Truth--"Tell It Slant"

Here’s a great poem by Emily Dickinson about truth. 

Tell it Slant 

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies;
Too bright for mind's infirm intent,
The Truth's superb surprise.

As Lightning to the Children eased,
With explanation kind;
The Truth must dazzle gradually,
Or every man be blind. 

To tell the truth “slant” is, I believe, the most effective way to do it. If you just go up to somebody and say “Hey—God loves you!” that person is apt to go suddenly wide-eyed, turn on his/her heel, and get away from you quickly.

In fact, I remember a similar situation when I was a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin many years ago. Simply being there was a culture shock, since the freshman class was comprised of about a thousand people more than my entire home town. Contributing to the spinning of my head was the fact that professors were slinging truth and half-truth and not-truth at me as fast as they could talk. I was dizzy trying to figure out which was which.

One beautiful day in October or November, a student stopped me on the sidewalk as I was on my way to class, deep in agonized thought. He said, “Have you had the wonderful experience of asking Jesus Christ into your life?”

I was completely bamboozled, not to mention shocked, and said, “Yes.” I walked on. People didn’t do that kind of thing so directly where I came from, and I could hardly believe anybody would do it. My home town was a lovely, nurturing place to grow up, full of loving people. But most of them were shy about directly discussing God, for some reason. It was the time, I suppose. People don’t seem to be that way so much now, and I’m glad.

So what is the best way to present the truth about God’s love to people? How do we “tell it slant” in a way that makes people listen? It's a delicate and difficult question. I’m going to think about it and write more about it soon.

*I borrowed the picture from this site.

Truth--"Tell It Slant"

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/09/truth-tell-it-slant.html

Mary Oliver--Evidence

I just bought Mary Oliver’s latest book, Evidence, which arrived in its Amazon box yesterday. Sitting down to eat a sandwich at lunch today, I intended to read a few poems while I ate. But I was so fascinated that I sat there over an hour, reading, and read almost the whole book.

I finally stopped, not because I was tired of it or had something else to do, but because I know that I tend to read faster and faster when I like what I am reading. I could see myself starting to whiz through them too fast to let them soak in. And her poems are deep, fresh, pleasant water for soaking.

Mary Oliver sees God within his creation. Her birds and rivers sing of his mysteries and of the joy of all life. Her otters and grass and wolves speak silently of beauty and obedience and wonder. In this book, she explores in greater depth than ever the questions of death, life, love, and purpose.

Her poetry is universal—its truths are elemental themes we know are true because they resound within us. Here’s her poem about that very thought—universality:

I Want to Write Something So Simply

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read
you keep feeling it
and though it be my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think—
no, you will realize—
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your own heart
had been saying.

Oliver, Mary. Evidence: Poems by Mary Oliver. Boston: Beacon, 2009.

Mary Oliver--Evidence

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/mary-oliver-evidence.html

Here's the story of how I came to be a poet.

I have always loved writing, and I always thought eventually I would do a lot of it. But I wound up doing just a little of it through the years because I was too busy raising children and teaching.

About five years ago, I read a little paperback book called Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. It knocked me in the head, and I began doing quite a bit of writing, mostly nonfiction and fiction—no inspiration to write poetry. I made a study of writing—read a number of books about writing, all of which have helped me enormously.

The one I most benefited from was On Writing by Stephen King; that surprised me, as I doubted Stephen King would have anything helpful to say about writing. So when I started teaching creative writing at my community college, King's book was one of my references. One important thing he says is that no matter what you write--fantasy, poetry, whatever--it must be true in the sense that it comes from the heart; then it will speak to truth in the reader's heart.

A year ago, just before Christmas, one of my creative writing students gave me a book of collected poems to read over the weekend: Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times. I bought myself a copy and read it during the Christmas holidays and fell in love with poetry; I discovered Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, and Gjertrud Schnackenberg there, all wonderful poets living today. I started to write a short story, and instead, it came out as a poem. Ever since, I have written many more poems than anything else.

I read a book by Mary Oliver—Poetry Handbook. She said don’t send out your poetry for publication submission until you’ve been writing for a while and you are doing your very best work. So I am working on that advice. I have sent poems to contests and a couple to a journal published by our county's newspapers. I have placed and even won first in some of contests, and the journal accepted my two poems. That's exciting!

One day recently when I was very discouraged about my poetry writing, I ran across a poem by Kilian McDonnell. It was “The Monks of St. John’s File in for Prayer,” in Garrison Keillor’s poetry collection Good Poems for Hard Times. It has wonderful imagery, and I looked him up in the section in the biographical sketches of the poets. He has been a Benedictine monk and priest for over fifty years. He started writing poetry when he was 75 years old. He is 88 years old now.

