Oh, Marianne!

An Indomitable Grace

One of my favorite stories is Sense and Sensibility. This is not because it’s a fairy tale where everyone gets to live happily ever after, and completely unrealistic events transpire for that to be the case (a misguided critique of Jane Austen’s work). It is not because of the beautifully done commentary on society and biting wit. It’s not even because of the regency era costumes found in adaptations of the piece. It might be a little bit because Emma Thompson stars in a film version of it alongside Kate Winslet. Principally, my love for this story comes from how well I see my life reflected in it.

The long and short of this story, which is a must read (or watch), is that Marianne and Elinor Dashwood are turned out of their house when their father dies because their half brother from a previous marriage is to inherit their father’s fortune. Their misfortune drives them into the path of a couple young men, each sister falling for one. Elinor is reserved (sense) and does not express her emotions openly. Marianne is fiery (sensibility) and wears her heart on her sleeve. In the process of events, both sisters get their hearts broken and then put them back together again.

Of course, it is tempting to take sides. Which is better: Marianne’s passionate openness or Elinor’s quiet reserve? As a child, I sided with Elinor (After all, she’s played by Emma Thompson who also plays Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing). Not only did I side with Elinor, I wanted to be like her. I wanted to have the internal strength it took to get her through her difficulties, being kind to the man who was ruining all hopes of her happiness (remember, her financial well-being was tied into this as well).

___________

It was a harsh reality one day, at the age of 18, when I experienced my first heartache. I was not Elinor. I was Marianne. I had been taken in by flirtation and lost my heart to someone who didn’t want it in the end. I cried, letting all my feelings take over, knowing he was a completely lost cause. This is when I first started referring to the men who rejected me as Whiloughby (the man who broke Marianne’s heart). I would whisper Sonnet 116 to myself as I lay in bed, feeling all the potential draining from my imagination.

I built up an idea of men based around the fact that I was Marianne. Either they were a Whiloughby or a Colonel Brandon. Colonel Brandon is the man who Marianne eventually marries. He’s calmer than Whiloughby, older, considerably more selfless. He slowly heals Marianne’s heart until she falls in love with him, to be happier than she could ever have been with Whiloughby. After all, Whiloughby turns out to be a libertine.

So, inevitably, I would ask myself in the course of a relationship whether the man I was dating would have what it took to be Colonel Brandon, to heal my broken heart and nurse me back to health. Even my friends agreed.

“Oh yes, you are Marianne!” they’d exclaim, encouraging me to wait for my Colonel Brandon and not to waste any more time on the most recent Whiloughby, of whom there have been a few.

This is a useful tool and indecipherable code that women use to talk about relationships. Every relationship, every event has a parallel in some Jane Austen novel or another. Because women are well aware that men in general have an aversion to Jane Austen, we use her as our secret language and sigh when we muse that if men read her books too, relationships would be much easier.

In some ways, it’s true. Plain and simple: Don’t be Whiloughby. Don’t be Mr. Elliot. Don’t be Mr. Crawford. Don’t be Wickham. I suppose you can’t help it if you are Mr. Collins, but try to avoid that as well.

I wish that life were so static, that the only options for me were to be with a Whiloughby or a Colonel Brandon. I wish that some man or other would fall madly in love with me as he silently waited for me to be single and then oh so tenderly care for me in my time of need. Oh wait. No I don’t. I don’t want to be so crippled by heartbreak that I nearly lose my life to it. I don’t want to become morose and despondent just because someone who I thought would love me doesn’t. I don’t want my happiness to so depend on a man’s love that I am overcome with depression and grief until someone else comes along to love me. Where is Marianne’s agency in this? Certainly her character grows from being foolish, trusting sweeping romantic gestures instead of looking hard at someone’s character before losing herself completely to love. For all of Marianne’s love of poetry, whimsy, and excitement (things that we do indeed have in common), I still find myself wanting to be Elinor.

