5 Books that Changed Me: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley, Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams and Small Graces by Kent Nerburn. (Part 1: Reading Validates Interiority)

Part I:  Reading Validates Interiority

Reading was not part of my childhood.  Great Expectations was my official entry into the world of literature.  Before opening it, pop-lyrics and movies served that purpose--a place for slow, reflective dialogue between writer and audience that opens interior doors and stirs the heart to want more than what currently is.

That is, after all, why we read, isn't it?  To sip from something substantial, have a meaningful dialogue while sitting near the window, looking up now and then from the page to the snow falling in waves outside, to say, "yes, this is just how it is.  I've been looking for a long time for a way to say this."  Reading validates interiority--that the majority of our life occurs inside ourselves and that we are our own best friends, flaws and all.  I've also found, overtime, that literature alters those conversations we have with ourselves--deepens them, broadens them, and in the process makes us better people.

Marci and I have often talked about how it was always the English professors in college who were open, honest, flexible and understanding.  I actually switched majors because of this.  Growing up, I'd always wanted to be an architect and I have always loved a good structure tied to the environment.  That has never changed.  But when I entered the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington, I was confronted with a competitive, corporate philosophy designed to weed out the weak and allow access to only the great.  I'm pretty talented in most creative forms--painting, drawing, writing, film, photography--and probably could have made the cut, but competitive, I'm not.  Being told the first day, "half of you will drop out of the program within the first year," did not stir me to greatness, just hate.  Reading The Fountain Head by Ayn Rand as required by all freshman Architectural students didn't drive me to become the next Howard Roarke, it just drove me to hate.

At my core, I have always known we only become fully human when we take ourselves lightly and at the same time take humanity seriously, when our goal is to help others, not obliterate them.  I quickly found that kind people inhabited the English department and that's where I wanted to be.

English professors, overall, are special people for a reason.  Books.  Not just any books, but the right kind of books.  Books that deal honestly with interiority, who we are in between doing, behind doing, in front of doing.  What we think in the midst of surviving (or not surviving) the chaos of humanity.  You simply cannot read those types of books on a regular basis and not be changed in some way no matter what type of jerk you are by nature.  And so it is the English professor who is usually the one willing to sit down and listen, ironically, even more than the psychology or sociology professor.  I always found English professors were less professional, more casual, more human, and most importantly, more versed in human nature--something an extremely shy person like myself with lots of thinking errors, needed desperately to get me through the next day.
 
I hope, like my professors, books have developed some level of depth and understanding in me that I can pass on to others.  In particular, I want to share five books that had an impact on both my writing and myself.  These are the books that have been the most essential in my life: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley, the Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams and Small Graces by Kent Nerburn.

I know most have their own list--and that's what is so wonderful, that at certain times in our lives books are our bread.  But there are also those who don't have their own list, who are struggling desperately to find interiority, but have not yet found that slow, reflective dialogue between author and self that says, "yes, this is just how it is; I'm not alone after all."  Perhaps these will be books that open that door, or open it a little wider, as interiority is an on-going meditative process which opens us up and deepens us.  I'll start next time with Great Expectations.

Dry Creek: A Place for Family to Gather and Be

A winter welcome at Dry Creek

 

Light on stark aspen trunks outside the window decked in Christmas attire: tree glittering with white lights, gold ornaments and red bows; candles flickering on the window sill--the dry, faded, sun-bleached browns of the winter field beyond, shaggy, snow-bent, frosted.  The wall of tangled oak and maple along the canyon edge and the juniper ridge beyond.  The Holidays have arrived at Dry Creek this strange, unpredictable November 2012.

View out the living room window the day after Thanksgiving

The weather has varied as much as our work schedules at a home for boys 45 minutes from here.  Like us, the snow, the cold, the heat, the rain--they come and go seemingly randomly.

Earlier this month we had 13 inches of snow, even out in the desert.  That was followed by extremely cold temperatures, morning lows of 12 at Dry Creek and zero out in the valley.  A few days of general bitterness was followed by an inversion, where temperatures were warmer at higher elevations and coldest along the valley bottoms, even in the middle of the day, which meant the snow melted quicker along the juniper and oak fan of the the Pahvant Range, where Dry Creek is located, then out along the dry alkali beds of the desert floor.


First snow at Dry Creek for winter 2012--13 inches! (mid-November)

 

Soon after came the rains, even along the mountain tops, which here reach 10,000 feet. This melted much of the winter the winter snow pack we gained the week before.  Since then it's been warm and dry, which I'm sure we will regret come spring, but it did make for a wonderful thanksgiving.
 
We had a full house on thanksgiving--nineteen in all, not counting Mom and Lloyd, who live just up the gravel lane.  And the wonderful thing is that it worked just fine.  One night Marci and I slept over in the old two-bedroom trailer that was our summer home for years.  Mitch, Shane and Tyler slept in the tent trailer.  We had a fire in house, at the trailer, and the children even had one outside where they roasted marshmallows thanksgiving night, preferring them, I guess, to pie.

There was also target practice, wild turkey gazing, deer gazing, as well as boulder tossing and mud splattering on a trip out to Clear Lake.


Deer gazing from the living room window

 

Clear Lake outing the day after Thanksgiving: a) Clear Lake, b) Ethan, c) LLoyd d) Darth and e) Tyler

Because I sprained my ankle on the way to the trailer to get pie plates Thanksgiving Day, I wasn't able to participate in much of the shooting, gazing, boulder tossing or mud splattering, but none the less, it was wonderful to see Dry Creek used for it's primary purpose--a place for family to gather and be.

