[NB: On several occasions, lovely, generous-hearted people have informed me with a blend of enthusiasm and compassion that they "like my blog but don't understand it". The following was written to address the issue. Only, it became indulgently self-illustrative (i.e., makes even less sense than usual). It is a shameful thing to plead 'irony'; let's hope I've at least "got it out of my system" for now... Time will tell. Meanwhile, apologies :-/ ]
I recently read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- Joyce's prequel to Ulysses, charting the childhood and coming-of-age of Stephen Dedalus as he awakens to religious uncertainty, political dissatisfaction and literary aspiration. The character of Stephen is widely acknowledged to be a bit of a fictional alter-ego to Joyce himself, so it's sorta semi-autobiographical. There's a big 'religious anxiety' theme going on with it, which I was thinking about thinking about writing about, as it kinda connects with some of the less fun places my head's taken me in the past. Maybe I'll get round to that eventually. An easier theme for now, and one with which I also found myself drawing personal parallels (thus inadvertently circuitously likening myself to Joyce, ahem), was Stephen's tendency to experience and respond to life largely through written word...
The very opening lines of the novel are from a children's story read to him by his father, which he instinctively 'writes himself into':
Anyways...laughable though it is to thus compare myself (indirectly) to Joyce, it was all too easy to 'find myself' in the character of Stephen. I've nurtured many a literary pretension over the years. Perhaps the earliest manifestation I can pinpoint was my custom of adapting well-known nursery rhymes to my own 'superior' criteria -- underwhelmed, as I apparently was, by the substandard lyrical substance of the popularised versions [2]. I soon progressed to original works: philosophical ditties about scientifically implausible prismatic phenomena [3], and the soothing impact of canine companionship on the pangs of undesired solitude [4]. Later, sensing perhaps (in a rare moment of humble self-awareness) my musical shortcomings, I shifted focus towards poetry and works of fiction. I kept a special notebook for such poems as I deemed 'publication-ready' -- it had a picture of a puffin on the front and I remember showing it with great solemnity to a choice selection of bewildered trusted companions. As for the fiction -- I flatly refused to write mere 'stories' along with the rest of the class -- no, I pretty much always had a novel on the go.
In hindsight, I pity the teachers tasked with toting my interminable tomes home to be marked at the end of the school day. I blush, moreover, to recall the afflictions I unwittingly inflicted on the kids I shared a table with, from whom the very sound of my frenzied prolificacy became tortuous enough to draw sincere complaint: you may not be aware of it (indeed, I hope you have been spared the experience) but the innocent pencil is a surprisingly noisy implement in the hands of a determined and inconsiderate 8-year-old litterateuse with ideas and ambition enough to fill a whole stock-cupboard-full of empty exercise books. My teacher at the time responded to the crisis by transitioning me to one of those iconic Berol 'handwriting' affairs, red on the outside with a black or blue bottom depending on the colour of the ink. It was gratifying to be the first among my peers to pen in pen -- but, had they succeeded in so tormenting one another with strepitous scribbling, no doubt they could have joined me in this position of privilege.
For a few years in the middle, I think I forgot about writing more or less. (I forgot about many things, in those years, including forgetting, so I can't say for sure). And then...well. Here I am, 'blogging' away. And when I'm not here, chances are I'm in my favourite cafe/bar torturing words on paper in the name of poetry [5]. Once more do I have my own special notebook. No puffins, this time, just the niceday dog. I dig it out from the depths of my bag every time I feel a 'thought' coming on -- which is frequently, and often inconveniently. One time I dug and dug and it didn't seem to be there and I believed for a full two hours that I must have left it in the pub... The horror! If my childhood associates had been bewildered by my early work, how much more some poor innocent member of the public-house-attending-public on accidentally discovering my rather more recent (and less excusable, for my maturity) endeavours.
A couple of months back I decided to make it official, and announced to Mr. W and those closest to me that I had become a writer. Not a good writer, nor a paid writer, nor a read writer. Just, a person who henceforth referred to herself as a writer. The designation is purely semantic. But hey, I happen to like semantics.
