I Declare War on the Mean Old Lady of Michigan

I defy you, stingy-faced, hate-pruned, devil-ridden, woman in name only. You have persecuted my child until I have laid my patience and my kindness in a tiny coffin. Everywhere I go, you are there. At the grocery store, at the zoo, at the mall, at the craft shop, you wait to interfere between me and my child, to shout at him, to scold him, to sprinkle on him in dense smoking drops the contempt and scandal and horror of your bitter, blasted years.

Is he a shade too tall, too strong, too loud, too energetic for your shriveled prudent tolerance? Is he too alive for you, walking death in female form? Shriek at him then; berate me for not shrieking at him first. You will regret it within moments.

I, who fear everything, fear nothing in my child’s cause. Even  you, Mean Old Lady of Michigan, have quailed before me, whenever I have confronted you. I know very well that nothing can deter me in that moment, fueled by the zeal of my protective maternity – and you know it too. You insult me, you answer me back, and once again you answer me. And then you are silent. I make you silent. It will always be this way.

Don’t imagine, fond hag, that I will be so foolhardy as to lay a hand on you or threaten you physically. I see you waiting, silently, for me to cross that line so that you can call the police and have  your revenge. Ah, but I know a better weapon. I who know no embarrassment realize fully that you are full of embarrassment. All your peace shivers behind the cold, sour iron of your social mask. To appear normal in the eyes of others is All, the Great All, to your tone-deaf, color-blind, senseless imagination. You dread a public scene – that is your weakness. I, on the other hand, think nothing of holding my nose an inch from your bulbous eyes and hollering into your rotted tomb of a mouth.  You WILL be silent; you WILL hold your grave peace, such as you have – at least until I am out of hearing.

I know very well that you think I am mentally ill or otherwise abnormal. No one with zeal, with honest feeling, with human reactions is considered normal anymore. Yet I comfort myself in the knowledge that one of these days you will be about to harangue some other innocent, too-curious, too-energetic child and you will pause – and you will look around to see if I am there.

Believe it – I am.

Does Reconciliation Require Groveling?

This past weekend I heard repentance described as ‘groveling.’ This term came out of the mouth of an innocent young creature who was more describing someone else’s viewpoint than his own. The “someone else” is a woman or man (my conversation partner was not specific) in their fifties who feel that they don’t have to reconcile with their son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren whom they have wronged, because that would be groveling and it’s inappropriate for an older person to grovel before a younger person (and disrespectful for a  younger person to accept groveling from an older person.)

As someone who has begged forgiveness of my own children more than once, allow me to say, “Hogwash – and that’s putting it mildly.”

I believe that these are the kinds of stupid inconsiderate things people say when they are trying to worm out of admitting they’ve been wrong. It’s impossible to answer all these kinds of arguments because they arise from narcissism, not reason. However, for the sake of argument, I think I’ll address this one today.

What does reconciliation require from the person who has wronged another person?

First of all, by “wronged another person” I don’t mean that you said something which reflected poorly on the other person somehow and they chose to feel offended by what you said. Petty mistakes like that can and should be overlooked and forgiven within a family. I’m talking about a gamut of real offenses – running from withholding familial aid and fellowship to interfering in someone’s parental rights to downright abuse of varying kinds and degrees. When you have committed this kind of wrong – that is, when you have determinedly and purposefully deprived a person of something you owed them as a family member – what should you do to reconcile with the person you have wronged?

First, here are some considerations that do not count toward reconciliation:

1. Enough time has passed. They should have forgotten by now.

Nope. Your wrong doesn’t cease to be a wrong just because it happened a while ago now, especially if the effects have been piling up this whole time. If you never reconciled with the person, that past wrong is still standing between you – and that’s your fault, not theirs.They are not required to have a relationship with someone that has wronged them in the past and refuses to admit that it was wrong.

In actuality, we all do sometimes forget about a past wrong because the person who wronged us doesn’t realize they wronged us and they treat us properly otherwise or, if they are morally weak or religiously deceived, they at least show us that they genuinely love us on a regular basis. But that’s for the wronged person to decide, not something that the wrong-doer can demand. The main reason for this is that abusers put their abused victims through an endless cycle of seeming to have changed and then abusing them again.

2. I’ve changed.

That’s nice. You’re no longer committing the same wrongs against other people (or are you?) But that still doesn’t remove the offense which you stubbornly refuse to repent of that you did to the first person.

3. The other person reacted wrongly when I did it to them. So now we are both equally wrong and we should just forget about the whole thing.

LOL.  Moral equivalance is the refuge of the overloaded parent or teacher who doesn’t have the time or patience to examine a matter for right and wrong, and administer justice. It is, in effect, the eternal cry of the unrighteous (or lazy) judge, authority, or head of family who does not want to offend “the wrong person” by redressing the grievance of someone with lowly standing. It is also the eternal cry of the person who will do anything to get out of admitting they’ve been wrong.

The fallacy here can be shot down quickly.

If the other person responded by doing something worse than you did, you both have to repent. Deeply. This doesn’t get you out of repenting for what you did, which caused the other person to fall into such a terrible sin. In fact, you need to repent both of your sin and theirs, in order to make it possible for them to repent also, thus saving their soul.

On the other hand, if all the other person did was cry, rage, and basically tell you the truth about yourself, then no. It’s still your offense, not theirs. There is no rule in the moral universe which says that innocent people who have been wronged are committing an equal offense just by complaining about their abuse and/or cutting off relations with the abuser. And yet all over the world, in situations of religious cults or fundamentalism or small groups who feel embattled against the world, internal abuse is met with the assumption that by daring to object to the way you have treated someone and their family, they are doing something far worse than you, the person who wronged them.

What is required for reconciliation:

1. Grieve with those who grieve. If you are a good person, you would sit down and grieve with someone who had just lost a loved one or even with someone who just lost out on a good promotion. How much more is it necessary to grieve with the person that you yourself have wounded or deprived of familial rights. If you completely lack this empathy in the first place, and are unable to grieve with anyone, then you should consider yourself mentally and spiritually ill and get help. And be honest about that fact to the person you wronged.

2. Verbalize to the person what you did wrong and that you know it was wrong. This is not groveling. This is honesty. It is necessary to do this in order to justify yourself in the other person’s eyes. Denying your wrong doesn’t justify you; it simply compounds the wrong you have done. But if you verbalize that you were wrong, they will see that you have good enough moral judgment to condemn your own behavior.

(Groveling is begging someone not to punish you, and it is basically offering self-humiliation as a payment instead of that punishment. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would require that of another person because it addresses, not the wrong, but the person himself as lowly and undeserving. Leave this to Orientals, not Christians. Confession, on the other hand, is perfectly dignified. It doesn’t compromise your dignity as a human being because it requires you to act as a morally responsible person with courage and judgment. It’s just a painful but necessary moment of honesty.)

