Tag Archives: Edgar Simmons

President Joe Biden Is Offering Us A “Profile In Courage.”

When Joe Biden was sworn in as our President last January, I felt such a sense of relief. Hope had returned. In his inauguration address, he voiced hope and optimism and avoided denigrating his predecessor. He demonstrated that he could see beyond the end of his nose, that “this is not about me” but about this wonderful nation that had given him this honor. In his speech, he demonstrated a faint tic here and there in speech, reflecting the speech impediment that he struggled with as a child. I think that this impediment was, and is, an essential part of his character as he had to struggle with it and learn to “rein in” that passion that led to this stuttering problem. (See afterthought, on the neurological dimension of this problem.)J

Joe, and I think he would appreciate that I call him “Joe,” is a good man and part of that goodness is that he is aware of his “not-so-good” qualities; and I think his Catholic faith is an essential dimension of this goodness. His faith has instilled in him the value of life, not only his own but that of the entire nation and world. This helps him endure the “slings and arrows” that those who hate him toss his way daily.

The stuttering issue of his puts on my table the childhood fear of being “different”; in our early childhood, the fear of this “difference” is terrifying and we go to great effort to fit in and be allowed to “play in the reindeer games” that Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer felt excluded from. But this need to “fit in” can be crippling and shred any potential for individuality, thereby selling one’s own soul. But young Joe knew that he had a problem and deliberately addressed it, learning adaptations that would allow him to not stutter any more… more or less. This courage allowed him to accept that he still, and always will, have a verbal slip here and there and he is ok nevertheless. The core issue for him on that matter was accepting human frailty. If someone in the Oval Office can not be humble enough to accept that, woe is country!

Here I must clarify my early insinuation that stuttering is not neurological. It is neurological, as is everything about us, including this moment in my life when I am sitting here by an early-morning crackling fire, sipping coffee, Petey at my side, and delighted with this moment of Grace that I have been afforded. This Grace comforts me as I “gird up my loins” for another Autumn day in the beautiful High Desert of New Mexico. Synapses are firing away “up there” up there in my head. But this marvelous neurological dimension of human experience lends itself to poetry, giving us the poetry of Edgar Simmons who likened stuttering to the childhood predicament of having more to say than words can contain. (Remember Cordelia’s response to her father, King Lear, who posed the question, ‘How much do you love me?’” His lovely young daughter responded, “More than words can wield the matter.”) Biden has tremendous passion which has led verbally slip here and there and to stumble with words also. Here is this compelling poem by Simmons:

BOW DOWN TO STUTTERERS

By Edgar Simmons

The stutter’s hesitation

Is a procrastination crackle,

Redress to hot force,

Flight from ancient flame.

The bow, the handclasp, the sign of the cross

Say, “Sh-sh-sheathe the savage sword.”

If there is greatness in sacrifice

Lay on me the blue stigmata of saints;

Let me not fly to kill in unthought.

Prufrock has been maligned

And Hamlet should have waived revenge,

Walked with Ophelia domestic corridors

Absorbing the tick, the bothersome twitch.

Let me stutter with the non-objective painters

Let my stars cool to bare lighted civilities.

Distance, Metaphor, and Edgar Simmons

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Last evening I stepped out into the bitter cold to witness Saturn and Jupiter come close to each other as if they were going to lovingly embrace, if you can consider “embracing” while separated by millions of miles. I can use the word embracing as in “touching” here only with the realization that in reality I am viewing this moment in our cosmic history from a physical distance of millions of miles. Even those two planets, appearing to be in “conjunction” are separated by five plus million miles. It is our “perspective” that allows us to witness this incredible moment in our history, giving us the necessary separateness that allows us to bring delight, joy, wonder and appreciation to the table. Before our perspective took roots in our early childhood we did not have the “luxury” of distance as we were part and parcel of a “moment” that we were immersed in and not able to cognitively/spiritually understand it. At that moment there was no “object separateness”…. to employ a bit of clinical jargon. It is the Biblical “fall” that gave us this detachment without which there would be no human culture. Spiritual maturity can gradually come to us in our “four-score and ten” when we grasp the wisdom of this Great Round of which we are but a part, a visitation of “Grace.”

