The Kingdom & Forgiveness

Last night, when we went over to my parents house for dinner & movie like we do every weekend, my brother selected the movie The Kingdom. I knew what I was in for, but I didn't say anything. I don't like veto-ing too many movies; besides, I don't like admitting I'm such a wimp. But, ugh...it was exactly as I thought it'd be. It was just too much.

It silenced me again.

The intro was amazing. The opening setup I'd love to show in class; it was extremely well done. But the movie itself... for one, much of the filming was done just like those Jason Borne movies, all shaky and faux amateur-ish. Makes me nauseous. But that wasn't the whole of it.

I don't even think I can explain what bothers me so much about these types of movies. I think it's partly the aspect of real life that's portrayed. This crap isn't fake to me. All the people involved; all those killed, regardless of reason or purpose. And I don't mean, "Oh, those terrorists; how dare they?!" I mean the death on both sides. The injustice on both sides, and worse yet, that each side acts with such a sense of justice. It's a disgusting circle. And these movies make me feel so helpless in the exchange. And at the same time, I feel like these movies also exploit the situation, the fear, etc. I get that the movie is trying to make a statement; but to what end? What can a piece of Hollywood film really do?

There can be nothing; there can be no hope, without forgiveness. And how can there be forgiveness when the blood is so fresh; when the anger and pain and hatred are so deep?

It reminds me of I book I read some years ago called The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness by Wole Soyinka. In it, he tries to discover a solution to all the pain and suffering caused by so many years of colonialism and the results of time after such a mining of culture, language, people. He writes, in the essay “Reparations, Truth, and Reconciliation”:

“When a people have been continuously brutalized, when the language of rulers is recognized only in the snarl of marauding beasts of prey and scavengers, the people begin to question, mistrust, and then shed their own humanity and, for sheer survival, themselves become predators on their own kind” (80).

I think this is an important statement; but, I think it’s more important again to distinguish that I’m not saying this statement applies to only one side or the other: it’s both and all. It’s also important to distinguish this isn’t a binary. It isn’t ‘us’ versus ‘them’; or ‘them’ versus ‘us.’ It’s ‘us’ and ‘us.’ As humans. As living beings.

And this statement applies in so many different ways. D, I know you understand this in a completely different and personal way. The way in which a victimized and hurt child might take snails and cover them in salt, or throw them one by one at passing cars. Empowered through the pain inflicted on another. No matter how small; no matter how trivial.

But it’s the same: the father in pain inflicting pain on the child; the child in pain inflicting pain on another child or living thing. I know this is how it was for me.

But I don’t know where forgiveness starts. It starts perhaps in somewhere equally painful; where the one in pain cannot take more and must forgive in order to heal. This is what sucks. How can you tell someone, “Yeah, you hurt now. No, hurting another won’t make you feel better; you’ll only feel better if you say you’re sorry to those you hurt; if you forgive those who hurt you.” It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

Soyinka has more to say on the issue. He says that Truth must be admitted. That is, what really happened. Full confession. Full admission. On both, on all, sides. But he continues:

“Truth alone is never enough to guarantee reconciliation. It has little to do with crime and punishment but with inventiveness—devising a social formula that would minister to the wrongs of dispossession on the one hand, chasten those who deviate from the humane communal order on the other, serve as a criterion for the future conduct of that society, even in times of stress and only then, heal. Memory—of what has been, of acts of commission or omission, of responsibility abdicated—affects the future conduct of power in any form. Failure to adopt some imaginative recognition of such a principle merely results in the enthronement of a political culture that appears to know no boundaries—the culture of impunity” (81-82).

What kills me about this is that it isn’t some strange or foreign concept. We’ve learned the same thing time and again throughout history, but we always fail to actually learn and understand what it means. Bottom line: we remember our past, which is oftentimes that factor that dooms us to repeat it.

You’ve heard the phrase before, “We must learn about our past, else we are doomed to repeat it.” However, this is a many formed thing. If we use that memory to remember the wrongs against us, from our past, we are doomed to repeat them. But also, if we don’t learn and concede to the wrongs we have done others in our past, we are doomed to repeat them.

It’s like world war one. Germany got its ass kicked. It had no choice but to concede to any and all demands made on it, no matter how ridiculous and harsh. The end of the war put Germany is such a strain that world war two resulted. I’m not saying that world war two was Germany’s doing; I’m saying that much of the damage done during world war one caused much of the spark and fodder for the second world war.

It’s not a “If they forgive us, then maybe I’ll forgive them” situation. Nor is it, a “Forgive us? Screw you, we did nothing wrong” situation.

It demands an amazing change in consciousness and perspective. An amazing ‘humanism’ that I think ‘we’ as humans are capable of, but I’m not sure how this can happen. So many of us would have to change so quickly.

And the worst part of this, even if/when this great change occurs, and some great people navigate and invent this peace, there will be those who condemn this change and there will be those who praise it for the wrong reasons. After all, even peace is considered ‘suspicious.’ In all too much doctrine, the ‘one’ who brings ‘great peace’ is called the ‘antichrist,’ which brings open a whole new can of worms.

