Memories of a Fallen Branch

This poem was just posted here. Thought I'd share it here as well:

Innocence splintered when I watched the tree branch fall

Sleeping in tight corners

     the wind , the rain, the mourning trees—

     they all spoke my name as I heard them cry out.

But in those sounds—the creaking, the whining and pounding—

     the whistling of the wind between leaved and branches.

There was clarity in the possibility of death

     so that we may all sing laments neither for us, nor for our souls

     but for the nature in which, through language we have left.

And I left it, staying within safety, if there was any to be had,

     understanding the difference I, a product of selection, shared

But in passing, in seeing the destruction and its forms

     I returned to the woods, to the breath of what we know and saw,

     fear in m own eyes

     in the frailty of nature, and of myself through a birth of civility.

If you'd like to know what I had in mind while writing this, or what it is about just ask. I don't want to write it here in case someone likes interpreting it alone.

When I Was

In the ninth grade

my friends who I use to sit with at lunch

many of which went to the same Sunday services as I

handed me a note

as I went to sit down with them

holding my lunch tray uneasily in my hand

One sat it on the brown plastic

next to my single slice of pizza and looked away

As did they all

I read the note alone

Too ashamed to let them see me read it

or to let anyone see

in case they knew

what it meant to read a note

huddled in the hall where no one ate

They said I could not be their friend

That I made them uncomfortable because

I was gay

But I was not gay

And as middle school children often are

they were mean

They did not leave it alone

and let me simply cram the letter in my pocket and shuffle away

in silent

tear filled silence

No

They took the wrinkled and ripped paper from me

and read it aloud

for all of my peers to hear

And what could I do but listen as I got shoved back

while trying to take it

These scars run deeper than any others that stain my body

When I was a senior in high school

I dressed myself in black

I felt that this was who I was

And secretly

when no one was around

I worried that I might be gay

You see

I liked the way men dressed

I liked how they looked

and tried to look

as they did

The men on band posters and in magazines

I would see them and know they were

attractive and what I wished to be

And I'd silently wonder

if I was gay

After all

what does it mean to be attracted to someone

Was I

I could not tell anyone

I was too scared

Too ashamed of what they may think

or say

Was the note true

I could not bare to know

Society told me that it was not natural

And so

I kept quiet

all the while remembering that I had a girl friend

That I was attracted to them as well

And this was different in some ways

I did not want to be them

but wanted to be with them

But there are others

whose rights have been taken

Whose childhoods

are filled with similar stories as these

but at the same time

nothing at all the same

They walk the halls as I have

alone in the gray lockers that make up time and stories

and memories

that will inevitable shape us into the person we are today

And although the laughter may be hidden

it is there

biting and hating and drowning

There are those who are denied the love of another through marriage

There are those

still called names by men

who are more like the adolescent middle schooler

than the wise

seasoned adult

There are those who still fear their own truth

for fear of many who they themselves

have come victim to abuse

name-calling and the scars that come with

growing up.

But some

still stand with hope

and conviction that a day will come when men unite together

in a common understanding of good

and truth

and moral rightness

Where we will embrace our brothers and sisters

and daughters and sons in loving arms

Taking hold of their dreams and pushing them forward

Showing them the things that a future brings

where tolerance and acceptance are given

with the simplest touch from another human being

Response to I Am Vertical, by Sylvia Plath

This is a response to a poem by Sylvia Plath, I Am Vertical:

Poem:
 I am Vertical

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf, 
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted, 
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling, 
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars, 
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping 
I must most perfectly resemble them --
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation, 
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

Response:

Response Paper to Sylvia Plath's Poem I Am Vertical

In Sylvia Plath's poem, “I Am Vertical” the speaker conveys their desire to, through comparisons of living vertical and horizontal, become stable within life; comparable to natures stability that she sees around her. Through poignant oppositions in her vertical living and natures horizontalness she weaves a web showing a desire to become “a part” of nature—being horizontal—and, through the poem the slow path in this progression of laying down.

