...will you hear about it while Chasing the Long White Cloud?
Well, today you will.
The poem I posted here last week, "On Stand of Trees (by J. Kirk Richards)," is making an appearance on WIZ today as part of "Poems of Biblical Proportions Week"---well, fortnight, really. (Follow that link for more info.) It takes it place beside work from some excellent poets and poetic prose artists: Mark Bennion (which reminds me: I still need to review his first collection, Psalm and Selah), Danny Nelson, Eric W Jepson (also known as Th.), Nani Lii S. Furse, William Morris (AMV's Benevolent Dictator), Patricia Karamesines (the heart behind WIZ), and Karen Kelsay (from the week before Poems of Biblical Proportions Week, but still; she's a great poet).
Now that I've dropped the link bomb, I think I'll leave you to contemplate the wonderful world of Mormon poetry. And more importantly, ask you to high-tail it over to WIZ for ver(s)ifiable fun.
Go on now.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
RUD Update On AMV
I just posted a Reading Until Dawn update on AMV. Link over for more info. C'mon. You know you want to.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees
This past Sunday we had the sex talk in our Marriage and Family Relations class (link to the Marriage and Family Relations manual). I'm sure those of you who've had the sex talk in any mainstream Mormon Sunday School class can venture a guess as to how it went. Here's the usual scene: the teacher, barely looking up from the lesson manual, speeds through the material (this section is particularly loaded with quotations from the prophets and apostles---in other words, as I'm sure many read it, stick to the script), nary asking a question of students in order to avoid any awkward conversations about, you know, the "s-e-c-k-s" word, and deferring any questions about said act to the prophets and apostles, who often, in turn (at least this is how many may read their comments) defer discussions to the bedroom, to be kept between husband and wife. Of course, many things about sex should be kept between husband and wife. But there's also much about sex that we can and should be open and candid about.
And this was the approach I took Sunday because, yes, I was the one in front of the classroom. I contextualized the discussion by opening with Moroni 7:45-47 and comparing the Gospel vision of charity laid out here to the world's take on love. Then we moved into the list of quotations offered in the manual, which we explored openly and candidly and with an eye toward what they really convey about sex.
We started with Richard G. Scott on "the purposes of physical intimacy in marriage":
Another purpose, as Elder Scott defines it: to bind husband and wife together, to facilitate greater loyalty, fidelity, consideration of each other, and common purpose. One common purpose, obviously, hearkens back to purpose one; but, and this came up in class, another refers to the mutual pursuit of pleasure, which can only happen when husband and wife trust each other enough to become vulnerable in the other's presence, to trust the other with their nekkidness, which in turn and in conjunction with consideration for the other, facilitates greater trust. Because, again, sex is lovely. Sex is beautiful. And it's not all about the kids (thank goodness).
Next we tied in Dallin H. Oaks---
And this led to Jeffrey R. Holland's open and contextual exploration of human intimacy, from which we considered this:
And this pointed us back to our exploration of gospel love vs. worldly love (which is too often focused on the physical act of sex without any of the spiritual/emotional/psychological context made possible through a gospel vision of sex). That's pretty much where we ended, observing how the world generally views sex without context and how the gospel allows us to view it in an eternal context (and fruitfully so). (Yes, pun intended.)
Something that didn't come up, but that I've had on my mind since first reading the lesson material, was this from Howard W. Hunter:
And this was the approach I took Sunday because, yes, I was the one in front of the classroom. I contextualized the discussion by opening with Moroni 7:45-47 and comparing the Gospel vision of charity laid out here to the world's take on love. Then we moved into the list of quotations offered in the manual, which we explored openly and candidly and with an eye toward what they really convey about sex.
We started with Richard G. Scott on "the purposes of physical intimacy in marriage":
Within the enduring covenant of marriage, the Lord permits husband and wife the expression of the sacred procreative powers in all their loveliness and beauty within the bounds He has set. One purpose of this private, sacred, intimate experience is to provide the physical bodies for the spirits Father in Heaven wants to experience mortality. Another reason for these powerful and beautiful feelings of love is to bind husband and wife together in loyalty, fidelity, consideration of each other, and common purpose.One purpose, as Elder Scott defines it: procreation in all its loveliness and beauty. So sex is lovely. Sex is beautiful. Why be afraid of it, that is, when properly contextualized and directed? I mean, how else are we going to create bodies for the brood of spirit kids running around heaven, waiting for their chance at mortality?