3. Make amends. You need to give the other person something or do something for them to “make up for” what you deprived them of. For instance, if you formerly refused familial aid and fellowship to a little child on unjust grounds, e.g., on the basis that you don’t agree with the way their parents are raising them, then you should make a point (after following the first two steps) of offering a lot of familial aid and fellowship to that little child. If you formerly judged a little child that you should have refrained from judging, then  you should find beautiful ways of expressing the opposite. By ‘the opposite’ I do not mean the high and lofty love which you supposedly have for that person (this is just self-aggrandizement, especially in religious cultures that claim to value love but define love as harsh punishment) but rather the value of the child and the good things that child does.

If you cannot see any child as beautiful and valuable and good unless that child is broken, then again, seek help. Now.

The point of making amends is to show your heart to the other person – to show that you are so determinedly rejecting your former misbehavior that you even want to wash it out with new deeds of a completely opposite nature. However, if you haven’t yet confessed and grieved, the other person will not be able to trust your offer of amends.

To sum up: In these evil days the world is full of people who have no feelings for others and no conscience about how they treat others. They are destructive and sly and completely dishonest and treat others like game pieces. Don’t get mistaken for one of these people, because good parents have to keep their kids away from these morally and otherwise dangerous sorts. Repent. Share godly sorrow. Confess. Make amends. Reconcile. Keep on God’s and your family’s good side.

Talking About Christmas Ahead of Time

When I was sixteen I wrote a novelette about a large family living in the country in the 1800′s. They were a merry bunch, a bit stereotyped, I suppose, and had the most awful names and I had a blast writing about them. In the story, one of the elder brothers has a very special protective relationship with a sister ten years younger than himself. I suppose that is a common fantasy of girls like myself who grew up as the eldest and never had a proper mentor.

I recall an incident in the story in which this eldest brother has a pretty necklace that he wants to give the little sister on Christmas Day. Because their relationship is so special even compared the generally loving atmosphere in the family, he seeks her out between sledding and dinner, in a private corner of their sunny living room, and gives it to her while no one else watches.

This concept, that gift giving is more private as it becomes more special, has stuck with me a bit. Many people have written about the commercialism of the holidays and how the mad rush of useless purchases has little to do with holiday spirit. I don’t think that people are really commercialists. We don’t buy gifts because we genuinely believe that buying things is better than other activities, or that merchants are a better class of people than others and deserve to be supported at the expense of our own budgets.

I think that the custom of opening presents on Christmas morning as a group with the whole family watching turns the experience of giving and receiving gifts into a performance. I think we go mad in the stores during the month before Christmas because we feel that we are going to be graded on our ingenious, expansive, and seemingly costly purchases. Thus generosity, the virtue supposed to be exalted by the custom of giving gifts, falls to the side in favor of showmanship – the ability to produce excitement and to appear generous.

I know some people who consider “the expression on the recipient’s face” to be their special repayment, the thing to which they are entitled in exchange for, their effort in purchasing the gift. Thus, the act of receiving a gift becomes as much a performance as the act of giving. Where is the real, human relations in all this?

I propose what will surely come across as my usual radical delusionality. I propose that we seek, not the ideal or the actual, but the real in our merry and worthy custom of holiday gift giving. (Why am I writing this now? Because thrifty folk all around are already buying presents. No, that’s an excuse. I’m writing it now because a sentence in an assignment at school made me think of it now.)

The ideal: On Christmas morning, everyone sits in a semi-circle around the Christmas tree, smiling, gasping, and saying thank-you a thousand different ways as they open their completely perfect and quite abundant presents. The children are especially enchanting their raptures of gratitude and joy, which of course is the tribute they owe their highly generous parents and grandparents.

The actual: On Christmas day (or shortly before or after) everyone nervously sits around the tree, comparing what they got and gave to what others got and gave, convincing themselves that their presents are good enough and that they spent enough, watching  and trying to return a satisfactory smile and thank you for what they received. It’s stressful and it contributes to overspending and sometimes the kids have a blast and sometimes the kids are disappointed. If they are disappointed and show it, they are sharply rebuked. Still, the practice is persistent – not because of the bad things, but because of the good things. People really do show love and generosity on Christmas Day, and they really do hope to bring joy to their loved one’s hearts and faces.

The real: Christmas is a feast particularly dedicated to the virtue of generosity and pouring out one’s resources and love to others, in imitation of Christ’s self-emptying. Gift-giving is the specific custom which embodies this virtue, along with feasting and alms.

Proposal: Try dividing Christmas Day into three equal activities: gift giving, feasting, and alms. Try giving gifts privately, from person to person this year. I don’t mean that no one should be allowed to see what you gave or got, but that the transaction doesn’t need to be staged specially for the viewing of the whole family. Try to experience a genuine human transaction in which people, though courteous, are allowed to have a sincere reaction. It will probably be more quiet but it may also be more meaningful or personal. You may even find that a single gift for each person is enough to fill both giver and receiver with joy.

Hurrah!

I’m quite happy today. Someone was getting rid of their Finale 2008 software and was willing to part with it for a mere $70.00 on Amazon. I snatched it up. Despite claiming to be for both Mac and PC, It refused to install on my Macbook Pro (a laptop I’m borrowing from school) but installed beautifully on our extra PC, a used machine we picked up a while back for $80.00 so that Ian could play games while we were using our regular PC. It hasn’t seen much use since then, so I guess it’s going to be Mom’s choir computer.

(Wait, I just called myself ‘Mom.’)

I mocked up a bit of chant I wrote experimentally a few years ago and YES! the programs DOES INDEED allow me to hide time signatures. Can you believe I went through all that just for one stupid trick?

Here’s the deal. I already own Finale PrintMusic 2011. I bought it so I could re-write all the choir music that we use at church. The music (and all the notes and jottings from previous choir directors, some of whom obviously had no musical sense at all!) has been copied so many times that it’s barely readable. No one knows where it originally came from. However, since most of it is in some form of chant (non-metrical music) I needed a notation program that could create music documents with measures of varying metrical length – without showing a time signature change at every measure! Yes, Finale, the point is for my old choir ladies to become LESS CONFUSED, not more so!

PrintMusic, it turned out, could not do this for me at all. So I wasted all the money getting that level of the program, except in the sense that Ian is having fun teaching himself how to use Finale and write music.

Hopefully my big choir project can now get underway, as it seems fairly quick to simply enter pre-written music in Finale 2008. The whole thing reminds me, though, how little I actually know about Orthodox music. I wish, wish, wish, that I were actually composing, or that I could actually read the higher forms of chant. This carpatho-russian chant we do at my church is pretty stodgy.

Reflections of a Genocidal M.D.