For a writer, though, I'm a pretty appalling communicator. I say things I shouldn't say, neglect to say things I should say, and nigh-on everything I say I say in such a way that generally nobody really has any sort of clue what I am trying to say. Maybe my ambiguous delivery mitigates the oft-times folly of my message -- how many times might I have been misunderstood in such a way as to be understood to have said the thing I should have meant but didn't? Small comfort, when I consider that such a phenomena would presumably work both ways...
If Google translate were adapted to speak whatever language it is I seem to have made up for myself, then paste in any email of mine and 95 percent of the time you'd get pretty much the same thing [left]. The intended essence of my blog posts might be distilled in like manner [right]...
So why can't I just say what I mean? Words distract and intrigue and amuse me to the point of forgetting that there are other people in the exchange -- people who probably won't catch my drift, nor care enough to chase it down the field. Words also suck me in and consume my evenings and weekends -- sometimes to the neglect of people closest to me who begin to feel I don't have any words or time to spare for them. The irony is that the whole point of words is to connect us -- to facilitate understanding, to express love, to exchange perspectives and ideas in the pursuit of truth... And I am in danger of making them a barrier between myself and the rest of the world.
Paul's poetically powerful "wedding favourite" passage in 1 Corinthians 13 touches (amongst so many other aspects of godly life and human interaction) on the relationship between love and communication:
So much the more, then, do I need to learn to put others before myself in my use of everyday human language, and to remember that it doesn't matter what I think I've said or how well (or 'interestingly') I think I've said it if it is received as meaningless nonsense, or as unloving, or destructive, or counter-productive... I shudder to consider the extent to which 'creative devices' reduce me to a noisy gong, a clanging symbol. That they keep me so endlessly entertained only makes them all the more 'self-seeking', as the NIV version of 1 Corinthians 13 phrases it.
Time to stop 'being a writer', I think. It is not a label which serves me well -- neither in describing my abilities nor in providing me with an identity -- nor in spurring me on to "love and good deeds" (cf. Hebrews 10:19-25). Lots of Christians talk about 'finding one's identity in Christ' -- a phrase which doesn't appear in the Bible directly (at least, not that I can make out...correct me if I'm wrong) but is well supported --
Don't get me wrong -- I am not planning on giving up torturing words. Everybody needs a hobby, and I'm pretty sure they don't feel a thing. But the same can't be said about the people in my life, and going by the glimpses God has given me of His love for them, and the power of His love in me helping me to love them too, I suspect He would have me seek out the best, and the wisest, and the most loving of words when it comes to interacting with them, and to remember to express those words in a way that makes sense once in a while. I also suspect that there are moments when I would do well to put words aside and recognise the 'better thing' I could be doing to engage with the needs of those around me. Believe it or not I'd rather be a blessing than a nuisance. That said, it's one thing to write an indulgently self-illustrative post about the problem; another, it would seem, to do something about it (e.g. I said a similar thing but shorter in a footnote to an earlier post, with little impact on my subsequent behaviour). Sad truth is I still find it kinda fun and funny even while I'm lambasting myself for it. But, for all that, I really am sincere in wanting my life (and any part in that which writing may or may not play) to honour God and bless others: I think/hope/pray that as I take my eyes off myself (my self-indulgence and my self-reproach) and fix them on "Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (cf. Hebrews 12), then godly living, and fitting words, might increasingly follow -- "a word in season, how good it is!" (Proverbs 15:23)
[1] Here is a fun/interesting blog which I just remembered existed: foundpoetry.wordpress.com
[2] In fact (what are the chances?), we recently unearthed a family video of my sister and I triumphantly and repetitiously singing "Moocow moocow..." -- our (Joycean inspired?) subversion of "Baa baa black sheep"...
[3] Ahem. "There's a rainbow in the skyyyyy toniiiiight.... And the sun has shone it's laaast true liiiight..."
[4] For my second number... "Shep, Shep, the sheepdog... Shep, Shep, the sheepdog... When I'm out in the yard I don't feel lonely, 'cause Shep's there..." Second verse: as before, except this time, I'm in the barn.
