More existential poetry

As a historian, it's both hard to believe in destiny and hard not to. 

Teleology

I feel tight somehow,

dough rolled into a spiral and no room to expand. The oven turns on.

I am compressed like a black hole. I am immeasurably tiny

and vastly inevitable. Where is all this gravity going?

and where did it come from

The universe has rules. Everything exists to do just that

and no history could have ever been any different, or else it would have happened.

If things could be different they would

but rules make the world just like they make up our bodies.

We exist in the space between ice and water,

lava and stone

the future solidifying into the past, as quickly as it passes us by

like the cows on the side of the road,

still there in our minds even after we reach our destination. 

Can destiny be applied retroactively? 

Vladimir Lenin had questions too

Pondering today, as I have been all week, what happens when we turn away from our Source to seek answers.

A question is posed

What can I write
in a world gone mad?

The thing is to shout,
to be heard
above the roar of them shouting,

shouting anger,
shouting the lies they've come to love
again 
and again

now here, now there,
now left, now right
now asking and answering
now half-hearted listening--
does anyone want to listen?

What is to be done?
Lenin asked the world
and the world answered, fight.
But fight for what?
The clouds didn't answer.
Maybe the earth would.

The earth seemed to say,
Dig.
Dig.
Dig and make new.
So they ploughed the earth and they made it rough,
they planted in it the tears of their fight,
they hoped, in the planting, to uproot the weeds.

But the new plants that grew were stronger than weeds,
stalks thick and bristles clinging,
not soft like the seeds
dropped with heartache in the dirt,
and no one knew what to do then.
What could be done?

Nothing but to finish what they'd started.
The tears had been planted,
the ground overturned,
the questions answered 
with grim finality.

The days marched on
and the frost sank down
and the weeds broke the earth
until one day the world was full of ghosts,

their bones become seeds, 
their memory
the whisper of failure--

all somehow telling the same story
that the world has gone mad

and we can't make it right.

An irrepressible conflict

It's a disturbing trend I've seen recently that in pro-choice rhetoric, pregnancy is commonly likened to slavery. 

Pro-choice ideology claims that women are oppressed by their babies, that pro-life people want to exert control over vulnerable women's bodies, and that anyone who defends life is essentially a modern-day slaveholder. There has never been anything more ironic than this ludicrous erroneous comparison. The abortion industry vilifies children and embraces the destruction of vulnerable innocents for the cause of convenience; that, in itself, is the definition of oppression and exploitation. 

It is, in fact, the logic of the abortion-defender that most closely resembles that of America's pro-slavery champions in the 1800s. 

Let's compare the two, shall we?

Pro-choice argument: Fetuses are sub-human, pre-human, not "people." They cannot speak, cannot hear, cannot see, cannot (up to a certain point) feel pain, and cannot form memories. They are unaware of their surroundings. Humans in the early stages of development are not as worthy of protection as adult humans, or even newborn infants. 

Slavery rhetoric: Slaves (i.e. Black people) are not fully realized persons. They have low moral intelligence and are uncivilized, unteachable, and brutish. Therefore, their lives are less valuable inherently than white lives, and they were destined to be subordinated. 

"In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life..." -James Henry Hammond, 1858

Pro-choice: The woman has authority over her own body, which includes the fetus inside her, and it is not immoral to use that authority however she pleases. The fetus is utterly dependent on its mother for life. The woman's power is an asset to her; it gives her permission, even the right, to dominate the fetus.

Slavery: The white slave owner has been given authority by God and by law over slaves' bodies, and so he is justified in using them however he pleases. His power, intelligence, and capacity give him the right to dominate lesser beings and "civilize" them.

"[The freed slave] would become an insufferable burden to society. Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery... We would remind those who deprecate and sympathize with negro slavery, that his slavery here... christianizes, protects, supports and civilizes him; that it governs him far better than free laborers at the North are governed." -George Fitzhugh

Pro-choice: Abortion is not murder. Murder is illegal. Abortion can't be called murder because it is legal and embedded in our society's way of life.

Slavery: Slavery is legal and embedded in the social structure of the United States and the world. Because it is widely accepted, it must not be immoral.

"...A race inferior to her own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all her purposes. We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves. We found them slaves by the common 'consent of mankind...'" -James Henry Hammond, 1858

Pro-choice: Unwanted fetuses will have difficult lives if carried to term and given up for adoption. It's better for them to be destroyed rather than suffer a life of poverty and adversity.