I know people who are excited about that terrible crap going on in the world, because to them, the world is closer to its end; and to them, they are closer to entering the gates of heaven. I can’t believe that. I won’t believe that.

We need a strong dose of humanism; a mighty dose of humanism. And this dose requires more than its fair share of forgiveness. A willingness to forgive; but equally important, a willingness to take responsibility. Only then is true change possible.

How can we do this with more than words?

mmm...lettuce...

and then, there were shells...

PS

The Book of Lost Things still very very good. I will likely soon be buying multiples.

Syllabus done; One to go

I finally finished the syllabus for the British Literature Survey course I start teaching next Tuesday; I'm posting one of my favorite pictures of Beckett, taken by one John Minihan as a small celebration gesture. John Minihan is the man when it comes to Beckett photography.

I still have my Poetry Workshop syllabus to figure out, but that one's not as intensive. It's equally as fun, but it's a bit different.

Both classes will be intense, but brilliant.

I'm hoping to get a great deal of writing and reading done this semester, and I'm hoping I can figure out how to balance everything with work (at least better than I have been doing). Teaching is work, but it's different. It's like my writing and research; it's what I'm supposed to be doing. It has purpose. It has value to me. Work does not. It's meaningless; and I guess it's more meaningless because I don't place a great deal of value on it. Yet, I don't want to. I don't want to subtract from the worth I give my "real" work (my writing). Teaching lends to my writing; teaching results from my writing. This isn't to say my writing is didactic. I find no value in that. It's just to say, teaching flourishes for me because of my habit of writing and reading and research. It's a byproduct. But not some unpleasant toxic kind that you form a government policy over to have the seeping barrels of toxic goo sent to a large desert way out in the BF region of the world to store so it might leak into the ground water and cause three eyed fish, and large men with donut eating habits to watch over the sludge while their skinny old boss has his lacky Smithers....anyway.....that being said...Good Night.

Tea and the Interior

I really love some of the new tea I've been drinking, and here's one reason. Each tea bag has a little message on the little tag. Example: The delicious and brilliant message tonight:

"It's not life that matters, it's the courage that we bring to it."

Nice, eh? Very enjoyable. And the tea is brilliant as well; delicious and calming and it smells awesome.

Also, grabbed a book off my shelf I discovered. (Which is to say, I discovered the book. I purchased it a while back but had forgot about it til now.) And glancing through the first few pages discovered a slick set of lines that somehow feel well timed, in one way or another [D, I think you might agree]:

"The poem suggests a sense of elemental loneliness, as though the poet lived in some far wilderness rather than at the edge of a bustling, burgeoning city, and it leaves an aftertaste of sabi, a word that comes from sabishisa, loneliness. But sabi means far more than mere 'loneliness' as we think of it: it means essential aloneness. In Zen, sabi is a condition of utter individualization achieved through solitary, egoless meditation. There is no ego in the poem. No one's there. The reader must project him- or herself into the flow of language and image in order to experience the poetry firsthand" (Narrow Road to the Interior xvi).

Isn't that brilliant? I especially love the aspect, "There is no ego in the poem," because this is exactly how I feel about poetry when I'm working to achieve the poem's absolute potential, it's absolute integrity. It's not about ego; it's something more and less at the same time. It's refreshing to see it written somewhere. Refreshing to have a slight glimmer of where I need to explore to discover just how far my writing needs to continue. I don't mean this in terms of a progression, but rather as, again, an opening up. A means of unleashing absolute potential. Not the flower, but it's fragrance. Not the pink of the petal, but the blend of shadow and brilliant light, the space between which absolute being is possible. The bend, the bow, the void; yes, we're back to that. It's in that space that actuality is possible. The poem as more than poem. The image as more than poem. The being-ness. A glimpse of absolute like a drop of dew frozen.

Jonny Boxhead

Put 'em back inside,

Mr Jack Mr Jack

Put 'em back

Put 'em back

my head is open, empty

save for this spring sprung

I'll not fall

I'll not fall for Mr. Jack

come back

come back

back/the flap

it's cold in here

it's cold in there

Mr Jack Mr Jack

put me back

I'll be seeing you, Mr Jack.

Following you, Mr Jack.

You've left the flap

wide open

I can't find

my way back

Mr Jack

Mr Jack

put me back

British Lit Survey

Working on getting my syllabi together for the British Lit Survey course I'm teaching and the Poetry workshop course as well.

The Brit Lit Survey syllabus is a bit more intensive to map out because of the logical progression skeleton I'd like to have. If I set this right, everything will fall into place. I'm going to enjoy this class quite a bit.

The Workshop should be awesome. It usually is. This semester I'm focusing quite a bit on narrative and how narrative is created in a manuscript. However, narrative does not imply an "I" that permeates the text and dictates the "story." It's something very much other. We're also looking at several works that maintain this odd sort of narrative, while at the same time questioning what poetry is and how poetry functions. Is poetry necessarily this thing written in verse, or is it something other? Can it disguise itself as prose, as fiction, as non-fiction? It should be fun, and also has interesting ramifications on the manuscripts I hope to be working on in full force during that time.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know what I was up to. This break has gone too fast; it always does.