Changes...

This has been a big week. I successfully defended my dissertation, participated in the graduation ceremony (and snuck out early), and introduced my boyfriend to my family. My family, of course, was proud of me, but they were a bit disappointed that my new "doctor" status does not enable me to dispense prescriptions. Now, I'm going to enjoy my last week in Indiana, before I travel down to Texas for the summer, and before we move on out to Los Angeles. Lots of changes ahead...

"In Support of Corporate Farms"

I've just discovered that another of my friends, the notorious Cody Lumpkin, has a poem appearing on Verse Daily. Cody, Leslie St. John (see my previous post), and I once shared a hotel room at a literature conference in Louisville. I wonder if this means that I, too, will soon have a poem that appears on Verse Daily. Probably not, since I don't tend to write much poetry. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Cody doing yoga, or I would post that as well.

"In Support of Corporate Farms "

Stalin scythed wheat in Russian Georgia, Mao waddled knee-
deep in a rice paddy field, and Saddam Hussein tended his uncle's
melon patch on the banks of the Euphrates. Mussolini

would be the type of dictator to keep a tomato garden.
I think this might say something about human existence:
what the land makes us do. The disenfranchised Cain giving

the boulder to Abel. Closeness to a speck of ground
only makes us want more. To kill whoever needs to be killed
to get it and to hang them by their fat calloused toes
under the drying sun. Marx had it wrong. The revolution

would not come from the city, where it didn't matter
if you knew the upstairs couple or not (but took
comfort in the sound of them making love occasionally)

or the fact of a park with a fountain that makes you smile.
The danger lies in the lonely farm, dirt on the palm's
lifeline. Let stalks of corn miles from anywhere be their own

kind of wilderness. Let a stranger snatch them up with some
newfangled harvester, thinking only of going to his suburban home,
his curtained master bedroom, the clanging of trashcans his rooster.

Things That Bend

My lovely friend Leslie St. John has published this equally lovely poem, and it appears on VerseDaily today. (Oh, and the picture above, is of Leslie.)

"Things That Bend "
After Dorianne Laux's "What's Broken"

The inch worm in the window sill, curling

In a bank of light. Snow-soaked porch steps,

Old pinewood floors. The neck, the back—
My body bends into another body. Firelight

Bends around his shoulders, a half-moon
Around stars, around the tops of trees.

We are both the driver on dark highways
Breaking for bends in the road, and the river

Rushing over rocks toward the bend ahead.
What bends short, bends long —

Doesn't break. Neck of tulip, waning
Clothes rod. And, yes, the rules.

Because the heart is not straight and narrow:
It curves, sometimes splinters into tributaries,

Carrying; all the waste of a community of two:
Words like dead fish floating to the surface,

Gills closed, eyes fixed. But the mouth opens
Like a fresh bruise purple, bell-shaped —

And you forget yourself, your heart
A wire hanger bending in someone's hands

Michael Chabon

I had the honor of introducing Michael Chabon the other night, when he came to Purdue as our annual Literary Awards speaker. I've had the fortune (or, misfortune, sometimes) of meeting and getting to know a number of writers in my field, but I was particularly impressed with Chabon. He's a nice guy, a real person--not pretentious or egotistical, like one or two other writers in my field with whom I've had interactions. And he was a very entertaining reader, which was refreshing, since often readings by some of the greatest writers can be the dullest experiences on earth. Yay for Michael Chabon!

Oh, Happy Day

Today was one of the happiest days I've had in a long time.

It started off with teaching Bible as Literature. Today we talked about the rebellion of Korah against Moses, in Numbers 16. It's one of my favorite parts of the text. It's the one where Korah pisses Moses off, and so the ground opens up and swallows Korah and all of his followers--except that it's not meant to be read literally. It's a metaphor for how deep and great is the chasm between two parties who fail to communicate with each other.

And then I came home, made coffee, and laid on my couch, watching the rain through my window, and thinking about all of the work I have to do on my dissertation before tomorrow.