The abysmal distance left us with a hunger to “close it up,” to find the lost connection and return to the delightful “Garden of Eden.” We pine for the relief from the burden of life in which we are separate and distinct, where culture seduces us into believing its artifice can give us that “Grand Conjunction” where grace awaits us. Culture, certainly language, can guide us in that direction but only if we see…and feel…that words will never suffice; they are but “pointers” to the Ultimate. The Buddhists so profoundly teach us, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

Here I want to share another Edgar Simmons poem which beautifully and profoundly captures the experience of distance:

THE MAGNETIC FIELD

Distance…which by definition
Indicates a separation from self
Is the healing poultice of metaphor,
Is the night-lighting of poetry.
As we allot to elements their weights
So to metaphor we need assign the
Weight of the ghost of distance.
Stars are stars to us
Because of distance: it is in the
Nothingness which clings us them
That we glory, tremble, and bow.
O what weight and glory lie abalance
In the stretch of vacant fields:
Metaphor: the hymn and hum of separation.

A Poem Relevant to Our Nation, “Bow Down to Stutterers.”

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Joe Biden put something on our table last week that Trump will never do, given a constitutional flaw that makes it impossible to admit any fault—he admitted a human flaw, stuttering. Furthermore, he offered the stage to a 13 year old lad who he has coached recently about stuttering, Braydon Harrington. Braydon humbly accepted this opportunity to demonstrate tremendous courage and offer a brief speech in which he did indeed stutter

Though stuttering is a neurological disorder…as is every malady, including “being human”…I immediately thought of a poem in which this malady was approached in poetic imagery. Edgar Simmons, a Mississippi poet who grasped the nuances of the heart and was able to present stuttering from an interesting perspective. In the poem which I will offer, he saw stuttering as representing a heart with so much energy that conveying its burden into words was a challenge. This poem is so rich but one particular image really speaks to me, “The stutter’s hesitation/Is a procrastination crackle/Redress to hot force,/Flight from ancient flame.” Simmons presents the stutterer as being gripped by a passionate intensity that words cannot contain. It brings to mind Goneril’s response to her father’s (King Lear) question, “How much do you love me?” She responded with a simple, “More than words can wield the matter.”

BOW DOWN TO STUTTERERS
By Edgar Simmons

The stutter’s hesitation
Is a procrastination crackle,
Redress to hot force,
Flight from ancient flame.

The bow, the handclasp, the sign of the cross
Say, “Sh-sh-sheathe the savage sword.”

If there is greatness in sacrifice
Lay on me the blue stigmata of saints;
Let me not fly to kill in unthought.

Prufrock has been maligned
And Hamlet should have waived revenge,
Walked with Ophelia domestic corridors
Absorbing the tick, the bothersome twitch.

Let me stutter with the non-objective painters
Let my stars cool to bare lighted civilities.

Symbolic Communication and Susan K. Deri

Glen Beck and Neurophysiology

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Glenn Beck is one of the arch villains for we American liberals, a daily font of conservative blather of the darkest vein. But two days ago on his tv show he tearfully acknowledged that he has been battling for years a serious neurological illness that will shut him down in only a few years.

I guess in the deepest recesses of the fatally ill “literallew” there was a want to go “tee-hee” and I fear there will be a lot of that brutal, heartless immaturity from other of my liberal brothers and cisterns….I mean sisters. But I’m deeply sorry for this brother of ours….for we are all brothers and sisters regardless of our different perspectives on life—we are all made from the same “stuff,” we are all the “quintessence of dust” as Shakespeare understood so well.

However, I do think that the vitriolic blather of Glen Beck and others does have a neurological sub-strata. But, alas and alack, I also feel strongly that this “enlightened” perspective you are now reading has a “neurological sub-strata” and coming to understand this years ago has helped me to take myself less seriously than I have done for most of my life. Modern neurological science has taught us so much about ourselves that if we would humble ourselves and pay attention we eventually find ourselves overwhelmed with the simple but profound mystery of life, including the mystery of our very being.