Gratitude: Marriage

This is the second post for a talk I prepared for church on Sunday, October 28, 2012 on Gratitude.  I want my future family have record of this. If you like my blog, but are tired of reading Mormon posts, feel free to skip this one (along with the next three). I won't be offended. If you want to learn more, enjoy. 

After I've posted each section, I'll place the entire talk on the Mormon Culture page.


Marriage

I had loved before, but I knew not why.  But now I loved--with a pureness--an intensity of elevated, exalted feeling... the wife of my bosom was an immortal eternal companion; a kind ministering angel, given to me as a comfort, and a crown of glory for ever and ever.

--Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857) on learning the concept of eternal marriage.

It is within families that truth is best learned, integrity cultivated, self-discipline is instilled, and love is matured.  It is at home that we learn the values and standards by which we guide our lives.  It is at home that we come to determine what we will stand for.

 --Gorden B. Hinkly, Standing for Something (2000).

 

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy.

 --Doctrine and Covenants 74: 1

 

 

Marci truly saved my life.  She is God's answer to a two-year long prayer that began with my cursing him that Thanksgiving night in El Paso, a prayer that basically said, "Okay God, my way hasn't worked and I can't go on anymore like this."  Although it's hard for the intellectual mind to believe this, I truly believe I was miserable because I had drifted so far from where I was suppose to be by not praying regularly that I was not only emotionally and spiritually in a place I couldn't find her, but physically too.  That voice that said, "Go home, start over," knew I couldn't find her at SUU while I lived in El Paso.  Good stuff for movies right, but real life?  Intellectually, at first it seems that you can't make it work.  There are simply too many of us, too many independent wills--how can God direct my life without ruining someone else's life?  After all, I'm sure I'm not the only one to have ever loved Marci?  What about the others?  Why me, not them?  But even physics suggest time is relative.  If God's time is not our time, even by using our rational minds, we can conclude that it is possible for each of us to still have independent wills and for God to still be a step ahead in order for him to provide us what we need, if we will but listen.  After all, even as a mere mortal, I often know what my children need before they do, and I'm restricted by living in the same time as they do.  Why is it so hard to believe that God, freed from the restrictions of time, cannot do the same for us, and that personal revelation is real, if we will but listen?

 

I'm not sure every marriage was meant to be.  Obviously people can and do marry the wrong person.  But I also know that marriage, if we'll work on it, does, as D & C, Section 74, literally have the power to to sanctify us, even when one spouse is not fully living the gospel.  It is primarily in the home with those closest to us that we truly learn life's most important principle:  love one another.  It is in the home--that constant, close proximity--where we are truly tested, where in order to demonstrate our love we must give up our time, our money and our ego for the sake of others.  It is in the home, we must learn to both carry and be carried, sanctify and be sanctified by another.  Outside the home it's far too easy to profess love, even feel it generally, but never act on it.  I love how John Lennon so honestly captures this.  In, "I Don't Wanna Face It" he says, "You say you want to save humanity / it's people you just can't stand."  Home is too tight a space to allow too great a disconnect between expressed anthems and action.  To be successful in the home, we must live love.  There simply is no way to evade the demands love and be successful in the home. 

 

Perhaps, because of this, marriage and family is one key place where Mormonism varies significantly from other religions.  Although almost all churches sustain and support the family structure, Mormonism is unique in that it believes the highest level of spirituality is reached only through the family.  It takes one level of greatness to be Gandhi in society and an even greater of level of greatness to be Gandhi in the home.  So, in our church, one does not give up family in order to reach the highest spiritual plain, as the Buddha did.  Rather, family is the central unit of the church, of existence, and everything we do should be aligned with what is best for our family.   We perfect ourselves as a unit, not as individual wills.  Ideally, before we take that hunger fast to free India from Britain, we make sure our spouse and children agree to it.  And if they don't support it, we don't do it, even if it is for the greater good.  At first this may seem counter productive.  What if Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. put the personal needs of their families before that of their nations?   Where would we be? 

 

I would flip that question around.  Where would we be as a nation, as a world, if every home had a mother and father who applied the integrity of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. in their home?  I would argue the Civil Rights Movement--in India, or America, or anywhere--would never have to even occur because a society that has true integrity in the home has integrity at large.   And a society that has social inequities and injustices in society is teaching those erroneous ideas in the home.   And yet in our society that is what we give up first on.  As individuals, we struggle for decades to move forward in meaningfless careers and then step out of our marriage the moment it gets hard with little regard for our children, claiming we need space to grow spiritually.  If your spiritual growth requires disregarding those who need you most, I think you need to seriously ask yourself if you are wanting growth or is it escape you seek? 

 

Although I'm a Mormon, I'm a big fan of Buddhist philosophy and have found many of Buddha's teaching help me become a better person.  And yet I've always had problems with Siddhartha's path to enlightenment.  Perhaps the very real, but untold tale in the story of the Buddha (and numerous other soul-searchers) was the cold, sober realization that he left his wife and children in search of truth only to find that truth is found by sitting still, that wandering isn't freedom, but that freedom arises from the strength to stick with the mundane.  Perhaps his brief moment of release was followed by the sober realization that he could have just as easily found enlightenment in his living room as under a tree.  After all, it was his change in thinking, not the tree, that produced his release from suffering.  How much greater would his reward have been to pass that teaching directly on to his children.  If we want the most of what life has to offer, we will struggle to find ourselves within the walls of our homes first, which is why Doctrine and Covenants 74:1 emphasizes the hierarchy of marriage even over the gospel.  Even in the case where one parent believes in the church and the other doesn't, that marriage should be honored.  Once married, the highest level of spiritual growth simply cannot be obtained outside the walls of the home. 

 



Gratitude: Prayer

Our "Sacred Grove"--A stand of maples at Dry Creek. 

