My Life Is In Boxes Around Me

Woman cannot live on drive-thru alone; 
she must, ultimately, unpack the coffee pot.

Quoth the Mad Hatter

I like to try to come up with logical answers to the Mad Hatter's questions. 

K, so: how is a raven like a writing desk? 

Well, we could say that, as a raven's call sounds like an imitation of a crow, people sitting at their writing desks all-too-often imitate or copy other writers instead of coming up with their own original, intelligent work. 

OR, also, if you ascribe to the idea that a raven sounds like it's mocking a crow's sound, then perhaps the original question is meant to provoke us to consider the mocking that writers engage in which goes unnoticed many times because it's cleverly disguised. So, then, was the Mad Hatter trying to help Alice secretly in his own way, trying to get her to understand that her situation in Wonderland was not as it seemed? 

Or, perhaps also, could the author of the story have been communicating the idea that the entire story is a satire of something in the real world, for us observers, to deduce for ourselves?

Alternatively, one could conclude that the creator of the question was implying that, as Poe's raven quoth, "Nevermore," the art of writing seemed to have a bleak future.

Care to hop onto this train of thought? I'm sure it has many stops to make.

My Performance Coming Up!

I'm singing in this fantastic concert. Don't miss out on great music. Come!

May 12th, 3:30 P.M.

UW-Parkside's Bedford Hall, located in the
Rita Tallent Picken Regional Center for the Arts and Humanities

$10 for Adults

$5 for Students

I'll be singing with two of the groups performing: Voices of Parkside and Master Singers.

(click on the images of the program to take a closer look)

Giving Light

05/26/2011

You shine so brightly,
when liquid night envelopes the rest.
Child of wonder,
how I wish you could see your value!
A peaceful haven
in the encompassing wild tempests,
your mind is at ease
and your soul at rest.
What royal standing you have
in all of creation!
Our paths are converging.
We will fight the fight together
and suffer the agony of separation no more.
Our lives are one,
yours and mine.
As we embrace it,
all that has bound us
runs to hide
from our guardian and keeper,
that thrashing radiant wave.

Process In Progress

08/25/2010
revised 07/21/2013

More deafening silence.
I wait.
The answers will come.
They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall walk and
not grow weary; they shall run and not faint.
I will always return to You and rest in You;
in quietness and trust, find You.
I wait.
I do not understand this pain, O Faithful One!
All I know is the necessity to go through it.
I can not see how I will be changed because of it.
I just know You are Trustworthy.
What did You teach me before?
"What does it say?"
Yes, it says this will produce patience and I must let the
patience do its steadfast, perfect work, that I may be
mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
And also, elsewhere, it says suffering produces endurance;
and endurance, approved character; and character, hope.
I know that hope is not so trite a thing as this life may
make it appear to be.
I wait for the hope to surface again.
Then, perseverance having done its work, I will
have passed through the trial and be hearing from You again.
I don't understand Your silence but I know it has a purpose.

Into the Bowl

Then Apple said, "I have enough insecurities to deal with, without yours running rampant circles around my ankles, nipping away at my willingness to remain patient and sane."

Banana sat there, as decision-less as ever, babbling about her feelings concerning a rising need for the relocation of all of the citizens of Fruit Basket in preparation for possible climate change of dramatic proportions. They hadn't even been discussing this subject, but Banana, poor girl, won't stop attempting her song-and-dance of passive aggression, utilizing her greatest weapon: the "irrelevant, important-sounding topic-onslaught," which skillfully hedges Apple in for hours while in this weakened state of "creeping, reluctant apathy."

He has been mentally battered consistently, once every week, for a long time now. Banana's artfully-composed "non-questions," being questions that seek no real solutions, have worn Apple down to a dangerously-malleable state of confusion. He looks kinda bruised and gross; definitely not delicious anymore, but soft and overly-sickeningly sweet, lacking a palatable texture even. How sad!

But, really, this is what happens when he's picked too soon.

He hadn't yet gained the power and maturity he'd be needing to properly confront and overcome this nefarious enemy, his best friend and soul-mate: the inconspicuously tropical Banana.

Preaching to myself

What can be said to confront - even help - people who say one thing but clearly mean another, over and over again? Not only that, add to the mix that they are accustomed to manipulation being their weapon of choice in those battlefields for control and power they attempt to dub as “friendships.”

This has spurred me on to thinking lately about the possible degrees of sociopathic thinking and behavior that maybe everyone goes through on a daily basis just because it‘s human nature: without considering the ramifications, we do whatever we feel like doing in order to get what we want from people, as long as it’s under the guise of “acceptable behavior,” don’t we? If we have strong enough idealistic convictions about some matter, we can get extremely “creative” (cruel and unusual, in fact) in our methods aimed toward obtaining a desired outcome. How often we abuse each other, my dear fellow human beings!

What a challenge, then, is grace; true, unfaltering, unselfish and loving grace, that is.

We all know how it feels to come to “the end” of ourselves, when somebody exhausts what feels like our full store of patience and endurance, exasperating us in our generally-shallow attempts to be understanding and kind - only as far as makes us feel accomplished and better than another, though, exerting what we feel to be the right amount of necessary common courtesy allotted to every person. We eventually reach a “persevering threshold,” beyond which we ultimately only want to yell, “ENOUGH!” and be done with the whole “debacle-of-a sham-of-a deception-of-a human connection” with the “perpetrators” around us. What about the perpetrator within? Don’t know about you but, at the same time, to justify the righteous indignation I feel, I usually overlook my own insertion of cruel, manipulative power plays over the years because I’ve been successful in them and have had no reason yet to regret the control I’ve gained over people and situations. A “socially-acceptable abuser” doesn’t normally present opposition to himself/herself and will scoff at whatever calm, strong and peaceful presence makes him/her second-guess himself/herself and feel insecure and vulnerable.

Well, what is “normal” for mankind isn’t a confine under which we must suffer without hope for freedom from its frightened clutches. We don’t have to settle for and be abused by what comes naturally to humans: the desire to judge and punish. That’s mercy: liberation from our own penchant for dealing out damnation to ourselves and to others. Grace, the ability to tolerate and forgive, is what wouldn’t come naturally to us if left to our own devices.

“There will always be some--as those who glared at the woman taken in adultery--who will urge us to be stern, rigid, and cold-hearted. Yes, there are always a few who prefer stoning to forgiving, who will vote for judgment rather than tolerance. But my hope is that we might join the swelling ranks of those who decide that Christlike grace (with all its risks) is so much more effective, we opt for it every time.”1

- K. E.

____________________________

1 Swindoll, Charles R. The Grace Awakening. Word Publishing, London. 1990. p 12