In the past three years plus some of your have witnessed my “tippy-toeing” into this mystery as my awareness of it began to blossom. Awareness of this mystery…cognitively and emotionally…always evokes a feeling of finitude and frailty and at times is overwhelming. It is an humbling experience. It always brings to my mind the image that Shakespeare offered with King Lear, out on the heath of the kingdom he had forfeited, “pelted by a pitiless storm,” bereft of all the accouterments of his power, “naked as a jay-bird”, noting of an animal nearby, “we are all but poor, bare forked creatures as thou art.”

This “nakedness” that Shakespeare so eloquently grasped in his plays is what Glenn Beck is now feeling. It is what I am now feeling. And according to the teachings of Jesus…and countless other spiritual teachers over the eons…this nakedness is something we can experience any time in our life and can therein find redemption. This nakedness is “death” and out of it can come “life.” This nakedness is death of the ego, a relaxing of its tenacious grip on our consciousness allowing us to see that our life and the whole of life is much more than we can comprehend, an incomprehensible mystery before which we can only “glory, bow, and tremble.” (Poet, Edgar Simmons)

My 25th Wedding Anniversary!!!

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Last Sunday I celebrated by 25th wedding anniversary with my lovely wife Claire. It is unbelievable to realize that I have now been married a quarter of a century! Where has time gone?

Getting married was a mind boggling experience for me as I had given up by the time I met her at age 36. But it was love and magic at first sight…pretty much…as I was immediately captivated by her boundless energy, enthusiasm, intelligence, and beauty. We were soul mates almost immediately and I had longed for one of “them there thangs” all my life!

A college psychology professor of mine once described marriage as an opportunity for a young man to “be redeemed by the love of a good woman.” That redemption started immediately and will continue to the end of my life as redemption is always an ongoing process, a process which is best conveyed by the poet Wendell Berry in the poem I will conclude with shortly. One dimension of this redemptive process is just the simple structure provided by the commitment of marriage, two separate individuals with separate agendas deigning to live together under one roof. “commingling” their lives.

And when a man and woman begin to live together under one roof, that is when the sparks begin to fly! And they have certainly flown and it is a wonder at times that the entire house did not burn down! For marriage is work and if it is done “right” the work will challenge one to the core. Someone once noted that we marry a fantasy and when we get “in the saddle” together, the fantasy begins to dissipate and we discover the reality of the other person. AND, in the process we make a parallel discovery of the “reality” of who we are ourselves.

This “self” discovery is the most important gift that marriage has given me. As the work of marriage unfolded, I began to realize the true meaning of the biblical description of man and woman together as being “one flesh.” I began to see how Claire was truly my complement, embodying so many things that I wanted but also so many things I did not want! And, of course, being a professional…and compulsive…“care giver”, I wanted to “fix her” which I came to discover meant that I wanted, and even demanded, that she be just like me. Well, I soon learned that hell would freeze over before that would happen!

It probably took twenty years for me to learn just exactly what relationship is, to see…and feel…that Claire and I were “one flesh.” I had to learn to make space for her in my life, to make room for her in my heart, and that entailed that I had to understand that I had not been doing so in the first place! And, even more so, it meant that I had not been doing so with anyone! I had known about the notion of “otherness” for a long time but suddenly the experience, or “feeling,” of “otherness” was on the table and that was, and still is, disconcerting to say the least. Suddenly I was face to face with the subtle narcissism that had shrouded my life since early childhood. And slowly, and even shyly, I began to peer out of that shroud and to discover not just Claire but the whole of God’s beautiful creation. I had understood Karl Jung’s notion of “withdrawing our projections” but now I began to “feel” it also.

