The haiku, re-examining some criticism, and some (possibly rhetorical) questions.

I'm not proud to say it, but I wrote a haiku back in January and I posted it here. As you might expect, I hate haiku. They seem to mostly exist in English as a cop-out for inept English teachers -- an assignment to give to students to make up for not knowing how to actually teach poetry. Sort of the moral equivalent of teaching the Macarena at a ballet class. Sure, it's dancing, but dancing for people who want to dance without trying. Easy to teach, and you sure as heck don't need to be able to make any value judgments on the quality of someone's Macarena skills. You don't need to critique someone's Macarena dancing if you're teaching a class on dancing; let people just enjoy themselves. Why critique any dancing at all while we're at it? Dancing is a method of expression, and expression is pure.

Or something. Most people teach the form of haiku and never touch the substance. I can write a quick and dirty poem in haiku form any old time. For example:

Poetry Teacher's Dream
"Darkness surrounds me . . ."
began the freshman's poem
I burned with Mein Kampf.

See, it's easy. 5-7-5, home for second breakfast. I even spent a little extra time on the images that I didn't really need to. Not for an English language haiku. English language haiku are lazy punk hooligans. In my opinion, the syllabic requirements for haiku should be thrown out, and we should set wheelbarrows, white chickens, and stations of the metro as the standard. Also, cold, sweet, plums.

But anyway, in January I was in the middle of a lot of people telling me that my blog posts were too long, and I was also in the middle of thinking about something that I didn't want to expand on too deeply at the time, so I took a stab at a poem to try to express it. Also, I didn't want to directly confront the person who was bringing up the things I wanted to address because I didn't hear it directly from her, and didn't know her that well. Also, some days I'm lazy. So, yeah, part irony, part artistic expression, part non-confrontation, part laziness. Here it is again:

Our roast hen cloister,
greasy fingers strumming loaves,
laughs. Is it moral?

Yes, it needs a title. Maybe I'd call it 'Fellowship' if I had to write it again. Clue you into the context. As if you needed it, O Independent Reader. But titles are polite.

My desire to write the haiku came out of some comments that F. (a friend of mine's ex-girlfriend) made to N. (this friend) about our group of friends, that N. mentioned to me as part of his wresting with the deteriorating state of their relationship. So this is partially hearsay, but I think the points are worth examining anyway. Besides, hearsay only means the veracity of the origin of the statement is in question, not the content of statement itself, per se. Especially in non-legal contexts. Also, because it's easy to be overly critical of friends' ex-girlfriends, to pull out the ol' ad hominim hose and spray indiscriminately, I'll try to take what she was saying in the most positive light. This is called self-censorship. Also, possibly, maturity.

F. came to know our group entirely through N., and I'd like to think we made her feel welcome. I know we tried. We love N.; darn right we do. So we added his girlfriend to our Facebook friends, invited her to things we were doing even if N. wasn't going to be there, chatted jovially with her at parties, etc, etc, amen. Welcoming things. I don't think she ever felt part of the group, though. From what I can tell (as I continue to try to be kind), part of the reason was that she felt like we weren't living up to what she thought our Christianity should have been. Or perhaps it was that our lives weren't Christian enough for her.

I've talked about this next bit elsewhere (finally getting back to it, you might say) but there was a time in my life that if I didn't have a board game with me when I showed up to someone's house, it surprised people. It still surprises people who have known me for a long while (Hi, Juliet!). Settlers, Icehouse, decks of cards for spades or Durak (my research has revealed our standard house game includes all the variants), Three-Dragon Ante, anything, really. As long as it was a game, and especially if there was a party. Back in high school, I took a lot of pride in the fact we played board games at parties and didn't drink (more on the drinking bit some other time). New Years parties were official board game fests. One time, back in the days of Jill-at-Avila, I even took a whole backpack of games to a party with her college friends. Not really their scene, it turns out. Apparently, their scene involved watching Resident Evil 2 and drinking. So, yes, I've seen Resident Evil 2; judge me if you will. But the drinking seemed to take precedence even over the people who might have been interested in some sort of game. Ah, alas, Alcohol, how you have thwarted fun activities time and again.