At some point in our lives, usually as teens, most Mormons receive a special blessing, called a patriarchal blessing, which is to act as a guide throughout ones life.  This blessing is considered sacred and is not to be shared openly except with close family members.  But instead, we are to act on it, sort of as self-fulfilling prophesy--a revelation we make sure comes true through our actions.  A large part of our decision to move back to Dry Creek and to start the blog was guided by my patriarchal blessing.  I won't go into specifics, but in it I am promised that I'll play an important role in the lives of my grandchildren.  Although I welcome the world to read my blog, and hope you find it meaningful, it is for my future grandchildren I created Dry Creek Sustainable Living.

Therefore, some posts are meant primarily for my family, now and in the future.  This is one such post.   It is a talk I prepared for church on Sunday, October 28, 2012.  It is not the talk I gave, nor the one intended to give. But as a writer, I have to discover what I want say along the way.  Outlines just don't work for me.  So, I wrote this first and then just showed up for church and gave a talk without notes.  Writing this was my preparation. In church, I focused primarily on revelation and talked for about 15 minutes.  This would have been way too long.  None-the-less, I want my future family have record of this.  If you like my blog, but are tired of reading Mormon posts, feel free to skip this one (along with the next four).  I won't be offended.  If you want to learn more, enjoy.  Due to the length, I've broken it up into five posts, each discusing one of the five blessings I'm most greatful for.

Gratitude

Adam fell that men might be; 

and men are, that they might have joy.

--2 Nephi 2:25

Introduction

When we were asked to speak on gratitude, I thought, that's easy, I have so much to be grateful for in this life:  from sunlight igniting stark white aspen trunks on an October morning, to the clank and clamour of the orchestra rising in the Beatles "A Day in a Life" to a stack of warm waffles smothered in blueberries and whip cream.

However, I have always loved these things and yet there was a time in my life when I was miserable enough to seriously contemplate suicide.  Obviously, even things as great as aspen trunks licked by lemon light, the artistic genius of the Beatles, or the heavenly flavor and texture of warm blueberries and whip cream are not where deep, steady joy is found.  And isn't that what we all want?--a solid satisfaction for life that will weather hard times?--to be able to wake up and say, "I'm glad I'm here" not only on that perfect fall day, but on that rainy day when you pull up to your father's house and you cannot enter, but just sit out in the car listening to the steady rain, wondering how on earth you're going to drag yourself into that room in front of all those people after you've just found out your love for your dad is at a cellular level, so deep it's not even really an emotion, but a root, and his death is your death too. Or so it seems at the time.  Isn't that what we want--to earnestly be able to say I'm glad to be alive--even in the middle of that kind of pain?

That is the type of gratitude I want to speak about today, which is scary, because just when you believe you have that kind of gratitude, life will throw a brick at you to check your sincerity.  Also, it's easy enough to speak about gratitude when everything is moving smoothly in your life.  What about the person in the congregation who is in the middle of a divorce or has just recently lost a child?  What gives anyone the right to stand in front of them and preach about gratitude?   So, if you're that person who has lost a child and you feel angry, please know two things:  a) the bishop asked us to talk about gratitude--it's his fault, not ours, and b) I cannot possibly know what you're going through and won't pretend too. Instead, I want to share what I'm grateful for--what transformed me from a deeply unhappy person to someone who is generally satisfied with life.   I'll proceed in the order I discovered or rediscovered them fairly late in life, as follows:  prayer, marriage, the holy ghost, the ward, and a personal God.

1. Prayer

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God,

that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not;

and it shall be given unto him.

--James 1: 5

As a child growing up here in this ward, I had an innocent yet deep trust in prayer.  I still remember a couple of instances when I used prayer and believed it truly worked.  One occasion was at a father and son outing at Copley's Cove.  A group of us went hiking to that box canyon to the north, just above the campground--the one that has the waterfall coming over the edge in the early spring.  I was maybe eight or nine.  We all sat down and had snacks there.  Some of the group climbed down in and some of us just sat on the edge and watched.  Afterwards, everyone followed the loop around back to the main White Sage Flat trail.  Halfway around that loop, my friend Jason realized he'd left his backpack on a rock, so he and I went back to get it.  I think now that somehow we missed the turn off trail leading back to camp and instead headed up towards White Sage Flat. 

Anyway, after some time, it became clear we were heading in the wrong direction and both of us felt lost.  And so we did what almost any child would do--we got down on our knees and we prayed.  When we did, I had a strong impression: if you head down slope you will end up in the canyon somewhere and then you can just take the road back to camp.   We did indeed come out on the road, embarrassingly close to camp--we could see it from the rock slide we scurried down after breaking our way through a thicket of scrub oak.

Later, in high school and college, when I'd moved away from the church, I wrote that incident off.  After all, it was common sense, right?  If you're lost in the mountains, head down into a canyon since the branch canyons merge into bigger canyons, which eventually come out into the valley.  No duh?  What I didn't understand in high school and college that I understand now is exactly that:  God answers prayers through the obvious.  He is after all, the author of 'plain and simple truths' and we need to pray most when we are too lost and confused to find the obvious solution on our own.  It may be obvious now that all I had to do was head down slope, but I'm pretty sure that if we didn't stop to pray that day the ward would have had to send out a search party for us.  As simple as the answer was, in our fear, we wouldn't have seen it.  And isn't it beautiful that the answer to most of our prayers are obvious and will come about through our own abilities, our own intellect, or own creativity, if we will but stop and listen to the whispering of the spirit?
 