The poems title seems to be, in most cases, the beginning. “I am vertical.” While the reader is not yet aware of what this could mean, a second reading shows instability and weakness, which is made obvious by the authors comparison of this truth by stating, “I am not a tree with my root in the soil.” (line 2) It is interesting to see the similarities made between Plath, (who we assume to be the reader), and the tree, while obvious differences spring out. While both Plath and the tree are vertical, neither are naturally horizontal, there is a sense of woe in that Plath does not have the same strength, stature or foundation that the tree has, through its roots, (horizontal). Not only is strength given to the tree, but also a renewal of life through this horizontal grounding: “each March I may gleam into leaf.” (line 4)

Through these beginning lines, we see a major difference between the tree and Plath's life. The similarities are almost painful, as if, being vertical would be tolerable, if only there was a stable rotting in place for her verticalness. Through this stability—which is lacking in the speaker—the tree gains immortality. “A tree is immortal,” (line 8) she writes. This shows a major difference between her acknowledgment of her inevitable “unpetal” (line 7) and a tree, whose immortality must come from no such understanding of death. No measure of time. All the tree can know is how to live. This shows the first major binary opposition in the poem: mortality and immortality. Not because one is this literally, but because of ones view of life—immortality through cycles of nature, in being “a part” of nature.

These cycles show several times throughout Plath's poem. In one major jump, she moves from the comparison of the nature around her to the sky above her. “Tonight, in the infinitesimallight of the stars.” (line 11) In this new moon sky, the moon is hidden, dark, and only the stars are there to give her any—all though, very little—light. The start of a new cycle, a natural cycle, a cycle that indicates this immortal feeling of horizontalness; of being a part of the nature around her. She, in fact, feels so a part that she feels as though “none of them are noticing.” (line 13). This vertical life has left her estranged from nature.

However, she sees a way in which she is closest, and hints towards her entrance into horizontalness and becoming “a part” of nature. She first feels this becoming nature as she lies down to rest, as her “thoughts [go] dim,” (line16) she loses herself in absence of thought or consciousness. She falls into a darkness similar to the night sky with no moon to brighten the trees and flowers; the moon that would have made her presence known.

This, “is more natural” (line 17) to her. Here, she is a part of nature, part of the stars and trees and flowers she has around her. The oppositions she worked in earlier fall apart as she senses a oneness with nature. Her mortality through her dimming thoughts wanes into immortality, her individuality becomes a part of nature, her consciousness becomes a part of natures unconscious thought. Her life becomes death.

And she sees, through death her usefulness, “then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.” In death, the binary opposition she lays down for us in her verticalness disperses and all that is left is her body, horizontal. She is no longer “in” nature—she, walking through the trees and flowers, under the stars with no moon—but will become “a part” of nature. This journey through death, gives meanings through the cycles of life in the trees who “may gleam into leaf”. Her journey through death brings a darkness, like the absence of the moon, where, soon, as the cycles move on, so does the moon, bringing the light she wants, through completing a cycle and becoming, finally, a part of nature.

Plath's poem shows, through an eventual merging of binary opposites, a desire and necessity to become a part of nature. Showing natures greatness through its foundations in living, through a rooted body, as well as its immortal, or eternal nature in which it lives through cycles of death and life stretching on in its thoughtless bliss, unchanging and yet, remaining strong.

Man Progressing

I have decided to post the papers I write this semester, as there are going to be a lot of them. I hope you enjoy them (Please comment if you have any critiques or suggestions, or just want to comment/discus). 

