Finding footnotes in this gray world of ours

I love reading the books in Dad's library. He highlights and leaves footnotes from his past readings, and sometimes I leave imprints of my own on its text. I opened up to The Great Divorce's preface, and it took only one page for things to be very, very relevant. It started with Philosophy Club and ended with an inked-in diagram.


For about five Fridays of this past semester, I attended what is called the Philosophy and Free Thought Club at my high school. It's a student-led group managed mainly by three senior guys and is mostly attended by the magnet students, which really can go without saying. I was interested for two main reasons used by my friends in convincing me to go:

1. It's a really cool club with good discussion and questions not a lot of people are willing to ask.
2. There's free tea and coffee.

They got me in with a debate on the afterlife and why humans believe in a life after death. I always drank both offered beverages, even when there was no sugar or milk.

It was a great club--I was able to get a word in every now and then and listen to a lot of intelligent people say their bits as well. The problem is that, whenever people would inevitably disagree with the discussion leader, he would argue the same point back to them as if opinion justified everything and made him right. One day he grilled me for my "black and white" way of thinking. I tried to explain my logic that if there was no absolute black or white, how could anything be definite? Without opposing ends of a spectrum there can be no gray in the first place.

This also came up in a personal conversation with a friend. She asked me suddenly, "What color is the world?"

I, being the literal thinker I am, replied, "Well, the world is blue and green and brown and white an--"

"Gray."

"Gray?"

"There is no good or evil, only gray."

This took me by surprise. She had her own faith. Different from mine, but still. Don't most religions abide to the idea that there is good and evil in the world? For if there wasn't, how could there be a right or wrong way to go? How could there be anything but the sameness of character and behavior? 

"Yes," I agreed, "the world is gray. It looks that way from a distance. But I think that it's like a printed magazine, where if you look close enough, you can see the individual spots of black and white that all come together to form this gray."

It may not have been said that calmly and eloquently, but let's pretend, shall we?

And tonight, after snatching another Lewis book from my father's massive library, I read into it and find this quote:

"[when speaking of Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell] The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or'; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and nearer and meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a river but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good." C. S. "Jack" Lewis, The Great Divorce.

Next to the road analogy Dad had drawn a set of lines all converging in the center. (Or is it centre?) Below it in quotes was a common phrase people who support all religions use, "all roads lead to God." What I never realized was that, to a certain extent, I may be making that assumption as well.

Christianity is the only religion I have ever known. I even go to the same sect. Church of Christ, whole life long, even in my dear mother's womb. I know what I believe and intend to grow within that belief in this time of waiting for the next chapter of my life. But I cannot assume that everyone else feels so deeply grounded when they go to their place of worship. All of my peers are different--I have one guy over here who will profess his non-belief in any god, but loves reading Lewis. I have another one who wants everything to be secular despite having a belief system, or at least a sense of one. I have the girl who will insist that nobody curse in her presence because of her faith--I admire her a lot. And then there is me. Nobody is surprised when they learn I'm Christian, at least. But the few times where I work up the ability to talk about my religion it's shot down rather quickly and openly criticized, and all I can do is say, "Well..." Maybe I lack courage, or maybe it's the situations I put myself into, but in comparison to many people I know, I think I feel fairly secure and sure of myself. And coming from me, a young teenage girl living in an era where the average psychiatric patient in the 1950's had less stress than I have now, that's saying something.

I cannot say for certain what will happen in the coming years. Not for my family, my friends, least of all me. But what I do know is that I have people I can count on in the crow's nest. I have the capability to be in the crow's nest for other people too, on certain things. And I know that I have deep passions about the world and the increasingly different branches of it, and that words are both my healer and my sword. I can turn to words I trust to heal and seek guidance, and use them to forge words of my own. A scythe to reap even more, a saber to cut through the dense undergrowth and reach sunlight, a rapier if necessary, or to heal the other lost ones.

On a different note, I also know that I really appreciate Jack's use of the semicolon.

I want to be good

First, read this post (and leave the song playing in another tab if you so wish).

Done reading?

