I had a bit of dissonance while trying to write this poem. I wanted to write something deep and meaningful about the world, like Kaitlin did, but this sort of sing-songy poem about my chronic illness came out instead:
Thank you A. I love your wisdom, your willingness to play with different forms, cadences and rhythms, your depth and insight, and deeply honest view on life and the world.
A really poignant prompt for today Kaitlin - thank you. And especially thank you for writing on the contradictory nature of it all and how we must keep writing, expressing ourselves, and wending our way towards hope.
Of course you 🙂🙂🙂Something told me you might know of him. Excellent.
And thats crazy but I have been also leading a tuesday nite lectio divina zoom of sorts for a couple of years on tuesday nites thru another substack thing.
Nice!! No, I’m not a disgruntled presbyterian, haha. I’m coming at all this from the opposite end of the spectrum — I was a neopagan witch for 25 years, raised by a progressive Methodist on one side and an atheist with an Ivy League degree in Eastern religions on the other. Had an unexpected plot twist of a conversion experience about five years ago and utterly fell in love. I don’t know how else to describe it. LOL “Born-again Christian” is the word for what I am, but I can’t say that because it means something in our culture that is sooooooo not what I mean when I say it! 😂😂😂 I’m more of a desert disciple; I exist on the fringes of a number of churches but no formal membership anywhere.
This is splendid, Lisa! It truly resonates with me--the clash of our knowledge and values with doing things! I love "and say 'I'm craving hot dogs' and we laugh under the bloody sky because there is nothing else to do." What a wonderful testimony to our humanness!
Thanks so much! That scene was based on a memory of backpacking in California during wildfire season— my spouse and I hiked in and out of smoke for days, but there was nothing to do but make light of it and hope that rangers at road crossings would let us know if it was truly dangerous. You gotta get through somehow!
Interesting timing for the word Dissonance on the 6-month anniversary of my book release, a book that deals directly with the spiritual dissonance and resolution I experienced.
Like the whine of static buzzing through the air,
my cognitive dissonance over my spiritual journey
grated on my nerves.
Admitting what I suspected to be true
was terrifying. How could I
claim that the god I had dedicated my life to,
pledged my soul to,
vowed to honor for eternity
was false?
Not even so much as false but
non-existent.
The conflict between wanting truth
to govern my life while knowing
that my current truth upended everything
battled within.
The buzz rose to a fever pitch,
cicadageddon in my brain.
Until I spoke the words aloud:
I don't think God is real.
And like a breath of fresh air,
like the soothing silence of peaceful solitude,
like the first warm ray of sun on a clear spring day,
I had a bit of dissonance while trying to write this poem. I wanted to write something deep and meaningful about the world, like Kaitlin did, but this sort of sing-songy poem about my chronic illness came out instead:
It seems that we must
agree to disagree;
what else can you do,
at times like these?
When brain says yes
and body says no,
what choice is left
but go with the flow?
Thank you for sharing. You're vulnerability reminds me to share mine.
UC here and yes, a body "no" must be listened to.
Lupus here-and Yes! I feel the your words deep!
Thank you A. I love your wisdom, your willingness to play with different forms, cadences and rhythms, your depth and insight, and deeply honest view on life and the world.
A really poignant prompt for today Kaitlin - thank you. And especially thank you for writing on the contradictory nature of it all and how we must keep writing, expressing ourselves, and wending our way towards hope.
I had a crackle
In my chest
Liquid
And lightning
And worry.
Better
Or worse?
What about her?
I hear
Her crackle too.
What can I do?
A sickness
In one body
Can lay
That body low -
Enforce rest -
A going with
The flow.
While in
Another body
Infection can breed.
Is there rhyme
Or reason
As to which
Is which?
And how
Do we know
When to flow
And when
To fight?
Our world
Is full of it -
Sickness
And infection.
Mostly man-made;
By our election.
Or our choice
To make
No selection.
'If I don't opt in
It can't be
My fault.'
Just where
They want us.
Apathetic
And aimless.
We go with
A flow
Predetermined
By a few
Who know
Exactly
What they do.
