Episode 18, in which our hero succumbs to an Internet meme

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Duke John the Eldritch of Fishkill St Wednesday Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Saw this on Berg's blog, and I just couldn't help myself. Interesting, too, how close my name is to an author I'm fond of.

(Left you down a dark street as)

Left you down a dark street as
the sunrise moved along,
carrying me with it in
an everlasting dawn.

All I left behind me was
the thing I left to find;
now I sit alone, beside
the sunset in my mind.
This text © 2005 John David Robinson, all rights reserved. Duplication prohibited without written consent.

(Chaos is a whirlwind in the snow)

This week's poem was selected by Kristy Harding, who has an awesome blog called "Border Episcopalian". Definitely check it out if you have any interest in intellectual conversations on the Christian faith, the current situation in the Episcopal church, generally awesome Quotes of the Day, or general profound thinking. I happened to be at her and her husband Leander's house (also with a blog) tonight, and thought I'd be lazy and give myself a chance to give them props.

Chaos is a whirlwind in the snow,
all I know a glitt'ring throw of
ice upon the wind,
madness in its beauty,
lit by fire to see it in,
and all upon the solid ground
which never moves, nor spins.
This text © 2006 John David Robinson, all rights reserved. Duplication prohibited without written consent.

I wrote this poem pretty recently, and for the time being, I'm going to let it stand on its own here. Please comment: criticism, likes and dislikes, general feelings or interpretations... I'd love any and all. After I have some (incentive, incentive) I'll update this post with some general illumination like the last one.

Also, a note on how I title my poems. A poem's title (or a photograph's, for that matter) is something like a boulder at the source of a river, directing the entire course of the work. If a wrong or inappropriate title is picked, it can redefine or totally ruin the work (from the perspective of the artist, at least). As a result, I only title a poem if its title is obvious, or if I find one that can give to the poem a character I like that it lacks without it. If nothing comes, the poem is titled after the first line (in parenthesis).

The Real St. Nicholas

Br. T Alphege the Bald over at Monastic Mumblings has a great (short) read about who St. Nicholas of Myra was, and why we celebrate his acts with stockings, chimneys, and gold coins.

"Christian" vs. "Christ Follower"

A friend of mine pointed me to a site featuring three short clips modeled after Apple's current ads, comparing a "Christian" with a "Christ Follower". If you like this blog, you'll probably like them, and the groups into which I place believers in this conversation are fairly well presented (albeit caricatured) by them.

I started referring to myself as a "follower of Jesus" a year or so ago, when I realized that the term "Christian" had come to mean such different things in our culture that it had become functionally ambiguous. The term "follower of Jesus" is a bit more clear: it suggests that I define myself by an action-oriented relationship with a person who is alive (contrast "follower of Jesus' teachings"). It also raises a question in the minds of the people I speak with: "Why is he using this phrase instead of the simpler, 'Christian'? Could there be something going on here?" I think these questions are important ones to raise.

Still, I wonder if this is the best course of action. What's to keep "follower of Jesus" or "Christ Follower" from becoming labels that, similar to "Christian", end up derailed from their original intent? Will we be inventing another term in five years' time, having then the further disadvantage of having given up for lost our longest-used name? What term can we ever use again, if we accept this, to describe all people with faith in Christ?

Then, even those whose faith takes on forms we view as shallow, immature, legalistic, or cultural are still our brothers and sisters, aren't they? Lewis said that it's better to call a man who claims to be a Christian but doesn't act like one a bad Christian, rather than to say that he isn't one at all. By separating ourselves from "them," aren't we judging them? Shouldn't we rather gently correct them? Shouldn't we stand with our family even when they are embarrassing, and even when they don't behave as their Father raised them to?

This isn't a simple question. There are still the practical considerations. For better or worse, the word "Christian" is ambiguous. I don't suggest that everyone adopting a label similar to "follower of Jesus" is disavowing the term "Christian" (though some are). The "Christ Follower" in the videos linked above is a great example of a Christian: he isn't judging or condemning, even of someone who, if his experience is like mine, has provoked others to judge and condemn him unfairly. The character himself does not draw a dividing line, but the video featuring him does, somewhat. It's true that it can be helpful to have a vehicle for saying, "my faith is different from that," when "that" is unattractive or heretical, but I wonder if another redefinition is really what we need. How do we balance the practical demands of our lives and keeping faith with our family?

As usual, I'm writing this not so much to state my own opinion, but to solicit others'. I don't think I have a good answer to this. Like I said above, the term "follower of Jesus" is a bit more clear than "Christian": it suggests that I define myself by an action-oriented relationship with a person who is alive. But isn't that what a Christian is supposed to be? Shouldn't I be "a follower of Jesus, that is to say, a Christian"? Is it possible to redefine the term from within it? And if so, can one achieve it without employing other labels?

A First Installment

So, Alissa has struck again. She popped up in my Gmail Chat today to tell me that I don't post enough. And it's true: I haven't posted much lately. I seem to have hit a stride in my life where I'm enjoying work a lot, and I have a lot of it to do, so I'm doing a lot of it, often during lunch (my normal blogging time) or after work. My girlfriend still lives in Connecticut, and seeing her as much in a month as I've seen my previous girlfriends in a week requires a fairly hefty time commitment, even if she's the one traveling.

Enough excuses. Here's what I'm going to do about it: per Alissa's suggestion, I'm going to post at least one poem a week here at Aravir Dais. I'll post anything new I write, and I'll post old stuff on weeks that I don't write anything, with some commentary to make things interesting for everyone who's already read them. Please feel free to comment, even and especially critically. One of the three courses that made my college education worth the entire sum I paid (and will continue to pay) was Joe DeRoche's poetry workshop, and all we did in that class was was to bring in a poem each week, and get specific on what we thought of everyone else's work. It was awesome.

This poem was one that I did for the first First Fruits artists' gathering I attended at the Boston Vineyard. I was helping put on the gathering with my small group, so I figured I should participate. It's a villanelle, which I picked because they're hard to write well. I think I proved that with this poem, which never came out quite like I intended.

That said, the poem is about my period with depression, which I had during most of elementary school and all but the last year of high school, and what became of it when I decided to really follow God with my life. It seemed appropriate because depression has come into my life in a few ways lately: contact with family and loved ones who suffer it, and also experiencing the "regular" kind (as opposed to the medical kind I usually refer to) when it was revealed to me that my favorite place on earth, the only place I've thought of as truly home since I was about fourteen, may be going away forever. But even in that space, God has proven Himself faithful, and given me the perspective I need to handle it well, without falling into either of my classic, unhealthy coping mechanisms: trivializing, disconnecting and dismissing, or becoming completely absorbed with it. The pattern this poem describes continues to be found in the microcosms of my life today, as it was in the most significant disease I've ever suffered, or been healed from.

Now, when darkness comes, I know her sound.
Hear her footstep tread upon the stair:
darkness lets me know that she is there.

Shadow's voice is muted, as with snow;
black lips whisper beauty, down below.
Now, when darkness comes, I know her sound.

Sweetheart of my childhood, newly found,
playful, uses fingernails to tear:
darkness lets me know that she is there.

Agony and chasm are her wake:
touch her lips to hear what she will take.
Now, when darkness comes, I know her sound.

Night will cry at sunlight on its ground.
I have heard her sobbing, seen her scared.
Darkness lets me know that she is there.

Now she tiptoes lightly by my door,
scared, so I can barely hear her footstep on the floor.
Now, when darkness comes, I know her sound.
Darkness lets me know that she is there.

This text © 2006 John David Robinson, all rights reserved. Duplication prohibited without written consent.