Then I got a lovely email, from someone I love very much. How much happier my day suddenly became. It's amazing how powerful words can be--an amazing reminder that we should always use them carefully and lovingly.

Then I thought for a while about moving to LA in a few months, and of all of the new directions my life is taking, and I was happy. I am excited to be in warm weather, to do the work I love, and to be with the person I love.

Once I finally got situated and began working on my dissertation, trying to finish a chapter on Krzysztof Kieslowski's films, I was happy again, because I remembered how much I love my project.

Of course, it would've been a happier day had I actually finished the dissertation chapter, but it was still a day worth having. Tomorrow will be stressful, but today was happy.

Religion, Faith, and Alchemy

I am constantly on the lookout for new ways to explain my own ambivalence about religion. I despise it, and yet it has made who I am, and it forms the basis for nearly all of my endeavors: academic, spiritual, psychological. I am drawn to religion, but only in the sense that it must necessarily be an ongoing process, rather than a product of one group of people's musings on the nature of God. Religion, for me, is beautiful only when it is allowed to be fluid, constantly evolving and in flux, and when it teaches people to love other people. Why? Because I think that is how God must be.

When I was 19 or 20, my then-boyfriend, a year younger than me, gave me The Alchemist, by Paul Coelho--he said the book had meant a lot to him. I loved the book, though I didn't really get it all at the time, since I was so immersed in a community that privileged rules and rituals over real spiritual inquiry.

Today I was reminded of this when I saw that over at Jewcy.com there is an interview with novelist Paulo Coelho that gets at some of my evolved ideas of God and religion in a very insightful way.

Paul Coelho:

"I think that traditional religions face this backlash because they overlook the necessity of personal faith. To follow rituals is extremely important for the cult, but religious leaders should understand our individual faith, our need for actions that truly stir the souls of the men and women. Because these institutions have been ineffective in doing this, we have been seeing a gradual disinterest in all segments of society.

I always say that religion and faith have to be thought of separately—mainly because faith is sometimes at odds with the cult. You can find this difference in other realms, including politics. We all know that laws are different from rights. We all know that certain laws may be unjust and that we have the right to oppose them if we think they are unfounded. The same goes for religion: individuals don’t accept rules that are no longer tied to their personal lives and questionings. People need meaning and only life and faith can supply this, not merely rules."

Joey Kurtzman, the interviewer, asks:

"Along the same lines, as we try to remake our faith so that it can serve some purpose for us, how careful should we be about violating the 'authenticity' of the tradition?"

Paulo Coelho:

"First you need to be clear about the 'authenticity' of tradition. In my eyes, personal faith is the beating heart of this authenticity. This is the living fabric of all religions."

It's true--when tradition stops meaning something to people, and when it loses its ability to move people, perhaps it has stopped mattering. And perhaps, when that happens, people must create new traditions.

Why Do the Wicked Prosper?

I've been working on my dissertation all evening. I'm tired of writing about theoretical things, so this post is going to be something different.

I was driving home from the library late this afternoon, and I heard myself say, out loud, "God has blessed me with so many things I do not deserve." I don't really know where it came from, other than that it is an idea that is built into the tenets of the religion in which I was raised. Somehow there are still so many remnants of that religion, both good and bad, in my consciousness. I tend to be a person who is always surrounded by some trauma, disaster, or catastrophe of some kind. Somehow, though, I never feel sorry for myself, because I always have a crazy story to tell.

The latest catastrophe was me falling on the ice and crushing my dog's foot--not one broken bone, but countless broken bones. It's so my style to go extreme, all the way. But there have been a few really great things that have happened for me over the past couple of weeks as well. And so tonight, without realizing it, I was reflecting on them in a rare moment of positive thinking; I say "rare," since I tend to be a "my glass is two thirds empty" kind of person.

But as soon as the word "blessed" came out my mouth, it was crushed with the resounding biblical lament of King David: "Why do the wicked prosper?" And I thought to myself, how would one know if she was blessed? Then it occurred to me, that perhaps I am not blessed. Perhaps I am downright wicked, and that is why I prosper--a chilling thought.