So many brown bodies now
(and quite a few white ones)
have passed through my daintily gloved hands
in pieces
that long ago I came to believe
what I always told their mothers:
these chunks of flesh were never really human;
even rats can squeal and squirm.

I have skewered them,
cut their bodies in half,
burned them alive in salt-water
twisted off their heads with giant forceps
and made my floor bloody over and over again,
but thankfully I had people to clean up after me.

Thankfully the bodies are small enough
to dump in the trash can.

Thankfully I have plenty of money
and a powerful lobby.

Most thankfully of all,
my lover and I
will never have to pay an exterminator
to remove any such vile growth
from our pure bodies.

Oh, we are pure, we are pure,
my lover and I.
However rich the stink
we make in bed,
we will never once be defiled
by the growth of alien tissue,
by the bloodiness of females.

We have triumphed over
the slavery of human nature,
(so unaccountably intent on spawning more guests
at this already overcrowded resort of a world!)

So these women want to triumph, too?
Well, well, we will lend them our triumph,
for a fee.

Hump away, filthy little breeders,
and don’t forget your insurance cards!

Improvement on Book Cover (Thanks to Dan’s Suggestions)

Personal Update

Those of you who frequent this page may know that I’m looking to provide some self-publishing services in the future, especially  designing covers. I’m finishing up my first 8-week marking period in a 12-month graphic design course and these are some of the images I’ve produced for assignments. Note, for the most part I couldn’t choose what I was going to do, so if some things seem a little out of character, well, one must be flexible. Actually it’s been fun. If anyone in Southeast Michigan is thinking about Specs Howard, I would definitely recommend it so far.

Looking over what I’ve done so far, I think what I need to look into most is the mesh tool and the use of borders.

C. S. Lewis and The Secret To Writing Descriptions in Novels

Descriptions have a really bad name in the world of publishing and writing. Apparently the present-day reader so dreads a passage of justified text, without any quotation marks, that we writers have to be advised to sprinkle the description in little by little amongst the dialogue. Is this because descriptions are bad,  only allowed in out of tolerance in the early days of the novel because readers then didn’t know better? Or is it because descriptions have been done so badly for so long that we have become conditioned to dread any words in which the fool of an author dares to speak to us as one human being to another human being?

My husband, Josh, is reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to our 6-year-old son, Ian. They read a chapter every night when I’m at school, 2 or 3 nights a week. Josh reads in a very dramatic style. He pauses to ask Ian for predictions about what might be coming next, or to play up a moment of high import. Apparently Ian does not find Lewis’ descriptions dull.

I never did either, to tell the truth. I always felt that something elusive but unusually gratifying was going on when I read them. It’s as if a dyslexic who can’t see letters or things in their proper order had suddenly found a pair of glasses to put on that magically straightened everything out. Only, the experience is warmer. It resonates. It doesn’t try to remake me, but appeals to what I already am. And I find that what I am is not a member of some external classification: no, I’m constructed in a certain way, according to a pattern – the human pattern.

This pattern is not just genes.

It is a pattern that involves a complex but ordered arrangement of energies – physical, mental, and spiritual.

Lewis proves that human pattern exists just by writing so successfully according to it.

Josh pointed out something this morning about Lewis’ descriptions that I’m writing because I don’t want to forget.

Lewis uses a predictable hierarchy in his descriptions. Try reading the following aloud, or at least in a whisper, to yourself.

(Edmund) had almost made up his mind to go home, when he heard, very far off in the wood, a sound of bells. He listened and the sound came nearer and nearer and at last there swept into sight a sledge drawn by two reindeer.

The reindeer were about the size of Shetland ponies and their hair was so white that even the snow hardly looked white compared with them; their branching horns were gilded and shone like something on fire when the sunrise caught them. Their harness was of scarlet leather and covered with bells. On the sledge, driving the reindeer, sat a fat dwarf who would have been about three feet high if  he had been standing. He was dressed in polar bear’s fur and on his head he wore a red hood with a long gold tassel hanging down from its point; his huge beard covered his knees and served him instead of a rug. But behind him, on a much higher seat in the middle of the sledge sat a very different person – a great lady, taller than any woman that Edmund had ever seen. She also was covered in white fur up to her throat and held a long straight golden wand in her right hand and wore a golden crown on her head. Her face was white – not merely pale, but white like snow or paper or icing-sugar, except for her very red mouth. It was a beautiful face in other respects, but proud and cold and stern.

The sledge was a fine sight as it came sweeping toward Edmund with the bells jingling and the dwarf cracking his whip and the snow flying up on each side of it.

Sound and movement bracket the “suspended-time” description in the middle. The first is a herald, the second a fulfillment.

But the appearance of the various elements of the scene comes in a specific order.

First, the inanimate object and the lower animals. Next, the “son of earth,” the imaginary being that is rational but not spiritual. Finally, highest of all, the rational, spiritual, queenly creature. The description of trappings serves each of these elements in their place.

Much is made in the ensuing passages of Edmund’s misunderstanding and bad will, and how it skews his perspective on everything until he experiences repentance. However, I don’t think that this hierarchy represent his skewed perspective. Lewis tells us when something is from the perspective of a specific character, by naming that character. “Taller than any lady Edmund had ever seen.” Otherwise, he remains, as the author, very much in command of the story’s perspective. He even makes an occasional first-person appearance, not as a character but as the author or narrator.

(Later note: I have found examples to include that demonstrate my points, but my daughter is ill and will not tolerate another minute of her Nana paying attention to anything else.)

Contemporary American writing follows no such hierarchical rule, but it appears so very priggish in attitude by contrast. If I made a first-person appearance in a story as an author, rather than a character, I would not be told, by the writing establishment, how to do it better. I would be scolded.

If I wrote a poem that relied, for its sense, on an invisible but real hierarchy I would be scolded in the worst way for the “unclearness” of my writing.

In short, American society (and probably contemporary English society, too) is so thoroughly disordered that even the most bewitching of realists like Lewis are deeply misunderstood by the very people who want to make a film out of his story. I almost want to say, everything will shortly be given over to the green witch. But I’m writing in part for my husband here, for whom this was an important discovery. I think his optimistic conclusion would be that it is possible to write much better stories than we are writing now by observing order and heirarchy.

On Prayers to Mary

I recently ran into this discussion over at an interesting blog. She called it the “scary Mary prayer” and apparently it is the one that says, “Most Holy Theotokos, save us.”

The comments were interesting, but I wanted to add to them. Pretty soon my comment got too long so I’ve decided to post on my own venue.

First of all, this is not something I really had a problem with when I was converting. The reason is that I actually had a similar crisis to this in Bible College, and dealt with it then, when I realized that the scriptures – yes, the Bible – speak of things and people as saving folks. In other words, it’s not just the Orthodox Church that talks like this. The scriptures also use the terminology in this way.

