Battle Log: 1,932

This is the longest I've ever gone without communicating to our Command Base.

I was out in the field with some of my troops, but they were attacked and overtaken by the Apathy. I thought I could withstand. I thought I needed to be more concerned with Distraction, but it seems that I've been almost incapacitated by Apathy. It's been dripping in my wake. I discovered my quarters are covered with the fungus, and I've been breathing it in and out for almost a month now. All of my previous work is tainted with the haziness of unclear convictions.

I'm ashamed to say, but I hardly noticed how much time had passed since I had last communicated. I assessed my troops this morning and found that four of my brightest soldiers are completely paralyzed by the disease. I know I cannot revive them without first sterilizing the bacteria within myself. It's a painful decontamination process as the layers of my skin have to be burned off, but I'm anxious to feel the release of weight as the fungus is burned away along with the contaminated skin.

With the Apathy identified and addressed, communications with Command will resume their normal pace, and perhaps even accelerate as I look for ways to cure and keep my soldiers healthy. I can only perform the decontamination on myself, and I need help from the higher authorities to find solutions that can save those under my supervision. Apathy has been a nasty enemy, and I'm sure the battle is far from over. However, I'm happy to have the current culprit identified so that I can adapt my battle strategies accordingly. 

Little Talks

"Did you just say the f-word?"

"Maybe."

The catchy song continued playing, and I sang every word loudly when the chorus repeated the profanity. We both laughed.

"You know, my life goal is to get you to quote me saying that in a short story."

We laughed again as the quiet green countryside passed by the car windows. It may have been a lazy afternoon outside the old minivan, but inside we were belting out alternative music in between inside jokes and philosophical comments.

"I think I'm going to try to go a month only eating beans, rice, and broccoli."

"Why broccoli?"

"Well, I know in a lot of other countries people survive on beans and rice plus some local veggies. I figure broccoli is one of the healthiest, so I'll choose that one. Plus, I think I could eat that every meal without getting sick of it. I mean, it's so delicious, you know."

She laughed at my broccoli comment so hard that we swerved on the narrow highway.

"Watch the road!" I shouted, "Broccoli's not worth dying for!"

We laughed again and turned our focus to the cliffs rising up on either side of us. The highway created the flat black bottom of a vibrant green ravine. Every couple of miles we caught a glimpse of a tiny waterfall dripping down against the rock exposed among the foliage.

"This drive is so gorgeous."

"Let's go on a road trip every weekend."

"But seriously," I said after a pause, "Broccoli's got to be one of the best vegetables to choose if you're only going to eat one for a month."

"Why do you only need to eat one?"

"Well, it seemed like a good idea if I was going to cut out all other food other than beans and rice. It'd be kinda like a cleanse, but also a bonus because it's super cheap. With my savings, I'll take a creative writing class and write that story you're dreaming of - the one where you shout profanities. I can see it now, you're running through a meadow and shouting them with glee."

"You can't shout profanity with glee; you've got to use it appropriately."

"I'm sorry, you did not provide that parameter in your life goal."

Love Note

Greg strutted from the grocery store with his fresh six pack of beer and unlocked his flashy street car parked in the handicapped spot. The six pack sat in the front seat next to him as he roared out of the parking lot, making his engine rumble the whole mile back to his house.

The neighborhood was eerily quiet once Greg silenced his engine. He slammed the driver's door after he got out, unaware of the peace he was disturbing. He swaggered up to the front door and turned the handle hard to let himself in. He was surprised to find the door locked. Sheila usually left it unlocked for him when he came home in the evenings. The beer bottles clinked in one hand as he fumbled for the keys in his pocket with his other hand. Once he got the door opened, he called out Sheila's name.

There was no response.

"Where are you?"

His booming question received no response.

For the first time Greg could hear the silence. There were no kids playing outside, no dogs barking, no lawnmowers running, and no wife making dinner. Greg made his way into the kitchen and looked around. Everything looked clean and put away. Even the table was cleared of its usual clutter except for a conspicuous envelope with Greg's name on it.

He snatched up the enveloped and opened it to find Sheila's wedding ring and a note inside. He didn't need to read the note to guess the message, but he watned to know any details as to the reason Sheila had left him.

Greg,

I love you. Your behavior towards me has made it clear that you do not feel the same way towards me. I'm going to find somewhere I can be loved.

Sheila

Greg sank into the closest kitchen chair and reread the note a dozen times. It didn't make any more sense to him the twelfth time than it did the first, but he kept rereading because he couldn't think of anything else to do.

