Paradise

 

Drew this Jan 2021, based on May 2015.

I added some other details to the original drawing, and I wish I had just left it alone, but the one part I forgot to add which I wish I did here was a small rainbow streaming down from the bird's beak.

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An [incomplete?] Poem About Mind-Body Alienation (Winter 2019/2020)

(This is a huge poem I wrote and I don't know quite what to do with it since I never finished it. I like certain parts of it but not really all of it. I began this in the winter of 2019/2020 as I was at the height of certain mental/emotional issues related to social anxiety, gender identity and body-mind alienation. I kept adding more to it probably until that summer. My thinking has developed quite a bit since writing this, and I feel like a lot of this poem is overly cerebral, but that's kind of what the poem represents in a way - me trying at one time to dis-identify with my body and other times trying to dis-identify with my mind. Or something like that. So besides removing some whole stanzas (*) I left it as is, because I do like parts of it.)

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*

1

Off to the doctor with my insecurities, 

        Asking the good man, "What gives?

Like, make some gosh darn sense please?"

        Who told me, "Define your fears, these nebulous what-ifs."

So I chiseled away at this bone of blockade:

        My cares of man's opinion.

Which brings me here today:

        "Is it I who cares?" I begin with the question.

* (So I debate about whether or not my social anxiety is really "me" caring about others' opinions or just physical and mental forces I can't really control and is therefore "not me". Or something like that...But I end up realizing I can't really separate these things. My body is me, and my mind is not "more me" than my body.)

*

*

*

2

I think when in town: "How irrational my fears

        Of bodily behavior!"

Then embarrassment appears,

        The stiff moves the thought of looking out of grace stir!

"Whose nonsense? Not mine! Where was reason's consent?"

        But as he who does is I—

Lest body and soul be rent—

        I next view the insecurity of my mind.

My mind is right to say, about the body's faults,

        They make no identity;

Since they happen, and are not

        (And for the time make of a man a parody);

But with what do I avoid identifying?

        These flesh and bones which quake?

Or the one which does the trying,

        Hides my love of honors, displays myself a fake?

My body and my mind, I am the both of these;

        Yet so desperate to distance

From the visible uglies,

        I called the subtler one me with double insistence.

The problem looks to me like I called myself my mind,

        For this reason, to be sure:

Wanting anxiously to find

        A self who of such bodily tell-tales is pure.

The body, though all day it does flee and does fight,

        Never seeks to be another;

But the mind makes its straits tight,

        Which alone for honors claims a diff'rent mother.

They're like two friends from the crib, ent'ring public school,

        The one socially graceless,

The other, knowing what's cool,

        Abandons the friend who will win him no praises.

Worse than such rejection, the deceit behind it,

        Calling it spiritual;

But to saints, it's no secret,

        Who give expression to what is invisible.

Drive home to the head of my error, O Jesus!—

        I sleep at Your stricken feet—

You, who not grasping Your bliss,

        Bore torn flesh which no depths the display did not reach.

3

Rejecting the body rejects the soul, I know;

     So now it is time I look

At why it bothers me so,

     At why, ashamed, this frame my mind rashly forsook:

Three social fears: 

          awkward, 

          suspected, 

          creepy—

     The third the ignited flame

Of the first two meeting;

      When alone, each forgiven—when together, only blame.

Awkwardness: that meaningless, ever-looming threat

     Among anonymous peers;

And how often am I suspect?

     You'd think very seeing how hypervigilance steers!

But creepy: to be seen as this, this is my great fear,

     The least likely, but the worst.

Other flaws friends can endear,

     But man only sees in a creep a person cursed.

So, the first fear describes the fear of my peers;

     The second, of superiors.

So, taking these two here,

     See how each feeds the other like two mirrors.

It's around those peers called the fairer, and which

     My psyche calls my betters,

That the first two fear both itch,

     That each calls the other's help, each bound in fetters.

4

I think I at least embrace what is me

        By artistic expression;

But O! when other eyes see

        Come such misplacement of nerves I must question!

But no—though the question is fine—it reminds me:

        The heart's garden has a gate,

A matter of dignity.

        Who now calls that insecurity but for bait?

What in daily life should make being

        Casual such a challenge?

I recall in youth seeing

        Certain ways of mine meet certain faces with a cringe:

Finely mixed messages, my soul made out concrete,

        Dried under lights for display;

Unseen, though, was He who sees

        The heart which not hearing the knock invites His claim.

Why over mannerisms should I give much care,

        Which my Love pays no regard?—

Except insofar as they share,

        Friendliness, hope and cheer, to soften hearts made hard.

For though I've grown accustomed to play the Stoic,

        To maintain the usual flow,

What's more like me—I know it—

        Naturally plays an uplifting kind of weirdo.

Except my expression be God-given and shares

        Some encouragement raising

The mind to heavenly cares,

        What do I seek in elegance but navel-gazing?

Yet to heart I do not take this sure wisdom;

        So I can hear the reply:

"Hang up the phone, you dumb-dumb!

        Or this message won't exhaust 'til the death you die!"

*

V

*

*

*

VI

So I said it all and I did not deny it:

        "It is I, yes, it is me

Who does it and who fears it,

Who struggles to admit it,

Although I already knew it:

        I am not what I do but I do it indeed.

"This was no less a show of doings, of shadows,

        As I said, the worst of all;

And we know shadows pass" (So,

        If you seek what is you, seek what's immutable).

"Now as far as I can tell, my thoughts had yet been true,

        And the truth is unchanging;

But what is here at issue

        Is when I used what truth I possess to feign things.

