Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Sunrise/Sunset
As we are about to enter February, the days are getting noticeably longer. Sunrise this morning was at 7:09 am and today’s sunset finally will be at 5:00 pm. On the winter solstice, sunrise wasn’t until 7:22 am and sunset was 4:15 pm. We still won’t actually see the sun today. It will be another cold, cloudy day. It’s 21 degrees right now, and if all goes as forecasted, we’ll reach above freezing at 34 degrees. We are not expecting to see any sun again until Saturday, but our low also gets down to 13 degrees. And so goes winter in Vermont.
I plan to be at work early today because I’m teaching an 8 am class, and I want to get there early to consult with the professor and also not to feel rushed getting ready for class. The rest of the day should be fairly smooth until my dental appointment this afternoon. No offense to any dentist or dental hygienist (I’m having my teeth cleaned today) out there, but I hate going to the dentist. While seeing the dentist for dental work is never pleasant, I like my dentist, and it’s always a pleasure to chat with him before the torture begins. I am not as enthusiastic about seeing the hygienist. She’s nice (I can’t say that about all the hygienists I’ve known in the past), but like most hygienist I have known, she talks incessantly about my teeth and loves to tell me all the things she thinks I'm doing wrong, even though I’m actually already doing what she suggests. C'est la vie.
At least the days are getting longer.
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Love’s Growth
Love’s Growth
By John Donne
I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more.
But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,
And of the sun his working vigor borrow,
Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their muse,
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is grown;
As, in the firmament,
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
From love’s awakened root do bud out now.
If, as water stirred more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee;
And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in time of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.
About this Poem
“Love’s Growth” was originally published in Poems (John Marriott, 1633), the first comprehensive publication of John Donne’s poetry. In the poem, Donne examines the true nature of love and finds that it is mixed stuff, a mixture of both physical and spiritual elements. True love is both of the body and the mind, and to prove his point Donne gives a number of arguments and brings together a number of most disparate and varied elements. In “The Muse in Donne and Jonson: A Post-Lacanian Study,” published in Modern Language Studies, vol. 21, no. 4 (Fall 1991), Mark Fortier, a professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph, Canada, writes (commenting on the last four lines of the second stanza), “The relation of poet and Muse is contrasted, derisively, to the relation between real lovers, which is Donne’s true subject. Where real love is complex and organic, love of the Muse is unreal, devoid of complexity, devoid of life. Love of the Muse is inactive: those who love, do; those who can’t, call on the Muse. Paradoxically the poetic ego identifies itself, at least here, with those who can. There is an estrangement from the Muse, an inability to sympathize with those who value her. To a large extent this will be the primary relationship between the poet and the Muse throughout Donne’s work: the poet never feels close to, never values his own Muse, although sometimes he can respect the Muse of others.”
Donne says that love is not a personification nor is love made of pure and simple elements that have sustaining and life-giving properties. Rather, it is a mixture of different elements, both spiritual and physical. The abstract nature of love is why it affects both the body and the soul. It causes both spiritual and physical suffering. It does cure not because it is the quintessence, but on the homeopathic principle, of “like curing the like.” It cures all sorrow only by giving more of it. Love is neither infinite nor “pure stuff,” but has a mixed nature like grass which grows with spring. Though like the grass in this respect, love is different from it in another way. While the grass loses its life and vitality with the winter, there is no such loss in the power of love. In this respect, it may be likened to taxes levied in an emergency, but never withdrawn even when the emergency is over.
About the Poet
John Donne was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets, a term created by Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher. The loosely associated group also includes George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and John Cleveland. The Metaphysical Poets are known for their ability to startle the reader and coax new perspective through paradoxical images, subtle argument, inventive syntax, and imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an extended metaphor known as a conceit. Donne reached beyond the rational and hierarchical structures of the seventeenth century with his exacting and ingenious conceits, advancing the exploratory spirit of his time.
