Worlds Collide

From AFE.
Memories
Worlds collide all the time;
Not with cosmic clouds of dust
Or fire in the sky;
But silently
Within my mind.
Life has often been compared with a journey and it is an appropriate analogy. During its course we may physically move from one place to another, but emotionally it is often more like moving from one world to another. The familiar landscape dotted with the faces of friends is far removed and we are met with the challenge, which we only have half the heart for, to find new friends and support systems. Other times we may cry in joy at the sheer freedom of moving on.
What is surprising is our ability to adapt to change. In the beginning there may be that sense of losing something very precious or the intense relief of leaving something in the past, but quite quickly and almost imperceptibly the novelty is gone and life achieves normality once again.
We are never quite free of our experiences in all these worlds, however, for it is their influence that has shaped us. And the smallest triggering, an old friend met, an old song heard or even a long forgotten smell, may elicit a smothering rush of memories, immersing us into the past. This is the collision of worlds. And then in an instant we are back, blinking in the light of the present day, whispering praise for the Hand that has lead us all the way and will be our ever present help to come.

If within 2 minutes of arriving at work you bend down and rip your pants…

…as I so unceremoniously did this morning. And if you you not only have to slink off to take care of the problem but also feel obliged to explain to your boss and co-workers just why it is you are leaving so soon. Then I think you are entitled to come back with some snazzy threads. Actually, it was 8:10 so the thrift store wasn’t open, so I felt completely justified in taking my custom high-end and hitting the Target clearance rack, to which I am not entirely a stranger. At any rate, there in that netherworld between Walmart and department stores, there at the store that brings shi shi designers to the masses, I hit the clearance rack and sort of got chic. Not really, OK, just barely.
Instead of some work-suitable khakis I decided upon a pair of hip (at least they were two years ago) jeans in a style which I used to think were rather manky looking.* You know the type, the type with the slick-faded looking legs that seem like you have been temporarily homeless for several weeks and haven’t had a chance to shower or change your clothes. At any rate, in that bizarre alchemy that is fashion and vanity and sheer craziness, they do now seem kind of cool, and so I acquired my first pair. And, to boot, I also decided I might as well go all the way and buy one of the nice Mossimo shirts on clearance, which is truly nice, not being manky by any standards. Even Joseph Abboud would be proud of it.
Gasp. Did I buy an outfit? No, as I am wont to explain, somewhat unconvincingly to even to myself at times, it must be noted, its just a shirt and pair of pants that happen to go together which will be worn with other shirts and pants respectively. Guys don’t buy outfits. Or shouldn’t. Dave would be proud. And so it was off to Quik Trip to hit the the restroom/changing room (and get a cup of tea) and then head back to work, sheepish, yes, but in such sartorial splendor.
All of this talk of manky fashions brings to mind a poem I wrote few years ago on the topic of tattoos and body piercing. As noted in a previous post, it is more strident than I would be now, but I think it does have a point and raises some interesting discussion topics. Also, as a point of full disclosure and as an innoculation against charges of hypocrisy, it should be noted that I do have an earring (the why and what for of which I may explain in a subsequent post) and, on occassion, have considered a tattoo, which likely won’t happen though.

I am still very interested in the issue of why people adorn, decorate, desecrate? themselves, whether it be tattoos or mullets, BMW’s or piercings. I am particularly interested in the psychology and the spritual aspects of such questions. Finally, blanked out though it is, this poem does contain a swear word.
Slavery Chic
It’s odd that all these signs of freedom
Should smack so of slavery from the past,
Of less than willing bondage to another.
The awl-pierced ear made one a slave for life
In ancient Israel.
These rings that link each nostril to the other
Protrude a shiny loop that almost begs for a hook
To pull the wearer along,
Like an unwilling bull of old.
And thick, studded collars once only choked strong dogs
Into submission.
And tatoos and brandings also marked a slave.
How odd, today, that almost every sign to say,
“I’m free,”
Should echo slavery.
But, slavery? Today?
Who holds the chains?
That is where the horror comes.
Before when one was ruled,
However deep the chains might cut,
At least the heart could stay free,
And hope for full feedom at least be a whispered dream.
But now the chains bind unseen
And loop back only to the Omnipotent Self
That marks its prey in time-honored ways
With signs that now do double time
To say, like prickly visual curse words,
“F___ you and what you think;
I am the jailor and the jailed.”
*I picked up the word manky from reading a sequel to Adrian Plass’ funny and insightful book the Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37 3/4, which I would very highly recommend to you. Manky: Adj. Scruffy, dirty, distasteful, disgusting.