After all, it is the problems with the simple solutions that are most devastating to humanity.  If you are abusive to you spouse or children, the solution is obvious:  Stop.  If your marriage is in shambles because you go to the bar every night after work and your wife is sick and tired of raising your children by herself, the solution is obvious:  Stop.  If pornography has slowly leaked into your marriage and fantasy has replaced true intimacy with your spouse, one on one, in real time, the solution is obvious:  Stop.

And yet hundreds, thousands, millions of people cannot make these obvious choices day after day.  Humanity is miserable because people can't do what is obviously best for them and others.  Why?  Because we forget to pray.  Day after day, year after year, we forget to pray, eventually believing we can make it on our own, that God is dead, that he's a figment of our imagination, that he's simply a concept by which we measure our pain.  And finally we come to a place where we are so hurt and angry we cannot even consider prayer.  After all, what has God done for us?  Nothing.

I had brought myself to such a low and desolate place in 1995 and I'm here to tell you God answers our prayers even if we are so jaded all we can muster is a curse.  I love the shrimp boat scene in Forest Gump when Lieutenant Dan curses God because of the storm.  I had a similar pivotal moment in my relationship with God.  Obviously, so much greater is our reward, if we can talk to our heavenly father without screaming profanities at him.  But just as we will listen to our children, when out of pain, they yell and scream at us, God too will listen to us.  He never shuts us out, never writes us off, never disowns us.  There is always a way back.  If we are simply humble enough to ask, or at least scream for help.



I'm not going to go into the details but on Thanksgiving night 1995,  after spending the day with a wonderfully warm family in El Paso that just highlighted my own misery, I staggered down Mesa Street in El Paso screaming "I want to die" and cursing God for my miserable life.  I woke up with an impression:  go home, go back to Utah, just start over.

Although the answer was simple, obvious, it didn't seem logical or satisfy my ego.  I was determined to become a writer and let's be honest, rural Utah is not the best place to launch a writing career.  And as a writer, I was doing everything right:  I was part of a strong writing community in El Paso and knew some key people who could help open some doors.  Luckily, I was so miserable that I listened to the voice inside of my head instead of my intellect and pride.  That's a good thing because that choice brings me to my next topic, Marriage. Had I stayed, I'm fairly certain I would have at some point ended my life and never have met Marci.  What were logical career choices were not the right choices for me, an individual spirit of God, put on this earth for a purpose.

I cannot help but wonder how many people would be living alternative, better lives--not richer, more influential, more ego-satisfying lives--but truly better lives if at key moments they chose to listen to the voice whispered inside their head rather than what was logical?   If we do not pray regularly, we cannot know what road we are suppose to be on as individual spirits of God, each put on this earth for a specific purpose. And if we are not on the road that God (not our family, not our friends, not our community) intended for us, we cannot and will not be happy.  That misery has its purpose.  It's God's way of saying, wake up stupid, you're driving off the road!

Obviously, if you have suffered a great loss, such as divorce or the death of a loved one, you will be miserable.  It would be unnatural not to be.  But if life is going along as a matter of routine, and you are still unhappy day after day, weak after weak.  Stop.  It's obvious.  It's not working.  God made man that he might know joy.  You need a spiritual tune up.  Sink to your knees.  Pray.  And be willing to accept the answer.  Obviously you don't know as much as you think you do or you wouldn't be so dang unhappy.  As Cheryl Crow puts it:

If it makes you happy

Then why the hell are you so sad?

Ram On: Fog, Fall, First Snow and First Fire in the Fireplace

10/11/12.  

Maple at Dry Creek, 10/11/12

It's a wet, foggy morning at Dry Creek after the first fall storm.  Sunlight peeks around the edges of the solid clouds that move along the mountain tops.  Amber and gold are everywhere--on the ash tree in the front yard of the trailer to the aspen with stark whit trunks beside the old pig shed.  I take the camera and cross the front yard, walk towards the canyon edge.  Fog hangs down in the golden bowl of cottonwood along Chalk Creek, the hills and ridges behind alive with color, rising up to freshly capped peaks, the first snow of the season.

Fog in the main (Chalk Creek)  canyon beyond my trailhead sign for Dry Creek Canyon

First snow of the 2012-2013 season.

Back inside, I wash dishes and watch wild turkey migrate slowly across the field, harvesting rye and cheat grass as they go.

Now I sit in the living room, watch the flames in the fireplace reflected in the front window lick the leaves of an oak outside the window--a sight so startling, I jump:  a Moses and the burning bush experience.

Paul McCartney's "Three Legs" from Ram plays on the stereo.  I glance up and Wow, grab the camera!  Light has spewed forth and the sodium softness of foggy dawn has caught fire like a redemptive sailor come home after a life of sin to settle down in his quaint New England town and spread his glorious smile all around.  "Have you seen that Bill Evans lately--What has gotten into him?"

Our giant ash.

Another bank of fog has moved in (along with clouds higher overhead):  subtle, cold, quiet--not fully visible, but blotting out detail and muting light.  If life were a movie, there would be a soft sad instrumental piece here, maybe long, low, strokes on a violin almost placed randomly.  Or perhaps McCartney's "Ram On."

But, in real life the stereo plays "Cross-Tie Walker" by Credence Clearwater Revival.  And that works too.

It's time to make bacon and waffles before the boys and I go out to work on the chicken coup.

Bookends: Hoh Rain Forest and Notes from the Field

Here are two poems, written ten years apart, that form a dialogue I've had with myself over the past decade.  The first, "Hoh Rain Forest," I wrote in an attempt to capture part of a 30-day camping trip my family and I took along the west coast and back down through the Cascades back in 2012 when our kids were still young.  As is so often the case with poetry, the poem grew beyond my intent and is really about my religious agnosticism at the time.