Here are two poems that so beautifully capture the mysterious work of marriage:

MARRIAGE
by Wendell Berry

How hard it is for me, who live
in the excitement of women
and have the desire for them
in my mouth like salt. Yet
you have taken me and quieted me.
You have been such light to me
that other women have been
your shadows. You come near me
with the nearness of sleep.
And yet I am not quiet.
It is to be broken. It is to be
torn open. It is not to be
reached and come to rest in
ever. I turn against you,
I break from you, I turn to you.
We hurt, and are hurt,
and have each other for healing.
It is healing. It is never whole.
And the second poem conveys the redemptive dimension of living together within the confines of marital commitment:
BOW DOWN TO STUTTERERS
by Edgar Simmons

The stutterers hesitation
Is a procrastinate crackle,
Redress to hot force,
Flight from ancient flame.

The bow, the handclasp, the sign of the cross
Say, “She-sh-sheathe the savage sword!”

If there is greatness in sacrifice
Lay on me the blue stigmata of saints;
Let me not fly to kill in unthought.

Prufrock has been maligned.
And Hamlet should have waived revenge,
Walked with Ophelia domestic corridors
Absorbing the tick, the bothersome twitch.

Let me stutter with the non-objective painters
Let my stars cool to bare lighted civilities.

Being “Quickened” into a Soul

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Poet Claire Kelly quotes another poet, Emily Carr, who noted, “Without movement, the subject is dead.” Carr recognized that to be human…and an “alive” one…the subject must be alive, functioning in a dynamic fashion. She recognized that it is possible to be physically alive, and yes to have a “subjective” life, but at the same time be “subjectively” dead. She echoed the illimitable wisdom of Shakespeare whose Hamlet described a heart that could be “full of penetrable stuff” if it were not “bronzed o’er with damned custom.” By use of the term “penetrable” Shakespeare was describing the vulnerability that is present when one is “subjectively” alive And this lovely poem by Ms. Kelley provides a beautiful parallel of the vibrancy of a “subjectivity” that is fully alive.

But, let me utilize my “literary license” and introduce the term “soul” to this notion. When one’s subjective experience is quickened by what I like to describe as “the Spirit of God,” a soul is born, a soul that is in unity with others and with the whole of God’s creation. This soul not only “knows” things about life but “feels” them in the depths of his/her heart and at times can only “glory, bow, and tremble” as poet Edgar Simmons described it. At this point thought and feeling are working in tandem and some version of the Incarnation has occurred, described by W. H. Auden as “flesh and mind being delivered from mistrust.”

But it is much easier and less painful to live on the surface of life and not bothered with the “intrusiveness” of God’s Spirit. But, that is just another way of saying that it is easier to live oblivious to reality and not allow Reality (i.e. “otherness”) to “mess up” one’s pristine Ozzie and Harriet existence. For, “god” or “God” is jusord we throw around to capture the experience of the Ineffable which is always found on the boundaries of life and if we disallow boundary violation…that is if our heart is not “penetrable”…we cannot experience the Ineffable. Here is the beautiful poem by Ms. Kelley:

IN THE TORSO OF A GREAT WINDSTORM
(Odds and Ends, 1939)

The wind makes everything alive….
Without movement a subject is dead. Just look!
—Emily Carr

Put your hand over a flashlight,
watch it glow faerie pink. Picture—
lit from inside—a belly torch,

the backdrop—
knot of spruce tree organs: liver, kidneys,
bundle of intestine, stomach—
cool blue and green foliage hiding enzymes,
bacterium, acids.

That exact texture of pulse,
quiver, musculature connected
and contained, skyline and dirt grouted
together, a vista of
inner skin, the underside.
Airstream gale whipping
the pinprick stars into dashes,
molars into canines, evolution
of the Spartan firmaments. A breezy muse,
that gust of inspiration.

Now look at the actors erect at centre stage, see:
skinny veins with plump tops,
or—zooming in—synapses of birch foregrounded.
Holy trifecta, three ideas
announcing skyward:
home, joy, hunger.

I “Discovered” America!

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Yes, in 1952 I “discovered America” although I also soon realized there were a lot of other “Americans” here already! Edgar Simmons once wrote, “We rattle the world for our babies” and early in 1952 the annual “rattle” took place and I fell to the earth in the sticks of central Arkansas.