And their
Coffers grow fat
As our everything
Grows dim.
Time to fight
This infection
Maybe someday
We'll win.
This is so poignant! The line "liquid and lightning and worry" especially struck me.
I'm glad it struck you Lisa! 💜
Really resonated with the question “how do we know when to flow and when to fight?” This captures dissonance so well!
Thank you kindly Grace 💜
‘Wending our way towards hope’ 🤍
💜
This is tremendous, Sara. Full of power and hope, tension and despair, and a fierceness underlyng it all. Thank you.
Thank you for your encouragement Larry!
That is the easy part! Keep on with your marvelous writing!
Thank you for sharing
You are so welcome Steven.
"Coffers grow fat"
those fuckers.
Absolute fuckers.
God of sinners and Sadducees, your sunlight
and your storms fall on just & unjust alike.
I do not understand this.
But you don’t ask me to understand—
you only ask me to bring you my rage,
my confusion, my grief, my broken heart,
everything I’m trying to escape.
When you healed lepers you gave them
back their capacity to feel their pain.
Beloved, teach me how to be whole as you are whole
because I forget that word ‘perfect’
doesn’t mean ‘without flaw’—
it means ‘complete.’ It means
every flaw belongs.
Excellent words, (as i shake my fist)
A naked pastor cartoon titled "The Most Sincere Prayer"
keeps popping in my head,
the one where a guy is praying at his bedside with the word bubble = "Dear God ......like......WTF???!!!"
I have a mug with that cartoon on it! And take great delight in using it during the online Lectio Divina gathering I host each week. 😂😇
Yes!!!!
Of course you 🙂🙂🙂Something told me you might know of him. Excellent.
And thats crazy but I have been also leading a tuesday nite lectio divina zoom of sorts for a couple of years on tuesday nites thru another substack thing.
Are you a disgruntled presbyterian as well? 🙂
Nice!! No, I’m not a disgruntled presbyterian, haha. I’m coming at all this from the opposite end of the spectrum — I was a neopagan witch for 25 years, raised by a progressive Methodist on one side and an atheist with an Ivy League degree in Eastern religions on the other. Had an unexpected plot twist of a conversion experience about five years ago and utterly fell in love. I don’t know how else to describe it. LOL “Born-again Christian” is the word for what I am, but I can’t say that because it means something in our culture that is sooooooo not what I mean when I say it! 😂😂😂 I’m more of a desert disciple; I exist on the fringes of a number of churches but no formal membership anywhere.
Yes!
<3
This is beautiful January, a wonderful prayer/poem. Thank you!
Thank you Larry. ☺️
seeing/pheeling
how deeply contextual
are words I/we write
.
depending on the day
depending on the moment
depending on the dependence
or co-dependence
with dissonant debilitation
.
retrograde resistance
toward upward trends
in spirit/soul/identity/being
is integral to the dissonance itself
and is, in phakt,
in ways that are not completely
phukt a co-operation
with the vibration inherent
within Creation
within context
within conphlict
within this crackingly
crazed cluttered crashing container
called a lyphe
.
Good good good
good vibrations
.
on a phrequency
just out oph reach
4 now
.
staid
.
tune
I like that it is poignant and playful. Thank you for sharing
Nice work Bob. I like the use of the same letter starting multiple words; that really enhances the cadence of the poem. Thank you for shariung.
We all have
those questions
that stick in
our teeth
and tear at
our dreams
the questions
that slice into
the comfort
of our illusions
and lay bare
the contradictions
that define
the truth
the questions
that never resolve
that sound
again and again
throughout the
cycles of
our lives
the questions
that lead
us to the
precipice
and dare us
to look over
the edge
Oh, I love this one. Especially the ending - "the questions that lead us to the precipice and dare us to look over the edge." So good.
Thank you!
.....grab hands and jump.....
Well done....
This is a piercing and pwoerful poem, Sara. I felt it from the first word to the marvelous ending, as A. has said. Dare we look voer the edge?