So I was inspired. I said to myself, I’m only 65. I can do this! Besides, Stephen King said it doesn't matter how old you are; what matters is keeping the seat of the pants on the chair and the pen on the paper.

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/heres-story-of-how-i-came-to-be-poet.html

Mary Oliver

I love the poetry of Mary Oliver; I have read several of her books, and so far, I love Red Bird best. She is seventy-three years old, and as she tells us in her poem “Self-Portrait,” she is “still in love with life. And still full of beans.” It’s true. In this book, there’s a melancholy I have not seen so much in the others I’ve read. But her love of nature seems deeper than ever, as well as her love and reverence for God.

To Mary Oliver, the precious creations of God are everywhere in nature. Here is her poem “Red Bird”:

Red bird came all winter

firing up the landscape

as nothing else could.

Of course I love the sparrows,

those dun-colored darlings,

so hungry and so many.

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.

I know He has many children,

not all of them bold in spirit.

Still, for whatever reason—

perhaps because the winter is so long

and the sky so black-blue,

or perhaps because the heart narrows

as often as it opens—

I am grateful

that red bird comes all winter

firing up the landscape

as nothing else can do.

To read her poetry is to drink fresh spring water, to wade in the ocean, to experience the soul-deep colors of sunsets and bird feathers, to leap with deer and fly with geese. It is a celebration of life.

Oliver, Mary. Red Bird. Boston: Beacon, 2008.

Mary Oliver

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/mary-oliver.html

Apples and Pears and Poems

Sometimes just to be silly, I call a poem a pome. I wrote the word in an e-mail to my brother a few days ago. He wrote back, “That’s not a word! You misspelled it.” He just thought I made a typo. I knew I’d heard it before, so I looked it up.

According to Merriam-Webster, the word pome refers to “a fleshy fruit (as an apple or pear) consisting of an outer thickened fleshy layer and a central core with usually five seeds enclosed in a capsule.” It comes to us from Middle English—pume, Anglo-French—pomme, and Latin—pomum. In French today, pomme is the word you’d use if you asked for an apple. A pomme de terre, apple of the earth, is a potato.

It is not surprising that the word has medieval roots. After all, nothing like that just comes popping up out of nowhere here in the twenty-first century. We often think we originate quite a number of things.

Now, if you think about it, a poem is not so different from an apple or a pear. It has a sweet, juicy central core and some seeds to plant.

The picture comes from Acclaim Photography web site.

Apples and Pears and Poems

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/09/apples-and-pears-and-poems.html

Poetry

I am in love with words. I am amazed at how the human mind can wrap itself around ideas and express them.

My college English students like to think that nobody writes poetry any more and that nobody can understand it. That’s not true, I always tell them. People everywhere are closet poets; they write down their lives in private ways, telling their emotions. I can see by their eyes that many of the students do it too, but peer-fear keeps them from admitting the truth! Here’s a link to a lot of poetry, if you’d like to sample it.

I can identify with what Tim Challies wrote about poetry, in his blog:

As I've thought about words, I've thought about the power of words used in poetry (and song, for what is song but verse set to music?). While I love prose and spend some time out of every day engaged in creating it, there is something about poetry that grabs my soul. There is quality in poetry that allows so much to be said in so few words. So often I can hold onto a line of a word or a poem in a way that just is not possible with prose. A memorable piece of prose may be several sentences or paragraphs. A memorable piece of poetry may be only a few scant words. And yet often the poetry seems to say so much more. John Wain said "Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking." Something in poetry just stirs the soul in a way prose cannot, just as there is a beauty inherent in dancing that is missing in walking.

I love a poem with ideas clothed in beautiful images. One of my favorites is “The Passing of Arthur” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The best part is near the end of the long poem (469 lines) when Sir Bedivere sees that he will be the only survivor of the “last weird battle in the west”—even King Arthur has been mortally wounded and is being taken away to the Isle of Avilion. The old way of life when people lived by their ideals is passing away. Bedivere is alarmed; he cries out,

“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight. . . .”

Arthur struggles to answer him:

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfills himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. . . .

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. . . .”

I think Tennyson, through King Arthur, was exhorting the people of Victorian England not to fall away from their faith in God. It was a time of great change—not only because of industrialization, but also because of the proclamations of science and the writings of Charles Darwin. I believe these ideas are applicable to our lives today. More things are accomplished by prayer than we can imagine; therefore, we must keep a fountain of prayer rising to God always.

Poetry

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/11/poetry.html