"What do I feign but to call myself unafraid?

        What do I fear but to know

That I made myself this way,

        That fear has seized exclusive rights to my title?

"Let it! I won't dispute with that worm, the devil!

        The Lord be my Advocate!

Dying to all that's futile,

        Christ be my life, my Heart of hearts and my merit!"

Then all disputations hushed . . . Peace lit her gaze.

        But I returned in short time

With a memory that plays

        Back through my mind if I try the same way to find.

VII

Why this peace came, this day, on this reflection?

        I don't know; but I wondered,

Could the same happen again,

        Or must such insight be kept sealed once it's thundered?

*

*

*

*

VIII

Whoever finds his life will lose it, says my Lord;

        And whoever loses his life

For My sake will gain it for

        Eternal life—words I hear now with delight.

*

How solicitously should we all chase after

        That which does not come or go?

Time we break now with good laughter,

        Lest, restless, we settle for dwellings below.

Now I know I'm lost; now I can rest 'til I'm found;

        I know it was grace that made

Yesterday's peace so profound,

        But a greater grace, ordinary peace, for today.

Not mindful that all that is Yours in made mine now,

        I kept on begging great signs;

Now extraordinary without

        Special favors, might my life fin'ly join the divine's?

Cast out fear! Spare none! With sweetest perfumes, repent!

        My old glories in full view

Resemble the dark where they're sent,

        That the Son, once a stranger, is known forever new.

IX

You show Yourself in Your very Self all good—

    Gently remind our frailty;

Would that our hearts understood

    The greatness of God is not the least cause to flee.

Men who turn away feels His eyes a fiery ray;

    Those without resolve approach

A sun resolved on midday;

    But some wear white garments and many-colored coats:

The children, let them come and lay in His cool shade;

    How like angels and like doves!

His face never leaves their gaze,

    Sealed with the promise of the One whom their soul loves.

All thanksgiving in Yours, O Holy Sevenfold Light—

    Grant that all Your creatures sing:

All endurance is from Your might,

    Most High God, to whom alone we have cause to cling!

Amen.

____

A few parts I removed (the first stanza I used elsewhere):

* O Holy Spirit

If it pleases you, Lord, give grace to your servant,

That the words I look to write,

Left not to my eye's fervent

Watch for every wind reach the narrow way of light.

(I was reading the Republic for class at the time.)

* O Socrates, Socrates, you described man's soul

And your way into mine;

You divvied it as a triple

Of appetite, spirited and rational mind.

(The story begins.)

Off to the doctor with my insecurities, etc...

I

* The human person: a body-soul composite,

The soul is not what she does;

But it is she who does it.

Oh what errors on such a fine point I'll no doubt cause!

* For my thoughts and feelings do, while I, a person, be;

How then am I affected

Unless it is really me

Moving from place to place where the soul is detected?

IV

*Much grasping may shroud it in a sea of worry,

            But now I must be allowed,

Far away from the flurry

            Of waves, to sink to the floor ‘til the source

is found.

V

* See how the mind, the noble ruler, so afraid

            To learn its plans are petty,

Stores its byproducts away

            To the one loyal to its own self-tyranny;

 

* They, by design, to every other land emit,

            And rain back fast on the sea.

I scramble to explain it,

            How such gross incompetence can reflect on

me!

 

* But though I could grieve about those who laid my

nest

            (I have quite enough by now),

I found a diff’rent thought best,

            A thought of peace, what this story is all

about.

VII

* Humbly let me offer, now, to you what I can:

            When my deed is fallen, if

I accept it’s my doing, then

            It’s fin’ly made clear that I have no part in

it.

 

* Since there’s no denying, when I act insecure,

            The violence done to my sight

Concerning human nature,

            The choice of looking at this fact may yet

set it right.

 

* The cart topples without the both-and wheels

involved:

            Of still veiling my eyes whole

I know myself unabsolved;

            But the grace to confess it sets a smooth

arrival.

 

* These eyes—whatever they can be taken to mean—

            Don’t see me as a person;

Hence seeing I’ve not seen

            Except against negative spaces as they

worsen.

 

* And if I’ve seen me, I don’t remember him well,

            My flesh rebelling against him;

I don’t expect to ‘find myself’

            With any special sort of consideration.

VIII

*I have yet to discern how He wants my self-gift,

            But if it’s a sacrifice,

Perhaps it’s well I begin

            Discerning how not to ‘til all that’s left is

Christ.

I even began a part two.

Part Two:

 

I.

I spoke to my brother of my struggle of soul,

            Of newfound hope and insight,

When, with his attention whole,

            He began to make out a form of triple light.

 

“It sounds like you’re describing diff’rent parts of

you

Working in competing ways,”

So he said. And like rain down a groove

            Had my thoughts met my school reading

these last sev’ral days—

 

That is, Plato’s Republic, with old Socrates,

            From intro philosophy class—

How the hierarchies of threes

            Were, between our models, a most uncanny

match!

           

No really, hear me! though not having Plato’s skill,

            Just his words I read recently,

Which, as if with their own will,

            Read me high and low and through hidden

ways sent me.

 

First, how'd describe the faculty of appetite?

            It seeks to preserve the flesh,

But is ordered not aright

            When trying to glut itself at the others’

expense.

 

Second, the part called (not spiritual, but) spirited

            Seeks out life, relationship;

But, when order leaves its stead,

            Then to honors and power its scales sharply

tip.

 

Now for the third, he says that the tripartite man,

            Is crowned with the rational,

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