Planet of the Blind

My father died on Easter Sunday. Its one of those facts for which there’s no proper emotional taxonomy. Does the anniversary change what Easter is? Would I be this sad on any other day? Surely the day’s meaning is heightened and aggravated—I struggle, whisper more than usual, wring my rags of faith, grieve, wish for life everlasting. Meantime I miss my father. Meantime I wish the meanings of his life may have significance in the sky. How silly this is—how I know it. What is faith? Is it a weakness of the mind as many shrewd people suppose? Its possible. At the very least, faith struggles with facts, or as W.H. Auden noted: “Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.” 

 

And so Easter may have its poetry but its margins are shadowy. I can’t say what faith is. Maybe I’m not brave enough. Perhaps I’m too wise. Faith and poetry are easy enough to challenge. 

Of faith Christopher Hitchens wrote: “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” I think he’s correct. In his book The Portable Atheist he also said: 

 

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” 

 

But Easter is all about cognitive dissonance. If we want nothing more than the here and now we may be giving away something more than faith. Hitchens insists he feels complete living in the intensities of now. Alongside this, and in contrast, consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  

 

“I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.”

 

Hitchens would say God in the world is hearsay or superstition and for all I know he’s right. But suffering is not sub-Cartesian: that is, not thinking about it doesn’t make it go away. Being among the like-minded doesn’t transform it. Like-mindedness is easy, much easier than faith. Bonhoeffer again: 

 

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. ‘The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared’ (Luther).” 

 

Hitchens would say there’s nothing Christians can do that atheists can’t do better. He’d also likely say Christianity, like all religions, is a hodgepodge of superstitions and proves itself hieratic, dishonest, even tyrannical. 

 

And he’d be right. The history of church persecutions is long and dreadful. 

 

“Evil-doers and mockers surround us.” 

 

Who can say there was a risen Christ? There’s no more complicated debate than the one between believers, skeptics, and scholars about the historical events surrounding the gospels’ depictions of Jesus’ resurrection. 

 

Did it happen? Paul said Christ appeared to 500 witnesses. He noted many of them were still alive, in effect, saying: “Would I dare to make this up?” 

 

In the end I like the word “commission” for work is at the core of faith, not folk tales or magical thinking. Skeptics get this part of faith all wrong. On Easter I am strong. I will be strong next week. Strong because I come back day after day to the troubled world and strive in it. 

 

My father was a striver. That’s why I miss him most of all. 

 

 

 

 

There are those who believe knowledge is something that is acquired—a precious ore hacked, as it were, from the gray strata of ignorance.

There are those who believe that knowledge can only be recalled, that there was some Golden Age in the distant past when everything was known and the stones� fitted together so you could hardly put a knife between them…

From the incomparable Lance Mannion…

There are those who believe knowledge is something that is acquired—a precious ore hacked, as it were, from the gray strata of ignorance.

There are those who believe that knowledge can only be recalled, that there was some Golden Age in the distant past when everything was known and the stones� fitted together so you could hardly put a knife between them…

I’ve been trying to center my designs. By this I mean (or believe I mean) access my proper work. I don’t mean literary work or teaching; I don’t have in mind something from the gospels. But I’m old enough to creep past memories of old embarrassments—smart enough to know I can’t get away with it. 

 

One night I insulted a friend over the telephone, angry at my own life, foolishly berating him for his own frailties. I harmed him. Sometimes I’ve given away secrets that weren’t mine to broadcast thereby harming reputations. I’m a man-child of considerable envy. As a disabled child I was often shut out from games by other children and I’ve never gotten over it. My biggest sin is jealousy.

 

I promise not to go on in this vein. But I’ve always felt Alcoholics Anonymous is spot on with their insistence on sincere and ritual apologies. In general the muscular world forbids apology and sincerity is largely judged a weakness. And yet I’m sorry for many things I’ve said or done. Saying so is a start—a first step toward whatever passes for emotional intelligence or what share of it I might achieve.

 

Hence the word “designs”—for emotional work carries geometry within it, the Jungian mandala. Its unhindered, round, dark and light, intricate. I am part of it. It is bigger than I am. Some nights I cry out in my sleep. I’ve also laughed in dreams. In sum, the psyche knows how to face the sky. Would that I’ll learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

If you lose your job, it doesn’t matter how you lost it. It’s your own fault. The company went under. A Bain-like hedge fund bought it and looted it and pumped up stock prices by kicking you and half the other employees out the door. You got sick. You got injured. You used up too much time in your bosses’ opinion taking care of a sick spouse, sick kids, a new baby, elderly parents. Whine all you want. It’s your fault. Now go away, loser, and leave the rest of us winners alone to enjoy our winnings without guilt or the slightest sense of obligation.

via lancemannion.typepad.com

The incomparable Lance Mannion…

Under the Asian maple I make my voice a needle and sing bird-wise—lines of the hill—sing bird-wise—tender house, silver grass, twilight—wind in the undergrowth coming along.

 

Believing in things they must be cold as glass; I can’t explain but two finches have flown down close. The present, alive, the sound of it…

 

  

via www.planet-of-the-blind.com

Sometimes I sing when alone, half to Pittsburgh 

on a train—the train so slow 

I fall back into history 

with runaways from every nation—

wearing a sing around my neck

that says “Blind”. 

I sing softly

a tune of natural life

reach down

touch my dog

as irregular shadows 

knock at the windows. 