At that time I did a survey through all the books of the Bible, trying to find out how many different ways the words “save” and “salvation” are used. As it turns out this term is not even remotely limited, in scripture, to that special moment when (as Evangelicals imagine it works) Jesus takes up lodging in your heart, the Holy Spirit enters your body, God the Father voluntarily closes his eyes to your sinfulness (in return for being sated by Jesus’ blood) and a spot in heaven is claimed in your name (paid for by the coin of the immeasurable merit of Jesus’ righteous earthly life.)

Sometimes converts to the Orthodox Church exchange this description of how salvation works for a more mature, less pagan view, (the correct, or Orthodox one) but the word ‘salvation,’ for them, remains saturated with that hazy “I’m on my way to Heaven” idea. Worse, the conscience of the convert is still bound by a perception that salvation is a sort of secondary attribute of God – one which, unlike goodness, holiness, justice, faithfulness, or miraculous powers, he cannot share with his creatures without deifying them to a degree which threatens his own uniqueness as God.

Of course, this is all a lot of illogical and irreverent, not to mention theologically impoverished, balderdash.

Part of converting to the Orthodox way is beginning to understand that what you thought was worship of God before, was merely veneration of God. That’s why you were afraid to venerate saints – what would you then have left to offer God alone? In the Orthodox Church, true and genuine adoration and worship of God is preserved. It was established by Christ, through his apostles, and has been handed down to all of us. We are not afraid to give to saints what we used to give to Christ because we have something better to give to Him now. (In truth, even the veneration of God in most churches is so self-willed and un-chaste that we should shudder to offer it to any holy person.)

God’s, well, Godhood – his essence – is such that it remains absolutely inviolate, secret, and unique regardless of how much he shares his attributes (or to use the more accurate, Orthodox word,) energies (or again, to use the more poetic term, with which the scriptures are replete) fullness – with us.

He can even make us little saviors. Or, to take a more global view – he can use us as little saviors.

Jude 1:22-24

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

²² And have mercy on some, who are doubting; ²³ save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

In other words, we ask the Theotokos to do for us no more than the scriptures instruct us to do for one another. Presumably, she does it better.

In the scriptures, salvation means:

1. God’s act of rescuing anyone from death or from anything that partakes of or leads to death.
2. People’s experience of being saved from any of that.
3. The quality of God as someone whom to know is to experience salvation (God is my light and my salvation)
4. The act of any person in rescuing anyone from death or from anything that partakes of or leads to death.
5. The experience of being saved, by anyone, from anything.
6. The quality of any person by which they become the indispensable means of another person’s salvation.

This last, number 6, can be illustrated by a commonplace. Let’s say you are drowning and someone throws you a lifesaver on a rope and hauls you in, then gives you mouth-to-mouth, and calls 911 and delivers you into the care of those whose job it is to restore you to full health. Let’s say, since we have a good samaritan, that he even pays for the health care.

That man is your savior. I suppose you won’t put anything or anyone else in his category. Nevertheless you might say that you were saved by a rope or that a lifesaver or cell phone was your salvation, or thank his parents for getting him swimming and lifesaving lessons.

You would not, of course, kiss the rope or the cell phone unless you were being really dramatic. (You might hang his picture up somewhere.) But you might compliment his parents on their excellent son, or thank the paramedics for responding to his call and being there with the training and the commitment to help you. Why? Because inanimate objects are created to be used, but when persons with consciousness, intelligence, will, and personhood allow themselves to be the means of someone else’s salvation, it is an act worthy of honor. God honors this act.

BJohnD, a commenter on This Side of Glory, asks the following question.

This and some of the language from the other prayers throws me, because it sounds like you’re saying that the Theotokos is our salvation.

I would point out that our prayers do a lot more than that. They ask her to save us, making her a savior and not just salvation. It would be a small thing to say that the Theotokos is our salvation. She is, in fact, the indispensable means of God’s salvation of the human race. There’s no getting around it by saying that God could make himself human without Mary’s help. In such a case, he might be human, but he wouldn’t be in our family. We wouldn’t be bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. The whole story of the Old Testament is about how God created a community that would produce a woman who could share her pure flesh with Him. Had she been unwilling or committed any transgression God could not have used her in this way.

In fact, it would have been much “easier” for God to accomplish salvation from sin and death without anyone’s cooperation or help. That he does it with the cooperation and help and effort of all of us is to the glory of his grace. This is, we may be sure, a better salvation than would have been accomplished without the Theotokos.

She is our salvation.

What, then, is the distinction between Mary and  God? Much more than we could possibly imagine, since we can’t grasp the divine essence and none of us, not even the Theotokos, shares it. However, I will describe one key difference that helps me to think about this question.

In the case of God, he is our salvation independently of anything or anyone other than his own absolutely independent being. In the case of Mary or any of us, she is our salvation only insofar as she unites herself to God and becomes a partaker of his nature. We honor her because she not only united herself to him in an extraordinary degree through faith and the pursuit of the Lord’s will, but also because she is the prototype of everyone who bears Christ within them. Christ’s flesh is her flesh. God’s holiness is her holiness.

In essence, if we believe that God’s salvation accomplishes the miraculous, then Mary, the Theotokos, is what that miracle looks like in the highest degree. We cannot begin to fathom it. It would be ungallant at best and blasphemous at worst not to sing about it on a regular basis. Why blasphemous? Because God’s vessel is holy. Why else do we have all these descriptions about the tabernacle and the vessels of the temple in the books of the Law?

However, there’s something else that people forget to mention in discussions like these. So often in Orthodox life, the Theotokos is called upon as the defender of  cities and homes. It may be that “Theotokos, save us,” means, “rescue us from disease, horror, war, famine, and other losses.” It goes without saying the she does this through her prayers, but what is prayer when the mother of God does it? Surely it’s more than just repetitively asking him to do this and do that.

I recall the story about Mt. Athos, in which the Theotokos asks the Lord to give this spot to her as her garden. Does this mean that the fruits of Athos are due to her loving attention and care? Did she build it, with its communities? Is she laboring over it still? Do our ideas of prayer remotely resemble this kind of nurture?

“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

I personally find it unimaginable to think of the saints in heaven as inactive, more or less the waking dead, just sitting there pleading with God for this and that. Surely there is a profound, purposeful activity going on, one that we should attract to ourselves and our needs, and try to begin engaging in with them.

And yes – Most Holy Theotokos, save even us. From death, from needless horror, from godlessness and from being castaways.

December In The Field

The settling land
cupped and awed,
wrinkled, wise,
looks to the hand

of a silent God -

and patient eyes
travel the haze,
from shallow plinth
to drifting height;

the labyrinth
of scattered rays,
to early night,
to end of days.

Said He, or He Said?

American writing, like American music, is becoming flatter and flatter. It’s to do with rules, and relying on them for things that ought to be accomplished by other things instead.