_______

Elinor’s story is quite different from Marianne’s. She is quiet and principled, taking care of an aging and widowed mother when they are reduced to poverty and keeping meticulous track of finances. She becomes the backbone of the family, taking on responsibility while her mother grieves and her younger sister pouts. When Elinor falls in love, it is with a man who loves her as well, but he has a previous obligation to marry a woman he made a promise to when he was younger and more foolish. Being a man of his word, he denies his heart and Elinor, intending to follow through (again, remember that these things happened because a woman’s financial security depended on whom she married, and breaking an engagement, even a secret engagement would do a great deal of harm to the woman) with his marriage.

Elinor endures this burden in silence. Even when she learns of the engagement, she swallows her pain and her pride, being genuinely kind to Edward’s secret fiancee. Then she does the unthinkable.

When Edward’s secret engagement is exposed (much to his shallow and mean family’s disapproval), Edward is disinherited. Suddenly finding himself with no money and no occupation, Edward is unable to marry his fiancee but refuses to break the engagement. It is Elinor who delivers the news to him that his dream of joining the church can be realized, giving him an occupation, a place to live and the ability to marry. Just to clarify, Elinor brokers the deal that enables the man she loves to marry another woman.

This is still astounding to me. How gracious, how kind, how forgiving. She takes charge of the life she has and keeps going, despite her pain and frustration.

At first glance, we might presume that Elinor loves less deeply than Marianne, that her ability to move forward is evidence of not caring very deeply. This is not it at all the case.

In a remarkable scene from a film adaptation, Marianne asks, “Elinor, where is your heart?”

Elinor finally unleashes the fullness of her pain, “What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering? For weeks, Marianne, I’ve had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.”

_______

In one sense, I will always be Marianne. I will always love poetry, whimsy, and art. I am bad at concealing my feelings. However, I have more agency, more grace, more responsibility. I can be kind, even to those whose actions hurt me. I can be patient, I can be strong and take care of the people I love. I know how to manage my money independently, how to survive on my own.

What’s more, I have come realize that not every man is a Whiloughby or a Colonel Brandon. Some of them are Edwards. Some of them have prior engagements. Some of them are bound to something outside of their control. These are not bad men. Edward is not a bad man. Edward is kind, caring, loving, principled. Much like Elinor, he does what is right, even when what is right is inconvenient.

Elinor finds fulfillment and contentment without Edward. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Jane Austen novel if the heroin didn’t get her man in the end. Edward’s fiancee turns out to be considerably less principled than he is and marries his brother (the one who got all the money). This frees Edward to follow his heart. And he follows it right to Elinor.

The marriage is somewhat insignificant, though, for my purposes. In most cases, this doesn’t happen. The life circumstances that get in the way of the Edwards in the world being with their Elinors usually don’t conveniently go away, at least not before Elinor has moved on and married someone else. Most relationships don’t get that second chance, and I am no exception to this rule. The important thing about Elinor is that she learns to keep going, despite her wounded heart. She accepts her life circumstances, not because she doesn’t want to fight for what she loves, but because she recognizes how useless it would be. She realizes that she doesn’t want Edward if he is actually willing to break his word to someone else. With Elinor, the feminist inside me is satisfied. More importantly, the Marianne in me who wants to embrace all that is beautiful in life, to throw myself into it and never look back, recognizes that some circumstances call us to be Elinor.

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May 12, 2014 8:00 AM

You are Already Alive

An Indomitable Grace

On a day like today, when I feel the mercurial dissonance of in-between, when solitude is becoming more and more normal, when the ache for Home becomes more distant, while its absence still cuts a dark shadow on my soul, I need to read this.
Today, I am already alive.

the wild love

I tell her this as she sits in my office, my feet tucked up under me, a habit of mine that is designed for stillness but really just makes me fidget more, an unwelcome thing when I am trying to listen. I tell her how this past weekend, in between a flying back and forth and the worry that sat with me on the couch those mornings, my Bible open, my heart sounding a gong in my bones.