Shortly after being paired with my first guide dog Corky at Guiding Eyes for the Blind I saw I was happy and that I hadn’t predicted it—and it was rich—a sweet, day long bounty.  I  felt it from the moment I woke. I felt it all day. It wasn’t a simple happiness. With Corky I now sensed something I began calling “love-luck”—“love-luck” in dog-company; love-luck and gaining confidence. Love-luck was simple; love-luck was the most complex thing I’d ever experienced. All day a dog was with me, a grand dog. I was somewhere between Eden and New Jerusalem. 

Yes I was feeling better than I’d ever felt. Buddha said: “Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” I was giving Corky all my heart, every ounce of it. 

 

The trainers worked us and our days were filled with tasks. I’d never felt good in traffic and now I was crossing streets with assurance, and with an additional quality, a deep calm in the heart—“love-luck” had many angles and was with me in every hour. Giving myself to Corky meant I was more aware, more awake than I’d ever been before. It was sensational to feel awake and calm amid thundering trucks and taxicabs honking agitated horns. 

 

**

Awake all day and learning. It seemed there were a hundred techniques to this dog business. We learned how to enter and pass through revolving doors. Corky went on the outside—the larger side of the moving cubicle, and I learned to guard her tail from being pinched. We practiced this several times, my lovely dog in agreement, over and over again through the spinning wicket. We took baby steps, inching our way ahead, pushing the door slowly. “These will soon be replaced by wheelchair friendly doors because of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” said L. “But you need to know how to do this in case you find yourself someplace where this is the only type of door.”  “Here’s to alternative doors,” I thought. “Who invented the revolving door?” I wondered. “Some torturer—maybe the same guy who conceived of the Iron Maiden.” Later I actually looked it up, the revolving door was invented in 1888 by Theophilus Van Kannel, a Philadelphia inventor, who is reputed to have had a phobia of opening conventional doors, especially for women. Go figure. In any case, I resolved to avoid the damned things wherever I could.  

 

Even trips up and down escalators in a department store required careful dog handling and precise footwork. “You want to keep your dog a step behind you; turn slightly and put your knee before her—keep her from jumping ahead,” said L.

“As you near the top you’ll feel the moving hand rail become horizontal—that’s when you start should to feel with your foot for the leveling off of the steps. Now turn straight, release your dog, and tell her forward. If you do it exactly this way, she won’t pinch her toes.” 

 

It was a classic ballroom dance: turning, feeling with hands and toes, turning again, leading my partner, all to the rhythm of whispering metal stairs. Strangers on the adjacent “down” escalator saw a Labrador riding up and smiling. For Corky this was old hat. She seemed to actually like the escalator. Personally I’d always been vaguely afraid of them. “Love-luck” happened in small ways as well as large. We now could perform a two-fold, two-creature escalator minuet.  

 

**

 

I learned Corky would curl up tight on the floor of a car, right beneath the glove compartment in the front seat. We practiced the maneuver, man and dog, in and out of a sedan. I stepped part way in with my left leg and called her. She climbed in delicately and lay down. Then I sat, pulling my right leg in. “Its like being in a tank,” I said, though I’d never been in the military—it was cramped and awkward. “Clearly one needs to know some yoga,” I added. But Corky could ride this way if we had to. And I knew how to accomplish her positioning. Guide dog work was all about the accomplishment of daily techniques, all of them necessary if you’re brining a dog everywhere. “Yes there are techniques one needs to know for a lifetime of love,” I said to Corky when she got out of the car. 

 

The techniques of love are about safety, companionship, and looking out for one another wherever you may go.

By Andrea Scarpino

 

“My head monk asked how it was walking. I said it hurt without shoes. And he said, ‘It hurts on the foot that’s down, but the one that’s up feels really good—so focus on that one.’ And I realized that all pain and pleasure is where you put your attention.” ~Deepak Chopra

The book tour: pain and pleasure, highs and lows.

 

After I read my poetry at Arlington High School, where my friend Gracie was a student before she was killed, a young woman asked, “Do you think Gracie would like what you wrote about her? How do you think she would feel having you talk about her all the time?” And the honest answer is “I don’t know.” And the honest answer is, “Maybe embarrassed. Maybe angry.” Another student asked if he could read his own poetry, and he did, and I complimented the shirt he was wearing, and he said it used to be his uncle’s shirt, that his uncle had died last year.

 

Which is to say I felt a deep sadness being in Gracie’s school. And a deep gratitude. And a hopefulness: all these other 17-year-olds with their poetry and grief. Pleasure and pain.

 

Joseph-Beth Bookstore in Cincinnati. Cincinnati, where I went to college, where the low-residency program in which I have taught for nearly seven years is based. I wrote individual emails to former professors, sent a press release and reading poster to my Cincinnati colleagues, invited my Cincinnati-area relatives.

 

In the audience: one of my students and his son, Gracie’s aunt and cousin, a wonderful mix of friends from the Women’s Center where I used to work, my partner Zac’s parents, bookstore customers wandering by. An audience full of loving faces: pleasure. An audience absent of poets, of the people with whom I daily work: pain.

 

So it goes.

 

I read from my book. My book. To big and small audiences. To people who have studied my words carefully and people who hate poetry. To old friends. To strangers.

 

And it is hard, sometimes, to read these poems filled with my grief: death of my father, death of a murdered friend, death of Gracie. To stand again in that grief.

 

The pleasure of sharing my words with others. The pain of sharing my words with others.

 

And I try to focus on the positive: the student who asked me to sign his book, the first poetry he had ever purchased. The man who said the only poetry he likes more than mine is Louise Glück’s. (“You should definitely like her work more,” I replied.) My father’s former student, who told me about visiting him in the rehab center after his strokes. The friends with whom I talk writing, publishing, books, with whom I share meals, drinks.

 

As Gracie wrote me when she was a little girl, “Andrea, these are all the good things.”