Another purpose, as Elder Scott defines it: to bind husband and wife together, to facilitate greater loyalty, fidelity, consideration of each other, and common purpose. One common purpose, obviously, hearkens back to purpose one; but, and this came up in class, another refers to the mutual pursuit of pleasure, which can only happen when husband and wife trust each other enough to become vulnerable in the other's presence, to trust the other with their nekkidness, which in turn and in conjunction with consideration for the other, facilitates greater trust. Because, again, sex is lovely. Sex is beautiful. And it's not all about the kids (thank goodness).
Next we tied in Dallin H. Oaks---
The power to create mortal life is the most exalted power God has given his children. Its use was mandated in the first commandment [given to Adam and Eve], but another important commandment was given to forbid its misuse. The emphasis we place on the law of chastity is explained by our understanding of the purpose of our procreative powers in the accomplishment of God’s plan. The expression of our procreative powers is pleasing to God, but he has commanded that this be confined within the relationship of marriage.---from which we took two laws: the law of procreation (in all its loveliness and beauty, which should be explored openly and contextually in appropriate company) and the law of chastity (which is explored heavily in Mormon culture, often at the expense of fostering an understanding of the first law; hence, our Victorian prudery). So why not talk with one another (and, when the time is right, with our kids) openly and contextually about sex?
And this led to Jeffrey R. Holland's open and contextual exploration of human intimacy, from which we considered this:
Human intimacy is reserved for a married couple because it is the ultimate symbol of total union, a totality and a union ordained and defined by God. From the Garden of Eden onward, marriage was intended to mean the complete merger of a man and a woman—their hearts, hopes, lives, love, family, future, everything. Adam said of Eve that she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and that they were to be ‘one flesh’ in their life together. This is a union of such completeness that we use the word seal to convey its eternal promise. The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps could render such a sacred bond as being ‘welded’ one to another."Keywords we drew from Elder Holland and tied into our efforts at contextualization: total(ity), union, complete(ness), merger, seal, bond, weld. A brother in the class, an engineer, honed in on "weld," pointing out that the strongest point between two pieces of metal that have been joined together is along the weld. So, if we follow the analogy, as Elder Holland suggests we should, the properly contextualized physical union between husband and wife may well be one thing that strengthens and fortifies that marriage.
And this pointed us back to our exploration of gospel love vs. worldly love (which is too often focused on the physical act of sex without any of the spiritual/emotional/psychological context made possible through a gospel vision of sex). That's pretty much where we ended, observing how the world generally views sex without context and how the gospel allows us to view it in an eternal context (and fruitfully so). (Yes, pun intended.)
Something that didn't come up, but that I've had on my mind since first reading the lesson material, was this from Howard W. Hunter:
Be faithful in your marriage covenants in thought, word, and deed. Pornography, flirtations, and unwholesome fantasies erode one’s character and strike at the foundation of a happy marriage. Unity and trust within a marriage are thereby destroyed.After reading this, I've been asking myself, "If porn, flirtations, and unwholesome fantasies erode one's character and strike at the foundations of a happy marriage, then might sex and the body properly contextualized and discussed in art and literature constitute, in part, wholesome fantasies? And can such strengthen one's character and help build unity and trust, loveliness, beauty, and happiness in marriage? If so, and if this is justified in the prophets' words, how might we focus on these matters of eternal eros more in Mormon culture?" Obviously, I think such can be the case. And I'm trying to do my small part by being open and candid myself in various forums. But I'd also like to know what you think.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Clinton Larson: "The City of Joseph"
I realized today, after reading William's Payday Poetry selection for this weekend, that I've yet to offer a reading of a poem by Clinton Larson, "a major, early figure," to steal William's words, "in the modern era of Mormon letters," someone some consider (I believe it was Karl Keller that said this, but I could be wrong) the first real Mormon poet. (But that's a discussion for another day.)
So here's my brief take on "The City of Joseph," a poem originally published in the June 1984 Ensign. This comment was first posted here in response to William's Payday Poetry prompt and I'm posting it here as a continuation of my Mormon Poetry Project.
While "The City of Joseph" is obviously meant as inspirational verse (especially considering its venue of publication), I don’t find it sentimental in anyway. In fact, the language and imagery and the way Larson binds them together in his poetic vision are quite striking, quite accomplished. In fact, I think seeing it as a tightly-crafted vision of a poet-seer is one way to make sense of the whole.