I tell the story like it is something I came up with on the fly but the truth is I’ve been out there looking for it for years, this answer that finally comes to me, a gong to beat next to my heart, in time with it: you are already alive.

You are already alive. You do not become alive when you get into grad school or when you get married. You…

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May 9, 2014 5:08 PM

Our Doubts are Traitors

An Indomitable Grace

“Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.”

-Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

May 6, 2014 3:04 PM

doubt measure for measure shakespeare

Pretending not to be Poor

An Indomitable Grace

I have, for as long as I can remember, tried to pretend not to be poor.

You don’t have to smoke or have bad teeth or live in a trailer park to be poor. You don’t have to say “ain’t” instead of “isn’t” or “seen” instead of “saw”. You also don’t have to be homeless or car-less or live in government housing. You don’t have look like you don’t have it together. It just takes some unexpected medical bills, a car accident, or an attempt at starting a business which flops. American poverty has a lot of different faces. This one is mine.

_____________________

I don’t know when I first noticed that my family was poor. I must have been quite young, not older than four or five. I remember sitting at the top of the basement stairs when I was supposed to be in bed, listening to my parents’ argument about finances. They weren’t yelling or even loud, but they might as well have been. I remember empty kitchen cupboards, perfect for playing hide-and-seek. I remember food that didn’t come from a grocery store. I remember hating powdered milk and the kind of canned vegetables that I’m pretty sure no one has ever liked. Does anyone actually eat creamed corn?

When I was a kid, getting brand new clothing was an event. Most of what I wore were hand-me-downs from my sister or my mom’s friends with older children. Otherwise, it was from thrift stores. Target and Kohl’s seemed high-end. I will not pretend that I wasn’t delighted when I’d open up an entire trash bag full of clothes my size. I didn’t care if someone else had worn them before; the sheer volume of clothing was exhilarating. Despite this, I had learned that clothes played a significant role in how people perceived me.

We pick up on this from a young age. Boys want to wear the right sports jersey or tennis shoes. Girls need the latest hair accessories or brand of jeans. It is astounding how much of our identity is expressed and adopted through the clothes we wear.

It didn’t take long for me to develop both a contempt for youth fashion norms and an advanced sense of style, especially once I was old enough to work a summer job and could pay for my own clothes. Even before this, when I still thought I wanted to wear band t-shirts, flared jeans, and Vans, I had begun trying to conceal that I was poor. I discovered that people around me didn’t quite get what I meant when I said my parents couldn’t afford something.

One incident still stands out to me. I was spending the day with a friend from church. She had instructed me not to eat too much of whatever we were snacking on, because her parents were poor, and they needed to save money. I was a little confused, because we had gotten the snack from a pantry packed with food in the brand new house that her parents had just built. That just didn’t really seem like being poor to me. She explained that they were poor because they had just built the house. I couldn’t articulate at the time what was wrong with her comparing her parents’ financial situation to mine, but it just didn’t quite add up to me.

My house growing up, while owned by my parents, was in a constant state of disrepair. The bathroom was unfinished for many years; the kitchen had no flooring; the front steps were crumbling; we had remodeled the upstairs, replacing the breaking vegetable board with dry wall, but had never quite finished. We had only three bedrooms for our eight-person family.

Looking back, I understand why my mom would have melt-downs and go on cleaning rampages. Having a clean house was the best she could do when she couldn’t afford to fix the water-damaged ceiling or buy us new bed linens.

After my experience with my friend complaining about being poor in a completely failed attempt at being relatable, I decided to talk about it as little as possible. There was a long list of things my peers at school had that I knew I couldn’t have. This was especially apparent in my honors classes, where my classmates usually came from small, middle class families, who had lived in the city for generations.

Knowing the power of clothing, I invested in my wardrobe. I got cute shoes, fancy shirts and skirts. I dressed with sophistication. It wouldn’t be enough to fit in. Fitting in was for boring people. I had to out-dress those around me. Of course, I was an awkward teenager, so I think the closest I came to real sophistication was getting a black, velvet dress from Macy’s and wearing it to my winter formal. Otherwise, I was probably just mostly awkward.