I want to be a good musician. That's about all I can be with my level of skill. I don't want to be unaccessible or better than everyone else. I'm in actuality not that talented. I'm just playing because it's fun, I enjoy it, and I like paying homage to artists I enjoy by covering their songs. What people don't seem to understand when they see my art or read my stuff or hear me play is that I could go to college for art and still hear the same thing--"I'll never be as good as you." Sure you will! I strongly believe that anything can be taught or picked up if one so desires. But this comparing to someone else you know is silly. The most accomplished artist in the world and the six-year-old with a crayon both create for the same reason. They are compelled to express a viewpoint or an idea bumping around in the confines of their brain and have the means to do so. There really is nothing else to it. It's only when comparisons and feelings of inadequacy enter the picture that things get complicated.

Artists learn to get very good at selective hearing. If the criticism they receive is from someone who views art as "performance-based instruction" to put it in the terms of a poster that depressed me in an elementary school art room, or someone who really doesn't know better and just likes to point out things they find unpleasing to the eye, it goes in and out. That painting/drawing/sculpture/story/song wasn't meant to be pleasing to people. It was meant to express joy or frustration or greif or this burning, aching desire to stand up on a soapbox for a moment and say something of value to the artist. Art is an appeal to the soul.

So I don't need to be skilled. I don't need to blow people away with my words. The truth, even if spoken thousands of times in thousands of simple and complicated ways, will always be well-received. And if I do wind up blowing somebody away, all I hope is that they heard me, and for a moment, they saw me for who I was and were not afraid.
 

Conversation of the day

A dear friend: [When speaking about a challenge from another friend] Indeed, but it is unbefitting of a man to challenge a woman in sexist Victorian and Edwardian societies, as well as laws of etiquette!

Me: Well, my beloved friend, you are under a false assumption if you believe me to be a conventional woman.

List of things to remember

1. Stop trying to copy other artists'/authors'/musicians' styles and start creating your own, borrowing concepts and ideas from a little bit of everywhere. You have the potential to appear somewhat unique thanks to your wide pool of interests; take advantage of that!
2. That Spanish II assignment is due next week on Monday.
3. You don't have to experience everything you hear about. It's ok if you don't find the time to immerse yourself in yet another show or book or something. Cut yourself some slack.
4. Cut yourself some slack.
5. You have some Government vocabulary to study.
6. Cut yourself some slack (but not too much).
7. You think a lot. That's ok. But it's not ok to think yourself into headaches and states of immobile depression. So don't.
8. Your life is a project, yes. But it's not due tomorrow. It's due when you die. So take it slow if need be.
9. You have a four day weekend next week, so be sure to read Crazy Love like you've been wanting to.
10. You have excellent friends who appreciate you and your strange mannerisms. They try to make you blush, they poke fun at you for using big words and all that, but that's because they love you and feel comfortable enough with you to say those things. So reciprocate.
11. Think out loud, but only when you have a sympathetic audience. It's easier to avoid confusion that way.
12. You need to get enough sleep. It's important for both your physical and mental health.
13. Make plans for the future, but expect them to change.
14. If you want to do something unusual or different, go ahead. People won't actually care that much if you decide to wear or act different for a day.
15. And finally, you are a beautiful mess.

Attempt at freeform poetry número uno

She has become infatuated
with late mornings
and sunlight across faces
and the mysterious idea of not sleeping alone
the ghostly arm about her waist
the moments in which people are most human
(yawns
sighs
stretches
grunts
the five seconds of honest light)
the way hands look
curled around guitars
and other hands

and him--

the prayer that he will see her
the hoping that he will not and
the longing ache with no name.

Delicate subjects

One of the gifts that I did not mention in my Christmas post was the gift of Netflix. I was most happy with this gift, not only for legal access to animes and my so-called "nerd shows," but to a number of other movies, especially documentaries. I love documentaries and all they embody, going out and talking to people and investing time in creating a beautiful or bizarre, but always eye-opening thing drawing from the real world. I just finished marathoning through two documentaries, drinking in about four hours of talk on a subject that I feel can't be discussed in my house--homosexuality.

Allow me to describe by situation. I have always grown up firmly planted in the Church of Christ. Though I haven't always been the preacher's daughter, I have always been a minister's daughter and raised by devout parents and grandparents, who raised my aunts and uncles the same way, who raised my cousins the same way. Granted, there are a lot of us, and not everybody stuck to the "straight and narrow," as it were, but every family member most immediate to me in my life has been on that path. We are a very happy, well-mannered bunch. I would never question the amount of love or understanding in my family on either side. But some things just aren't good to talk about. So we don't.