The second poem, "Notes from the Field," treads that dangerous ground between art and propaganda, in that I knew what I wanted to say before sitting down to write.  I just needed to find how to word it.  I'm well aware of the dangers of sitting down to write literature with an objective in mind.  Art is an act of discovering truth, not stating what you already believe.  That's what separates the crap of Christan rock from faith-driven groups like U2 or the Killers.  Christian rock groups pander to a particular audience, a particular creed, and as such, must always have an uplifting message.  Thus the music isn't earnest.  Any doubt, anger, irreverence must be sanitized by the end of each song.  U2, on the other hand, although faith-driven, can and does write about more than their faith.  Further more, Bono is the greatest critic of his own faith and himself.  So, when he does write songs like "Yahweh" we're moved.

It's too early for me to know whether "Notes from the Field" works or not.  To me, it doesn't really matter.  My blog is a journal with myself open to the world.  I have no idea why I have that need.  I just do.  Anyway, enjoy.

Hoh Rain Forest

Here in the sponge land
of moist temperate air
and giant moss-draped
big leafed maples,
these glacier carved
rock canyon walls
are like God,
seen only by those
willing to believe anything
and those willing
to get down in the mold
and decay of life,
dig through root
and rusted rot,
moving worm
and slug,
and clumps
of moss
carpeted
by tiny
white
jeweled
flowers

until stone sacred
stone
is reached.

Mother Theresa
knew God
in the bedrock
beneath crowded clumped
humanity.

Somewhere above me
shimmers
the great white peaks
of the Olympic Mountains

and I'm caught between
willing to believe anything
and willing to dig deep.


Notes from the Field

You say I'm a fool to believe.

I've paid my dues,
know these back streets
and dirty alleyways.

Seen a girl's soul break
as her sisters tried to sell her body to me.
One edge, thank God, I turned my back to.

Little lost boy
wandering the dirt calles
looking for God in the eyes of a dog
standing stately on a smoldering heap
of humanity--you can't tell me
unless you've been on your knees
begging God please take this whole damn
hole away--the empty glass towers,
the piercing white meteor showers,
the Milky Way split open, spewing
sterile light, standing the no-man's land
between void and mossy fecundity,
ready to climb the chain link and plunge
to the marble river below.

Unless you've dug
Mother Theresa deep
you can't tell me for sure
God doesn't whisper be still
through the rich eyes
of a child on a Juarez street corner.

What you call shallowness, cowardliness,
taking the easy way out,
stepping away from reality

I call gardening the soul
and I'm ready to get my hands dirty,
dig deep.

Afterwords:

There is no question that for some that religion is a Lazy-Boy chair for the mind.  I don't think there is anything wrong with that.  Life is hard--why not take refuge in something soft and comfortable, which might even be true?

But to assume fear or laziness motivates all belief and that only the simple-minded cling to God is not only arrogant, it's ignorant, every bit as ignorant as Bible thumpers claiming evolution doesn't exist after man has cloned a sheep and named her Dolly.

Further more, knowing the temporal world doesn't qualify you claim a spiritual existence does or does not exist.  Knowing a car engine more intimately than you know your spouse doesn't necessarily make you a poet.  It only qualifies you as a mechanic.  Only digging deep into words, feeling their sharp points, rough edges, marble smooth surfaces--only after handling their opaqueness and their translucency with your eyes after you rake through a poem again and again in the early hours of the morning qualifies you as a poet.  Likewise, science is no more religion (and vice-versa) than mechanics is poetry.  Though, of course, they are also not mutually exclusive--at least this is my belief so far. 

I'm not sure I'm qualified to know.  But this I do know:  I've dug deep enough spiritually to say with certainty, man is more than flesh and bones, that spirit, though invisible to the microscope is none the less as real as electrons or DNA.  Actually more tangible for me.  I've never seen an electron or manipulated a strand of DNA.  I have without doubt felt presence of God in my life, although I did have to dig deep for it.

However, just because I personally haven't viewed an electron or manipulated a gene doesn't prove they don't exist.  Obviously, if you can clone a sheep, you know a thing or two about genetics.  But do you know what animates the eyes or mind of your creation?

Many scientists and theologians suffer from the same arrogance:  they believe there is only one way to know life.  Existence is far too complex to be viewed through one lens.  For me, to even begin to understand life, I have to at least dabble in...

art
religion
music
cooking
mechanics
science
minimal wage jobs

while focusing on my way of know the world intimately--through the spirit--and remaining humble enough to recognize there are other minds, other eyes, other ways to know light flickering on aspen leaves on a cold October morning.

On the headstone of the Mormon theologian, James E. Talmage reads the following inscription rooted in the teachings of Joseph Smith:

Within the Gospel of Jesus Christ is room and place for every truth thus far learned by man or yet to be made known.

This is the size of the Mormonism I believe in, though admittedly it is not the Mormonism of all members.  There are Lazy-Boy Mormons--those who believe narrowly, without much effort.  But the same could be said of followers of any creed, including atheists.

Aspen at Dry Creek, October 9, 2012

 

Elton John and Bernie Taupin's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight": Language and Intent--the Responsibility of Using Language Earnestly.

What one learns early on as a writer is that the power of language comes not from individual words but words in context.  This is a no-duh, literally speaking, for a sentence carries with it the combined meanings of all the words contained with it.  Likewise, a paragraph, stanza or strophe carries the combined meanings of the lines or sentences contained within it.  And a complete work--prose or poetry--carries the combined meanings of every sub-organizational feature--line, sentence, stanza, chapter, etc.--within it.

But what the writer learns quickly is that the impact of words change dramatically according to how they are used--that a work of literature is greater than the sum of its parts.  Context gives words power beyond the measure of their definitions.

