Rhetorical Appropriation

There's a trick you can use in poetry or prose that's all around us, but I don't know what it's called, so I'm going to name it: Appropriation.  It's when you take a word or phrase that's already out there, and repurpose it in your own work.  Kacey Musgraves does this in pretty much every song: 'You and your high horse', 'You're my velvet Elvis', and my personal favorite, 'You can have your space, cowboy'.  Sometimes it's overt, and sometimes it's sneaky.

And often it's punny.  If I were writing an expose on Richard Finch, co-founder of KC and the Sunshine Band, I could title it 'A Bird in the Band', because his last name is finch and it sounds like 'a bird in the hand'.  But I digress ...

As I was driving to an inspection this morning, I was thinking about appropriation, and I made up this poem, and I thought it would be fun to dissect it:

He was the one who got away.

But don't cry, baby, don't cry.

You know he never meant to stay.

'Cuz butterflies just flutter by.

First, there's some of the usual culprits:

Rhyming: Away and stay, cry and by.

Alliteration: was and one, he and who, meant and to and stay, know and never.

Assonance: but and 'cuz and was and one, never and meant.

Then there's a diacope, which is a word sandwich: don't cry, baby, don't cry.

And finally, appropriation.  There are three here.  The one in the first line, 'the one who got away', is just using a familiar line.  The one in the last line, 'butterflies just flutter by', is more fun, because it's taking a familiar kids' rhyme and imbuing it with new meaning, something like 'beautiful people are flaky and don't stay'.  The third one is the sneaky one: cry, baby.  It's taking the word crybaby and breaking it in two, so that the meaning shifts, but it's still there.  I think it's fun that the sentence says 'don't cry', but the word 'crybaby' is right there, kind of accusatory.

A couple of other interesting notes: 

 - I came up with the second line first, and built the rest around it.

 - I went back and forth between using 'he' or 'she', but settled on 'he' because it gave me one more alliteration.

 - The third line was originally something like 'You know he had to go away'.  I was trying to think of another appropriation, so there'd be one on each line, but when I came up with 'he never meant to stay', I liked the emotional punch and that it infers that she should have known better.

 - You may also notice that the first three lines have the same rhythm and the fourth one doesn't.  That's on purpose.  I feel it gives it a little kick.  Your're reading something that's emotionally upsetting and the rhythm falters at the same time.  There's a similar trick in movies where they'll jump to an angle that doesn't quite feel right at the same time that they want you to feel like something is wrong or painful.

So there you have it.  Anatomy of a poem I made up in my head while driving.  Hope you like it.

I don't want to go to church

I don't want to go to church anymore.  Which is to say that I want to go, but I'm having a problem with it.  An old problem that has reared its ugly head again.

A few years back, I started feeling more and more fragile at church.  I think it started when I was doing Kid's Church - something about seeing all of the happy kids and families really shook me and made be break down in tears.  So I stopped doing Kids Church.  But that same feeling started creeping into the main service with me.  If I had someone to sit with, I was fine.  But if not, the smallest thing could set me off, and I'd exit during the worship time and drive home.

I took a break for a while, not going to church.  And then my friend Christine suggested we be church buddies.  That was great.  I had someone to sit with and I was emotionally fine.  But then she stopped going.  I tried to keep going on my own, but when you feel like crying in the middle of service, it's not fun.  I took to always sitting on the aisle, because I wanted to be able to make a break for it.

Then one day I was sitting there and a woman entering the aisle in front of me stopped and lectured me, saying, "I like to move to the middle of the pew, so that people don't have to get by me."  Well, fuck you, lady!  You don't know why I'm sitting here on the aisle!  I got up and left and never went back.

It so happened that my friend Adam invited me to check out his new church.  Which I did, and soon the two of us were going to our new church together.  And I had someone to sit with again.  Adam is a busy guy, though, so soon he was off to other parts of the country or the world, leaving me to sit alone.  But I was OK, because I'd joined a small group and made new friends and even if I didn't sit with someone, I often saw and interacted with people I knew.  So the fragility stayed away.  For a year and three months.  Until last week.

I was talking to a woman I know, who is a greeter, outside.  And wanting to be friendly, I turned to the other greeter and put out my hand and introduced myself.  The other greeter just stared at me, then said, "We've met!"  She didn't tell me her name or laugh it off.  She just looked at me like I was a loser.

I didn't know what else to do, so I finished my conversation with my friend and went inside and sat down.  But that feeling was back.  After the first song, I got up and left.  I walked to my car, where I sat for 10 minutes, emotionally stuck.  I thought about talking to the woman who made me feel bad, but I felt too vulnerable.  So I drove home.

This week, I went to church again, but that feeling was there, starting on the drive over.  What if that woman was there?  Would I say something to her or ignore her or what?  She wasn't there, so I just went and sat down.  But I didn't want to be there.  I wanted to leave.

I feel like a failure.  I feel like a loser, who can't handle the smallest slight, and had to run home.  But normally I can.  I think I'm relatively thick-skinned most of the time.  But this thing at church ... I know it's not rational, but I don't know what to do about it.  I honestly just want to stop going.

So, here I am.  I know it would help to have a church buddy, but I can't ask someone, because then it would feel like they're doing it out of pity, and that would not work for me emotionally, either.  Same thing if you read this and then offer.  I wish I knew what the root was and could deal with that somehow, but I don't.  So I don't know what to do.

Pointed in the Write Direction

Sometimes when I'm depressed, life starts to seem pointless.  Sometimes even when I'm not depressed.  But it occurs to me that I need to ask the question, 'What would I want the point to be?'  Or, 'What would life look like if there was a point?'

