Emily Dickinson on the Individual

Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems champion the importance of the individual over that of the group. She seemed to have had an immense disdain for those who blithely followed the conventions of society with little thought of their own. The reclusive life she preferred for herself was greatly reflected in her works. She disagreed with her family’s views of culture and religion leading her toward transcendental reflections of what she thought to be a better way to connect spiritually to the world. Ms. Dickinson’s poems demonstrate an opinion against the ridiculousness of the achievement of recognition and status, she wrote of the need and the right of the individual to maintain its integrity.

In “I’m Nobody, Who Are You?” perhaps one of Ms. Dickinson’s most famous poems, she bemoans the inclination of most people to want recognition. In the first stanza she warns of the dangers of voicing one’s interest in remaining anonymous, cautioning that one will be ridiculed if “they,” meaning the majority, find out. She mocks those who go around constantly boasting of themselves, vainly attempting to keep their names in popular circulation. She quite cleverly compares them to croaking frogs, ever noisily reminding the world of their existences.

Her poem, “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” further demonstrates her perspectives on society’s intent to squash the individual. The speaker intimates that it is always up to the collective to decide what is sane and what isn’t, “Assent and you are sane, Demur you’re straight way dangerous.” And once they decide you are insane, you will be “Handled with a Chain.” The speaker is not implying that the majority is right all the time, but still, as an individual, you cannot be accepted unless you agree with them. The world can sometimes be so brutal to individuals as to subdue them.

In keeping with her theme of the rights of the individual over the group, Ms. Dickinson’s “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church” can be viewed as a commentary on how a person should live their spiritual life. Here the speaker asks the reader to consider the transcendental ideal that God “transcends” the physical world and should be experiences by the individual through their experiences with the natural world. It mocks the very idea that God can be experienced in a group setting after all.

In “What Soft Cherubic Creatures” Ms. Dickinson reveals the hypocrisy of the group versus the individual. She exemplifies women, who are expected to put on a made-up “face” for society, yet reveals that upon closer inspection, the “freckled human nature” can be seen. The speaker is commenting on the pressure of society to behave a certain way, while hiding one’s true passions, yet another way the collective subdues the individual. In her article “Writing Poetry Like a Woman” Corinne Blackmer discusses how conventional “feminine verse” of Ms. Dickinson’s era usually touched on domestic topics while Ms. Dickinson “wrote poetry that defied all conventional gendered norms” and “ridiculed the pretensions to virtue and self-righteous piety of these “angelic” creatures. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay entitled Self Reliance said, “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after one's own. But great is the man who in midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

In “Alone, I Cannot Be” Ms. Dickinson writes in defense of keeping one’s own company. The speaker is telling the reader of the “recordless company” she keeps in her solitude. One can imagine the countless hours the poet spent alone writing her poems. It can be inferred that Ms. Dickinson was plagued by a constant companionship of voices, either imagined or conjured by her creative endeavors. Either way it would seem she is happier for their company, than for that of their warm-blooded counterparts.

In further examining her continued struggle to champion the rights of the individual, it is imperative to examine Ms. Dickinson as an unpublished poet. Her advisor, mentor, and publisher, Thomas Higginson, continually counseled against the publishing of her poems, citing that her poetry would be misrepresented in print form. Ms. Dickinson’s style of writing so defied the conventional forms as to render it nearly impossible to adequately reveal its original intent. She exemplified her feelings about this in the poem, “Fame is a Bee.” Over the course of her lifetime Dickinson maintained control and ownership in order to write, as Sharon Cameron states, "in public while effectively exempting her writing from public legislation" (Cameron, "Amplified Contexts", 241). Writing in this way, perhaps Dickinson felt she was protecting herself against the sting of the bee.

Forgiveness

If you haven't yet read The Shack by William P. Young, you need to, and as soon as possible. It is one of the most moving stories I have read in my lifetime. I get emotional just thinking about the way Mr. Young lays out the relationship of the protagonist with the Father. Yes, it is a work of religious fiction, Christian in fact, but in a good way. Regardless of your spiritual proclivities, you will no doubt recognize the profound need mankind has for a relationship with others and especially with The Creator.

In brief, it is the story of a man who loses his youngest child, a daughter, to the whims of a murderous madman during a camping trip in the mountains of Eastern Oregon. Police follow his tracks to a cabin in the woods where her bloody dress is found. Her body is never discovered. Five years later, the father is awakened from his grief-stricken, sleep-walking state and bidden to the cabin in the woods at the behest of The Lord, God Almighty, going by the nickname of Papa. Following is an excerpt from the book:

