd was there the day they dedicated the ground anew to the Lord. Many of them had never been to Judah. They had been born as subjects. But there were others in the crowd who had spent their childhood in the days before the fall of Jerusalem. Old now, they were perhaps the few hardy elders who could not countenance one more day apart from the land of promise. They had been torn away, and the tear had never fully healed for them. So they took the perilous, unlikely gamble of travelling along with the youth, the young families, the adventurers and the discontent. And they were all together when the outline of the temple foundation was identified, and the rubble and grass and the brush were all cleared away. They reinforced the stones and inspected the joints and corners, perhaps even replacing beams which would form portions of the walls. And when the foundation was ready to hold the walls, when construction was about to begin, they came together to celebrate.
They were celebrating a new beginning, of course. They were wiping away the memory of God's judgment by building again on the basis of his promise. The very project was a living picture of grace (already finished in their imagination).
Here I see an attitude I recognize, for there are so many young people coming into the kingdom in this day and age. As they come, many of them are gravitating towards the newest expressions of worship, the most recent books, the most popular speakers - we Americans believe in the future! We look forward, not back! Perhaps there is something of the ruined, ineffective exile period in our recent Christian heritage. Didn't uncle Tozer say that the church in America was in a modern Babylonian captivity? We haven't lost our promise or our relationship with God, he observed, but we have surrendered the power of our independent subservience to the King of the Universe. We are waiting for a deliverance from apathy, fear and self-interest, he said. Many young people left the church because of what they witnessed in the adults they knew who professed Christ. I have spoken with teenagers who want to believe in God, but simply don't believe most of the Christians they've met! As many of those youth come back, they want to build something new for God. They want to create an edifice which faces the future - a new century and a new hope.
But we have to realize that the foundation is already there, and has been there for centuries. You can't build on nothing. The Jews who returned could build because they were not the first; the young believers of today are not the first either. I see ages and ages of holy men and women whose examples must continue to illuminate and model true faith down through the centuries. They have crafted our creeds and fueled our evangelistic endeavors. Their stories are more nourishing than a stadium full of newspapers and magazines filled with current events. Their lives and their sacrifices will (if we let them) enrich the very soil on which we build our little hamlets for God's glory. But those saints are gone, their lives and stories are finished.
In that great celebration, Ezra tells us that the sound of rejoicing rose up over the crowd because of the newcomers who saw only the future. Mingled with it, and indistinguishable from it, was the sound of weeping as the elders remembered the former glory. Perhaps no other verse so perfectly embodies the current state of the church in America, for we see every reason to hope as we go through transitions and metamorphoses - yet we have every reason to weep for the effectiveness we abandoned during a crucial and dark period in our nation's history. We can remember the giants who stood out from the crowd once upon a time, who are now merely history; we can remember the institutions they built out of nothing but faith and sweat; we can still read the books with which they shook the world; we can remember the songs that have lasted for centuries; the devotions thoughts they were considerate enough to record for our benefit; the impetus given to evangelism and the force of their work for the Lord...
Some of us think that the world has yet to see, in this generation, anything equal to the greatest saints who went before us. And maybe we can be forgiven for the tears we shed when we look at the potential of the present, and remember the glory that used to be. It could be that God will raise up something even more glorious, but for the moment the sound of laughter mingles with the sound of weeping, and nobody can tell the two apart, for both of them are equally true.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Naked Prophet
I know why Isaiah preached naked. In Isaiah chapter 20 it says that God told him to take off his clothes and preach to the people – which is a little odd. After all, public nudity is (mostly) illegal, and for good reasons. The Bible associates it with shame and humiliation. It is not a spectator sport or a healthy pastime. So why would the greatest prophet of the Old Testament preach that way? If I were to do that on a Sunday morning, I’d be presumed insane and replaced by a pastor who was less inclined to exhibitionism. So why Isaiah?