In Response to Emerson’s, the American Scholar

Man Progressing

When I was a child I was taught to enjoy reading. Reading, I was told, free’d the mind. It opened not only doors to the imagination, but doors to the soul, to ideas and thought and discovery of oneself. However, as a child, I did not believe this. Or rather, I did not understand how printed words on paper could speak to ones soul; could encourage, enlighten or uplift. This is not to say that i did not enjoy reading, I enjoyed it very much. But rather, I skimmed the surface of many books that were brought to my attention rather than drinking a deep glass of cool crisp water.
This persisted. I spent my time engaged in creativity, through reading and other artistic avenues, but never understanding what it is I should be getting out of the stories. Lord of the Rings, gave me adventure, but was only a “neat” and “exciting” story. Books read at school brought words and knowledge, but nothing as notable as to stir my soul.
To be honest, I found my truth in the forests of central North Carolina. I would spend my days beneath the glinting sun which shone through the tall trees. I experienced pain when falling from a tree and landing on my back, glee when swinging on vines that nature provided, and fear when coming across abandoned clothes of a homeless man. I watched in wonder when a hurricane went on land and tore down many of the trees I had once climbed, forever changing the landscape into something new--proving the universal law of complexities through change.
As Emerson has said, “Life is our dictionary.” (Emerson) I gained, through my experiences through nature, definitions of life. A greater understanding of what it is to live.
And now, having long since past my adolescent stages of ignorance I find myself often looking back at these experiences. They, now, give definition to my books. It is a foundation of truth that has brought meaning to many of the books that I have read. But more so, they have encouraged a way of thinking. Of interacting with the authors and drawing out more that I had when a child. Through experience, it is evident that we gain truth, but is it not also truth that we gain through our understanding of a text, or work of literature that resonates with our soul, because of our own personal experiences? “There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet . . . says that which lies close to my own soul.” (Emerson)
However, through lethargy, it would seem that many move from the child-like innocence of discovery; of this truth that can be found, not only when one is a child, but when one looks at truth in a lens of creativity and replaces it with gained and memorized knowledge with nothing of intrinsic value to compare it to. “Instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm.” (Emerson) There must be a gaining of knowledge, which can be beautifully gained through books, but truth comes through an idea that life becomes this very truth. That not all of our time should be spent on reading books, but that thinking, and writing, even encourage a relationship to truth that will bring about a form of understanding of nature and the human condition.
When we are pressed in our mind of thoughts that bring us our own truth we discover our most true form--ourselves at our root. Descartes says this beautifully, “I am, however, a real thing and really exist; but what thing? I have answered: a thing which thinks.” (Descartes 28)
I am thoroughly convinced that truth can only come through these criteria: knowledge, (through our study of books), experience, (through aesthetic wonderment. Art. Science. Nature. Etc.), and our ability to think, (this mystery of consciousness defines us). Our souls, our essence--consciousness, awareness--breath through us in waves of truth when we exploit these things to generate creativity.
The true scholar, the Man Thinking, it would seem must come through the ability to create, using their facilities to learn creativity and to build on such a thing. We tie together our gained knowledge of books with childish adventure and wonderment to bring ourselves a deeper understanding of those experiences.
But what of current experiences? It would seem that we must build continually on our selves in order to better understand what truth is, for truth does not seem to be static. What was once true of oneself, may not be true to another, or to oneself at another given point in time. Does this discount experience or book-knowledge? Or do these truths build off one another to find a higher form of understanding, a creative process in which we find ourselves more becoming the Man Thinking than being the Man Thinking? “Is there no fact, no event, in our private history, which shall not, sooner of later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean.” (Emerson) Current experience then would not discount what were once truths, but reinforce this process of building upon truth, or creating a better truth. Because what is truth but what is of inner importance and significance to us. Truth must be subjective to our experiences, be built by our knowledge through books, and be made progressive through a building of creativity.

My books were adventures, but nothing more. I, without knowing was made to “accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote [their] books.” (Emerson) However, through writing, through thinking, I grow on what I learned and read from the authors of my youth, and the authors of today, becoming, not the Man Thinking, as Emerson incorporates with the scholar, but rather progressing towards the unobtainable Man Thinking. Rather, I write and am the Man Progressing. I am the embodiment of my own truth through experience, and the prophet of such a truth through my written action.

What truth that is to be can lead to many different roads, but what roads are there to take when all that is laid in front of us are fields of tall grass begging the Man Progressing to enter into the prairie, and carve the path that his own.

Notes
1. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, The Amersican Scholar, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, pp. 43-62, (2000).
2. Descartes, Rene, Meditations on First Philosophy, Simon and Brown, (2011).

Why it is important that I support Gay Rights

This is something that I have felt strongly about since the 2004 election, (my first time voting), where, (to my eternal shame) I voted for Bush, however, I opposed the proposition that homosexual partners should not be allowed to get married. This seems like common sense to me. Sure, at the time I had not given it much thought to how it would incorporate into my religious views, but I did not see how it could go against them, either, because of some simple truths I firmly believed in.

1. We are all Gods children and he loves us
2. Regardless of religious beliefs we should not force those who believe differently to adhere to our belief systems.
3. All people should have the same and equal privileges regardless or race, religion, or sexual preference.
4. This is not a religious issue. (Maybe the method of how they are married, but not the actual union of two people who love each other and the rights grated at such a union).

Now, 8 years later, I still believe those same things, but more fully, with greater conviction and greater understanding. When you get down to the heart of the matter, it isn't about what religion you belong to, how you feel about statistics dealing with homosexuals and sex or AIDS, but it comes down to freedom, acceptance and love.

What does freedom mean to you? How far are we to believe in freedom? I definitely think there are boundaries. Anarchy seems pretty ridiculous to me. But what about basic rights. Rights to live and love and make the best of our lives and the lives around us? Should those be given to anyone who wishes them? I definitely think so.