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Of my, I started in several different places, and this emerged. I am not quite sure what to think, but I'll share where it led me today.
Dissonance
.
I wonder
If news of a ceasefire brings such joy and happiness
why do we respond so quickly with violence and military might?
If the desired outcome of all these wars is peace
then why do so many innocents die?
If our prayers are for serenity and stability
why do we shout with such venom and fury?
.
I wonder
If we believe in a God who is centered in love,
why is there so much hate in our preaching?
If we witness to communities of justice,
why do we inflict injustice on those we call “other?”
If we want the world to see us for what we claim to be
why do we fly our flags with swastikas and slogans of hate?
.
I wonder
If we all gasp at the marvelous beauty of a sunrise
why do we do so much to block it from view?
If we all want what is best for our descendants
why do we live with such short term values?
If we stop and watch the wonder of an eclipse,
why can’t we marvel at the simple beauty of the earth.
.
I wonder,
If we want human rights for all,
why do we work so hard to take some away?
If we want the divisions and the tensions to cease
why do we so quickly respond in anger and outrage?
If we believe that justice is a path to healing
why do we find it so hard to forgive.
.
Oh, I wonder,
If we see our bodies as gifts and temples,
why do we live in systems that degrade and destroy?
If we hope that all of our dreams will come true
why do we create nightmares for others.
If my hope is that you will hear this crying song,
Why do I hide it away?
Thank you for asking the important questions.
You are welcome and thank you!
Nice Larry, those dissonant questions to god, they seem to be left up to us to figure out. I hate not having the answers.
(you and the kitchen table monastery lady should compare notes.)
Today's poem really got me-- thank you for that. Here's mine:
DISSONANCE
.
Frying up beef
(rainforest plowed under)
(be a good host)
Flying to see family
(carbon I'll never tie up)
(trains are not an option)
Clothes from God knows where
(I hope no one died to make this)
(you can never be sure)
.
Forest up in flames
Hiking through the Marble Mountains
Ash falling from the sky
And I laugh,
And say, "I'm craving hot dogs,"
and we laugh under the bloody sky
because there is nothing else to do.
Oof, yes. So often it feels like our choices are impossible and all we can do is laugh at the absurdity.
Yeah, I face this all the time. It was cathartic to give voice to it in this poem!
This is splendid, Lisa! It truly resonates with me--the clash of our knowledge and values with doing things! I love "and say 'I'm craving hot dogs' and we laugh under the bloody sky because there is nothing else to do." What a wonderful testimony to our humanness!
Thanks so much! That scene was based on a memory of backpacking in California during wildfire season— my spouse and I hiked in and out of smoke for days, but there was nothing to do but make light of it and hope that rangers at road crossings would let us know if it was truly dangerous. You gotta get through somehow!
I am glad you got through, and what memories!
I have felt a call to peace
since I was a boy
maybe it was from
the divine
maybe it was a young
mind and heart
dealing with trauma
the only way it could
as I have grown
and experienced
life, love, and loss,
as my understanding expands
and my ability to hear
the cries of the world
and to see
the pain of the people
that call grows stronger
yet some days HOPE
seems dead
like the nihilists will win
is the boy being stubborn
refusing to accept the inevitable
or is there something there
in the dissonance
some nuance
some knowledge
some "thing"
that will help
live into that call
maybe he is a modern
Don Quixote
fighting windmills
like they are dragons
looking in the mirror
the "boy" discovers
he looks older
than his years
unlike the man in
the Cervantes tale
he doesn't collapse
into short term defeat
he heads out
searching for his
Sancho and Dulcinea
D I S S O N A N C E
“Come to our work wellbeing event”
they say, while freezing our pay and pension.
“We care about women’s safety”
they say, while the agenda is focussed on adapting women’s behaviour and street lights.
“That’s fine, I don’t mind helping out”
I say, while inside my body screams “no, tend your own needs.”
Projecting a sense of growth and blooming without addressing the uncomfortable roots
yields rotten fruit.
Dissonance
Deeply upsetting of the way
things are meant to be
Discordant disruption
of a pleasant harmony
Distressing, unsettling
and hard to comprehend
Depressing, relentless
When will it end?