To begin with, it incorporates a sweeping sense of Mormon history (specifically) and natural history (in general), of human presence in the world and the West, of the Mormon movement from east to west as directed by the Morning and Evening Stars. It opens with what I read as an allusion to the First Vision, with Joseph and his influence on a chaotic world at the center, as represented by “light” and “whiteness” rippling outward from the “meadows” over “the places where Joseph came / To find his Zion” as moved by and “in the spell of prophecy,” beginning with the grove he knelt in that Spring morning, then moving to the city he planned and helped build, then to the Saints’ movement West, and finally to the valley where he knew they would establish themselves, could make their home and further influence the world “because,” as Margaret’s mother says, “we believe” in Joseph’s vision and words and in the “harvest” to come.
The idea that poetic seership is at work also arises in the repetition of “vision/s” (five times) and the repeated occurrence of “eyes,” “seen/saw,” and the passage of “time,” which, the poet confesses, “elides antiquity and the nearby years,” suppressing history in immediacy, something the poet strikes out to remedy by following Mormon history from “morning” to “evening” and by drawing together Earth’s glacial prehistory (ever-present in the “moraine[s]”) with a specific woman’s (archetypal) progeny, a group of “children” who stand “on a hill”—“a holy place”—and consider their ancestral path, an act that sounds very much like temple worship (”devotion”) to me.
In fact that may be another fruitful way to consider the poem: as an endowment-like ritual through which certain images and key-words are meant to bring us together as the family of God, meant to bind us together in “gray cirques of vision” that will eventually clarify in the Dawn of Christ’s return.
But I’ll cut myself off there for now and say that I like this poem and think it worthy of reading again.
So here's my brief take on "The City of Joseph," a poem originally published in the June 1984 Ensign. This comment was first posted here in response to William's Payday Poetry prompt and I'm posting it here as a continuation of my Mormon Poetry Project.
While "The City of Joseph" is obviously meant as inspirational verse (especially considering its venue of publication), I don’t find it sentimental in anyway. In fact, the language and imagery and the way Larson binds them together in his poetic vision are quite striking, quite accomplished. In fact, I think seeing it as a tightly-crafted vision of a poet-seer is one way to make sense of the whole.
To begin with, it incorporates a sweeping sense of Mormon history (specifically) and natural history (in general), of human presence in the world and the West, of the Mormon movement from east to west as directed by the Morning and Evening Stars. It opens with what I read as an allusion to the First Vision, with Joseph and his influence on a chaotic world at the center, as represented by “light” and “whiteness” rippling outward from the “meadows” over “the places where Joseph came / To find his Zion” as moved by and “in the spell of prophecy,” beginning with the grove he knelt in that Spring morning, then moving to the city he planned and helped build, then to the Saints’ movement West, and finally to the valley where he knew they would establish themselves, could make their home and further influence the world “because,” as Margaret’s mother says, “we believe” in Joseph’s vision and words and in the “harvest” to come.
The idea that poetic seership is at work also arises in the repetition of “vision/s” (five times) and the repeated occurrence of “eyes,” “seen/saw,” and the passage of “time,” which, the poet confesses, “elides antiquity and the nearby years,” suppressing history in immediacy, something the poet strikes out to remedy by following Mormon history from “morning” to “evening” and by drawing together Earth’s glacial prehistory (ever-present in the “moraine[s]”) with a specific woman’s (archetypal) progeny, a group of “children” who stand “on a hill”—“a holy place”—and consider their ancestral path, an act that sounds very much like temple worship (”devotion”) to me.
In fact that may be another fruitful way to consider the poem: as an endowment-like ritual through which certain images and key-words are meant to bring us together as the family of God, meant to bind us together in “gray cirques of vision” that will eventually clarify in the Dawn of Christ’s return.
But I’ll cut myself off there for now and say that I like this poem and think it worthy of reading again.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
On Stand of Trees (Poem)
Another from Browns and Rusts. All the feedcrack usuals apply (especially in terms of how the last stanza reads). And, of course, thanks for playing.
* * * *
On Stand of Trees
I've been neglecting what it takes
to piece together dawn from old
snapshots and reminiscence faded
as the blush from Adam's skin
when God's question stunned
the garden and he slipped with Eve into
the shadow of God's voice, their shame
a stand of trees backlit by cherubim
come hounds a-bay to flush them into
death, sin, recognition, solitude,
a blood-drunk field mantle deep with sweat
and sorrow, soil thick with the afterbirth
of myth and tectonic histories, pieces
of a puzzle that shift in bed as I
try to number them one, two, three,
no, one, two... one
edges ragged as the blanket Cain has
carried since Eve weaned him from the teat
and he found his thumb to replace it,
but not enough to fill his hunger, not
enough to keep serpents from burrowing
into his need, from shedding that rag
like yesterday's skin, from slipping him
the switchblade he used to quarter the fruit
he knew had ripened in Mother's womb,
the harvest he'll never find as he works
his spittle and excrement field into bodies
with his hands red as stygian clay.