Donne entered the world during a period of theological and political unrest for both England and France; a Protestant massacre occurred on Saint Bartholomew’s day in France; while in England, the Catholics were the persecuted minority. Born into a Roman Catholic family, Donne’s personal relationship with religion was tumultuous and passionate, and at the center of much of his poetry. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in his early teen years. He did not take a degree at either school, because to do so would have meant subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles, the doctrine that defined Anglicanism. At age twenty he studied law at Lincoln’s Inn. Two years later he succumbed to religious pressure and joined the Anglican Church after his younger brother, convicted for his Catholic loyalties, died in prison. Donne wrote most of his love lyrics, erotic verse, and some sacred poems in the 1590s, creating two major volumes of work: Satires and Songs and Sonnets.
In 1598, after returning from a two-year naval expedition against Spain, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. While sitting in Queen Elizabeth’s last Parliament in 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, the sixteen-year-old niece of Lady Egerton. Donne’s father-in-law disapproved of the marriage. As punishment, he did not provide a dowry for the couple and had Donne briefly imprisoned.
This left the couple isolated and dependent on friends, relatives, and patrons. Donne suffered social and financial instability in the years following his marriage, exacerbated by the birth of many children. He continued to write and published the Divine Poems in 1607. In Pseudo-Martyr, published in 1610, Donne displayed his extensive knowledge of the laws of the Church and state, arguing that Roman Catholics could support James I without compromising their faith. In 1615, James I pressured him to enter the Anglican Ministry by declaring that Donne could not be employed outside of the Church. He was appointed Royal Chaplain later that year. His wife died in 1617 at thirty-three years old shortly after giving birth to their twelfth child, who was stillborn. The Holy Sonnets are also attributed to this phase of his life.
In 1621, he became dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral. In his later years, Donne's writing reflected his fear of his inevitable death. He wrote his private prayers, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, during a period of severe illness and published them in 1624. His learned, charismatic, and inventive preaching made him a highly influential presence in London. Best known for his vivacious, compelling style and thorough examination of mortal paradox, John Donne died in London on March 31, 1631.
Monday, January 29, 2024
And So It Begins…
Well, it’s Monday, and the work week begins again. Like so many Mondays this year, I woke up to new fallen snow. We seem to be getting some accumulation of snow almost every Sunday. This morning, it was not and inch or two.
There are things I’m looking forward to this week and some that I’m not. I’m looking forward to the two classes I’ll be teaching this week. Today’s will be basically setting up a new exhibit with the number of objects I’ll be bringing out for the students. It will also be quick: an hour to set up, an hour to teach the objects, and an hour to take it all down. The other class will be just one big object, but it will also be fun,
What I’m dreading is going to the dentist. I like my dentist personally, I just hate going to his office. Wednesday afternoon I have a cleaning. At least it won’t be any dental work, but I dread it nonetheless.
I have meetings on Tuesday and Thursday, and if all goes as it should, I’ll be working from home on Friday, as usual.
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Keep Asking, Seeking, Knocking
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
—Matthew 7:7-8
Have you ever had a time in your life when money was tight, and you wondered how you were going to make it to your next payday if you even had one on the horizon? Or maybe you or someone you loved had a health scare? At times in our lives, we all ask God for help. Matthew 7:7-8 should give all of us hope. But to be honest, while God has a plan for each of us, sometimes we don’t get what we want. I was always taught that when you ask for things in prayer, sometimes God’s answer is no. I think it’s more about asking for spiritual wealth or spiritual health, although spirituality won’t feed you when you’re hungry. Matthew 7:9-11 says, “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Then, Matthew 7:12 says the most important part of this passage, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
In economics, there is a concept of "There is no such thing as a free lunch,” sometimes known by its acronym of TINSTAAFL. When I taught social studies at a high school, I had to teach economics. I hated it and barely understood it myself, but this was one of the concepts I understood. We get what we put into something, and even when something is free, it comes at a cost, but with God, “everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds.” We also have to remember to treat other people as we want to be treated. Too often, politicians, especially conservatives, don’t think like this. They want to be treated in a way that is opposite of what they do. Christians are sometimes also this way. They have a big fancy church or an over-paid minister, but if you look at how they treat others, they are doing the opposite of God’s work. They are not providing faith, love, charity, and hope, except for maybe people like them, but not those “others” that don’t fit into their idea of a Christian. The Golden Rule is really about equality. We must treat all people as equals, and you can only achieve this if you treat them as you want to be treated (unless you’re a masochist, then maybe not treat others as you want to be treated).
