I remember when I started The Back Porch blog in 2009, my goal was to write an entry every week. Such worked out nicely for a time, but then it began to feel more like work and less like an intellectual investigation and the effort started to lag.
I must say, too, that not knowing who is actually paying any attention to what I have written here impacts the effort, as well. Please don’t hear this as complaint, but merely as an observation in this morning’s rationalization about why the writing spark plug doesn’t fire here more often than it might.
With that said, let us celebrate blog entry #200 here at The Back Porch. As I’ve probably mentioned here before, Emily Dickinson wrote almost 1800 poems, which I have come to realize is one whale of a writing accomplishment. So I guess my paltry 200 blogs leaves me with a long way to go! ;-)
***
A couple disjointed concepts today:
First, be advised that I am publishing a limited run, locally printed book of new poetry and photography generated while on Hog Island this summer. Entitled A forest of ferns, the little book that is the ‘product’ of my artist-in-residency, will have over a dozen original poems along with a couple Mabel Loomis Todd excerpts from her unpublished series of essays, The Epic of Hog. Photography, as always, will try to capture some of the unique wonder of the wilderness Muscongus Bay island that so many of us have come to love. Most copies of A forest of ferns will go to Friends of Hog Island for use with donor development, but if you would like a copy, let me know and I’ll get you one. I’m rather fond of it.
re: Mrs. Todd’s Epic of Hog selections: I so much want everyone to have the opportunity to read the entirety of this little collection of essays. The originals reside in the Yale University archive and unless you take a trip and do some digging, you’ll never see ‘em. Which is why my goal is to reprint them all in whatever fractured form they were left as an appendix in my upcoming book, Nature’s People: The Hog Island story from Mabel Loomis Todd to Audubon. I’ll check with the Yale folks to see what that will take.
BTW, I’m back at Lake Cumberland in October to work on two more chapters. Book writing goal: Working draft by spring 2015.
***
The other day I stumbled upon a web article that raised the question over the reality or mythology of the very-important-to-Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth. Seems that over the last two hundred years, some historians have floated the concept from time to time that more recording of this teacher’s life as thorn-in-the-side to both Jews and Romans should have been made but wasn’t. Why? Since so little secular evidence exists, and even within the accepted New Testament record there is much contradiction of significant details, is the guy really some construct made up by some power that figured the world would be a better place with a mythological God/man as character guide? Could be, I guess.
In any case, I asked myself the question What if Jesus never existed? What would that bombshell detail do to my life and sanity?
I admitted pretty quickly: Not much.
Fact is, in my humble opinion, Christian teachings of doing good unto others etc. is reflected in other religions around the world. All have their own distinct flavors, but the concept of fairness, good personal living, and taking care of the poor wash over into all that I know about.
Truth is, I’ve always sensed my home religion, Christianity/Roman Catholicism, was pretty arrogant in the first place. I was raised with the concept that only Catholics were going to heaven, since we were the only ones who had the direct lineage to The Man himself. Yes, that stand has changed into something more ecumenical, thank goodness, but that’s where Catholic believers had to stand less than a lifetime ago. And when it comes to taking ‘holy communion’ even today, unless you have been baptized and taken classes, don’t even think about it. Roman Catholic believers only are welcome at that table.
And, I must state, Catholics aren’t the only version of Christians who feel that if you’re not with us, you are the Other. Folks who don’t follow the accepted One True Faith (whichever one that is), are in need of being saved from a life of sin and lack of Truth.
So I have to say, if Jesus never existed, I’m okay with that. Such would undermine the authority of The Church, but I think the Institution could use some fresh air, that’s for sure.
I used to think of myself primarily as a Christian agnostic who holds that, like the true Doubting Thomas I am, I’ll believe afterlife and other church mysteries when I see them. Though I am still an active participant in the church that is my community of choice, I think of myself more these days as a unabashed humanist. I’ve come to conclude that we ought to treat each other with respect and fairness not because some special person who lived millennia ago tells us so, but because our presence on this spectacular planet Earth grants us all some semblance of equality. Everybody ought to have enough, and if they don’t, it is all our responsibility to see they get the basics. Whatever we have been given or earned needs to be shared. Such consideration extends to snakes and trees and birds and pit bulls and mosquitoes, as well.
I’ll let Emily have the last word today. This is an excerpt from one of the few poems published during her lifetime. Still, she didn’t publish it. Her sister-in-law submitted it to The Springfield Republican newspaper without Emily’s permission. Figures. And yes, such is the source for the title of my book.
Today’s elder idea: When published, this poem was entitled ‘The Snake,’ though Emily’s original copy bears no such title. The subject of said poem wanders into various and sundry ideas, as Emily often does, but this excerpt seems to speak a bit to the ‘we’re all in this together’ philosophy that guides my life.
Several of Nature’s People
I know and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality
Emily Dickinson
Franklin #1096 / written 1865
image: The cover photo for A forest of ferns.
No comments:
Post a Comment