In many older books, dialogue tags run with the word ‘said’ first, but this practice is now being discouraged. Unfortunately, it’s become a cutesy habit, sprinkled liberally about the pages of children’s book manuscripts, rather than a tool of style and syntax. And of course unimaginative people always deal with such situations by blanketing the ground in new layers of rules.

Is there a tasteful way to vary the placement of ‘said’ in dialogue tags?

Well, I think so. Generally, if the dialogue tag needs to be followed by certain kinds of subordinate clauses, it’s smoother and better style to put ‘said’ first. These kinds of decisions involve a sense of rhythm, I think, and some people have more of that than others do.

“Wrong number,” said Teena, who, in the group’s uninhibited rush down the stairs, had arrived at a telephone before anyone else.

They all said, “Oh” and “Well, then,” and “All right,” and tromped back up the basement stairs.

What Makes Me Weep

What is that thing that is missing from your life which, when you think of it or see it held by others, makes you weep? Our world is so reduced in every good quality that I can’t imagine that everyone doesn’t have this experience. For some people, though, it simply comes out as a ravenous craving for novelty, because the experience of unease and never having what nature requires becomes built into the character. But that’s for frivolous and thoughtless people, and I don’t think any of my actual readers are frivolous people.

For me, a sense of place is the thing for which I continually grieve. Where is the city beautiful in which I might be a citizen? Why do people think it’s acceptable to put ugly and useless things into their spaces? Why are places no longer defined by the humanity that inhabits them? This is one of the main reasons I hate idealism, why I hate this expectation that people are supposed to impose theory upon reality, rather than seek and engage and build on what’s most real in the reality around them.

Well, I guess everyone who thinks about these things comes round to Christopher Alexander eventually. In a perfect world, I might have been an architect and learned from him and gone to University of Oregon. Instead I design jewelry and look at these pictures late at night with tears in my eyes.

What makes you weep by its absence?

Christian Fundamentalism and Learned Helplessness

Here’s something interesting. My personal hobby is to read and think about psychology – explanations regarding how the mind works.

In fundamentalism, psychology is considered to be pure quackery and even anti-Christian, because it offers explanations other than personal sin for human behavior. However, given how disturbed people in these last few generations have become, even the fundamentalists have seen the need for counseling, so “Biblical Counseling” has arisen to replace secular psychology.

In college, at Maranatha Baptist Bible College, I took a Biblical Counseling class which used what I believe was a standard text. In this class, I learned that the basic principles of Biblical Counseling are as follows.

1. All mental or psychological problems other than actual insanity should be considered to have been caused by sin in the life of the sufferer or someone close to them. In the latter case, counseling should address the sinful response of the sufferer to the other person’s sin.

2. Somewhere in the Bible is a verse that will address the sinful behavior that is causing the person’s disturbance. The job of the counselor is to find that verse or passage and apply it to the sufferer by reading it to them or having the person read it. (The application of scripture always includes the assumption that the sufferer understands that they deserve much worse than they are going through – in fact they deserved to be torched for eternity – for what they have done, however small.)

3. The goal is to get the person to straighten out their behavior in order to alleviate their suffering. Sympathy and listening are good techniques but ultimately, the only change will come from the power of scripture applied directly to a person, who then becomes responsible to change their behavior in response to the scriptures. Assuming the sufferer is truly “saved” and thus has the Holy Spirit within them, the scriptures will empower them. Thus, the scriptures are viewed sacramentally, as a means of grace.

So that’s background material. Today I decided to do a little reading on “learned helplessness” and started with Wikipedia as usual. I find it reliable provided the article is in a finished state and not the subject of controversy. Anyway.

In reading the article I found that researchers who were looking into responses of learned helplessness initially explained it as simply a feeling of not being in control, and therefore giving up on trying to help yourself. Later, a more complex explanation was needed, mainly because not everyone exhibits this response when they have been subjected to suffering that is out of their control.

Sustained psychological stress can cause learned helplessness when the person explains a specific instance of helplessness in such a way that he then assumes he is helpless in other instances, too.

Bernard Weiner’s attribution theory (1979, 1985, 1986) concerns the way that people attribute a cause or explanation to an unpleasant event. Attribution theory includes the dimensions of globality/specificity, stability/instability, and internality/externality. A global attribution occurs when the individual believes that the cause of negative events is consistent across different contexts. A specific attribution occurs when the individual believes that the cause of a negative event is unique to a particular situation. A stable attribution occurs when the individual believes the cause to be consistent across time. Unstable attribution occurs when the individual thinks that the cause is specific to one point in time. An external attribution assigns causality to situational or external factors, while an internal attribution assigns causality to factors within the person.

This idea that an internal attribution can cause depression and specifically learned helplessness (a symptom of depression) is interesting to me in light of the Biblical Counseling methods. Since these methods invariably attribute mental suffering to personal sin, the Biblical counselor is actually directing the person to locate the cause of his suffering to something inside himself. In other words, the counselor is expected to create an “internal attribution.” So Biblical counseling may actually be causing learned helplessness and depression.

An individual’s attributional style or explanatory style is the key to understanding why people respond differently to adverse events. Although a group of people may experience the same or similar negative events, how each person privately interprets or explains the event will affect the likelihood of acquiring learned helplessness and subsequent depression.

People with pessimistic explanatory style—which sees negative events as permanent (“it will never change”), personal (“it’s my fault”), and pervasive (“I can’t do anything correctly”)—are most likely to suffer from learned helplessness and depression.

Suppose that a counselor has directed someone to make an “internal attribution,” locating the cause of their problem within the person’s besetting sin. Now suppose that the sufferer begins to contemplate the fundamentalist doctrine of “total depravity,” – a sort of evangelist’s version of a Calvinist doctrine. According to this doctrine, it is believed that each human being is completely evil in every part of himself. This condition cannot be changed until death because it is somehow connected with the body. When a person “gets saved” God chooses to see that person as other than he is – as a saint instead of a sinner. God’s Holy Spirit lives inside the person but does not permeate or transform the person’s own, actual nature. At least, that’s how I was taught it.

So here we have the internal attribution linked to a permanent condition. I think it would make a very persuasive thesis  – something to the effect that Christian Fundamentalism is theologically set up to create depression and helplessness.

Someone might object that if this is the case, why doesn’t every fundamentalist display this behavior? I think the answer can be found in personality theory. Basically, those personality types that are tuned in to permanent Universal truth are going to be more susceptible. Others, I have observed, actually make use of this doctrine of permanant pervasive sinfulness to excuse their own behavior, control others, or display impressive theatrical repentance in church in order to win social points. For these people, they are behaving in a completely legitimate, sincere, religious manner, insofar as they understand religion.

It is those people who take fundamentalism’s teaching most seriously and absolutely that suffer the most.

