Newtown

Today in church we sang, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clearing" in honor of all the angels who were brutally murdered last Friday.   This song, written by a man who was distraught about a recent American war with Mexico, describes a group of angels singing.  He also describes how we people do not take the time to slow down and listen - we are so caught up in war, hate, (etc.), that we don't take the time to listen to the angels singing.

How appropriate, right?

A mentally ill man with access to three semi-automatic weapons takes those weapons into an elementary school and kills twenty angels.

And yet, most of what we hear in the media (and from our acquaintances on Facebook) is about whose fault this is.  Is it the gun makers?  The government?  The mental health community?  I have many strong opinions on this matter, but this blog is about something a little different than just that.

Our modern society is far removed from nature.   We hardly take time outside to enjoy the trees and dirt.  We spend a majority of our days attached to electronic devices "being social" or working.   NPR recently reported that lobsters are over-populating certain areas causing them to begin to attack their young through cannibalism.   Studies have also recently shown that praying mantises are actually only cannibalistic in laboratories, and not in natural settings.   I think we sometimes forget that we are actually animals - we have a "god" complex because of our past abilities to overcome every single other species on our Earth, and we substitue natural interaction with electronic obsession.  I can't help but think that these murders are some sort of self-mutilation, just like these other animals have expressed in stressful environments.  Our obsession with being so important, so much better than all other creatures on our planet, has caused us to forget that, sometimes, community, friendship, love, and compassion are the most important things we need.

Because I feel this way, I can't help but think about so many "what ifs."  What if that young man's inner-circle loved him more.  What if that young man expressed his frustration for life through discussions with friends or even a counsellor.  What if our ability to become so important through the existence of guns was not a top priority for so many people in our country and this young man couldn't get his hands on a semi-automatic weapon.  What if.

I also can't help but think of all of the fairy tales I read as a little girl.  Stay away from wolves.  Witches who live in candy houses are dangerous.  Don't have too many children because you'll have to live in a shoe and won't know what to do.   Whatever happened to our societal lessons?  Is our world really so interconnected that we don't need lessons like these anymore?  Do we really have to teach our children that going to school isn't safe because a many might show up one day with a semi-automatic weapon and kill you?  No.  The answer is "no."  We need to come back to being a community, a society who cares for one another.
 
Hopefully you don't read this and think I'm just another someone trying to come up with some reason for this having happened, someone trying to rationalize a terrible situation   I hope your read this and it causes you to stop debating the Second Amendment for a minute and call a friend for a cup of coffee.  Or, I hope you read this and call your mom to see how her day is going.  Or, I hope you read this and snuggle with your child or your dog or cat just a little longer than normal.

Please stop fighting with each other for a few minutes and think about what is really, really right.

"Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing."

#21: American Gods, Neil Gaiman

Alright, alright. I was mistaken.  This book is awesome.

I've shared with some friends in the past that I hated this book.  I couldn't undersand the mythology.  The characters (i.e., Shadow...) were boring and I only could get through 20 or so pages before giving up.

I was wrong.

American Gods was spectacular.  Shadow's dull nature became quite fascinating throughout the book.  His confusion between what was real and what was happening in his imagination could not have been so realistic had he been more thoughtful or boastful.   There were a few parts I wished for a better background in mythology - I won't spoil it here, but if you've read it you know there is a big reveal at the end about two people who are friends - so I could have followed some of the foreshadowing a little better.   Other than that, I put this book down happily knowing that my previous disdain for it was uncalled for.

Without ruining the details for those who haven't read it... my most favorite part of this novel was toward the end when Shadow and Wednesday find themselves in a diner chatting with Eoster.  Her characterization - passion, love, rebirth - is so beautiful.  Her misunderstanding about how people actually feel about her is so real.   When she returns later, I had an "aha!" moment and laughed to myself a little.

If you read this, do so on an e-reader so you have easy access to Wiki... not knowing who the characters are can be a little confusing sometimes and having access to that resource will enhance the experience if you're not already familiar with them.

Just for Fun: Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, Arthur Hobson Quinn

While reading this on the train one day, a man sitting next to me leaned over and said, "Isn't that the guy who married his cousin?"  I wasn't sure how to answer that because I had passed the part of Quinn's biography explaining that Poe only married his cousin because he cared for her and his aunt, and not because he was mentally deranged.  They were married and loved each other, but were not "in love" in a romantic sense of the word, according to my interpretation of Quinn's analysis.

How does one explain that to a stranger on the train without first highlighting Poe's extremely complicated relationship with his foster family who adopted him after both of his parents died?

I said, "Yes."

Poe's writings have fascinated me since middle school.  I had a teacher in fifth grade English who had our class read several of Poe's short stories.  She realized immediately that I had fallen in "book love" and gave me a paperback copy of some of her favorites.  I have that book around here somewhere, and have pulled it out every few years to remind myself of those first favorites.  The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat were two in that collection.  I remember drawing in pencil a picture of a man with a "tell tale brain" as part of some follow-up activity for the former.  I spent hours drawing his brain and the plants surrounding the walking man, and ran out of time so only had time to color in the brain, red of course.   As for the later, I vividly remember the teacher saying, "I hate cats" and (as an animal lover) being extraordinarily alarmed.  Only after reading the story several times through did I understand she had a sense of humor.

Quinn seemed to feel obligated to defend Poe's every move.  In his mind, Poe was a wonderful person who the world destroyed with its hateful, unfair ways.   I do agree that in many of the circumstances portrayed in the biography, that Poe had an unfortunate lot; I do not agree, though, that there weren't things he could have done to help himself out of those situations.  Poe was apparently a very intelligent, bitter man who did not know how to keep his thoughts and opinions to himself.  That doesn't make him a terrible person, he doesn't need defending.  If it weren't for his ruminative thoughts and his anger we never would have experienced his writings.  He doesn't need to be sorry for his "sins" and we do not need to pretend he was some sort of hero in his personal life.

I loved reading about one of my favorite authors, and the collections of letters to and from Poe included in this biography were extraordinarily interesting.   It'll be a short time before I need to get my hands on another biography of Poe so I can read more of those.