Protecting the Soul

Last night my wife read to me from the local paper. It seems that an ultra right wing group of Baptists from Topeka, Kansas will be descending upon Iowa City to stage a protest at the funeral of a local family—a mass murder and suicide tragedy that has rocked our community and which has made the national news. Briefly, the husband murdered his wife and four children before killing himself. The Baptists from Topeka are using the funeral for this family to protest the fact that Iowa City is known as a “gay friendly” town. They plan to picket the funeral this Saturday outside St. Mary’s Catholic Church and share their view that this family’s tragedy has something to do with God’s judgment on Iowa City which, as I’ve already said, is a supportive environment for gay citizens as well as trans-gendered people.

Now I’m no theologian, but the last time I looked it doesn’t say anything in the Sermon on the Mount about a reduction of love for certain kinds of neighbors. Well of course we live in ugly times. But religious intolerance offers a particularly virulent brand of ugliness because it’s always driven by a profound misunderstanding of God’s love.

Remember Love? Love is all you need.
Forgiveness is the hardest thing about Christianity. I will endeavor to forgive these people from Topeka because they know not what they do.
May God forgive us all. My prayers are with the Sueppel family and their friends and neighbors.
I have yet to achieve universal forgiveness. My heart is made from wormwood and cloves. Milk and iodine flood my arteries.  But hate is the victory of skinheads and holy fanatics as well as terrorists and militarists.
I’ll take forgiveness as the path. Walt Whitman and Prozac are helpful.

The Sermon on the Mount?

Priceless.


S.K.

Standing in the Yard

I think occasionally of poets who live on far shores while standing with the dogs. I center my quiet impressions about these men and women with the compulsive itch of that man who can’t hang a picture on his wall—too crooked at every glance. I want my kinship with the far flung poets of my tribe to be “just so” and perhaps this is because I am lonely at the end of winter. I’m lonesome and my country is at war and I want to drink tea from a glass with Kai Nieminen who lives on the south coast of Finland. I need to walk with Sam Hamill in Argentina.

With either poet I could talk about the history of war and the glass blowers of Murano who made a killing just when the crusades were ending with their artfully painted custom made glass eyes.

S.K.

Poem From Washington Upon Hearing the President Praise the War

Maybe men and women need to be quiet for part of the day

Like Orphic birds asleep on the tombs in Italy—

Tuck your head, sleep in the sidelong avian mysteries,

Sleep like the fritillaries in the cemetery grass.

Yes we need less talk. Our country is sick with talk.

We ought to be quiet—put down the telephones—

To inquire of the numberless dead

With the offertory of our minds alone,

No tongues, no tongues at all.


S.K.

[with]tv Launches New Radio Program for People with Disabilities…and everyone else!

A Different Perspective – Press Release

Coming Soon: a one-hour, weekly Internet Talk Radio Program entitled A Different Perspective set to premier on Webtalkradio.

A Different Perspective will be hosted by Howard Renensland, CEO of [with]tv: "a television channel of, by, and for people with disabilities…and everyone else" and PWdBC, a 501 c 3 dedicated to training people with a disability for careers in film and television.

To quote Mr. Renensland, “My experience of the past 23 years raising
and advocating for my daughter with disabilities has convinced me that
the single most debilitating factor limiting people with disabilities
is not their disability, but rather their image as portrayed in
mainstream media and the factors that contribute to that stereotypical
image. [with]tv will alter this situation by fully employing people
with disabilities in a mainstream media company where they, people with
disabilities, will control the medium and the message.”

A Different Perspective will present an
entertaining discussion of current issues from the perspective of
people with disabilities. Howard will, with the assistance of guests
and [with]tv volunteer reporters from the disability community, provide
this perspective intended for all listeners – not just those with a
disability. The ongoing progress of [with]tv, PWdBC, and the work of
the volunteers turning this vision into a reality will be discussed as
well.

Inquiries regarding advertising and corporate sponsorship are
welcome. A volunteer staff is seeking audio commercial placement along
with advertising and corporate sponsors for A Different Perspective, [with]tv, and PWdBC.  More information can be found on on Blog [with]tv and on the web site.

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv.

Home From Washington

I woke in the night with the wind pushing at the eaves, restless for some reason and a radio voice told me that the United States has lost its 4,000th soldier in Iraq and that was all they said and I wanted the radio man to say something about the close to a million Iraqi’s who have died and the wind pushed at my house and the BBC was instantly talking about cricket and golf and I lay there in my bed amid the sounds of the wind and thought of all those souls still circling the earth, for that’s what souls must do when they have been denied justice though you won’t hear the president say so and your local minister likely will say no such thing. You have to be some kind of stone age worshipper of rivers and trees to believe that the dead call for human rights with the night wind.

The newspaper said this morning that President Bush spends time each day reflecting on the loss of our American  soldiers. I should hope so. I will add that I hope he begs forgiveness for “Shock and Awe” and for the reckless destruction of Iraqi civilians.

As it says in The Book of Common Prayer:

“O Lord,in Thee I have trusted;

Let me never be confounded.”

Amen 

S.K.

