This documentary was so gorgeous. It brought me to tears, many times.
It chronicles the struggles of several families who were or are fundamentalist Christians with gay or lesbian children, including Chrissy Gephardt and Gene Robinson. It goes into the context of the Bible and explains things culturally and most of all stresses that the message of the Bible is love and acceptance, not judgment and ostracism. What most spoke to me was the message that it does no good to be prejudiced against the prejudiced. I often find myself looking down or being upset with Christians who either refuse to tolerate or blatantly hate LGBT people. This does no good at all and speaks against the message of the LBGT movement itself: that all people, no matter what gender, race, religion, societal position, or orientation, are equal and should be treated as such.
Shame on me for holding prejudice in my heart against the prejudiced. People say "love the sinner, hate the sin," but I don't believe in that. I try to refrain from hating at all. Hatred causes lines to blur and intentions to get fuzzy. After this documentary, I know what my intentions are - to love everyone I meet, no matter who or how they are. What are yours?
Friday, November 6, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Laundry Days are the Best Days.
Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
as false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.
Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;
Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks
From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,
"Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."
Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colo[u]rs,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,
"Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance."
This poem by Richard Wilbur is the first one I ever loved. I've always thought poetry should be there as something to be read in passing, something to lift the spirits and cleanse the word-lover's palate. This poem gives me that feeling. It feels like cosy fires and sunlight and sunflowers and dipping my feet in pools and kisses.
Now I'm off to enjoy a nice sleep, drunk with the scent of detergent and the hug of warm bedclothes.
The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
as false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.
Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;
Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks
From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,
"Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."
Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colo[u]rs,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,
"Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance."
This poem by Richard Wilbur is the first one I ever loved. I've always thought poetry should be there as something to be read in passing, something to lift the spirits and cleanse the word-lover's palate. This poem gives me that feeling. It feels like cosy fires and sunlight and sunflowers and dipping my feet in pools and kisses.
Now I'm off to enjoy a nice sleep, drunk with the scent of detergent and the hug of warm bedclothes.
Monday, November 2, 2009
All things are ready, if our minds be so.
Still having problems with my papers. Brit Lit's might turn into a huge feminist literary thought-provoking rant, Am Lit's compares Poe and Hawthorne (really. I couldn't think of anything better to do), and PC Lit's is slow going, making me really dislike a topic I loved at first.
I'm hoping this week will be a chance to buck up and just get things done, but this semester isn't readily doling out motivation. I have a severe case of ennui. I just hope it doesn't end up affecting my GPA in a serious way.
I'm hoping this week will be a chance to buck up and just get things done, but this semester isn't readily doling out motivation. I have a severe case of ennui. I just hope it doesn't end up affecting my GPA in a serious way.
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