But I've been moving away from playing board games lately. Part of it is that Jill's not a huge fan of board games (but they are growing on her she said the other day, so WOO). I even quit playing D&D, which was not an easy hobby to give up (but that was more for the time commitment than anything else). I just kept feeling like when I got together with people, I wanted to have some sort of substantive conversation, talk about something meaningful. So, that meant fewer board games in my mind. Of course, just as often those conversations end up being just as meaningless (if not more) than the light-hearted camaraderie of sitting around a basement table and building roads out of six pressed sheep.

So, our group's board game playing sparked some of F.'s criticism, I know. For example, she came along to a party at N.'s house - I think it was our New Years party - and we played Settlers, as you might expect, and there were more games going - Spades tournaments and the like. We spent the whole party playing games. She didn't say anything then, and never to me, plus, they had another party to get to, but N. said (as I recall) that it wasn't just the games that bothered her at that party, it was how much time we just spent being together. Eating, playing, talking. Maybe she thought we should have been out doing things. Things she thought were substantive. Out protesting for change, or feeding people who were hungry, or whatever Christians are supposed to do. And those criticisms do resonate with me. I want the things I do to be meaningful, to have weight, to be worthwhile, to be in line with the things I think God is in line with.

And F. isn't the only one asking these kinds questions about the group. I been in several discussions lately where we talked about how much board gaming we do, and how many people come to parties we throw, vs. and how frequently people show up when someone needs moved, for example.

Is there even a 'supposed to' when it comes to action?

The amount of money Americans spend on ice cream every year is greater than the amount of money that not-for-profits have said they would need to raise to make sure everyone in the world can eat if they're hungry. Should I stop eating ice cream? Should I match the money I spend on ice cream with money sent to organizations that fight hunger? Should I match my ice cream money with money spent on feeding hungry people I know?

I know I'm always supposed to love people. I want to, and usually do, but I don't always know how to act that out. It's something that's taken me long enough to start learning in marriage, let alone with people I don't have the benefit of sleeping with. Is love love if it's not acted out?

So, I have to ask the question of the haiku again, for me, is sitting around a table and eating food with people I am similar to, and enjoy the company of, moral? What if, instead of chicken, it's a vegan meal? A freegan meal? Is sitting around a table and playing a game with the same, similar, people moral? Is sitting in the same room as people I am similar to moral at all, or should I only associate with people who are very different from me? People I don't like? If so, what is the point of reconciliation; what then am I trying to reconcile people to? Is sitting in a room moral? Is watching the Stanley Cup finals with a good friend moral? Are sports at all moral? Good friends? Watching movies? Reading books? Are games? Is anything that isn't sacrifice for the other moral? Is everything moral? Is nothing?

Or perhaps the better question is, what should I/we be getting up to these days? What's a good use of time? Is time something for which we should even appropriately consider the word 'used' to be used? Is fun ok if it's restful/sabbath? Is fun ok if it's with your enemy? Is fun always ok? Ever ok? Why if all things are permissible are some things even so forbidden (Hi, adultery and drinking blood!)? How do I reconcile the things I think I ought to do with the desire to not be legalistic? That is, is trying to be disciplined legalistic? Is encouraging other people to be disciplined legalistic? Can I do anything without discipline?

Is asking these questions even a good use of my time, or should I be out living what I already know, which I don't do most of the time anyway? I know a lot of easy answers to these questions. Answers like: love. But like I said. Love, how?

The (kingdom, block party, diaspora) of God is like a teacher teaching the haiku, who when he planned to teach it, could not decide how to discipline and forgive, be grace-giving and instruct, work hard and have fun. So he walked the tightrope of love and grace and discipline and told his students to both use the 5-7-5 format, and striking, fresh images, especially of nature.