"Mack, for you to forgive this man is for you to release him to me and allow me to redeem him."
"Redeem him?" Again Mack felt the fire of anger and hurt. "I don't want you to redeem him! I want you to hurt him, to punish him, to put him in hell..." His voice trailed off.
Papa waited patiently for the emotions to ease.
"I'm stuck, Papa. I just can't forget what he did, can I?" Mack implored.
"Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack. It is about letting go of another person's throat."
"But I thought you forget our sins?"
"Mack, I am God. I forget nothing. I know everything. So forgetting for me is the choice to limit myself. Son," Papa's voice got quiet and Mack looked up at him, directly into his deep brown eyes, "because of Jesus, there is now no law demanding that I bring your sins back to mind. They are gone when it comes to you and me, and they run no interference in our relationship."
"But this man..."
"But he too is my son. I want to redeem him."
"So what then I just forgive him and everything is okay, and we become buddies?" Mack stated softly but sarcastically.
"You don't have a relationship with this man, at least not yet. Forgiveness does not establish relationship. In Jesus, I have forgiven all humans for their sins against me, but only some choose relationship. Mackenzie, don't you see that forgiveness is an incredible power - a power you share with us, a power Jesus gives to all whom he indwells so that reconciliation can grow? When Jesus forgave those who nailed him to the cross they were no longer in his debt, nor mine. In my relationship with those men, I will never bring up what they did, or shame them, or embarrass them."
"I don't think I can do this," Mack answered softly.
"I want you to. Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver," answered Papa, "to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly. Do you think this man cares about the pain and torment you have gone through? If anything, he feeds on that knowledge. Don't you want to cut that off? And in doing so, you'll release him from a burden that he carries whether he knows it or not - acknowledges it or not. When you choose to forgive another, you love him well."

So okay, my hurt isn't quite that tragic, but it is mine. I have nurtured it for years. It has molded me, shaped me, deeply impacted all my other relationships. It is part of who I am. I have tried on repeated occasions to reconcile this broken relationship, tried to bridge the gap. And every time the street commission comes out and puts a "bridge out" sign up and that's all she wrote.

You have stolen 8 years of my niece and nephews' lives from me. You have caused my son to grow up with no real cousins, and you know how close he and Kevin where. It was not bad enough I was an orphan, you had to take away my only sister, even if we were never going to be bffs, you were all I had. You hurt me. Really, really hurt me. And then tried to ruin my relationships with the rest of my family. And for what?

I learned a long time ago to compartmentalize the pain so that I could at least function. I learned to hide the softest parts of me. I used to keep a little back, but after that, I learned to keep a LOT back. Something broke in me, something I fear will never be repaired.

I have tried to be a good friend to those around me. I have been blessed with a fantastic group of friends that have served as surrogate family, surrogate sisters. They are wholly undeserved, as I have never be able to give to them as much as they give to me. And until I forgive you, wholly and completely, I never will.

And then came the cancer. You had to go and get the same damn disease that killed our dear, sweet mother. I cry foul! That's not fair. Now I'm expected to be the bigger man. I'm the older sister so I'm just supposed to "do the right thing" and I'm not ready to. I've become very familiar with my pain. It's like a pair of old slippers, not entirely comfortable, but reliable. Plus, I'm tired of being the one that has to go first. I'm tired of trying to make things right and having you slam another rejection in my face.

But you trumped my selfish need to hold on to my ugly. So, my sister, I forgive you. I release you from all wrongs perpetrated against me, whether real or imagined. I wipe the slate clean, for real this time. Tabula Rasa.

Ball's in your court.

Dear Heavenly Father, Please come into my heart and wash away the burden of grief and hurt I feel toward my sister and renew a right spirit within me. Amen

Sunday Scripture

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:8-10)

“If God loves everyone, why are there different religions?”

I read this on Tom Foreman's blog of letters to President Obama. The question came from his daughter after she was excluded from a group of kids at school because of her religion. This was his answer. I think it is beautiful in it's simplicity. It captures how so many of us feel:

“I think there are different religions,” I told her, “because adults, like children, disagree on things, and sometimes we focus more on those disagreements than on what we have in common. Imagine there was a girl named Katherine. She has a friend at school who calls her that. At dance class, another friend calls her Kathy. And at soccer, a third friend calls her Kate. One day all three of these friends meet, but they do not know they are acquainted with the same girl. One says, ‘My friend Katherine is the nicest girl ever.’ Another says, ‘You are wrong. My friend Kathy is better.’ And the third says, ‘Nonsense, my friend Kate is better than either of your friends.’ I think that is how it is with God. I think we are all praying to the same being, but we use different names and forget that God is big enough to love us all.”

from: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/12/dear-president-obama-83-ten-things-what-if-god/#more-34300

Dear God, Please help the world to see You for the loving God that You are and to embrace one another as brothers and sisters in that love. Amen.

Whoa! The Evolution of Life?

watch this:


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

from:
http://soulpancake.com/

F*** My Life

Today, I was turned down for the China job because I selfishly chose to raise my child with no support from his father or the government and worked my behind off financing really expensive christian education for said child instead of spending the money on finishing my education. My child is graduating this May with a 1.5 GPA. Since I lost my job, I won't be able to pay for his college either. FML

Stop Religious Persecution in Iran

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/17/wilson.faith/index.html?eref=rss_topstories