This is nice, Jane. It has a wonderful cadence and rhythm, even as it faces discordant things. I like your question at the end "When will it end?"
A beautiful poem - trying to make sense out of a world that has lost its mind. Everyday we can keep choosing to love!!! Today I choose love.
Interesting timing for the word Dissonance on the 6-month anniversary of my book release, a book that deals directly with the spiritual dissonance and resolution I experienced.
Like the whine of static buzzing through the air,
my cognitive dissonance over my spiritual journey
grated on my nerves.
Admitting what I suspected to be true
was terrifying. How could I
claim that the god I had dedicated my life to,
pledged my soul to,
vowed to honor for eternity
was false?
Not even so much as false but
non-existent.
The conflict between wanting truth
to govern my life while knowing
that my current truth upended everything
battled within.
The buzz rose to a fever pitch,
cicadageddon in my brain.
Until I spoke the words aloud:
I don't think God is real.
And like a breath of fresh air,
like the soothing silence of peaceful solitude,
like the first warm ray of sun on a clear spring day,
the dissonance lifted.
I felt peace.
I found comfort in my new truth,
as well as in the mystery.
For who really knows?
I didn't know you wrote a book, but now I'm very interested. Also, cicadageddon was surprising and also perfect.
Thank you!
The book is called Giving Up God: Resurrecting a Spirituality of Love and Wonder if you want to check it out. Sold everywhere.
Thank you!
This is very powerful, Sarah. i loive that word cicadegeddon, too! i will certainly check out your book. Thank you for sharing!
Scream
Sound springs forth,
draped in a flag of hate,
simulating a faux robe
of something that
in no way resembles hope.
It pounds the percussion of difference,
shakes the rhythm of superiority.
Its beat syncopated,
full of fury and dissonance,
signifying separation.
Those whose hearts
have been squeezed by fear
and suffocated by imagined superiority
join the chorus of division,
oblivious to the key of dismemberment
in which their voices blend,
as those on and beyond the periphery
are cauterized with the fire
of death and destruction.
Grace, as gift,
has long been abandoned;
its gathering chords
left out in the cold;
its gentle beat
strangled by angst.
Love’s been twisted
into commodity, only offered
to those inside the circled wagons,
no longer lifting broken hearts,
but asphyxiating them, instead.
And yet…
In the dark, when my breath steadies,
and my heart regains a peaceful rhythm,
something around me — even in me —
vibrates to a tune of anticipation,
and I feel a quiver in my marrow.
No, I cannot name it.
Neither can I tell you
when it will arrive;
but still, I feel it, and
I feel it holding me,
like a mother gently undergirding
a fragile child, secure and promising;
and in this grip, I hope,
not just for me or for a few,
but for us, all of us.
i’m so used to the dissonance
it’s familiar ring in my ear
i can’t see it for what it is
a trauma response
a grasp for survival
a toxic enmeshment
a bond to be broken
.
you don’t have to earn
kindness
you don’t have to tolerate
cruelty
.
one moment you’re
negged
darts thrown
at all your soft part
the next moment
smiley face emoji
laughing face emoji
.
what, you’re still upset about that?
i wasn’t myself-
i was tired-
who cares?
.
dissonance becomes
a daily routine
.
and your soft places
become hardened and
numb
.
do you know
there is a world where
all you have to offer
is treated
like
a miracle?
.
it is taking me time
to forget the dissonance
my body braces for it
still
.
healing emerges.
Psycho.
Bates motel
cabin 1
Shower scene.
WRINK WRINK !WRINK! !WRINK!
!!WRINK!! !!WRINK!! !!WRINK!!
!!!WRINK!!! !!!WRINK!!! !!!WRINK!!!
teeth clenching.
breath holding.
Bone chilling.
dissonance can be a powerful sound, in the right hands.
‘but that’s where life seems to do its
best kind of living, where we are
unsure but still hoping, worried but still
caring for ourselves and each other,’ BEAUTIFUL 😍