Instead of being a normal senior in high school, I went to France. This might seem alarming given the picture I’ve painted of my childhood. But you won’t be surprised that I did extensive research and found the cheapest program so I could spend my year abroad. I don’t know how or why my parents contributed as much as they did, but I got there. It was one of the most difficult things I have done, and the reward was well worth it. I got to sit in coffee shops and sip Espresso, see Paris twice, Spain twice. I made friends and flirted with a boy name Valentin while he played the piano. I ate incredible food, learned how to cook some of it too. I learned about fashion, and got way ahead of the game, wearing skinny jeans and scarves well before they caught on in the States. I fell in love with one of my host families, and still get homesick for them. I did almost all of this for free. Despite my 70 EURO per month allowance, my life was so very, very rich.

I returned from France with an even more advanced sense of style and an acceptance letter to the college of my choice. I had become so very good at pretending not to be poor that I decided to go to a private college. Anything that I didn’t get covered with grants and scholarships, I paid for with student loans. Every year there was a shortage in my financial aid package, and I had to do battle with them to find out how to make up the difference, which really just resulted in more loans. This was embarrassing, and there were many tearful phone calls to my parents.

One nice thing about college is that almost everyone is kind of poor, so most of my experience felt like it had more of an equalizing element. However, one evening, during a conversation with a group of students over tea and toast, the subject turned to class and education. They were speculating on the likelihood of the poor being able to succeed in education, given the typical differences in social norms. I remember feeling as though they were missing something important. They were right that a lot of people who grow up in a certain income bracket would probably have a more difficult time getting to and succeeding in college. Their parents are more likely not to value education in the first place, so that as young as kindergarten, they are already behind their peers. This gap increases over time, making college a non-option even before anyone ever suggests it. However, they were missing another option: people who were raised by educated people, but were still poor. I tried to describe the nuances of pretending to be a member of the middle class. I failed. The group didn’t understand how I could be sitting there in my nice clothes being poor. I was playing the part too well.

This is still an issue today. When I wasn’t working, and I was homeless at the end of last year, I stressed about finding a midpoint between struggling-to-get-by and responsible-adult-who-isn’t-just-looking-for-handouts when I signed up for food assistance. Meanwhile, I am well versed in bourgeois conversation. What’s more is I have a degree and can talk circles around most people. How could anybody guess that in the two years since graduating college, my average income has been about $14,000?

I don’t know why it matters that I try to pretend not to be poor. I try to eat organic and free-range foods. I talk about culture. I attended college. I get good haircuts. I even get massages sometimes. I go out to restaurants with my friends and offer to pay for coffee. Sometimes, I buy the good butter instead of the cheap stuff. Maybe I shouldn’t do these things. Maybe I should face my poverty, and tell my friends that all they get is a card for their birthday, as long as I can afford that. Maybe it’ll just be a letter written on some borrowed printer paper. Maybe I should live that way. Why do I pretend not to be poor? I think it’s because I want to connect to people; I want to be seen and heard. I want to have something to offer and not be constantly taking.

Once, in college, I was really running low on cash, and a bunch of my friends got together at my apartment. I hadn’t seen most of them in quite awhile, and we didn’t really have anywhere to hang out, unless I opened up my living room. I made all the food I had left because they were hungry, with no idea how I was going to get more food. What I offered my guests was supposed to last me another week. We still had a ton of fun. We laughed and talked, and people complimented my cooking. Fortunately, the next day, I got an e-mail informing me of extra grant money that hadn’t been included previously in my financial aid package, and I got the funds I needed to make rent and buy groceries for the rest of the quarter within the next couple days.

I don’t ever want to do that again. I don’t want to be so hopelessly broke and ashamed of it that I invite people over and offer them something that I absolutely cannot afford to give. However, I am so glad they came, so glad they enjoyed the food, so glad we spent time together, connecting.