Stench of Life

Just now flatmate Dave and I are sitting in Kayaks, a coffee shop designed to appear as a Colorado ski chalet. We have have just finished our drinks (his a fru-fru latte for which he gets no end of ribbing for being such a manly man all the rest of the time) and we are now reading. Everything is perfect and pristine, including most of the people. There is nice folk music being soothingly piped down and the only aroma is the relatively pleasant aroma of coffee (although for some I imagine that would be not so pleasant). Earlier today the same Dave and I were eating Chinese in front of Bob’s Seafood and the aromas were decidedly different. I noted to Dave how the place reminded me of Pakistan, not so much because there are many fishy smelling places in the parts of Pakistan in which I lived, but because odors pleasant and foul were so much more a part of every day life. Dave, quite correctly, pointed out that there is no virtue in being unsanitary. And yet, I think that we can lose connection with life, or perhaps more accurately with nature, by our highly sanitized spaces, perhaps even our highly sanitized bodies. OK, that might be an unpleasant thought, but it is helpful to note that even these standards are simply cultural. In addition to controlling the olefactory evidence of decay and life processes, our culture also is adept at hermetically sealing off death, as is evidenced both in our mortuaries and our meat departments. Both of which are much too large topics to be addressed in this ever lengthening study break. Suffice it to say, sometimes there is nothing like the stench of death to be reminded of the glory of Life.

Christmas Acrostic

Here is a selection from AFE in honor of the madness of yesterday, the day after Thanksgiving.

Textual note: Selections from Ache From Eternity: A Journey in Verse, which was written some ten years ago, sometimes speak with more directness and surety than I would likely write with now. Indeed, some might border on stridence. One day I will post a conclusion I wrote five years after writing AFE that details this shift. Even so, the effect these selections have on me is often quite interesting. Often times I am encouraged by my own words to have more faith and trust. This selection I like quite well and am eager to put into practice this holiday season. And, I really like this acrostic.
Christmas Acrostic
Advent of the god of greed.
Matter sought to sate the spirit
Assuages not the crying need.
Silent, still, crushed hearts are bleeding,
So wholeness can’t be bought by men…
_______________________________

Advent of the Prince of Peace
Matter sought by God the Spirit;
A robe of flesh to meet man’s need
Silent, still, His form would bleed
So wholeness could be had again.
Christmas is as much the principal holy day in the religion of materialism as it is in Christianity it seems. Like no other time during the year material goods are venerated as the source of happiness. It is true that this hollow philosophy is cloaked under the noble activity of gift giving, but the cloak is thin indeed as surely gift giving can be simpler and still equally meaningful. The reaction called for is not the whip in hand purging of the temple, however, because such buying and selling is centered in the separate temples of materialism. Our reaction as Christian should be one of pity: pity for the lives that wallow in the emptiness of post-Christmas depression; pity for those who have been fed the lie that things can bring happiness, only to find the promise empty.
To be sure, we as Christians can stoop to the syncretism of being caught up in the frenzy too, but when we do we are selling our birthright to far greater riches. True Christian celebration of Christmas is a partaking in the mass of Christ’s birth not in amassing material pleasures. Mass is a term borrowed from the Catholic church and one that Protestants may shy away from, but it simply means a celebration of the Eucharist or communion. At the heart of its meaning is the heart of all Christianity, the partaking in Christ, for it is only in partaking in Christ that we can be truly filled. What is called for then is not a humbug- like celebration of Christmas where Christians withdraw entirely from the more worldly celebrations of Christmas, for they too can be expressions of joy, but through it all we should focus on and bring others to the true cause of rejoicing, the gift of Christ to a needy world.