I am sure that most of those reading this blog worry about finances, because let’s face it, unless you’re a multi-millionaire or billionaire, you worry about financial stability. If you don’t worry about finances, then you probably worry about your health. We all have things we worry about, but God does have an answer for us. Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” In Philippians, Paul reinforces the teachings of Christ, especially those laid out in the Sermon on the Mount and Sermon on the Plain, which are the core of Christ’s teachings. Matthew 7:7-12, which is part of the Sermon on the Mount, he tells us to ask God for help when we need it, and we will receive help.
If we continue the passage above from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, Philippians 4:8-9 says, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.” We can have peace of mind if we follow Christ’s teachings and treat others as we want to be treated.
We have to treat all people the same We can’t help one person and refuse another because we deem them unworthy. All are worthy of equality. Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” James 1:22-25 tells us to be doers, not hearers. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” So, let us take James’s advice and look into to the mirror. What do you see? Is it the person you want to be, and the person you should be? Are you a doer? Do you live a life that is an example to others? If not, then we need to reevaluate the way we live and not be someone who “forgets what kind” of person we are. We need to uphold the “law of liberty and continues in it.” Because if we do, we can make the world a better place.
I have no doubt that we all have our prejudices. Even within the LGBTQ+ community, prejudices make themselves known. Do you give someone a chance if you don’t find them attractive enough? Do you dismiss a potential partner because they are of a different race? Do you scoff at someone who is less fashionable? Or someone who is older? Or that someone is bisexual? Or overly flamboyant? Every letter of LGBTQ+ has others in the LGBTQ+ community who have prejudices against them. We have too many prejudices, and we must rid ourselves of them. The LGBTQ+ community can be a force of good. We’ve been making the world a better place for millennia. If only because of the art created by LGBTQ+ individuals, we have long contributed to making the world a better place, while we have often been persecuted. We cannot give up on trying to improve humanity and advocate equality. Let us do better as human beings. Let us be the better person and live a loving life that is an inspiration to others.
Saturday, January 27, 2024
Friday, January 26, 2024
Bloody Hell 💉
Today should be a mostly easy day. I’m going into work a little later because I have to go by my doctor’s office to get some blood drawn. My doctor likes to do my blood tests a week before my annual physical so he has the results at my appointment, and we can discuss them. Having my blood drawn is not something I look forward to (who does?), but I especially dread it because most nurses almost always have trouble finding a vein. I always make sure I drink plenty of water the day before and the day of so I’ll be well hydrated. I’m told that makes the blood vessels easier to find. Still, I sometimes get stuck several times or when they put the needle in my arm, they move it around to get the vein they missed when the needle first went in. They always apologize, and I tell them: it’s ok, it seems to always happen, and if I can handle 31 Botox shots for my migraines, I can handle this.
A few years ago when it was suggested that gay men get the monkeypox vaccine, I went to Planned Parenthood, the only place where they were available, and the nurse was shocked that I didn’t even flinch when she gave me the vaccine, and I told her about the Botox. She said, “Well, that would explain it. Most people find this shot pretty painful because it had to go right under the skin and the patient has to be as still as possible to correctly inject the vaccine.” Anyway, I had no problem with it, but it did leave a scar, which was pretty normal for that vaccine. When I went for the second one, they used the other method of injecting it in the back of my arm, and there as no scar that time.
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Nothing 🤷🏻
I was trying to think of something to write this morning, but honestly, I’ve got nothing. While Isabella woke me up early this morning (beginning at 3 am but with limited success until 4:45 am), my body is awake, but I’m not so sure my brain is awake yet this morning.
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Nostalgia?
Is it nostalgia for a time when America was "great" or a return to a time when hate was the driving force in American politics? I’m talking about the Republican Party, or at least those who blindly follow the Cult of Trump. These cultist, and let’s face it, it is a cult, at least a cult of personality, want to turn back the clock, not just to elect Trump to the presidency again, but to spread their belief in hate against immigrants, the LGBTQ+, women, etc. They keep saying that they want to go back to a “more innocent time” and “Make America Great Again,” i.e. MAGA. The problem, there never was a “Great.” What they mean is to go back to oppression, back to a segregated America, back to a time when only white, “Christian” (Protestant, not Catholic) men were in charge of oppressing those they deem unworthy of freedom and prosperity. Instead of being horrified by Trump using the same words as Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, they celebrate it. Maybe they would not go as far as genocide, but they do want to force their cruelty on others. There were many Germans who claimed not to know what the Nazis were doing or had no knowledge of the Holocaust. The only way this claim could have ever been true is through willful ignorance. They did not want to know, so they ignored all the signs.