The Way It Wasn’t

The where,
the why,
no one cares
for but I -

the road
we crossed
decades ago
when we were lost
extravagant trees
and their hospitable branches
abandoned houses
that gaped at us happily
sun-shafts that made a monastery
of every overgrown lawn -

I sing,
I alone.

The lone,
the lost,
the gone,
the row of lettuce
that shall not come again
I hoed it once
a drop of my sweat
fell there -

If I forget,
will God remember?

Now let me sing of a moth
that died
mid-flight
mid-night
moon-painted
pale wings
surrendering to gravity,
falling against the wind,

And thus it snowed on
a humid summer lake:
there fell a single, white,
light, shingled flake.

I terrified myself:
I thought of diving in.
A sodden moth wing would
cling to my face,
his broken antenna
would be lost in my hair,
and a small, solid, curlicue body
would sink slowly,
skimming my bare belly,
sink slowly down.

Night
which rendered the lake so black,
heavy, and sorcerous -
I might listen to his serenade
from lighted balconies, but never touch.

Currents in me,
and currents in the lake,
and what if they should meet?

That turmoil
woken by your face along the road
when you turned to me
with a smile,
lit by streetlight,
and a compliment -
well, I was holy then.

What if we had met by the shore?
How would your face,
turned to me
under savage moonlight,
before blackened shores,
have looked?

Oh, not-lover of so long ago,
do not come again -
I am old and sad.

What if there were three,
pulling, tossing, slapping?
The lake, and you, and me?
What if a moth had died
to fall, a soft corsage
half rising with every breath
from the liquid rim encircling
decolletage?

And if you had been miraculously chaste,
so that I had nothing to fear
and I had been miraculously un-chaste
so that you had nothing to fear?

And if you and the lake
had vied to hold me up?
What if I had been buoyed
for even a moment
in wild, dark bliss,
and never knew who caught me,
of the two of you?

What if no monsters were writhing and rising
from under black, sorcerous, waves?

Nativity

Jesus is born! Let us do what we can,
tenderly weave him a garment of song
in the pattern of Mary,
unsullied, unwary,
consenting to carry
and wrap him in clothing of Man.

The steep vault of sky stoops down in a dome
stars writing icons of him in its bow
While the voice of the deep
things that fly and that creep;
While angels who keep
an old man from his sleep;
While the babe in his leap
and she who will weep
and shepherds and sheep,
hail him heartily home.

Looking forward to a Merry and Holy Nativity season, and wishing the same to all my friends and readers.

- Alana

Holidays; Family; Santa; Generosity; Expectations; Stockings; Tradition; The Prince of Liechtenstein; Best Kid Gifts

Large families, when things are oiled smoothly with courtesy and grace and fair treatment and forgiveness… and good food and other things… can be very merry groups of people. Josh and I are fortunate to have lots of siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, and getting together with them is one of the great pleasures of our lives.

When you’re freshly married there’s a strong pull in another direction – to form a family identity for your new family. A big extended family is somewhere between public and private and I, at least, feel keenly the virtues of private pleasures. I want my kids to have those greenhouse experiences and even those crucible experiences with one another and us that lets them know they are experiencing a completely unique relation which will never be duplicated or replaced or broken.

It sometimes feels, even for the eldest, that a big family swallows that up. Josh and I have been together for more than eight years, including dating, but there are ways in which I’m still closer to my sisters than to him. Like the lovers in the Song of Songs (which is Solomon’s) I want him to be not only spouse but also brother – that is, daily companion, thought-sharer, comfortable affectionate fellow taster of life.

Yesterday for the first time we spent a holiday together – just us four. Josh, Ian, Alexandra, and I dressed to the precise pitch we wished to dress, wandered out to the car when we felt like it, and drove to Frankenmuth listening to fine music and having conversation (up front) or sleeping (in back.) We ordered a Thanksgiving dinner from the Bavarian Inn. Lexy squirmed on my lap and tasted everything; Ian obsessed about the bubble gum he planned to buy afterward and only ate French Fries.

“It’s a holiday,” I said. “Let’s leave everyone free to enjoy it in the way he wishes.”

Josh thought a minute. “OK.” he said. “Then I want Ian’s Macaroni and Cheese.” They shared the plate.

We played truth or dare. Josh, finicky and persnickety, refused to say “dare.” So I brought the challenge to him and made him tell us his most embarrassing moment.

“Bring it out so we can laugh at it together and change it from something horrible to something funny,” I said.

It turned out to be a lapse of timeliness during basic training that made his whole unit hate him. We made up funny things he could have said to the drill sergeant when he reported late for a formation, and ended up laughing so hard I, at least,  cried in delight. Josh may have been crying for a different reason; I’m not sure. After that Josh began choosing dares.

Ian made funny faces in the dining room mirror and I wore Lexy like a hat for five seconds. Josh, at my behest, stood and toasted the Prince of Liechtenstein (long may he reign, God-blessed.) Strangers stared at us laughing and it wasn’t embarrassing. When I was a teenager I wondered how adults could be so unself-conscious around strangers. Now I know: the curious but ultimately disinterested stare of someone too unlike you to have predicted your behavior is so much less stressful than the disapproval and unwanted interest of someone you do know and will have to see again. The former feels like a benediction by comparison.

Everyone in the room was relaxed, like us. Everyone there was released from something. Unlike the families on TV we weren’t sitting politely around a massive family table thanking the fuming, perspiring cook. Inside, everyone let go of the furtiveness with which they had left their homes on Thanksgiving Day and drove to a tourist spot. The place was swarming and so was the restaurant across the street; several of the dining rooms were so full they were closed. Obviously we weren’t as abnormal as we thought. Even the waiters were merry. It was a family restaurant enjoying one of the busiest days of the year – and it was good tipping season.

“This relish reminds me of my grandmother’s cooking,” I said. A door opened in my mind and I suddenly realized I hadn’t felt this way since I was a kid. Is it possible, I thought, that we have discovered the key to recapturing the joy of the holidays?

Downstairs, in the candy shop, I looked at funny bars of chocolate. “How to survive the holidays,” read one package, and proceeded to list 100 ways. “Find a new family,” said one, facetiously. Josh and I looked at all the relaxed, happy people around us and wondered if any of them would be willing to admit that was less of a joke than it pretended to be.

It was a good reminder that what we value about tradition is not its content, frozen in time, but rather its ways of sifting through practices and only passing down the things that work, the things that please, the things that add meaning and value to human existence. The most rigid people are the least traditional. It was also a good reminder that holidays should be less stressful, not more, than ordinary days and that if it isn’t true, something is not working – something is not right.

No doubt that’s why God commanded his people to drink wine or strong drink or whatsoever their heart desired on the Sabbath and most holy days. Tribal Israel was a family-based society and He knew they needed it.