Because of this, it is very difficult for writers to label words as "good" or "bad", "weak" or "strong", "obscene" or "virtuous", "profane" or "lofty".   Every meaning depends on context.

For me, a perfect example of this is the righteous "damn it" contained in Bernie Taupin's lyrics to Elton John's music in "Someone Saved My Life Tonight".

The song chronicles how a musician has let the glitz, glamor and success of stardom sweep him away from his moral compass:

When I think of those East End lights
Muggy nights
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs
Prima Donna lord you really should have been there
Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair
And it's one more beer
and I don't hear you anymore
We've all gone crazy lately,
my friend's out there rolling round the basement floor.

This journey down through hell has been led by a woman who worships Babylon, which the speaker until now has willingly followed:

And I would have walked head on into the deep end of the river
clinging to your stocks and bonds
Paying your H.P. demands forever.

Except "someone" saved his life.  We never learn who that "someone" is.  Perhaps a friend, a new significant other, the muse, or as I read it, a higher power.  But regardless of who or what saves the speaker, his saving grace arises in a moment of righteous anger akin to Christ walking into the temple and turning the tables of the money changers over:

It's four o'clock in the morning
Damn it!
Listen to me good.
I'm sleeping with myself tonight
Saved in time, thank God my music's still alive.

Here, in this context, Damn it! is a righteous phrase, the only words that can adequately express the realization of the speaker of how far he's fallen.  But notice that it's not overkill.  It's the only profanity in the song.  If it was surrounded by a string of vulgarity, as is so common in lyrics these days, it would actually lose its moral power.  When it comes to using profanity in literature, less is almost certainly more.  Otherwise, it simply deadens the senses and demoralizes the audience.

Of course, you could never regulate such a thing.  Context is everything.  If "damn it" was written off as "naughty" and censored for the good of the public, we'd never have this powerful hallelujah cry of personal triumph over sin.  Nothing is more dangerous to the human spirit than censorship.

So, for my religious readers, Mormon or otherwise, I cannot promise that you'll never find profanity in my posts.  What I can promise you is this: though not perfect by any means (as a person or a writer), I choose my words carefully and try to present truth as I see it to the best of my ability in a format most conducive to convey the intended message.  As that message varies greatly between posts, so does my language.

For my readers who don't give a damn about profanity and think this is the post of a repressed Mormon trying to negotiate an ounce of freedom in a culture that stifles creativity--well, I'm use to that.

But this what I know for sure.  Language has immense power.  Although I'm a mediocre, dull dope in most ways, for whatever reason, I've been given a powerful tongue and with that power comes great responsibility.  Call me pompous if you will, but just as Williams Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson somehow knew their words would outlive them, I too know my words will outlive me.  It may be impossible to be an earnest artist of any sort without this belief.  Ultimately, artists know their notes, brush strokes, designs or words are unearned gifts and that they possess unwarranted power.

The more vein of us use these gifts at whim without any thought of either the consequences or where these powers might have come from.  Those of us who have an ounce of humility realize these gifts come with weight and responsibility.  It is my earnest wish to carry that load gracefully and if I ever offend someone undeservedly, I hope you will forgive me.

Postscript:

Now, Richard Dawkins, I want that debate, whether I'm ready or not.  Read my blog you great biomass of intellect and bring it on!  I have images of Star Wars in my head.  I'm sure you know who you are in this simple-minded scenario.  (Your breath stinks even through that black helmet.)  May the force be with me.  I'll need it!

(If you have no idea what the postscript is talking about, see my post "Brandon Flowers, Here Are Some Song Lyrics for You; Richard Dawkins, Call me, I'll Debate You Any Time".)

Brandon Flowers Here Are Some Song Lyrics for You; Richard Dawkins, Call Me, I'll Debate You Any Time

In another media stunt to ridicule Mormonism, a recent TV show paired biologist Richard Dawkins with Killers lead singer and song-writer Brandon Flowers for a meaningless debate on Mormonism in particular and religion in general. 

I'm a big fan of Flowers and like Dawkins mind, despite its narrowness and passionate hate for all things that can't be detected in a microscope.

But, come on!  Brandon is a punk-rocker, not a theologian and has never professed to be one.  Nor is he a historian or a linguist.  Nor has he professed to be any of these. Not only that, as is clear from the history of his lyrics, like me, Flowers has only recently come back to the church, which means for years he might not have even cracked open his Book of Mormon or Bible.  Logically, no matter how intelligent he is, how gifted of an artist he is, he still has a high school boy's knowledge of his religion.  He most likely came (in his case returned) to Mormonism for the same reasons we all do: through individual revelation, Mormonism answers...

1.  Where did I come from?
2.  Why am I here on earth?
3.  What will become of me after this life is over? 

As Coke Newell suggests in Latter Days, "the answers to the three preceding questions [are] the reason three hundred thousand people a year in 160 nations convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" (as of 2000).  Coke Newell goes on to say "I converted in 1976 at the culmination of a winding, yet upwardly inspiring--and to me, completely logical--journey from atheism to Native American thought to Zen".  Like Newell, though born into Mormonism, I followed pretty much the same route to belief.  But, I'm not here to make you the next Mormon, necessarily.  I just hate bigotry in any form, and if I was capable of doing it, I'd defend Islam or Hinduism just as hard.

What would have made the debate fair is obvious:

A.  Brandon Flowers debates an atheist singer-songwriter.
B.  Richard Dawkins debates a prominent Mormon scientist.
C.  At the very least, Richard Dawkins debates a prominent Mormon theologian.

If Dawkins debates me, it clearly won't be fair.  I probably have less knowledge of the church at this point than Flowers for pretty much the same reasons.  But when has anyone ever been fair to Mormons?  At least no one is burning down my house, tar and feathering me, or taking my land (yeah, I know, it belonged to the Indians first anyway--my wife and children, all Navajo, often remind me of that). 