* * * *
On Stand of Trees
I've been neglecting what it takes
to piece together dawn from old
snapshots and reminiscence faded
as the blush from Adam's skin
when God's question stunned
the garden and he slipped with Eve into
the shadow of God's voice, their shame
a stand of trees backlit by cherubim
come hounds a-bay to flush them into
death, sin, recognition, solitude,
a blood-drunk field mantle deep with sweat
and sorrow, soil thick with the afterbirth
of myth and tectonic histories, pieces
of a puzzle that shift in bed as I
try to number them one, two, three,
no, one, two... one
edges ragged as the blanket Cain has
carried since Eve weaned him from the teat
and he found his thumb to replace it,
but not enough to fill his hunger, not
enough to keep serpents from burrowing
into his need, from shedding that rag
like yesterday's skin, from slipping him
the switchblade he used to quarter the fruit
he knew had ripened in Mother's womb,
the harvest he'll never find as he works
his spittle and excrement field into bodies
with his hands red as stygian clay.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
There's a lull on WIZ today
And that "Lull" is all mine, though it wouldn't have been possible without the crow's help and without this by Molly Peacock to converse with and be inspired by.
This is the poem's digital premiere, so I do hope you'll lend it---and WIZ---your support. I'm even open to feedback, if you feel so compelled.
Anyway. Enjoy the lull.
This is the poem's digital premiere, so I do hope you'll lend it---and WIZ---your support. I'm even open to feedback, if you feel so compelled.
Anyway. Enjoy the lull.
Monday, October 12, 2009
On "Relief Society: Divine Organization of Women" (Svithe)
I'm svithing the (slightly revised and expanded) notes I took during Elders' Quorum today. They devolve from our discussion of Lesson 39 in the Joseph Smith manual on the Relief Society. Engage me if you feel compelled.
Notes from prstd 11 Oct. 2008:
The Relief Society sisters saw a need and organized to meet that need even before the Prophet had initiated the organization. They didn't have to be asked---just proactively did what needed to be done. Questions for myself: What can you take from this? What needs have you seen in your various spheres of activity and what can you do (w/out being asked to do it) to fulfil those needs?
As Emma Smith: learn to devote increased (quality? quantity?) time, space, and attention to others. Making/giving space for others---a means of expanding the soul, the influence of the soul, of the person. Like Bella in Breaking Dawn (random association): expanding her natural gift, the "shield" of her love/concern over her friends and family in order to protect them from danger, to give them the chance to reach for their potential.
Spatial relationships and/in the Relief Society. Creating inter- & intra-personal connections and spaces through compassion, charity, and benevolence. The potential of service, passion, and adversity to create an expansive emotional space in which to engage the needs, sympathies, and potential of others. In the end, is this what the kingdom of God is all about, what it means to become possessed of pure love (see Moroni 7:47)?
Second full paragraph on p. 454: As I read it, the Prophet's language is latently erotic, in the purest sense of Eros: "Females, if they are pure and innocent, can come in the presence of God." Offering the deepest in themselves to Deity, their innocence, their purity for the benefit and service of others, of the kingdom. An unselfish pursuit/release of their passions in the presence and service of God, implying that these passions, this inherent nature can and must be directed through the proper channels and that God will accept such an offering when given in righteousness. (Tenuous reading?)
Thoughts?
Notes from prstd 11 Oct. 2008:
The Relief Society sisters saw a need and organized to meet that need even before the Prophet had initiated the organization. They didn't have to be asked---just proactively did what needed to be done. Questions for myself: What can you take from this? What needs have you seen in your various spheres of activity and what can you do (w/out being asked to do it) to fulfil those needs?
As Emma Smith: learn to devote increased (quality? quantity?) time, space, and attention to others. Making/giving space for others---a means of expanding the soul, the influence of the soul, of the person. Like Bella in Breaking Dawn (random association): expanding her natural gift, the "shield" of her love/concern over her friends and family in order to protect them from danger, to give them the chance to reach for their potential.