But why is it important that I support it? Actively support it, I mean. Well, I think that it is one thing to have homosexual individuals to fight for their rights. We saw this in the civil rights movement. However, it is important that people understand that there are many people, many heterosexual people (like myself) who are standing up for other peoples rights. During the civil rights movements there were many white people who marched with those blacks who were fighting hard for their rights. We need friendly relations, between those who have different views. A catalyst, if you will.

I talk about this with everyone and have no shame in it. I SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE. Everyone needs to know it, and those who agree need to proclaim it along with me. And those who don't are more likely to listen to someone who is straight. I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. When I talk about it, and people understand that I am married to a beautiful woman and have two wonderful kids, it forces them to question why someone, who it would not really effect, would be so adamant about it; someone who is a Mormon and who loves their God would go against the general Mormon thought and proclaim that Gay's and Lesbians should be married. And if you ask me, I will tell you my opinions on the churches general standing. And I will tell you how those who say we should fight against it are wrong. Because they are wrong.

And when you find your way through all of the haze and confusion of religious influence on this issue, and realize that that is not the important part of the issue, and understand that we cannot base our country on religious beliefs but on moral and ethical guidance and action, you will see that all people should be able to marry and have the same rights, regardless of their race, religion, beliefs or sexual orientation.

Is there a need for a God who intervenes?

As Mormons, I think that we have a very unique view of the nature of God. It is different. It is unlike any other that I know of. It is a uniqueness that answers otherwise difficult questions. And I'm not talking about "who am I," "why am I here," and "where am I going." These have answers. Most people understand these answers no matter what religion or personal belief system they have. They may not have it exactly right, but I think they can grasp it easily enough. But what about harder questions?

One of the hardest, I feel, is the question of Evil. Why is there evil in the world. I think, at times, even Mormons have a hard time with this one. Because there is no reason, (when it comes to Gods relationship to it) to have evil. It is not the only way in which we learn or grow, and often times people  don't get the message or lesson. So why do we have it?

I never really though about it until a few years ago, after hearing a talk by Tom Honey. Because his ultimate answer followed what we believe, (or what we should be believing, I think) as Mormons:

“When I stood up to speak to my people about God and the tsunami, I had no answers to offer them. No neat packages of faith with Bible references to prove them. Only doubts and questions and uncertainty. I had some suggestions to make – possible new ways of thinking about God. Ways that might allow us to go on, down a new and uncharted road. But in the end the only thing I could say for sure was I don’t know, and that might just be the most profoundly religious statement of all.”

“But what if God doesn’t act? What if God doesn’t do things at all? What if God is in things? The loving soul of the universe. An indwelling, compassionate presence, underpinning and sustaining all things. …In the infinitely complex network of relationships and connections that make up life. In the natural cycle of life and death, the creation and destruction that happen continuously. In the process of evolution. In the incredible intricacy and magnificence of the natural world In the collective unconscious, the soul of the human race. In you and me, mind and body and spirit, in the tsunami, in the victims. In the depth of things. In presence and in absence. In simplicity and complexity, in change and development and growth. 

This is a key idea. While we don't believe in God being an entity, or the representation of empathy, nature and everything, there is room in our gospel for the idea that God does not act. But there are obvious reasons for this that maybe get passed by in our general thinking or view of our religion. So lets think about it.

Why would God not act? First, there are a few key beliefs that need to be understood. All of these beliefs can be housed under the term "complexities". What if, God worked through complexities? What would this bring about? It would give creation. A creation that is ongoing and old. It would give room for scientific theories. The age of the universe, evolution, these things can be explained as part of this question of evil.

So why is there evil? Because if God stopped one act of evil; if he intervened on the behalf of one innocent child trapped in a trunk, one father stuck in a car during a hurricane, he would be accountable for saving everyone. God cannot show favoritism. God cannot say to one person you deserve life and you do not. We are all his children with an equal amount of love. And so he does not do anything. He lets things take their course and guides and persuades us to a better life style. And if anyone is willing to listen than anyone can hear what he has to say. He has methods of sharing this. Methods we know.

We have freewill. We have our agency. And, for me, that means that there cannot be any direct interference with my choices by God. They are mine. But he can help me to understand choice and consequence in which my decisions can be affected.

There is another reason why he wouldn't step in. One that is at the root of our doctrine. It is what we have faith in. It gives us hope and purpose. It is the condescension of God, "the one," Eugene England says eloquently, "who does not look down in judgment upon us from a physical and moral distance but who literally descends with us into moral pain and suffering and sickness." Because of the atonement, there is no need for a God who intervenes. Only one who understands what we are going through and provides perfect empathy for our benefit and the chance to learn, grow and progress through this life and anything after.