Slavery: If slaves are freed, where will they go? They do not have the skills or the capacity to care for themselves or build a quality life. It's better for them to stay enslaved, safe and provided for, than to be turned out into the street to fend for themselves.

"He the Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as a child, not as a lunatic or criminal. The master occupies toward him the place of parent or guardian... We presume the maddest abolitionist does not think the negro's providence of habits and money-making capacity at all to compare to those of the whites." -George Fitzhugh

Pro-choice: Abortion is a positive good--good for the mother and good for the unwanted fetus. Abortion relieves mothers of emotional hardship, financial burden, and social stigma, and saves the fetus from life in an unfair world. 

Slavery: Slavery is a positive good. It benefits masters economically and socially, and slaves are elevated by their usefulness to white people and their separation from their cultural roots. 

"But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:–far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition... Never before has the black race of Central Africa... attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually." -John C. Calhoun

"... our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either... They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves." -James Henry Hammond, 1858*

Pro-life advocates assert that none of this is true; all human beings are of equal inherent value, regardless of developmental stage, ability, or suffering, and abortion is an abomination because it destroys an innocent person and allows those with less power to be dominated by those with more. Likening pro-life people to slaveholders is like calling Frederick Douglass a racist.

In 1858, William Seward described the tension between abolitionists and pro-slavery forces as an "irrepressible conflict." Whether he meant the words to be prophetic or not, he discerned that things in the slavery debate could not continue the same way without boiling over. 

To my pro-choice friends: I love you. My intent in writing this isn't to declare war on you, but
to expose the lies we're being told by the abortion industry, and to ask you, boldly: when the lines have been drawn, on which side would you rather find yourself? It's not too late to start listening to the truth.

The time to choose is now. We are approaching another crossroads in our history--much like America in 1860, headed toward the emancipation of the slaves through Civil War--a crux in another "irrepressible conflict" between life and death, freedom and oppression. Those who plant themselves in opposition to the cause of life will one day find themselves relegated forever to the company of slaveholders, Nazis, and tyrants, their cheaply bought glory tarnished, and their names forgotten.

But we, the defenders of life, will find ourselves encouraged, strengthened, approved by God, and celebrated by future generations of free people.

*There is a plethora of sources on this subject. I used three of the most well-known pro-slavery speeches from the time period, but if you know how to work Google or the Library of Congress website, you can find many more. 

Abe and I have a lot in common

 

If you don’t already know, Abraham Lincoln is probably my favorite historical figure (followed by Louis XIV, the Anabaptists of Muenster, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn). I feel we would’ve been great friends, had we met when he was alive, and I hope someday to meet him in the afterlife–after receiving my long-awaited hug from Jesus, of course.

Lincoln was a person of great depth. He laughed loudly and often, and he experienced pain acutely. His passion for words and stories fueled and was fed by his curiosity for human nature, and his huge empathy enabled him to understand others in a profound way. All his life, Lincoln was characterized by his melancholy–different from depression, although some historians would label Lincoln’s emotional life as such.

Melancholy comes from feeling things deeply–not just sadness, but joy. From sensing the pain of others. From living in a world so paradoxically stuck between supreme good and incomprehensible evil. From the inevitability of death, and the persistence of hope.

Lincoln and his melancholy are fascinating to me, so easy to relate to. It’s not a surprise to me, then, that so much of my poetry begins or concludes with the thought of death.

It’s not Stage Fright
I’m not afraid of death.

Not at all,
though I am afraid of dying

It’s the last thing I’ll ever do here,
my grand finale,
and I won’t even get a rehearsal.
I may explore the stage before the lights come on,
stand there frozen in insecurity for a
long
and awkward
interlude
Who knows how long it’ll take for me to remember my lines

Funny, we don’t have an instrument
that measures the precise moment
a soul leaves a body

How much time is in the in-between–
after the brain waves calm
and the heart takes a Sabbath,
before you wake up
on the other side of eternity?

That seventh day of the soul
could be a few seconds, a minute.
Or what if the soul stayed put, unsure, inside you
for a day, maybe another six
to steep a little longer

and then float away, full of something like confidence?

People and the plague

Most often, when people hear the word “plague,” the first thing that comes to mind is the Bubonic Plague, or the Black Death, as it was referred to by the locals. In the fourteenth century, this disease ravaged Europe, killing around 24 MILLION people. One-third of the population.

It was a scary, sinister, and smelly time to be alive. Regular people had little to no protection from contamination, but despite the danger, they still had to work to provide for their families. Plague brought with it horrible disfigurement, pain, and humiliation. The decaying bodies of the dead perfumed the city streets.