Leni Riefenstahl, a German director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, and actress known for producing Nazi propaganda, is a prime example. She followed Nazi ideology and was one of its most effective promoters of its ideology with her propaganda films Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938). After the war, Riefenstahl was arrested and found to be a Nazi "fellow traveler," but she was not charged with war crimes. Throughout her later life, she denied having known about the Holocaust, and was criticized as the "voice of the 'how could we have known?' defense." Shortly before she died in 2003, Riefenstahl voiced her final words on the subject of her connection to Hitler in a BBC interview: "I was one of millions who thought Hitler had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn't know bad things were to come."
Like the Trumpists of today, Riefenstahl hid her head in the sand because as long as Hitler was effective in his oppression, she believed his lies, or at least wanted to believe. The same is true of the MAGAts who follow Trump. He continues to spread lies that he won the 2020 election, when he did not even come close to winning. He had claimed he had a huge victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016, when in 2020 he lost to Joe Biden by the same number of electoral votes as Clinton was defeated by. Any rational person knows, Trump did not come close to winning, yet they stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to follow Trump’s pleas for an insurrection because of “widespread voter fraud.” The only cases of voting fraud that have been discovered were actually committed by Republican voters.
Their willful ignorance is making Trump the leading Republican presidential candidate. There are dissenters in the Republican Party, or Nikki Haley would not have done as well as she did in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary, but the majority are blindly following Trump’s lies and hateful speech. If (God forbid) Trump is elected again, how many will one day echo the words of Riefenstahl and say, "I was one of millions who thought Trump had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn't know bad things were to come”? It will never excuse their campaign of hate and bigotry in their false claims of “making American great again.”
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Furry Bear
Furry Bear
By A. A. Milne
If I were a bear,
And a big bear too,
I shouldn’t much care
If it froze or snew;
I shouldn’t much mind
If it snowed or friz—
I’d be all fur-lined
With a coat like his!
For I’d have fur boots and a brown fur wrap,
And brown fur knickers and a big fur cap.
I’d have a fur muffle-ruff to cover my jaws,
And brown fur mittens on my big brown paws.
With a big brown furry-down up to my head,
I’d sleep all the winter in a big fur bed.
About this Poem
“Furry Bear” appears in A. A. Milne’s collection of children’s verse Now We Are Six (E. P. Dutton & Co., 1927), illustrated by E. H. Shephard. In Three Cheers for Pooh: A Celebration of the Best Bear in All the World (Egmont, 2001), writer and radio broadcaster Brian Sibley remarks, “A. A. Milne told a friend that his son’s encounter at London Zoo with the American black bear, Winnie, had inspired him to write a couple of poems and, possibly, even a story. True or not, Now We Are Six, published in 1927, contained ‘Furry Bear,’ a verse in which the poet imagines what it would be like to be a bear.” Describing the poem’s accompanying illustration, Sibley later writes, “Thanks to E. H. Shepherd, [Winnie the Pooh] is discovered coming face to face with his famous namesake at the London Zoo in the illustrations to a remarkably Poohish ‘Hum,’ entitled ‘Furry Bear.’”
About the Poet
Alan Alexander Milne, born on January 18, 1882, in Kilburn, London, was a children’s writer, poet, playwright, and novelist. He is best known for his character Winnie-the-Pooh, whose first appearance by that name was in the children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh (Methuen, 1926). He died on January 31, 1956.
Monday, January 22, 2024
Monday Morning
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Trust in the Lord
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
— Proverbs 3:5-6
Sometimes, I feel anxious and depressed. Even though I take an antidepressant, it doesn’t work all of the time. It seems to happen at this time of year when the days are shorter, and it’s often dark when I leave for work each day and dark when I get home. It’s probably seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression related to changes in seasons and begins and ends at about the same times every year. Usually it appears for me in January. It is thought that shorter days and less daylight may trigger a chemical change in the brain leading to symptoms of depression. One theory is that if you experience SAD in the winter, this part of your brain isn't working in the same way. This could mean your body clock is out of sync with daylight, leading to tiredness and depression.