Because saying life is pointless without an alternative is just being negative.

Often the pointless point is connected to loneliness.  The idea being that if I had someone to share my life with, then it wouldn't feel so pointless.  And I know from experience that having a girlfriend or even a close friend to spend time with frequently, does help alleviate the feeling of pointlessness.

But not completely.  Because it's a feeling.  Life FEELS pointless sometimes.  But when I'm spending time with someone and feeling loved and understood, I FEEL better.  But life either is pointless or it isn't, no matter how I feel about it.  And while I'm always going to feel negative feelings at times, it seems like it would help to fight those feelings if I had more of an anchor.  Something I could point myself at and say, 'See?  That's the point!  Focus on that!'

So!  What is the point?  Many Christians would say, and rightfully so, to glorify God.  To love Him and be loved by Him.  Yada yada.  But as you can tell from my glib yada yada, I don't find that answer satisfying.  Perhaps because it's too general.  I can stand up and say, 'God, I glorify you!', but it doesn't feel up some meter in my soul, and honestly I feel like only the cat is listening. 

OK, so perhaps something more specific to me.  Something about making my mark or leaving something behind or leaving the world better than I found it, or even helping just one person to have a better day, whether that's through writing or hugging or smiling at the counter person at the fast food place or visiting guys in prison or playing board games with folks on Tuesday nights.  'Cuz that's the stuff I do.  Those are some of the things that make up my unique contribution to the world and hopefully glorify God in the process.

Nope.  Doesn't do it.  Still doesn't seem like a point.  It's closer, but it kinda feels like a band-aid, and one that flips up on one end and gets looser and looser until it starts unwrapping all the time and you have to keep sticking it back down, but the sticky part has lost it's stickiness, so you let it flap around for a while and then finally rip it off.

Of course, the problem may be me.  Perhaps other people in life do reach a point where they believe they can clearly see the point of life.  I've always suspected that I feel more unsatisfied than the average person.  So that could be it.

But there's one more question to ask.  Could I be right?  Could it be that life is actually pointless?  Could it be that this existential question cannot be answered because we simply refuse to accept that life really is pointless?

Nah, I'm not buying that.  We're here.  Life is not an accident.  I think, therefore I am.  There's gotta be something to it.  There's just gotta be.  Right? 

But there still might be a clue there.  And here's what I'm thinking.  Maybe life feels pointless simply because this life is not all that there is?  It's like trying to figure out where a puzzle piece goes before realizing that you're only working on one little area and that piece belongs somewhere else in the puzzle.  Maybe it's just that this life is pointless ... by itself.  And we can't see the larger picture, at least not very clearly.

David wrote in Psalm 17, "As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness.  I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake."  And what he's saying there is that that satisfaction isn't now.  It's then.  In the next life. 

When I think about dying and going to the next life, I imagine that when I meet Jesus, with one look all of my stuff will fall away - all of my expectations and insecurities and false faces and well-intentioned lies that I've told myself - they'll all just fall off of me and I'll be free.  Free to love and be loved.  And maybe that's also when the point will finally be clear.  Maybe it's too hard for me to see through all of my crap.

So, what is the point?  Yeah, it's to glorify God.  Yeah, it's about other people.  But it's also about getting through it.  It's about keeping your head down ... er ... holding your head high ... um ... doing something with your head appropriate to your situation, and keeping your eyes on Jesus, knowing that he's got a point waiting for you when you meet.  Just gotta get there!  Exclamation point.

Finding Your Thing

If you're like me, praying and reading the Bible can become rather rote.  That's why I don't pray before meals, although I don't mind if you do.  But it is important to get that one-on-one time with God.  So I thought I'd share how I do it and how some other people do it.

When we were kids, my mother used to get up early every morning to do her quiet time.  And rather than feeling more tired, she would feel refreshed and invigorated.  Whether that's because of God or because it gave her a few minutes to herself, who can say?  But that's what worked for her.

I have one friend who needs to take a 'God Day' once in a while.  He'll head off into the mountains or the desert for the whole day (or a half day, if that's all he can manage) and just spend time alone with God.  I'd just sit there staring into space, but it does something for him.

Another friend lights a candle.  Because his brain is always spinning so fast, it gives him something to focus on and helps him slow down.

And then there's the friend who has created a whole positive self-talk routine that she does every day (sometimes multiple times), complete with scripts and orchestration, to help remind herself of how God thinks of her.

Some people use journaling.  And there's fasting.  Meditation.  Accountability partners.  Doing artwork.  Setting an alarm and praying every hour on the hour.

And me?  Well, for one, I pray every night.  I crawl into bed and kinda review the day, thanking God for everything.  Sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's shorter.  Occasionally, it's just 'Thank you for loving me.', because I don't feel like praying, either because I'm super tired or I've got a bug up my butt about something.  But every night, I check in.  And I pray throughout the day whenever it strikes me, often just one-liners dispatched like a text message.  That might make it sound like I'm praying 'without ceasing', but there are days when nothing hits me and I don't pray all day.  I guess I think of it as an open connection, and God's always there listening, if and when I have something to say.

And a new thing for me involves writing poetry.  I've given myself a project of going through the Psalms and writing poetry based on each one, and having that intentionality has helped me focus more on pulling out the meaning, instead of just reading it.  That's not every day, but it's about 3 times per week.

So many ways to connect with God, and we each need to find our own.  I can lay in bed and talk to God without getting sleepy, but maybe you can't.  My brain doesn't spin like a whirlwind, so I don't need to light a candle, but maybe that would work for you.  We're all different, and that's beautiful.  So, I hope you try different things and figure out what works for  you.  And I hope you find your thing.