It was a “discovery” and adventure; and continues to be. This is an amazing world that we live in. For example, at this very moment I am sitting in what I call my “bird theater” and watch junkies, sparrows, titmice, cardinals, and two or three varieties of woodpeckers raucously queue up for their moment at the bird feeders, cavorting about in the blowing snow as they wait their turn. Suddenly I am a child again and can “feel” on some level again the marvelous beauty that the world has for children before they get fully ensconced in the mundane. That was the time when my heart was still made of “penetrable stuff” and had not been “bronzed o’er” with the “damned custom…(that is) proof and bulwark against sense (or feeling).”

Now, of course, I employ my “literary license” here to recall these moments as there was no cognitive apparatus there to “remember” them with. That contrivance would come later and with it would come a more routine, mundane appreciation of the “beauty” I saw…and felt…at that time. And I use the word “felt” deliberately for early in our life we are a “feeling state” and are constantly soaking up the impressions which will stick with us for life and which will formulate the core of our identity, the roots of that unconscious domain that shapes our life. And, now, I do sense that I have some awareness of that phase of my childhood, some intuitive grasp of how the world appeared back then.

And on that subject, I don’t think I really liked much of the world…or at least the “human” part. I found all “those rules” baffling and overwhelming and preferred to stay safely tucked away in my little uroborus. I mean, there were so many of “those rules” and how could I ever get them “all” right; and, of course, being a budding narcissist, I had to get them “all” right, didn’t I? And, I might add that I’ve spent my life trying furiously to accomplish this goal but have found enough Grace in recent years to give up the quest, to humbly realize just how silly, vain and “narcissistic” it was in the first place. I really think that I felt so “judged” by the world I was discovering, and judged so disapprovingly, that I had to be “right” to compensate and the only way I saw that I could do this was to master all of the rules. Meanwhile, I was also immersed in a Jesus culture in which I was nearly almost daily about God and His mercy and forgiveness; and though I came to say I believed it all, I actually didn’t believe a word of it, did I?! The only way I felt I could be forgiven was to “be right” and that meant to follow the “rules.” When that facade began to fade decades later, I referred to it as the loss of my, “ruined, rural righteousness.” And, I might add, that in spite of what I was being “taught” by my “Jesus culture”, the subtext of that teaching was a dictate to do just as I was doing—Be Right!

Come to think of it, there is another character flaw—I’ve always had a hard time focusing on what was going on, preferring to focus on what was going on beneath the surface, in the “subtext.” I almost wonder if I had some version of ADD?

Neurophysiology and The Question of Meaning

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Politico has an interesting article today about the role that neurophysiology plays in shaping our political viewpoint. (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/left-right-the-brain-science-of-politics-88653.html?hp=l11)

I have been curious about this research for the past year and recently ran across another blogger (Neuroresearchproject.com) with a similar curiosity. I also strongly recommend that you google the name “Jonathan Haidt” to listen to a psychologist discourse re a similar vein of thought.

This research would have given me pause at one point in my life, causing me to doubt myself, my faith, and basically everything. This research suggests that our life is largely determined by circumstances far beyond the grasp of our mind. But, now my response is, “So…..????” For, I have now feel that my grasp of reality is so very finite and is so shaped by circumstances that I can never wrap my brain around. And at times I ask, “How could I have ever thought otherwise?”

I used to be a lot more arrogant than I am now. (And, yes, I still have the taint of arrogance in my heart!) Life is just an incredible mystery and I’ve learned to find glory in that experience.

Sure, we need to study and study and study. We need to speculate as we have always been wont to do. And we will learn more and more as we go. But ultimately we will always come down to….nothing…or, as I like to put it, “No-Thing.” It is when we allow that primordial Emptiness to give us pause that we can be disrupted from the humdrum routine of the dog-and-pony show that we call our life and allow a Mystery to visit us and experience somewhat the Mystery that we are. It is there that we find our Source and then that we experience the temptation of turning that new Friend of ours into still another contrivance for our ego.

I’d like to share a poem by Edgar Simmons about detachment and its role in helping us to discover the Glory in this mystery of No-thingness.