Still, I'm feeling like David right now.  Brandon, below are some lyrics for you free of charge.  Read them, use them if you'd like.  And whatever you do, don't forget to follow your own advice: "Don't break character / You've got a lot of heart".  We love you.  Punk rockers and Mormons alike. 

And Richard, it's tempting to use your nick name, but I won't, I'll fight fair, since I'm already breaking my religion by wanting to fight at all.  What can I say, I'm only human. Call me up sometime you big, gorgeous Goliath of a mind.  I'm well aware my intellectual and evolutionary self doesn't have a chance in hell against you.  But if I continue to live right, my spiritual-self just might lay your intellect out flat on the ground gasping for air.  Win or lose, I never knew until now, but as Brandon would say, I was "battle born."

Richard Dawkins and his whole damn
universe may decay
but this testimony is for real
and grows every day
in fecundity, encompassing everything
from Buddhism to the Big Bang.

“As man now is, God once was;
as God now is, man may be"*

Maybe you can clone a sheep,
stitch a few strands of DNA together,
fling a rocket ship to Jupiter and back,
but your puny rational mind
will never encompass the entirety
of a system it is part of.

“As man now is, God once was;
as God now is, man may be"*

Revelation is the third eye
otherwise we are fish in a fish tank
looking out of the glass
at the room around us
believing we know all that is
and there is nothing beyond

“As man now is, God once was;
as God now is, man may be"*

Richard Dawkins and his whole damn
universe may decay
but my soul is forever
and grows every day
in fecundity, encompassing everything
from Buddhism to the Big Bang
I am and I will carry on
creating world of my own some day.

“As man now is, God once was;
as God now is, man may be"*

Richard, your science may not be able to encompass religion in general and Mormonism in particular.  But my religion can encompass your science.  Because of this, your thoughts, no matter how ingenious, are finite, limited, and most likely will not fully stand the test of time without being modified either by you or by scientists who come after you.  But because "as man is, God once was" and because "as God now is, man may be" everything man has learned or will learn will fit within the scope of my religion providing it's true.  Our understanding of the universe may change with time and education--in fact it has to for us to grow and become like God--but the three fundamental truths of Mormonism--1) that we existed prior to this life as spiritual beings, 2) that we chose to come to earth to gain knowledge (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual), 3) that we continue to evolve towards perfection both in and after this life--these are eternal and all encompassing, which is why I can read scientific text, Buddhist or Hindu texts as avidly as I read Mormon text.  If it is good or true, it will not contradict my religion.  I simply might not have the intellect yet to comprehend how it fits.  As cocky as I am--me, poor little David against you big Goliath--I am humble enough to realize my limits, intellectual, or otherwise.  I am humble enough to realize there are parts of the universe out there that exist even though I can't see them.  Are you?  And if not, how can you call yourself a scientist?  Isn't exploration of the unknown the heart and soul of the sciences?  Maybe, just maybe, part of that universe isn't accessible through a microscope or telescope.  Maybe it takes a soul.  You have one.  By means science cannot prove, I can promise you have one.  Use it, see what you can find. 

Galaxies await to unfold.  Enjoy.

Afterward

I'm actually a fan of Richard Dawkins, and so I hope that he and anyone else reading this post caught the mixture of jest and earnestness.  Although I sincerely believe basic Mormon doctrine, I fear making it to the Celestial Kingdom (our highest realm of heaven)  because how fun can it be to live in a place where everyone believes the same thing?  What's left to debate?  Truth is, I love to argue.  At least in this way, Richard, you and I are brothers.   Reader, bring it on--be ye Dick or not.  There. That ought to guarantee I don't go to the big white room reserved for all the really special people.  That way Richard and I can continue this debate for eternity.

*“As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be"  --Lorenzo Snow, Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1898–1901.

Simon Ortiz on Sustainability; Kris Kristofferson Like Bread; Tom Petty on Learning to Fly

According to my stats, people often find my blog by searching "sustainable living poems" or "poems about sustainable living".  My first thought is, "Are there any poems that aren't about sustainable living?"   I guess these searchers are looking for poems about a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individuals impact on the earth's natural resources.  For me, sustainable living is the search for a way to maintain a strong spiritual connection with my creator, my fellow humans, and the plants and animals around me.  Obviously, this definition encompasses the more common definition, but it goes beyond it by not limiting "sustainability" to the material realm.  Defined this way, the search for sustainability is the heart and soul of poetry.   Simon Ortiz puts it this way:

Your children will not survive unless you tell something about them--how they were born, how they came to this certain place, how they continued.

I could post pretty much any poem, almost at random,  and successfully label it a "sustainable living poem" under my "sustainable living" definition.  I use to hate the title of the anthology, Poetry Like Bread, because I felt it overvalued the role of the poet in the world and undervalued the suffering of the poor.  So, I've been slow to admit this, but poetry is like bread because it sustains the human spirit of any given culture.  Individuals may need food more than poems, but societies need literature to sustain values and identity.

Almost all poems in one way or another are about sustaining the human spirit.  In this way,  I think the only way to write a poem that is not about sustainable living is to set out purposefully to write a sustainable living poem.  A good poem, like a good garden combines the cultivated and the natural--where some thoughts are planted, but wild ones move in, and you realize that even though you didn't plant them, they are beautiful, so you keep them.  You trim some images, cut some sounds back--let some be--but you work with the will of the individual impressions and modify them into an organic whole rather than design a poem out of your own will.
 