Hush Up

Look up! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's not moving, so it can't be either of those. It's up above, and it's making sound. Let's listen in to hear what it has to say...

Speaking changes everything. The act. The words. The power. I wonder, do you know what your course words have done? Do you see how words brought up an Empire that brought down a Generation? Once we opened the gates of Auschwitz, how could we ever open our mouths again? Words are guilty of such horrors.

How can I steward them well, then? Carefully, I suppose. But, hush, can you hear? There's something lingering in the silence. Over there. Behind here. It's between the words. Listen close. It's soft; it's soothing. It cools the heat of the burning words.

Burning words, white hot words. What's the verb of that sentence fragment? Do you see how they still carry power? Did you hear the verb whispering in between the lines?

Go. Do. Think. Be. Create. Do you see how they command? I cannot command much of an audience, but what audience I do have I must speak to responsibly. I have these words, and I cannot toss them around lightly. They carry power and authority. I, the one who bears them, must do so thoughtfully. Can you imagine the ramifications if I threw words around with reckless abandon? Shirts would get printed with the word "wreckless" on them. Incidentally, this has already happened. I saw it on Wednesday. I saw a shirt that said, "Young and Wreckless." Absurdism begins to make sense in the face of these atrocities.

I wanted to cry.

Instead, I stewed on the idea that spelling is actually important. Grammar is actually important as well. When I'm tempted to use poor grammar, I think of Picasso. Have you ever seen any of his earliest works? The man was phenomenal in traditional art forms. He could paint in realism, impressionism, or pointillism  beautifully. After demonstrating proficiency in these recognized art forms, he broke free and began to paint outside the boundaries of accepted art. Virginia Woolf did something similar with the sentence. I am not Picasso or Woolf. I ought to demonstrate an exceedingly high level of proficiency with the English language before I attempt to break free from the bonds of grammar rules.

Do you know what the purpose of grammar and syntax is? The purpose of grammar and syntax is to facilitate effective communication. It's wise stewardship of words. Forming sentences well allows one to communicate most effectively. I'm not saying that every sentence should always be grammatically correct; I have a great deal of respect for Picasso and Woolf. Those great artists and writers, however, demonstrated an ability to communicate effectively inside and out of traditional boundaries. They were not breaking rules out of laziness; they created something new with intentionality.

But this blog was about silence to begin with. (Never start a sentence with a conjunction. Never end a sentence with a preposition.) Wasn't it?

Where do we go from here? Words have been abused. Grammar and syntax have been abused to the detriment of clear communication. Where do we go from here?

We go forward. We reclaim the words, and we use them responsibly. We craft our sentences with silence and intentionality. We complete our paragraphs, and we communicate thoughtfully.

Hush, did you hear something here?

Old School

Christina opened her eyes when her alarm croaked at 6am. Thank God it's Friday, she thought as she flung the covers off and rolled out of bed towards her closet. She pulled on her workout clothes and ambled into her parents mini home gym that shared the basement with her. She usually spent her time on the treadmill mentally going over what she needed to do that day. Normally her mornings were easy going before she worked her eight hour shift from noon to 8pm at a secondhand bookstore. However, this Friday she was working from 8am to 4pm because she had dinner plans with old friends from high school.

Christina's two best friends had both gone out of state for college when they graduated while she had spent a year at the local community college before settling in to her full time job selling books. Christina was a little self-conscious about seeing her old friends who had become such big successes in the six years since high school.

At work, her mind was constantly thinking about how she could hold her own in a conversation with a lawyer and a stock broker. When she made it home she went straight to her closet to find a suitable dress for the fancy restaurant Jane had picked out. Christina didn't spend a lot of money on clothes, so her selection was limited. She decided on her simple red dress which she usually wore to weddings and hoped her black dress boots weren't too casual for the high class dining.

When she stepped into the restaurant, she didn't immediately see her friends, but before she could ask the hostess anything, she heard someone bellow from the bar, "Over here, Christina!"

She turned to see Scott waving her over. She smiled and went to join him. His supermodel grin was wider than usual, and he held an almost empty drink in his hand.

"Don't know where Janey is, but apparently the reservation isn't until 6:30. I coulda sworn she said six. I've been hear waiting for you two to show up for nearly half an hour."

Scott's grin was unwavering while he spoke, and it occurred to Christina that she hadn't ever seen him drink alcohol before. That wasn't particularly significant, though, because they were only nineteen the last time they had spent time together.

Christina realizes she didn't know where to start a conversation with Scott, so she thought to break the ice by jokingly asking, "How's the stock market these days?"