When we're dealing with depression, it can sometimes be overwhelming or intimidating to seek help. After all, not everyone who has depression has the same symptoms. Feelings of depression can be a heavy burden, and many people make the mistake of thinking it’s a burden they must carry alone. This verse serves as a reminder that Jesus is there to lift your burdens and provide relief. Whether you're experiencing sadness, a loss of interest in life, or noticing changes in your sleep, appetite, or energy levels, being honest and open about your mental health is often the first step to finding relief. And what's more: Having depression is nothing to be ashamed of. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 6.7 percent of the adult population has likely dealt with depression at some point in their lives. It's important to know you're not alone. First Peter 5:6-7 says, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” Depression and anxiety can be isolating experiences. But Jesus is there, and He cares about you. You can turn to Him for help with whatever you may be feeling.
I often look to the Bible when there are difficult times in my life. Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I did this when I was trying to figure out my sexuality because I had always been taught that God hates gay people, but Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So, I researched what the Bible says about being gay, and found that most of the so-called “clobber passages” condemning homosexuality, were really not about being gay. It was men who had a prejudice against gay people that changed the meaning of words in the Bible to suit their own beliefs, but John 16:33 says, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” I came to realize that Jesus knows I have and will in the future experience difficult times. These comforting words are a source of strength as I reflected on His love for all of us. Through faith, we can overcome the obstacles in our lives.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” When we are struggling with depression or other issues in your life, it can be difficult to understand why we’re feeling certain emotions and why bad things happen to us. Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us that the way forward is by trusting the Lord to provide guidance. Things will look up. We must remember that through all the struggles in our lives, God has always been there. Joshua 1:9 says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Even if we’re struggling with depression and other concerns in our lives, God will continue to be by our side. Remembering this can empower us, and it reminds us that we are not alone. Even though Philippians 4:13 is more complex in context than its words seem to say, it is still something to always keep in mind: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Depression can zap your energy and make it feel almost impossible to accomplish even simple tasks. But Philippians 4:13 reminds us that Christ is always there for us. Through him, we can find the will to get through even the darkest times.
Saturday, January 20, 2024
Friday, January 19, 2024
Brrrrr 🥶
As my weatherman said this morning, we are entering the freezer. It’s going to be cold. Our low temperatures for the next four days are: 3° F, -1° F, 0° F, 0° F. We won’t get out of the teens this weekend, but we will rise to 30° F on Monday. I don’t mind the cold weather as long as there isn’t much wind. However, we are expecting mild winds over the next few days that will lower what the temperatures actually feels like, so those lows will feel more like -6° F, -11° F (the high tomorrow which is 10° F but will feel like -1° F), -8° F, -6° F. I don’t mind the cold as long as I don’t have to be out in it for long. I’d rather live in a climate where the temperature are below freezing than to live in a climate with over 100° F with feel like temperatures well above that. Where I grew up in the South, it was humidity that we dreaded, not the wind. Down there, the wind provided some relief.
I’m just glad that I don’t have to go anywhere until Monday. I can stay warm and cuddle up with Isabella, who will alway find somewhere warm to be. Have a great weekend, everyone! Hopefully, you can stay warm and cozy.
Thursday, January 18, 2024
Short Day?
Yesterday felt much longer than it should have. Partly because I was art museum later than I expected, and I did not get home until well after my usual bedtime. Was just a very tiring day. However, because I have some comp time to take for the extra hours I worked last night, I plan to try and make today a short day. I have classes to teach this morning, but as long as my coworker doesn’t have any appointments this afternoon and will be at the museum, I’ll leave after my second class. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’m able to leave early today. My body needs more rest.
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Long Day
I’ll be going in late to work this morning, not because I have something else to do before work but because I’ll be at the museum tonight for an event. I would go in at noon, because I’ll be there until at least 9 pm tonight, except I have a class this morning at 10 am. The class was scheduled before I knew I’d be working so late. With that being said, I’m actually not complaining. I volunteered for this evening knowing I had the morning class. Tonight’s event is to honor a man whose funeral I was supposed to attend last Friday, but because of having Covid, I was not able to attend, so I volunteered for the event tonight. I feel that this will be my way of showing respect to the family, who did ask about me at the funeral and were worried that I had Covid. Sometimes, we have to do what we have to do, and that means today will be a 12 hour day.