In looking over some old poems of mine for a "sustainable living" poem, an odd, but obvious choice came to me:  "Grounded"--a war poem, an urban poem, a poem centered the mundane task of grading papers.  For me the poem is the perfect "sustainable living poem" simply because it refuses any easy, airy spiritual out.  Sometimes sustainability is the search itself--the singing the song, the planting the seed, regardless of whether fruit grows or not.  Sometimes yearning is all.  I think of Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning."  For me, that is the ultimate sustainable living poem.  "Grounded" pales in comparison, but it too is grounded in the gap between reality and potential.  For me sustainability is there, in that fertile crack.
 
Grounded

In this story,
light glistens off composition shingles
in sparks and dashes
pours through a classroom window
onto a common houseplant
while a piano is rubbed to bone
and a guitar is ground down
to bedrock
on Pearl Jam's "Black" blaring
from computer speakers
while I grade papers
on this Veterans Day morning.

In this story,
there are no bombs,
no blood, no dangling arms,
no white-out
as souls suck out
of corpses left
lying in the streets
jungles, deserts, front lawns
of foreign lands
where children
find trinkets, pull
pins to grenades, open
wallets, pull out
credit cards, gum, smokes, pick
at remains of unrecognizable aunts,
uncles, fathers, sisters, mothers,
always the mothers, the hardest part.

In this story,
there's only papers to grade, Smashing Pumpkins
slowly unwinding on "Shakedown 1979"

No war to win, no war to lose,
only a piano, always a piano,

somewhere down the corridors of
the mind, a long hall
of dark, scuffed wood
and dusty gold radiator heaters,
an apartment door open,
open for sound, like the lid
of a Steinway grand,

only it's an old banged-up upright
in a room of smoky blue
light and the silhouette of a man plays
as if he could light the hearts-- 
10,000 dead veterans
in 10,000 countries.

But, of course he can't.
He can play.  I can grade.
Tom Petty can be ready to fly, always.
But this world ain't got wings.
No, baby, this world

ain't got

wings.

Collective Identity: Community Adobe Oven Making

I didn't picture the barn-raising scene from Witness when Lloyd and I drove into the wood-chip drive of Adam's place.  It felt more like I'd entered the cover photograph of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Deja Vu album.

Hippies, real hippies, with long, uncombed hair, straggly beards, no shoes.  Even though I pretend to be a hippie, I wasn't sure I wanted to be there.   I sort of identify with the lifestyle, the politics, but in my mind, they're a little too unreal for me.  Generally, I just don't like collective identities--from redneck to beats to flower children to Mormons (and I'm one of them) to new-agers to punks.  People scare me when they swarm together.  Even artists, writers, poets.  Yet, as I moved up the straw-bail bordered dirt path, a weird thing happened:  I seemed to have entered a Monte Python collage or Sgt. Peppers album cover.  For although a portion of the gathering were clearly latter-day hippies, others, especially the kids, seemed to be right out of a scene from Little House on the Prairie--beautiful girls in home-made Pioneer dresses, wearing no shoes, running the prairie hillside.  The house too could have been right out of Little House.  But there were also typical ranchers, as well as teens with concert t-shirts.

Although I can't pretend that I immediately fit right in (I never do), this strange mixture of peoples soon put me at ease--especially Adam's dad, the familiar Utah farmer who gave me a tour of the property.

I won't post here how to build an adobe oven.  A web search provides multiple sites for that.  Instead, I want to share a photo essay of the close community I felt, something akin to the feeling invoked by the barn-raising scene in Witness.  Although I can't say for certain what was so spiritually empowering about this event, I think I've identified two strong ingredients:  1)  It truly was multicultural--Jews, hippies, Mormons, home-schooled children, jock-teens and red-neck farmers all together in one place, and 2) work, rather than ideas or politics, focused us.

Perhaps what was most beautiful was that no one had to melt his/her identity away to fit into the kettle.

I hope my photos capture a little bit of the joy of different cultures coming together to build something as simple as a bread oven.  In order to maintain the privacy and integrity of this community, I used the name of the farm, but ommitted the town name.  Enjoy. 

1.  The site:  Located about 10 miles from Dry Creek, Cedar Springs is a working permaculture farm which hosts interns.

2.  Adam's cabin at Cedar Springs, which his dad built from refurbished wood and windows.

2.  Finishing the sand mold, which is later removed, once the adobe dries.

3. Mixing the adobe--about 1 part sand; 2 parts clay, but varies depending on clay source.



 4.  Adding newspaper to the mold allows the adobe to stick.  Burns off once the sand mold is removed and the oven is used.

5.  An evaporating refrigerator that uses two small watering troughs and burlap panels. It works like a swamp cooler.  Throughout the day, it was 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit cooler inside the fridge than outside.

6 & 7.  Applying the first coat of adobe.

8.  Texturing the first layer of adobe with thumb-holes so that the second layer will stick.





9.  First coat of adobe dries before applying the second coat.

 10.  Tour after lunch:  Intern lodge--a converted old chicken coup.

 

11 & 12.  Interior of intern lodge.

13.  Composting toilet seminar.

14.  Touring the grounds.

15.  Applying the wet glue (thinned clay-sand mixture) before attaching the second coat of adobe.

I truly believe we could heal this country through barn-raisings: whether the "barns" be adobe ovens, libraries, bowling allies, refurbished parks or community theaters. It's not the projects that matter, but rather bringing people together and keeping them so busy working on a common goal they forget the stereotypes and see the beauty of the people behind the various costumes.

Obviously at some point, ideas, beliefs, differences must be shared.  But too often in our society, we stake out our position before we really even know the opposition.  I believe something as simple as a community barn-raising by members of congress before each legislative session could forever change the nature of political dialogue in our country.