I think I know. The preacher’s lot is a hard one, and it gets harder all the time. Imagine with me now… it falls to you to find ways to tell people what God’s word means and what God is saying to your generation. A very few of the people you know actually want to hear it. A few others want to hear it, but they believe you have gotten it wrong and they want to tweak things until they are comfortable. A small number of people actually hate what you are trying to do; they regard the precious and magnificent promises which are your breath and blood as nothing more than indulgent, mythological self-delusion, effectively undermined by every branch of science and every intellectual since at least 1703. These folks are actually attacking your efforts, drawing people away from the glory that God has shown you.
But by far the largest segment of people you deal with simply don’t care; and this is the cruelest reality of all. What if you were a doctor (you wonder) and victims of malaria didn’t care about the medication you offered them to prevent the disease? What if you could plant in some young heart a love for the greatest classical music ever written, but they are simply uninterested? To be hated is one thing; to strongly disagree is another; but to be disregarded – to be simply ignored as if the Creator and His message are so terribly dull – this cuts deep. Too deeply, sometimes.
One of the most successful preachers of all times was Charles Spurgeon. In the midst of a ministry which spanned decades and drew thousands of listeners, he once said: “In this world, is it not a weary business to be a minister of Christ today? If I might have my choice I would sooner follow any avocation, so far as the comfort of it is concerned, than this of ministering to the sons of men, for we beat the air. This deaf generation will not hear us. What is this perverse generation the better for years and years of preaching?… The world is not worth preaching to.”
No wonder Isaiah was willing to strip, if only it would cause people to SIT UP AND TAKE NOTICE! How far will I go to get people’s attention, to get them to care? Well, not as far as Isaiah (for now, at least… but I’ve only been at it for five years.) But I know why Isaiah was willing to do what God asked. The message is everything. The messenger is nothing. He threw his pride and dignity aside and walked among the laughing, pointing crowds shouting his warning upon the winds, his voice carried far away. Did they hear his cry?
I think I know. The preacher’s lot is a hard one, and it gets harder all the time. Imagine with me now… it falls to you to find ways to tell people what God’s word means and what God is saying to your generation. A very few of the people you know actually want to hear it. A few others want to hear it, but they believe you have gotten it wrong and they want to tweak things until they are comfortable. A small number of people actually hate what you are trying to do; they regard the precious and magnificent promises which are your breath and blood as nothing more than indulgent, mythological self-delusion, effectively undermined by every branch of science and every intellectual since at least 1703. These folks are actually attacking your efforts, drawing people away from the glory that God has shown you.
But by far the largest segment of people you deal with simply don’t care; and this is the cruelest reality of all. What if you were a doctor (you wonder) and victims of malaria didn’t care about the medication you offered them to prevent the disease? What if you could plant in some young heart a love for the greatest classical music ever written, but they are simply uninterested? To be hated is one thing; to strongly disagree is another; but to be disregarded – to be simply ignored as if the Creator and His message are so terribly dull – this cuts deep. Too deeply, sometimes.
One of the most successful preachers of all times was Charles Spurgeon. In the midst of a ministry which spanned decades and drew thousands of listeners, he once said: “In this world, is it not a weary business to be a minister of Christ today? If I might have my choice I would sooner follow any avocation, so far as the comfort of it is concerned, than this of ministering to the sons of men, for we beat the air. This deaf generation will not hear us. What is this perverse generation the better for years and years of preaching?… The world is not worth preaching to.”
No wonder Isaiah was willing to strip, if only it would cause people to SIT UP AND TAKE NOTICE! How far will I go to get people’s attention, to get them to care? Well, not as far as Isaiah (for now, at least… but I’ve only been at it for five years.) But I know why Isaiah was willing to do what God asked. The message is everything. The messenger is nothing. He threw his pride and dignity aside and walked among the laughing, pointing crowds shouting his warning upon the winds, his voice carried far away. Did they hear his cry?
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
TaxTime
In honor of Uncle Sam and his indecipherable tax code, we offer this gem from Robert Frost:
Never Ask of Money spent
Where the spender thinks it went
Mortal man was never meant
To remember or Invent
What he did with every cent
Thank You.
Never Ask of Money spent
Where the spender thinks it went
Mortal man was never meant
To remember or Invent
What he did with every cent
Thank You.
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