Pretending not to be poor is a form of hiding. It’s fueled by shame. It’s fueled by the fear of being disconnected. Most people, when they learn about my financial situation, get really uncomfortable. They either say something completely oblivious or insensitive, or they change the subject. Pretending not to be poor is an attempt to avoid this experience, to make the world think I am a capable adult, to make myself think so as well. And in spite of this, I have learned that generosity is better than buying more razors to shave my legs. Connecting is better than having a new computer or having an expensive hobby. I can go an extra month without getting a haircut if it means I can go out to drinks one extra time with a group of people dear to me.

This is my story. I don’t want to pretend any more. Poverty is about the state of my bank account. It is not who I am. I am courageous. I am daring greatly.

Apr 29, 2014 8:37 AM

bank account clothes family finances http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-tirado/why-poor-peoples-bad-decisions-make-perfect-sense_b_4326233.html killer martinis Linda Tirado money poor poverty powdered milk This is why poor people’s bad decisions make perfect sense

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

An Indomitable Grace

This…

By Marty McConnell

leaving is not enough; you must
 stay gone. train your heart
 like a dog. change the locks
 even on the house he’s never
 visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
 you have an apartment
 just your size. a bathtub
 full of tea. a heart the size
 of Arizona, but not nearly
 so arid. don’t wish away
 your cracked past, your
 crooked toes, your problems
 are papier mache puppets
 you made or bought because the vendor
 at the market was so compelling you just
 had to have them. you had to have him.
 and you did. and now you pull down
 the bridge between your houses.
 you make him call before
 he visits. you take a lover
 for granted, you take
 a lover who looks at you
 like maybe you are magic. make
 the first bottle you consume
 in this place a relic. place it
 on whatever altar you fashion
 with a knife and five cranberries.
 don’t lose too much weight.
 stupid girls are always trying
 to disappear as revenge. and you
 are not stupid. you loved a man
 with more hands than a parade
 of beggars, and here you stand. heart
 like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
 heart leaking something so strong
 they can smell it in the street.

Apr 25, 2014 1:18 PM

Frida Kahlo Marty McConnell

I am the Sea

An Indomitable Grace

Before springtime had blushed in warmth
and welcomed us from winter’s dark
toward generous days,
I saw myself in love—in love again.
Like an enchantment hanging over me—
as I chase flocks of seagulls along ocean shores—
how I long for one of those pretty birds
to fly to me instead of flee
But if exhausted, or my legs give way,
and I fall to the ground,
I find myself comforted by the sand,
each speck telling a history of such an endless love,
being washed—washed again—
so shaped by her ageless devotion,
and resting peacefully by the sea’s side.
Now that spring and resurrection have shone
light and life in heavenly hues,
I see that you were only ever a seagull,
while I have always been the sea.

Apr 24, 2014 7:15 AM

Improvisational Comedy: Say Yes

An Indomitable Grace

If you ever do any improv at all, you will learn the first rule: say yes. You can’t start a scene without saying yes. Well, you can try, but you won’t get very far. You won’t entertain the audience, and you won’t help your fellow performers look good. Improv fails when you don’t say yes.

I am not good at improv. I don’t have ideas about scenes until twenty minutes after they’re over. Taking the lead and introducing a new topic is not a natural thing for me when I’m on stage. I want to meticulously define all the parameters of my character, create a Pinterest account and spend three months only pinning what my character would pin. I want a deep and robust sense of who I have to be for every second I’m on stage. If I could, I would map out an entire ontology of the universe I’m acting in before I set foot on stage. I want to know exactly what I am meant to do at every moment.

This is not an option in improv. There’s no script. There’s just a short prompt: you’re on a sinking ship with only one life vest left.

Go.

And if you can’t think of anything else to do, you still have to start by saying yes. This, you will find, can bring about a wide range of hilarity, goofiness, laughter, and punchlines. But you have to keep saying yes. Otherwise, as I have seen too often, the whole thing falls apart.