[5] Sadly, I have as yet failed to produce anything I would dare classify as 'poetry'. I find myself a veritable fount of *hilarious* 'light verse', though:
[6] Personally, I find Romans 8:26 helpful in thinking about why it might be fruitful for God to enable us to communicate with Him in ways which seem to by-pass our understanding: "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
I recently read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- Joyce's prequel to Ulysses, charting the childhood and coming-of-age of Stephen Dedalus as he awakens to religious uncertainty, political dissatisfaction and literary aspiration. The character of Stephen is widely acknowledged to be a bit of a fictional alter-ego to Joyce himself, so it's sorta semi-autobiographical. There's a big 'religious anxiety' theme going on with it, which I was thinking about thinking about writing about, as it kinda connects with some of the less fun places my head's taken me in the past. Maybe I'll get round to that eventually. An easier theme for now, and one with which I also found myself drawing personal parallels (thus inadvertently circuitously likening myself to Joyce, ahem), was Stephen's tendency to experience and respond to life largely through written word...
The very opening lines of the novel are from a children's story read to him by his father, which he instinctively 'writes himself into':
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.
This readiness to integrate himself into what he reads and to appropriate other people's words for his own experiences crops up frequently -- for example, when he absorbs himself in The Count of Monte Cristo and falls pre-emptively, imaginatively in love with his own, hypothetical Mercedes ("Outside Blackrock, on the road that led to the mountains, stood a small whitewashed house in the garden of which grew many rosebushes: and in this house, he told himself, another Mercedes lived"). Or when sombre reflections in early adulthood call to mind lines from Shelley's 'The Moon':
His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soul capable of simple joys and he was drifting amid life like the barren shell of the moon.
He also, from a young age, cherishes a fascination with words ("The word was beautiful: wine. It made you think of dark purple because the grapes were dark purple that grew in Greece outside houses like white temples") and a habit of seeing poetry in all sorts of unintended places [1]:Art thou pale for wearinessHe repeated to himself the lines of Shelley's fragment.
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless...?
It was nice and warm to see the lights in the castle. It was like something in a book. Perhaps Leicester Abbey was like that. And there were nice sentences in Doctor Cornwell's Spelling Book. They were like poetry but they were only sentences to learn the spelling from.And then, there are his instinctual attempts to capture poignant moments in words of his own: when his early-adolescent heart aches after first meeting Emma, with whom he shares a shyly flirtatious tram journey, he sits down "for many hours" with "a new pen, a new bottle of ink and a new emerald exercise"... Distracted and demoralised, he almost gives up, but...
Wolsey died in Leicester Abbey
Where the abbots buried him.
Canker is a disease of plants,
Cancer one of animals.
...by dint of brooding on the incident, he thought himself into confidence. During this process all those elements which he deemed common and insignificant fell out of the scene. There remained no trace of the tram itself nor of the tram-men nor of the horses: nor did he and she appear vividly. The verses told only of the night and the balmy breeze and the maiden lustre of the moon. Some undefined sorrow was hidden in the hearts of the protagonists as they stood in silence beneath the leafless trees and when the moment of farewell had come the kiss, which had been withheld by one, was given by both. After this the letters L. D. S. were written at the foot of the page, and, having hidden the book, he went into his mother's bedroom and gazed at his face for a long time in the mirror of her dressing-table.Ten years later, and still yearning after Emma -- with the same frustrated shyness as well as a certain angry, irrational resentment inter-woven with his 'love' for her -- he once more finds himself versifying his complex emotions. The account of him spontaneously composing a villanelle one morning in his waking moments prompted a wry smile as it had him wearily fumbling within arms' reach of his bed for paper and pencil, finally settling to scribble on a cigarette packet. (Many's the time I've resorted to similar -- except, sadly, such hypnopompic inspiration as I've urgently committed to napkins and the backs of envelopes has been somewhat lesser in preservation-worthiness. It also reminded me of Mitch Hedberg: "See, I write jokes for a living, man. I sit in my hotel at night and think of something that's funny and then I go get a pen and write 'em down. Or, if the pen's too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of, ain't funny.")