After dinner the weather was still warm. We packed Lexy up in the stroller with a hat and blanket and and wandered around town, patting horse’s noses and analyzing the landscaping (they’ve installed a wonder of a waterfall going down to the boat launch on the river, since we were there last and Josh and I are fascinated by things like that.) We took our time looking at Christmas lights and nativity scenes and generally being a family unto ourselves. And at the exactly right moment, we all agreed that it was time to get in the car and go home. Just as we buckled up it began raining. I slept on the way home, having driven on the way there. When I woke, we’d gotten out from under the rain storm and Ian and Josh were telling one another stories. Lexy slept and woke again. Back home, I put her warm pajamas on and she sat on the bed and made a funny noise at me and then burst out laughing.

I woke up this morning and felt it was still a holiday.

Once in a dream that my husband and I shared, St. Nicholas indicated to Josh that he had given certain gifts to our family, to protect, heal, and enrich us all. Whenever we have an especially golden moment like that I like to thank St. Nicholas, just in case.

For Christmas we’re going to Wisconsin. We have traditions there already. For one thing, we like to put up people’s own, actual socks on the mantle instead of decorated “stockings” and we sneak around in the middle of the night dropping anonymous gifts into them. What I value about this tradition is that it honors St. Nicholas, who threw the gold into the children’s shoes anonymously. It’s a chance for me to give a gift without attaching an obligation for the recipient to ‘Ooooo’ and ‘Aaaahhh’ appreciatively as repayment for my effort. It’s an immense pleasure and it brings gift-giving up to the level of free persons rather than turning it into a slavish trade. The tradition was forged by a marriage of my husband’s ideas and mine.

I have many people in Wisconsin that I need to see this season. But first and foremost, though perhaps counter intuitively, I’m going there to see my husband and children, the people I supposedly live with from day to day. I’m going there to see them among my first, parental family. I’m going to see them dressed up, dancing, and in their pajamas, shredding wrapping paper. I’m going to see them in other people’s eyes and in the landscape of my nativity and at breakfast and lunch and dinner and playing with my siblings and in front of a 13-foot Christmas tree and unable to contain their excitement and telling stories by firelight when everyone should have been to bed an hour ago. I’m lucky in that my husband actually wants to go with me. My parents made the fortunate decision not to place expectations on us when we were married and Josh has always felt accepted and at ease in my father’s house, despite our sometimes differing choices and opinions. My parents always had an open door policy and no one has ever felt like an intruder in that house. My father’s new wife is a hospitable person and is continuing that tradition. It’s easy to respond to someone who gives freely in this way – and that’s the whole quality of Christmas in my opinion.

My dad usually tries to keep gift giving organized but he begat an excitable bunch. Invariably it devolves into glorious chaos. Grace usually starts by handing out presents in order and ends by handing them out in clumps and instructing people to wait a little while between presents. People shout and laugh and try out gifts and holler thank yous which may or may not be heard across a room. And somehow it’s not anywhere near as exhausting as stuffier Christmas mornings elsewhere.

My mother in law sometimes hosts a white elephant gift exchange between us and them and her own extended family. In this case, the merriment can hardly be stopped because the recipient is even free to dislike the gift he or she receives and the giver is free to turn the whole thing into a joke if he wishes!

I think there are certain virtues which immediately lose all their significance when they are forced or compelled, whether by punishment, social expectation, guilt, or even over-much instruction. Generosity, hospitality, courtesy, gallantry -  the gentle virtues, require freedom to blossom. It requires that people not keep track, either of themselves or of others when what’s at issue are things that exceed the requirements of fairness and justice.

Christmas, of course, is the perfect event for cultivating these gentle virtues. I think people who fear that their children are learning to be materialistic when they receive a lot of gifts are missing the mark. When I was a girl, the presents around my grandparents’ tree formed a mountain. There were almost as many around my parents’ tree the next morning. The following afternoon gifts were passed out at my other grandparents’ and even at church, goody bags were handed out after the children caroled for everyone. Looking back, I do remember the uninhibited joy and excitement this generated. And maybe I forgot to say thank you sometimes, absorbed in the object I held in my hand. But now that I am grown, I don’t believe that I grew into a getter rather than a giver. Except, perhaps, that I have a finicky dislike of giving where it’s expected. (I’ve tasted the real thing; I hate substitutes.) Rather, I want to make sure that my kids and younger siblings have the same experience I had and I’m excited about being the one that gives it to them. Generosity is fun. My siblings also feel the same way.  Based on my experience I believe that the joy of receiving abundant, no-strings-attached generosity matures into the joy of giving same.

I think it’s important to not give junk that clutter’s people lives, merely out of obligation. I also think it’s important to not spend beyond one’s means. I think, in general, that parents ought to stop thinking of everything they do as a social experiment being performed upon their children, and instead pay attention to questions of virtue and vice. It’s silly to believe that children will be spoiled by generous and patient parents. Only parents who are too impatient to think about what their children need, and give them uniform strictness or leniency, will “spoil” their child. And of course a “spoiled” child is nothing more than an unduly agitated child, a young person who cannot feel right within himself because his parents and environment are out of balance. As a result he constantly seeks to be soothed by acquiring or controlling something he hopes will put himself to rights.

In general, I think there’s far too much meanness and viciousness and impatience and hardness and stinginess and laziness masquerading as good parenting.

I don’t like the practice of putting a child on Santa’s knee and having him give a long list of things he wants. My grandparents always gave me things that surprised me and that was part of the delight. I had no idea Tinker Toys existed till I got some as a present and then I felt I had a treasure under my arm. I looked at them with wonder all year long. When a child makes  a Christmas list he begins to feel a sense that someone is obligated to give him some of what he asked for. As I said before, I think that when any form of obligation or expectation attaches to generosity, it devolves from a gentle virtue into something less worthy of free persons. Receiving the gift, too, is less pleasurable.

Some Christians make a fuss about Santa replacing Jesus but it’s much more natural to explain the phenomenon as a replacement for Saints in general and Saint Nicholas in particular, especially since that’s what the Santa character quite literally is. I’ve noticed that whenever traditional elements of religion are discarded, they pop up in a new form as if people needed them after all. Testimony meeting replaces confession; the scriptures are converted into a Sacramental font; the sinner’s prayer replaces the older use of baptism; heroes and cult devotees replace saints. For my own part, if I ever placed my child on St. Nicholas’ knee, I’d want him to be getting a blessing, not asking for something I am pleased to give him freely. But perhaps it’s different than I suppose. Perhaps mothers find that the little one whispering a wish to his “saint” as if in prayer, wonders and rejoices when the gift miraculously appears under the tree.