Photo Bonus-January 2nd, 2004

Thanks: 26 X 4

Adrian, Andrew, Apartment, Advent
Brothers, Books, Bicycles, Bruno
Car, Creation, Cider, Clothing
Dad, Dawn, David, Dases
Emilie, Employment, Eucharist, Easter
Forgiveness, Family, Friends, Future
Gracie, Goodness, God the Father, Grace
Hope, Holy Spirit, Hymns, Honesty
Incarnation, Insurance, Immanence, Ice rinks
Jesus, Jack, Jack, Jackson
Kelley, Kraus, Kids, Kindness
Love, Love, Love, Love
Mom, Madeleine, Matthew, Merriment
Norma, Nathan, New City, Narnia
Oatmeal, Oranges, Ocean, Obedience of Christ
Past, Present, Pakistan, Paul
Quietness, Questions, Quotes, Quests
Rest, Recipes, Roof, Restoration
Snow, Sweaters, Singing, Sight
Tea, Tolkien, Thrift Stores, Truth
Unconditional, Unity, Usefulness, Undoing
Vincent, Virgil, Vision, Voting
Woods, Winsomeness, Wisdom, Woodshed
X chromosome times 2, Xmas, Xperience, Xpectancy
Youth, “Yellow,” Yawns, Yesterday
Zzzzzzzzzzz’s, Zoos, Zaniness, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s

Snoooow!!!!!!!

With apologies to Andres Cantor, but a snow so early just makes me want to shout:
SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
And go to Langosta Roja for lunch for some yummy clam chowder…
Cosy
Did I mention it was
SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWING……..
“Ah, but Neil isn’t snow supposed to be appreciated for its serenity.”
Oh, right you are. Well, here you go…




Ah, the serenity.
But, did I mention that today we had
SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In all serious, though, in addition to the delight of it all, it did make our college campus rather lovely. Below is an image from our library and an imagining of how Cair Paravel might look after the snow.


Cair Paravel in Winter

Winter Nights

The other day talking about winters in Pakistan, my brother Adrian remembered how deeply he yearned to experience snow, long before he had ever seen it, almost as much as C. S. Lewis longed for “Pure Northerness.” Mom would read us stories about Christmas and we would sing carols in our devotions. One book had stories about “The Cobbler’s Three Sons” and a story that involved Pegasus somehow. Another story that was told, and which now my brother now tells with wonderful embellishment and evocation, was of a prodigal coming home from Christmas on a train. The sign that he was welcome to come home was to be a ribbon on a tree near the railway line before his stop. If the tree were empty he would not get off the train…The tree was full of ribbons.
A cynical heart would note that that all sounds pretty sappy. A doctrinnaire head would question what all that has to do with Christmas. And, I have possessed each of these at different times. And both would be right to a degree. Christmas is a mish mash of cultural practices little linked to Christ, wrapped up in syrupy emotions, prostituted by materialism. And, yet, even if all that is true, it does not negate the possibility that there is goodness in even the most secular cheer, in the warmth, however temporary, people generate for one another. And so, while I try to hold the secular celebration of Christmas lightly and focus on the Advent, I still do enjoy the season, and more particularly the joys that are specific to my family.
In Pakistan, the joys of Christmas, indeed of winter nights themselves, had added complexions. Early in the winter we would go with Dad to the open air market, where there were piles of oranges, as tall as a boy, which were made simply upon the ground. We would bring home several hundred in our trunk. Ooh, and what a different type of organes and tangerines they were. Our citrus here is only beginning to compare, and yet I think I can still eat about 3 or 4 oranges at a sitting. There were the drinks of hot lemonade made from the bitter sour citrus fruit that grew in our back yard. And there were peanuts, gotten from a vendor with a burning pot to warm them that, if we were lucky (its taken years of practice for me as a fundamentalist Presybterian to be able to use that word), my mother would buy for us as we rode home in the back of a horse drawn tonga. The plains of the Punjab in Pakistan are not cold, but they do get a chill in the winter. I have no concept of enjoying a Christmas season without cold.
Finally, here is a selection from AFE with some preceding explanatory notes.
______________________________
Sadar mall-Local shopping district. Think bazaar, not Mallrats.
rizai-Thick Pakistani quilt.