Anyways...laughable though it is to thus compare myself (indirectly) to Joyce, it was all too easy to 'find myself' in the character of Stephen. I've nurtured many a literary pretension over the years. Perhaps the earliest manifestation I can pinpoint was my custom of adapting well-known nursery rhymes to my own 'superior' criteria -- underwhelmed, as I apparently was, by the substandard lyrical substance of the popularised versions [2]. I soon progressed to original works: philosophical ditties about scientifically implausible prismatic phenomena [3], and the soothing impact of canine companionship on the pangs of undesired solitude [4]. Later, sensing perhaps (in a rare moment of humble self-awareness) my musical shortcomings, I shifted focus towards poetry and works of fiction. I kept a special notebook for such poems as I deemed 'publication-ready' -- it had a picture of a puffin on the front and I remember showing it with great solemnity to a choice selection of bewildered trusted companions. As for the fiction -- I flatly refused to write mere 'stories' along with the rest of the class -- no, I pretty much always had a novel on the go.
In hindsight, I pity the teachers tasked with toting my interminable tomes home to be marked at the end of the school day. I blush, moreover, to recall the afflictions I unwittingly inflicted on the kids I shared a table with, from whom the very sound of my frenzied prolificacy became tortuous enough to draw sincere complaint: you may not be aware of it (indeed, I hope you have been spared the experience) but the innocent pencil is a surprisingly noisy implement in the hands of a determined and inconsiderate 8-year-old litterateuse with ideas and ambition enough to fill a whole stock-cupboard-full of empty exercise books. My teacher at the time responded to the crisis by transitioning me to one of those iconic Berol 'handwriting' affairs, red on the outside with a black or blue bottom depending on the colour of the ink. It was gratifying to be the first among my peers to pen in pen -- but, had they succeeded in so tormenting one another with strepitous scribbling, no doubt they could have joined me in this position of privilege.
For a few years in the middle, I think I forgot about writing more or less. (I forgot about many things, in those years, including forgetting, so I can't say for sure). And then...well. Here I am, 'blogging' away. And when I'm not here, chances are I'm in my favourite cafe/bar torturing words on paper in the name of poetry [5]. Once more do I have my own special notebook. No puffins, this time, just the niceday dog. I dig it out from the depths of my bag every time I feel a 'thought' coming on -- which is frequently, and often inconveniently. One time I dug and dug and it didn't seem to be there and I believed for a full two hours that I must have left it in the pub... The horror! If my childhood associates had been bewildered by my early work, how much more some poor innocent member of the public-house-attending-public on accidentally discovering my rather more recent (and less excusable, for my maturity) endeavours.
A couple of months back I decided to make it official, and announced to Mr. W and those closest to me that I had become a writer. Not a good writer, nor a paid writer, nor a read writer. Just, a person who henceforth referred to herself as a writer. The designation is purely semantic. But hey, I happen to like semantics.
For a writer, though, I'm a pretty appalling communicator. I say things I shouldn't say, neglect to say things I should say, and nigh-on everything I say I say in such a way that generally nobody really has any sort of clue what I am trying to say. Maybe my ambiguous delivery mitigates the oft-times folly of my message -- how many times might I have been misunderstood in such a way as to be understood to have said the thing I should have meant but didn't? Small comfort, when I consider that such a phenomena would presumably work both ways...
If Google translate were adapted to speak whatever language it is I seem to have made up for myself, then paste in any email of mine and 95 percent of the time you'd get pretty much the same thing [left]. The intended essence of my blog posts might be distilled in like manner [right]...
 |  |
Paul's poetically powerful "wedding favourite" passage in 1 Corinthians 13 touches (amongst so many other aspects of godly life and human interaction) on the relationship between love and communication:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:1-7)By 'the tongues of men and of angels', he of course encompasses much which is far, far bigger than frivolous wordplay. [In the following chapter, in fact, he goes on to talk about the 'gift of tongues' -- the God-given ability to speak in (earthly and/or heavenly) languages unlearnt by the speaker. Now, Christians today differ in how they understand the relevance of this particular work of God in today's church, and it is not my immediate intention to involve myself in that discussion [6]. But it is interesting to note the emphasis that Paul puts on the benefit of being coherent to others in our mutual communication, in order that we may bless and instruct one another. ("If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said?" 1 Corinthians 14:7-9).]