Many frugal but generous mothers I know do their Christmas shopping all year long. I’ve been trying to imitate them more. In a large family there are many people to buy for and I’m not very organized. One thing I’ve learned, though, is that the very best gifts are the ones that invite the recipient’s participation. These gifts send a message: “I know you are a real person with a lot of potential; I believe in your competence; here, try this!” These gifts often obligate the giver to spend time with the recipient working on a project. If gifts with no obligation attaching to the recipient are worthy of free persons, a gift with obligation attaching to the giver is the pitch of perfection. Don’t try it unless you are ready and able to follow through!

I think, in honor of the Christ child, we ought to mention that it’s children who are always ready and eager to give this highest sort of gift – the promise to clean a room or massage a back or walk a dog or put on a concert.

Here’s my favorite kid gift list. I’ve given, witnessed, or received most of these at some point in my life and can vouch for their effectiveness. It helps to know whether the child on the receiving end is an introvert or extrovert; a doer or ponderer; a hands-on or studious type.

Snap-electronics projects set from Radio Shack

Candle-making book and starter set

Dance or music or gymnastic or sailing or fencing or horseback riding lessons.

Calligraphy book and starter set

Camping trip

Membership to activity club, zoo, or museum (if you’re really hard up for money, you can always invent a club)

Lego project kit

Building dominos set

Books, books, books! (Is the child into fiction or non-fiction or both? It’s worth finding out! For kids who already have all the popular American books, you might try Brian Jacques, a prolific British fantasy author I particularly love.)

Leather-working beginner’s set

Bead-crafting/ beading tools and supplies and books (this means the kid can make presents for others)

Any weaving, knitting, or crocheting book and set

Day-outing to a special place (many kids get so excited about leaving when it’s dark, eating in new places, seeing interesting sights)

Any Klutz book at all! (For my sister and me growing up, ‘Hair: A Book of Braiding and Styles’ was a favorite for years.)

Enjoy the coming holidays; Good Christian men, rejoice!

November In The Field

Beyond our open door
the field of straw has burned.
The face of dawn is looking wan;
a hoary breath is rising from the creek.

Through all our dreams and lore
we hope the dead have learned
a thing or two since they moved on
and never missed the things they used to seek.

And why this thought should rise
with morning and its ache
with morning and its mist and smoke
with morning and its preternatural doves

We ask, a race that dies,
we, that daily wake,
we that pray to God, and joke,
we that burn our fields, and plant our loves.

Classic Country Rock

Now I lay on my bed and I slid feet-first
into night like a bath, I was half immersed
and the bath was cold. Boy, she was cold as
the sea-fringe scum. Boy she was bold as
a martial drum. Boy she was black as
old Sheba’s Queen. And she started to keen.

Oh that sound! The lady was mean!

I jumped at the window
tried to deny it
below me the hollow
coughed up a sigh
that rattled my skin

and I shouted a shout
’cause the moon came out
while beyond pine-shaded
shores a jaded
peak kinda jutted her witch’s chin…

…at the genuine hoary
rock in the story

and something brayed
an invisible crier
a musical raid
unfine and dire,
unfounded, untold
(and the thunder rolled)

While I who was nursed on psalm and lyre
down on bed my carcase laid
and heard him thump, my lords, and prayed

Schizoid

I.
It has been decreed that Charlotte shall have
a Russian nesting doll inside her now.
Say hello to the doll, dear. Here she comes,
rocking on her bulbous bottom. Her mouth,
a red stop-motion circle, squeaks, it does!
I’m hurt, I’m hurt, I’m hurt.

II.
Charlotte, my child, are you ready to go?
Charlotte is ready, with white stockings on.
She’s flaunting red cotton and modest white frills
with bright red patent leather shoes.
Charlotte is walking sedately, with
a light slight swing.

But Hannah, Hannah, all in blue,
her eyes are blue; the very heaven
behind her’s blue -

Charlotte swings her sweet red bonnet
down to the turf and jogs away
Charlotte is curled around her doll
between the bushes where Charlotte lay.
Oh, Charlotte. All better now.

III.
Charlotte’s length is enfolded in a red sheath.
Her pale shoulders lie ranged above.

Her lips, unbitten segments of blood-orange,
lie one atop the other, undimpled.

In her right hand she holds a scarlet clutch;
beneath her feet are arrayed shivering stars;
above her head, lightning issues
from a suspended crystalline sphere.

Young men edge within three feet;
they steal away with flushed faces.

Charlotte shall leave magnificently.
Charlotte, by this time of life,
is bored by crying.

She tried.
She tried.
She can’t tell why.

In Charlotte’s early-morning dream a red Matryoshka
spins on a sunlit wooden tabletop.
Her charming face flashes by.
Peekaboo!

IV.
Oh where has our little pal Charlotte gone
who used to play among us?
She never really was one of us -
Charlotte has gone out from us.

I think she’s gone to a long, lone field
where spirits like horses run wild.

I think she’s walking a lonely path
as a lonely spirit-child.

Should we maybe plant flowers over her grave,
to give her a way to sort of live?

We’re supposed to strain out the debris
of her life with a mental sieve?

What does she need that my money can buy?
She never took time to give.

She was never that pretty, attentive or sweet;
she was oddly unsentimental;
she never helped out at our children’s schools,
and now we find out she was mental.

While she never learned how to make people love her
she never gave reason to hate.
What’s more, there was never a telephone call
with Charlotte’s funeral date.

IV.

I left the world for the silent hill
atop which there stood a pointed pine
like a goad to keep me from hell,
and a raindrop rang my heart like a bell
and all that I ever thought was mine
I left in a bundle there when I fled
remembering what the holy one said:
the dead in me, nothing can kill.

Death is well for the person inside
because the pseudo-mind has died.

Memory ghosts who would not leave
have originals far away, who grieve
or do not grieve as the case may be
and none of it means a thing to me.
And I ask myself, how can this be?
Has the silence of Sheol made me free?
Who was it screaming, “don’t let me die?”
Has the stillness of heart and the whiteness of bone
left nothing to punish, regret, or atone,
and I still live? Not I, but I?

My name was Charlotte, and is Charlotte still.
In me lives the silence of Silent Hill.
In me live the whiteness of shoreline and bone,
qualities ownerless and my own.
In me live the solid things of the earth
the horse I ride on the shore, and the ant.
In me things inanimate have a birth -
the stone and the dirt, the growing plant,
the roof of my house, sun-baked and red,
the shade of my porch, the lace on my head -
and if these live through me, then how am I dead?

By joy I approach them, by joy I drink
and my heart is a fathomless well where they sink
and my heart is a fountain where joy makes them rise
and in Charlotte there’s nowhere that anything dies.
Charlotte has nothing but what Joy can give.
The Lord has enjoyed her. Charlotte shall live.

October In The Field

Who cares for fallen offspring of
the crowned heads of the furrow?
Ants too literal for love
have pantries in their burrow.