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Phragmites
Phragmites
By Kyle Carrero Lopez
I’ve crashed a party with an infinity pool and several nude men:
a Fire Island home at the back of a walkway long enough to
outlast a pop song’s bridge and some chorus, flanked by
phragmites on either side, tall and same-faced, so all
but reed bulk hides out from the exterior. Myself
included, close to everyone here has a body of
one approximate build. What would it say if I
stay? Comfort’s not so comfy here, but I stay
and try to have a good time: periodic beach
guest, mainly through favors from men
whose wealth eclipses mine and most
of humankind. I know firsthand why
queers come to this place, obliterate
coherence, take, go, take, till
we’ve consumed enough
to leave.
Someone riding the stiffest
substance cocktail he can muster
GROANS he’s got to pee and can’t,
his functions stalled in the twist and now.
What he can still swing is a smile. Excess
soaks the sundecks and each redwood inch
of the mini villa with a sweet-hot stickiness.
There’s much more to take in, with nowhere to go.
About this Poem
“Cherry Grove and the Fire Island Pines—historic, adjoining gay communities on Fire Island—are beautiful, easy to reach from New York City, a blast if you’re with trusted friends, and a hotbed of race and class conflict. The ferries stop operating overnight, so you’re stuck once the last one leaves. One time, while discussing rental price-gouging in the Pines and suggesting that the safety Fire Island offers queer people should be accessible to all income levels, a gay man told me, ‘It’s Long Island, not insulin.’ I’m interested in what we willingly permit for the sake of our own enjoyment.” —Kyle Carrero Lopez
About the Poet
Kyle Carrero Lopez is the author of MUSCLE MEMORY ([PANK] Books, 2022), winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books Contest. He co-founded LEGACY, a Brooklyn-based production collective by and for Black queer artists. Lopez is a 2022 Tin House Scholar.
Monday, January 15, 2024
Back to the Grind
I am dreading today. I am returning to work in person for the first time in three weeks. I love my job, but I’ve gotten used to taking naps when I want to, and I have a feeling I’m going to miss that today. I only got about five hours of sleep last night. I wasn’t able to fall asleep until after midnight, and I had to get up at 5:30 am to feed Isabella, make my own breakfast, and get ready for work. Even though I’m drinking a strong cup of tea as I type this, I’m still not fully awake. I hope taking a shower will help wake me up because it’s going to be a long day of meetings and catching up. In other words, it’s going to be a very busy day.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
1946
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
—John 1:1
Today’s post is going to be a little bit different because I want to recommend a movie to you, the documentary, 1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture. In this documentary, researchers and scholars delve into the 1946 mistranslation of 1 Corinthians 6:9 and explore how it fueled the Christian anti-gay movement that still thrives today. Homophobia did not originate in 1946; the vast majority of religions have been attacking LGBTQ+ people since the beginning of time. In my opinion, religions need numbers to survive and to get those numbers they need more than proselytizing; they need procreation. For the most part, the LGBTQ+ community stands in the way of this. However, homophobia received a huge boost with a mistranslation of the biblical text.
1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture hinges its premise on the fact that the word “homosexual” appeared for the first time in the Bible in 1946, in an apparent mistranslation of the ancient Greek words malakoi – defined as someone effeminate who gives themselves up to a soft, decadent, lazy and indolent way of living – and arsenokoitai – a compound word that roughly translates to “male bed.” While people could take it to mean man bedding man, within the context of the time, scholars believed that arsenokoitai alluded more to abusive, predatory behavior and pederasty than it does homosexuality.
The director and producer Sharon “Rocky” Roggio documents the journey of the Christian author Kathy Baldock and Ed Oxford, an advocate and gay man who grew up Southern Baptist, as they dug through archives at the Yale Sterling Memorial Library. There, they discovered correspondence between the head of the translation committee and a gay seminary student in which the committee head conceded with the student’s point about the mistranslation. In the next translation in 1971, the committee changed the translation from homosexual to “sexual perverts” – but by then the damage was done. Hundreds of millions of Bibles with the wrong translation had been published, and conservative religion and conservative politics soon banded together to push an anti-gay agenda.