So much the more, then, do I need to learn to put others before myself in my use of everyday human language, and to remember that it doesn't matter what I think I've said or how well (or 'interestingly') I think I've said it if it is received as meaningless nonsense, or as unloving, or destructive, or counter-productive... I shudder to consider the extent to which 'creative devices' reduce me to a noisy gong, a clanging symbol. That they keep me so endlessly entertained only makes them all the more 'self-seeking', as the NIV version of 1 Corinthians 13 phrases it.
Time to stop 'being a writer', I think. It is not a label which serves me well -- neither in describing my abilities nor in providing me with an identity -- nor in spurring me on to "love and good deeds" (cf. Hebrews 10:19-25). Lots of Christians talk about 'finding one's identity in Christ' -- a phrase which doesn't appear in the Bible directly (at least, not that I can make out...correct me if I'm wrong) but is well supported --
- Galatians 2:20: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
- Colossians 3:3-4: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."
- 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
-- for a few of many examples. If I need a label to remind myself what I am, I can't think of a more appropriate or desirable one than 'in Christ'.
Don't get me wrong -- I am not planning on giving up torturing words. Everybody needs a hobby, and I'm pretty sure they don't feel a thing. But the same can't be said about the people in my life, and going by the glimpses God has given me of His love for them, and the power of His love in me helping me to love them too, I suspect He would have me seek out the best, and the wisest, and the most loving of words when it comes to interacting with them, and to remember to express those words in a way that makes sense once in a while. I also suspect that there are moments when I would do well to put words aside and recognise the 'better thing' I could be doing to engage with the needs of those around me. Believe it or not I'd rather be a blessing than a nuisance. That said, it's one thing to write an indulgently self-illustrative post about the problem; another, it would seem, to do something about it (e.g. I said a similar thing but shorter in a footnote to an earlier post, with little impact on my subsequent behaviour). Sad truth is I still find it kinda fun and funny even while I'm lambasting myself for it. But, for all that, I really am sincere in wanting my life (and any part in that which writing may or may not play) to honour God and bless others: I think/hope/pray that as I take my eyes off myself (my self-indulgence and my self-reproach) and fix them on "Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (cf. Hebrews 12), then godly living, and fitting words, might increasingly follow -- "a word in season, how good it is!" (Proverbs 15:23)
[1] Here is a fun/interesting blog which I just remembered existed: foundpoetry.wordpress.com
[2] In fact (what are the chances?), we recently unearthed a family video of my sister and I triumphantly and repetitiously singing "Moocow moocow..." -- our (Joycean inspired?) subversion of "Baa baa black sheep"...
[3] Ahem. "There's a rainbow in the skyyyyy toniiiiight.... And the sun has shone it's laaast true liiiight..."
[4] For my second number... "Shep, Shep, the sheepdog... Shep, Shep, the sheepdog... When I'm out in the yard I don't feel lonely, 'cause Shep's there..." Second verse: as before, except this time, I'm in the barn.
[5] Sadly, I have as yet failed to produce anything I would dare classify as 'poetry'. I find myself a veritable fount of *hilarious* 'light verse', though:
The reluctance of Brits to eat horsesOh dear, it really is quite tragic how self-congratulatory I still feel several weeks after fashioning that particular masterpiece. It's just, it may well be the best thing I ever write -- I have to make the most of it.
Is a product of anthropomorphosis:
Finding My Little Pony
Inside one's calzone
Has been known to impair peristalsis.
[6] Personally, I find Romans 8:26 helpful in thinking about why it might be fruitful for God to enable us to communicate with Him in ways which seem to by-pass our understanding: "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
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