There was a lot less at risk during the improv I performed as a part of my school’s Drama Club than in real life. Saying yes to college, yes to moving half way across the country (or to a different country all together), yes to dating that guy in my dorm freshman year, then that one senior year, then again just a few months ago, saying yes to moving in with your friends or practical strangers, saying yes to lunch with a friend who betrayed your trust, those have more risk.

The risk is vulnerability. It’s the possibility of depending on other people, of feeling lost, of not knowing what to say or how to say it. It’s sitting on the floor in your living room as your parents tell you that they can’t come to your graduation, desperately wishing you had decided to go to college closer to home. The risk is sitting alone in your room after you’ve said goodbye to another one you’ve loved, gasping for air between all the fluids that have seen fit to expel themselves from your face.

The risk is enough to tempt me to say no, to say I will not feel deeply, to keep myself from loving deeply, to keep myself from losing deeply. I will rest in the safety of anticipated movement, knowing the script, knowing how the story ends, knowing what tomorrow will bring. I will build my own little universe.

But soon I find that I can’t be in the performance at all, that small universes can be logically consistent, but oh so very limited. The thrill of being on stage is unlike any other, a combination of bravery and terror: life amplified.

I would like to submit for your consideration, that the risk is worthwhile, that you will always have your setbacks, your difficulties, your epic flops. But your shining moments are all the brighter for having said yes. Making yourself vulnerable to failure is one of the strongest things you can do.

Today, I am going to say yes.

Apr 21, 2014 7:06 PM

acting daring greatly improv script stage theater vulnerability yes

To Hope

An Indomitable Grace

By John Keats

When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my ‘mind’s eye’ flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.

Whene’er I wander, at the fall of nights,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon’s bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When like a cloud he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound pray to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!

Whene’er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
They heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head!

Should e’er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head!

In the long vista of the years to toll,
Let me not see our country’s honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom’s shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed-
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!

Let me not see the patriot’s high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppressed,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds th bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half-veiled face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving they silver pinions o’er my head.

Apr 18, 2014 8:59 PM

Hope John Keats Keats On Hope poetry

After the Storm

An Indomitable Grace

This is one of the best songs I have ever listened to, sung in the shower, or based a clothing line on.

When I was about five or six, I somehow inherited a white, lacy dress. To my memory, it was beautiful, not one of those bad 80s dresses with huge shoulder pads. The lace was delicate. I really only have one memory associated with it, though, because I don’t think it lasted for very long.

I wanted to play outside, and I wanted to wear my fancy dress. I remember my mom telling me not to play in the mud while wearing the dress. I remember ignoring her, thinking I could play just a little without getting the dress dirty. I didn’t even come close. The entire dress was covered with mud, ruined. And I was so mad at myself, especially after my mom had warned me. Why hadn’t it been obvious to me that playing in the mud in nice clothes would ruin them?

——

Hope is hard. I don’t always know what to hope in or who to trust or whether my plans will work out. I don’t know if the risks I take will bear fruit or if I will find myself wearing a white, lacy dress in the middle of a mud puddle. I find myself in a lot of mud puddles—actually, mud puddles would be a relief by comparison. I try to do something new, tell myself I can, I work hard, and I fail. And while the fault isn’t always mine, it’s still hard to know what to hope for.

But there is hope. Remember the chorus:

And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears,
and love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

While there are plenty of mud puddles after a storm for me to slip into, leaving me feeling disappointed and embarrassed, this reminds me to hope. It reminds me that my failed attempts at love and connection will end. Someday love will win. It hints at eternity, hints at resurrection, hints at the life of the world to come.

Today, I am still in the storm, and it doesn’t show any signs of breaking. Today, I am at the bottom of the hill, and I can’t see what comes next.

Yet, there will come a time…

Apr 14, 2014 10:10 AM

There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

An Indomitable Grace

By James Kavanaugh

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

Apr 11, 2014 9:05 AM

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