Winter Nights
-for my cousins in Rawalpindi, Pakistan
There’s Christmas plays on crisp, cold nights
In halls aglow with candle light.
Or paying well-loved friends a call.
Perhaps a trip to Sadar mall.
Then home we go through darkened streets.
For, after all, home is most sweet.
And then comes the expected plea,
“Dear sister, will you make some tea?”
We’ll get the cake and Christmas treats
And light the fire to warm our feet,
And pull our chairs and gather in
And then the real fun begins.
We’ll sit and talk and laugh and joke
And some of us will blow our smoke.
And when we’re running short of drink,
“Dear brother, its your turn I think.”
And then we’ll talk and joke some more
Till weary eyes get red and sore.
Then cross the chilly courtyard stones
To thick rizais to warm our bones.
And in the darkness left behind,
The peanut hulls and orange rinds
Fill dirty cups and bring to mind,
“Praise God above for joyful times.”
Times were when things were a lot simpler here in America. The pioneers led hard and difficult lives and did have their share of worries to be sure, but there was little of the stress that accompanies so much of busy modern life They worked hard and their pleasures were simple.
Great leaps in technology and the sheer number of choices we have in leisure activities, surely would make our lives more meaningful one would think. But exactly the opposite seems to bear true. While we have never been busier trying to enjoy ourselves, perhaps never has the pursuit for recreation been more wearying and less fulfilling.
Despite always wanting new and more exciting activities in my youth, now my best memories are of simple pleasures: walking on a moonlit road in the Himalayan foothills in a boisterous group of Jr. High kids, off to the local village for tea or sitting with my cousins late into the night, again drinking that ubiquitous Eastern beverage and just talking. Back in America in college nothing quite compared to the fellowship at Hardees following Bible study or the cramped comfort of a road trip en route to summer camp.
In the final analysis that old maxim bears true, “That life is what you make it.” As Christians, though, even simplicity cannot be the ultimate end as it in itself is not the key to true peace. Christ alone is the answer. However, our choices do make that journey home to him either one of harried busy-ness or joyful, restful simplicity.

Song

Song lyrics are tricky. I thought that if one wrote poetry, writing song lyrics would be easy. Not so. You have to pay more attention to meter, even though music and singing allow for a great deal of meterical fudging. Plus, it would help if I could actually play music. I have not come up with a band that would naturally perfom this song. Perhaps The Dead Cicadas could in an alt-country moment. Here, for better or worse, is advice on changing the world.
Change the World

Some just learn the hard way
Bringing trouble to their souls
It don’t matter how good you are
It ain’t gonna change the world
Some just learn the hard way
Pushing thorns into their souls
It don’t matter how hard you try
It ain’t gonna change the world
Some just learn the hard way
Bringing silence to their souls
It don’t matter how sad you are
It ain’t gonna change your world
So what’s the point
Why keep going on
Unless it’s scars you want
As you’re beaten down
I just had to learn the hard way
To get solace for my soul
There’s nobody down here Strong enough
To be Meek enough to change the world
I just had to learn the hard way
To bring healing to my soul
There’s nobody down here Wise enough
To be Fool enough to change the world
I just had to learn the hard way
To bring some life back to my soul
There’s nobody down here that’s Love enough
To bleed enough to change my world
So there’s the point
Why I keep going on
It’s my scars he took
As He was beaten down
We all gotta learn the hard way
To get some comfort for our souls
It don’t matter how hard you try
It ain’t gonna change the world

Dog Bonus

Belying its shortness, this poem encapusulates a lot of my thoughts and questions about the nature of the Garden of Eden and pre-fall animal predation and vegetarianisn and the nature of death and sacrifice. Flatmate Lloyd and I began to hash this out today as he lay home sick as dog and I enjoyed my morning off. Are you wondering what I might be smoking? Well, more later…perhaps even a Master’s thesis which has been so, so long in coming…
bruno

i have a little dog
unaffected by the Fall,
or so it seems.
he’s all loving licks
and waggling
and playful romps
and glee.
and then I watch him,
growling,
eating meat.