And yet, despite the horror, most of us modern people find it strikingly difficult to whip up any sense of empathy for or connection to the everyday humans that were affected by the Black Death. We think of them collectively as a group of brown-clad peasants, walking along muddy streets saying “yes, milord” and calling their enemies “saucy curs.” Rarely do we imagine that these earthy people had any sort of personalities. All they could spare time to think about was work, or death, or ways to avoid getting put in the stocks. On the weekends, for fun, they would report their potion-brewing neighbors to the town witch-hunter.

These people didn’t fall in love, or hug their children, or even smile. And they definitely didn’t crack jokes. How could they, when the internet didn’t even exist yet?

But that’s where we’re totally wrong. Seven hundred years of separation has caused us to forget this one vital truth about people: they’re people. No matter where we picture them.

Granted, jokes in the medieval times were more likely to revolve around figs than around John Cena, but still. It happened. In fact, comedy was one of the main accessible means that people had to cope with plague and other medieval-themed difficulties. With all the plays and even nursery rhymes written about the plague–and death in general–during this time period, it’s no wonder the British are still known for their dark and morbid sense of humor (Shaun of the Dead, anyone?).

And people today still find the Black Death incurably funny. We use it as fodder for sketches and exposition for medieval rom-coms. I mean, just try to say the word “bubo” while keeping a straight face and you’ll understand.

I’ve seen–and made–more plague jokes than normal in recent months, and it’s no surprise. Coronavirus has infected all of us with a need to lighten the mood.

This isn’t meant to sound insensitive–believe me, I know it’s scary, and people have died, which is never something to laugh about, and no one is sure where this thing will go next. I’m just trying to give us all a little perspective.

We’re still people, aren’t we? Regardless of how this new disease affects us, it can’t take our humanity.

Perhaps hundreds of years from now, future humans will see us as gray-hoodied nobodies, obsessed with coffee and unable to stop arguing about things that don’t matter.

But someone who’s looking will be able to see, and they’ll say “hey, these people may be uncivilized, but look at these old documents I found on this recovered hard drive. Coronavirus–isn’t that the plague we learned about in history class last Tuesday?” And they’ll click through the memes and share a laugh with us–and probably a grimace–from hundreds of years away, and for that moment, we’ll be real to them.

The human race has made it through millennia of wars, widespread panics, and fashion don’ts to make it here today. And you know what? I truly believe that everything will be okay.

So cry if you need to. Use your time in quarantine to finally beat Super Mario Bros, or eat a bunch of homemade cookies. Pray. Tell your parents you love them. Don’t be afraid to make jokes.

And don’t forget to be human.

Heresy meets poetry

 Once upon a time, there were some Anabaptists in Münster…

 

The Cages of Münster

Those cages must look so much better

from the outside,

hanging impotent from the bell tower,

just above that giant golden timepiece.

(I wonder if they meant it to be ironic.

A timepiece for some crazed actor-king and his deputies

who, one day long ago,

found themselves out of time,

but still had too much of it left.)

You know what happened to them?

It was a gristly event

of calculated justice.

They still have the tongs somewhere, I presume,

mounted on a wall with a plaque underneath

(not a timepiece)

that reads:

“Iron tongs.

Sixteenth century.

Used to dismantle a rebellion

(or, at least, a few rebels).”

But it would be in German, of course.

 

You see, it happened in Germany,

as these things tended to,

some five hundred years ago

when German was barely an idea

and when justice was served

with a pair of hot iron tongs, criminals caged

like the monsters they were.

 

Their jailers trusted those tongs.

Gruesome, yes, they said,

but necessary.

You can tell by the way he died,

clinging obstinately to feigned nobility,

that he had sown

and he had reaped.

No remorse in his eyes,

not even when the tongs turned, red-hot,

to convict him.

He got what he deserved.

 

Maybe the king truly felt no remorse–

his heart, when they got to it,

already charcoal-black and dead.

Maybe he saw it coming

and resolved to deny them the satisfaction of watching it burn

from flesh to ash.

So he hardened his heart,

after the fashion of Biblical kings.

Let the tongs bite,

he thought.

One way or another, they

would finish their work. Tongs were but utensils.

He was a king, his legacy an idea etched in rust

on the bars of an iron cage.

 

 

 

[An in-depth and highly entertaining narrative of the events at Münster can be found in The Tailor King, by Anthony Arthur. For a less wordy overview of the episode, check out this website.]