Spatial relationships and/in the Relief Society. Creating inter- & intra-personal connections and spaces through compassion, charity, and benevolence. The potential of service, passion, and adversity to create an expansive emotional space in which to engage the needs, sympathies, and potential of others. In the end, is this what the kingdom of God is all about, what it means to become possessed of pure love (see Moroni 7:47)?
Second full paragraph on p. 454: As I read it, the Prophet's language is latently erotic, in the purest sense of Eros: "Females, if they are pure and innocent, can come in the presence of God." Offering the deepest in themselves to Deity, their innocence, their purity for the benefit and service of others, of the kingdom. An unselfish pursuit/release of their passions in the presence and service of God, implying that these passions, this inherent nature can and must be directed through the proper channels and that God will accept such an offering when given in righteousness. (Tenuous reading?)
Thoughts?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Speak and Bear (T)witness: My #ldsconf Experience and Resolves
Just for the hang of it Saturday morning, I jumped into my Twitter account to see what was going on in the microblogging world. I thought there might be some chatter about General Conference, but didn't expect that I'd get swept up in the collaborative hashtag project affectionately known to Mormon Tweeters as #ldsconf. Before I knew it, though, I was experiencing Conference in a way I've never experienced before: as a collaborative knowledge building exercise in which minds and hearts from around Twit-dom were engaged. Tweets ranged from direct quotations (or approximations thereof) of speakers' words to retweets of the same to personal insights gained while listening to Church leaders speak. I found that I could get the most out of each message (both the talks and the tweets) by spinning main ideas and my own insights into my own language.
In the process, I was impressed with three resolves, things that came early and were rehashed through my continuing experience with watching Conference and with following the #ldsconf stream. In the interest of committing myself to be better, I'm reporting them here now:
Resolve 1: I mustn't simply know more; I must do more.
Resolve 2: Walk and talk with greater love; act and speak with greater charity. Which dovetails nicely with what was originally Resolve 4, but is now Resolve 2.1: Cultivate a greater willingness to share: myself, my possessions, my talents, my knowledge, my Faith.
Resolve 3: Cultivate greater spiritual discernment by recommitting to the small and simple things.
Nothing grand here, but these were the things I needed to hear. And live-tweeting during Conference was one thing that helped me discover and bear (t)witness of them and, thus, erect something of a support system to help me live, serve, and speak with greater resolve.
So I'll give a few cheers for my Twitterpation and tentatively submit that, so far, its benefits outweigh its drawbacks (such as the whole time-sucking vortex that is participating in a Twitter stream).
Now, off to follow my little tweety musings...
(For more on tweeting #ldsconf live, Jeff Swift has some interesting thoughts here.)
In the process, I was impressed with three resolves, things that came early and were rehashed through my continuing experience with watching Conference and with following the #ldsconf stream. In the interest of committing myself to be better, I'm reporting them here now:
Resolve 1: I mustn't simply know more; I must do more.
Resolve 2: Walk and talk with greater love; act and speak with greater charity. Which dovetails nicely with what was originally Resolve 4, but is now Resolve 2.1: Cultivate a greater willingness to share: myself, my possessions, my talents, my knowledge, my Faith.
Resolve 3: Cultivate greater spiritual discernment by recommitting to the small and simple things.
Nothing grand here, but these were the things I needed to hear. And live-tweeting during Conference was one thing that helped me discover and bear (t)witness of them and, thus, erect something of a support system to help me live, serve, and speak with greater resolve.
So I'll give a few cheers for my Twitterpation and tentatively submit that, so far, its benefits outweigh its drawbacks (such as the whole time-sucking vortex that is participating in a Twitter stream).
Now, off to follow my little tweety musings...
(For more on tweeting #ldsconf live, Jeff Swift has some interesting thoughts here.)
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Rain (Poem): Revisited
Yesterday as I was driving home from dropping daughter number one off at school (we missed the bus) and thinking about the rain and how I haven't been writing much poetry lately---check that: haven't been writing any poetry lately---I remembered the rain poem I posted last July and thought I'd throw you back to last summer, though not because I think the poem's great (don't know if I'll take it beyond it's present state or not) and want to know what my loyal readers think (though that is always a bonus), but mostly because I feel compelled to post something and linking to a previous post (y'know, when I wasn't such a popular bloggy destination) is a simple way to do that; that, and I wanted to write this really long sentence couched with numerous parentheticals that make it sound like I'm carrying on a conversation with myself.
Yeah. That's what I meant to do.
That and autumn's here. So bring on the rain.
Yeah. That's what I meant to do.
That and autumn's here. So bring on the rain.
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