Lance Mannion and the "blind guy"

From Lance Mannion’s Fragments of an autobiography:
Tossing a football around with a blind guy Lance_and_steve_2

"But Steve’s real point, I think, is the same one he’s been making to
me since we met, which is not how blind people see the world but how to see the world.

From the start, Steve’s been telling me the same things over and
over again.  Don’t just look, observe.  Listen.  Ask questions.
Notice everything.  Notice people.  Take note of how they move, how they sound, what they say.  Pay attention to them.

Pay attention to everything."

Thank you, Lance.  We both loved your post. 

~ Connie & Steve

Photo description: Buddies from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. "Lance" is on the left. He’s blond, sporting a blond beard, wearing a yellow Oxford shirt, holding a football.  Steve is standing next to Lance, leaning on his left shoulder.  He’s got brown hair, a brown beard, round glasses and is wearing  a red t-shirt.

Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry?

Last night I read poems as part of the Split This Rock Poetry Festival here in DC. I read work that spoke against the war. I mentioned the close to a million Iraqi civilians killed over the past five years. I said that the President’s phrase “The War on Terror” suggests something that can’t be won with our current tactics. History shows that fighting terror with terror is a loser’s game. I’m not sure I said that precisely. When you’re on stage in front of hundreds of people you say what you can. I read a poem by my friend Sam Hamill called “True Peace”. I dedicated my portion of the reading to Sam who is a founding member of the organization Poets Against War.  I threw my hat from the Navy (the one that says: Navy: accelerate your life) into the audience. This being a pacifist crowd, well, you can predict the outcome. Someone gave me my hat back.


Back at the hotel they’ve pulled down both the shades in my room, rather than fix the one that’s stuck in the down position. I guess they figure I’m blind so what difference does it make whether I’ve got sunlight or not?


S.K.

Morning in Washington

The window shade is stuck in the down position.

Why does a blind person need a window shade?

The hotel wants to know.

“I’m not an exhibitionist,” I tell them.

But of course I am always a symbol.

The staff in the dining room seems frightened when they see me and the guide dog.

“I’m just a strange citizen, passing through,” I think to say.

In this I am no different from Walt Whitman or you or you or you.

Nira, my guide dog is happy wherever she goes.

What a teacher she is!

S.K.

Tonight in Washington

I am in Washington, DC for a three day poetry festival called "Split This Rock".  I am wearing a hat that says: "Navy: Accelerate Your Life". I believe in the U.S. Navy.

I believe in the acceleration of progress–a thing that might be different from the Navy’s sloganeer’s idea of acceleration.

Strictly speaking, if you accelerate your life you die more quickly. Strictly speaking life is life and no one needs to be faster to experience it.

What an amateur Buddhist I am!

My hotel is old and the windows are drafty and I think John Wilkes Booth has the room next door .

I was surprised tonight by a lurching drunk who managed to ambush me while my guide dog was taking a pee.

"You want some pee?" I asked?

"Nah," he said, as if contemplating pee for the first time in his life. "nah," he said, then staggered away.

Washington is the most disgraceful capitol city in the developed world.

Of course historians will tell you it was always this way.

In America we love to say "it was ever thus" as if by doing so we’re exonerated from taking a part.

I don’t believe in accelerated life.

This is of course the language and symbolism that preys on human despair.

I suspect we have plenty of despair to go around.

No one should be drawn to join the military out of financial hardship.

If the Navy had to attract the children of the rich would their slogan be: Navy: Slow Down Dude!

You get my drift of course: the rich don’t have to accelerate a thing.

Except when they’re driving through neighborhoods like this one.

S.K.

The President and One Particular Prosthetic Leg

During his speech today on the war in Iraq (which the president calls "the war on terror") George W. Bush told the story of a soldier named William Gibson who lost a leg while fighting in Iraq. In the president’s narrative, William Gibson came home and received a prosthetic leg and then went on to compete in triathalons. While competing in the famous Alcatraz swim in San Francisco Bay William Gibson was observed by a U.S. General who asked him if he could use any help. Again, according to the president, Gibson asked to be allowed to return to Iraq. He is there today.

Like so many of the president’s stories the point of this was unclear. In Bush’s framing of the narrative one should imagine that the stamina and heartfelt concern of William Gibson means that we will triumph over our foes.

As I like to say in disability studies classes: disability functions as a complex metaphor—really, for all intents and purposes you can think of this metaphorical process as having layers like an onion.

Disability is a "foe" that we must conquer.

Conquering disability is heroic.

A disabled person who is heroic inevitably inspires everyone.

Inspired people are the good guys.

Good guys don’t need complex medical or psychiatric care.

I admire bravery and I further admire William Gibson for his fighting spirit. I have no qualms about his patriotism and his concern for his fellow soldiers and the people of Iraq.

The thing that concerns me is that there are tens of thousands of veterans who have been shattered by their experiences in Iraq and in Afghanistan and these veterans are finding it’s very difficult, if not virtually impossible to get good health care.

If disability can be used as a heroic metaphor for overcoming or fighting the odds does it follow that "not talking" about the majority of disability experiences faced by our soldiers means their stories are insufficiently symbolic?

S.K.