The documentary first premiered in 2022 and has won numerous festival awards. It is available to rent online but sadly, only through today (1/14/2024). A dear friend who I’ve talked to many times about being Christian and gay told me about its availability, and I watched it Friday for the first time. As I heard Roggio’s story and Oxford’s story of how he began to research to understand what the Bible was actually saying about Christianity both parallel my own. Roggio melded this research with her own personal story. When she was a teenager, her pastor father discovered that she was a lesbian and responded with a letter full of Bible verses imploring her to repent and forsake her identity. Her story mirrors mine in a way. We are roughly the same age, and her father discovered she was gay and confirmed his suspicions by reading her diary. My mother discovered I was gay and confirmed her suspicions by reading my email. Like my mother, her father won’t listen and continues to cling to a small section of the Bible because it fuels their prejudices. Like me, Oxford delved into research to understand the Bible better, and I still look to the Bible to guide my values of Christ’s love.
With the documentary, Roggio filmed her father attending talks by Baldock and overall standing by his belief that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin. “I can’t compromise conviction,” he says in the film. “Prior to even knowing about the 1946 mistranslation, I was led to it because I knew I needed to use scripture to be able to have a conversation with my parents to affirm my reality and my identity,” Roggio said. That didn’t make it easy for her. “I knew what my dad was going to give us,” Roggio said. “I have been around for a while and I’ve been dealing with this for a while and I’ve put up enough armor to be able to go back and have those conversations. And it was extremely painful, just as I’m sure it was painful for my dad.”
The documentary goes beyond this very personal story of Roggio and her father by focusing on academia and research, featuring interviews with language experts and biblical scholars to provide context not just for the mistranslated verse, but also the other “clobber” verses that have been cited by the Christian right as a condemnation of homosexuality. They explore Sodom and Gomorrah, and the historical context behind the Leviticus verse denouncing when “a man lies with a male as with a woman;” scholars believe the verse is not alluding to homosexuality but to ritual pagan prostitution. “What we need to do is see that this is a text that is time-bound, that is determined by the culture in which it was written, and that our sense of God, our sense of the Holy Spirit, isn’t time-bound,” the Rev. Dr. Cheryl Anderson says in the documentary. “We have to ask ourselves again: what’s the word of God for this time and this place? We’re not used to doing that, but that’s the task because that is what the Bible does. It’s reinterpreting itself.”
Between the research, however, Roggio wove in the emotional repercussions for all members of the LGBTQ+ community – showing what it meant to feel as if they had been declared an abomination by sacred text and to grow up hearing that even God doesn’t love you. Oxford has a poignant moment in the film where he admits that even as outspoken as he has been on the topic of religion and sexuality, he has not been able to allow himself to experience intimacy with anyone. “I don’t get depressed about damaging theology anymore,” he says. “I have been damaged and I get depressed over how that affects me today, the here and the now.”
Because for gay Christians like Roggio, this mistranslation means everything. It means that “no one can dictate your relationship with God,” she said. “We’ve been told how we have to live as Christians, by putting away our identity, a part of ourselves. But you can totally be gay and Christian.” But the film’s findings also hold significance beyond Christianity. “Whether you’re Christian or not, or whether you’re religious or not, the Bible impacts you,” said Roggio. “It’s the most published book in the world, translated into multiple languages for millennia.”
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Moment of Zen: Reading
Since I’ve had Covid, there hasn’t been a lot to do except rest. I can’t go anywhere. One blessing is this week of sickness has been no migraines (until yesterday). I was migraine free for nearly seven days, which is the longest I’ve gone without a migraine in years. I love books, but I often end up listening to audiobooks because migraines can affect my vision and it’s difficult to actually read a book. With no headache for the last week and nowhere to go and nothing to see, I began to read. I’ve basically read a book a day, something that I haven’t done in so long that I can’t even remember when it was. I love books but I also love to read, and so, I’ve been catching up on reading. While all of these guys have physical books, I’ve been using my Kindle, but I have thoroughly enjoyed reading again.