But now, I am reaching the pivotal point in my childhood where things begin to shift. My environment is different at school; my peers feel differently about some things than their parents do. We are becoming people, and it's exciting and terrifying and infinitely vital. And we are faced with burning questions about opinions, just as all people are. We must be decided about everything; there is no lukewarm among the young just as there is no lukewarm on the Day of Judgement. And one of the most sensitive topics among teenagers today as well as in my family unit is homosexuality. On the other hand, people love to talk about it in school and such. The problem is they don't always know what they're saying. You've got the talkers who fancy themselves Defenders of Social Justice and of Freedom Among People, the ones who will spew every breed of nasty about every gay human to walk the earth, the ones who lamely echo whatever it is their parents/friends/teachers/role models have said, and then you have me. The one who keeps quiet when she can. The one who says, "I don't know how I feel about this yet." The lukewarm.

When did being undecided become a sin worse than the debatable sin which we are so divided on?

Maybe part of my silence is my fear. A few of my friends and the people that I enjoy talking to harbor a bitter grudge towards the church and the people attending. And when they describe the biggest proponents of Christianity in their homes, I don't blame them. The fervor I hear from their testimonies is more fueled by hate than love. But I also don't want to become one of them. I don't want to be responsible for the actions and verbal venom of the bigoted. And it's paranoid to think that way, but heck, I'm fourteen. I'm paranoid by nature, and I may never outgrow it, though I certainly hope to.

But part of my silence is also lack of knowledge. I'm being pelted with a lot of messages without any factual anchors, and still others with factual anchors that are flipped for two differing theories. I've got my friend over here who doesn't even eat at Chik-Fil-A anymore because of that whole mess this past summer, and my friend over there who gets immensely uncomfortable at the very word 'gay.' Division among my family isn't so obvious. Like I said, we just don't talk about it. But I'd assume that my father certainly doesn't approve, displayed by his grumbling and turning the station when the topic arises. My sister doesn't approve, given her desperate efforts to change the subject when I do try to talk about it with my mom, who I think would explain it to me in a less biased way. And I wouldn't even attempt such discussions with my extended family.  So I must extract my information from documentaries.

The two that I watched, One Nation Under God and For the Bible Tells Me So, did a good job of showing all sides of this argument, the extremists and the ones caught between. The religious men and women, the ones with degrees in Bible and psychology, talked a lot about reading with the historical context in mind and knowing that there was no Greek, Latin, or Arabic word for homosexual. It wasn't thought of.
The translation that we know as 'abomination' was a way of saying unconventional, according to them. They also explained the demand for guests at the door in Sodom and Gomorrah as inhospitable conduct, not homosexual conduct. God had much more to destroy the city for than just the residents with different sexual behaviors. And one interesting point they brought up in both movies was the possible motivation to fear gay men was the fear that men have of being "lowered." Being called girly is equated to weakness and inability. And this insult still works! Even women throw it around! But news flash. There is no "girl" role in these relationships. Neither member wears the pants. And because the lack of roles blows our traditional minds, fear is planted. But it is a far braver thing to love.

We are specifically called to do it, love. Not just out spouses, our families, our communities. We need to love the enemies we've created for ourselves, and we need to love the ones we've never known or met yet. I can't tell you what God has to say about this. I can't go out and organize some sort of demonstration of the lukewarm, a public outcry that we honestly don't know what to think about this mess. But I can swear to you that no matter who you are or what you have done, your Creator loves you as a son or daughter. And I will try to give you the respect and admiration that you deserve for being loved.

Good things come to those who read

...especially on Christmas.
I was given not one, but three bookish shirts. Here's the one I'm wearing now:

And as you can see, it is too perfect. I mean, have you seen my posts? My brain has been addled since birth.
And another:

And ANOTHER:

And along with these and a plethora of other perfect gifts, I feel pretty special.
Not that I didn't already, of course. But the gifts give me a more...materialistic sense of specialness. And what is Christmas without materialism? It's just some religious holiday that is harder to celebrate and appreciate. But don't get me wrong, I would love to be at home, at church, by candlelight, hearing that same old story. Now that I know Mary's approximate age, it's even more chilling to me. I'd better put on my new Ravenclaw house scarf to keep warm. Or maybe I'll wear my Union Jack scarf. Of course, I could always cozy up with a cup of coffee made with my French press...