Scott laughed in response. "It's a good think I’m great at my job, otherwise I'd be out on the street like half the guys from my office. I've only been at the Auburn Hills location a short time, but a lot of the old timers at my branch lost the company a lot of money in April and then lost their jobs in May. Boy, I'm glad I moved back here because those idiots make me look brilliant. If I'd stayed in California, I'd be the one without a job."

"Why did you come back last fall, Scott? I never heard the story."

"I couldn’t stand the liberals," Scott said.

Christian wasn't sure if he was joking or not, but it was the first time his grin dimmed. She raised her eyebrows and nodded, unsure how else to response. Back in their private high school, safe within the brick walls paid for by rich conservatives, Christina and her friends made jokes about liberals all the time. In their childish slang, "liberal" was a derogatory word. Christina considered herself an adult now, though, and hadn't used namecalling since high school. She couldn't tell if Scott was referencing their old joke or still genuinely believed liberals were trying to suck life, joy, and money out of American society.

Scott finished his drink unaware of the awkwardness he had brought to the conversation. Christina picked at her fingernails trying to think of something else to say to change the subject.

"I can't believe you've been here almost six months and we haven't seen each other. What have you been up to since you moved back?"

"Work, work, work," Scott said, "Making money doesn't leave much time for hobbies. Plus I've got a load of student loans to pay off. If I can keep up with this rate, I should be free of them in eight years. But that's boring stuff. What's been going on here while I've been gone? What are you doing these days?

"Well, not a lot has changed around here. I still work at the bookstore, and I lead a couple book clubs each month. I volunteer once a week to read to kids in grade school through the "Read to Me" program.

She had more she could say, but she felt odd launching into a list of hobbies when Scott seemed to have none.

"Wow, that sounds like a lot," Scott said, "What kind of books do you read in these book clubs? I haven't read anything for fun in ages.

Before she could answer, they both heard Jane call out their names. Christina turned her head in response and was immediately thankful Jane had recognized her because there was no way Christian would have recognized Jane. In high school, Jane was a plump brunette with sparkly blue eyes; the only feature the nearly three hundred pound woman with unnaturally red hair shared with the high school version of Jane was the blue eyes.

"Janey!" Christina reminded herself to smile before walking over to her old friend.

"Janey!" Scott echoed much louder and rushed to give her a hug, "So good to see you!"

Jane laughed, "Get off, get off. Let's go to our table."

Jane led the way to the back of the restaurant and Christina wondered how she already knew where their table was. Scott wondered the same thing and voiced his question to Jane.

"Oh, I talked to them when I made the reservations. They have another one of these restaurants in Boston that I go to all the time with the same layout. I got us the back room so we can be as rambunctious as we like."

 The next two hours crept by slowly for Christina as she fumbled through a conversation that seemed much more natural for Scott and Jane. Scott downed several more drinks and told jokes about the dumb hippies he worked with in California. Jane ate two meals and told jokes about the stupid liberals she went to school with in Massachusetts. Except for the drinking and overeating, Scott and Jane were exactly the same as when they were in high school. Their maturity level was stuck at age eighteen and they spoke with the same arrogance and disrespect of a know-it-all high school student. Christina had worried that she would be the one left behind when her two friends went off to college, but over the course of their meal Christina discovered that though she had stayed the closest to home she had changed the most. Christina chewed her food carefully and hoped that she wouldn't be caught in a confession that she cared more about people than companies. In the midst of the meal, her friends jokes that seemed so mature when they were younger because so few teenagers were politically minded were exposed as the hateful rantings they really were. Christina wasn't bothered by the fact that these former friends were unchanged politically; many of her political views were the same. The quirk in their conversation that made her skin crawl was that Scott and Jane never grew up.

When their meal finally ended, Christina jumped at the first opportunity to excuse herself. Scott and Jane protested that they still had dessert and drinks, but she found a reason not to stay.

"I'm volunteering at the library in the morning, so I should really get some sleep."

"I can't believe how much of your time you give away. Do you ever do anything for yourself?" Jane said.

"Oh, sure." Christina replied.

Jane's question was hollow, and Christina decided it was unnecessary to try to explain to Jane that volunteering was for herself. She warmly embraced her two old friends before she left the restaurant, but walked off the premises as quickly as her fancy boots would let her. It wasn't a dramatic exit, but Christina recognized that it would be the last time she would ever spend time with Scott and Jane. She remained convinced an hour later when she received Jane's text, "This was fun. Let's do it again soon!" Christina smiled in response to the text, but deleted the number from her phone nonetheless. She found Scott's number and deleted it too. Tossing her phone aside, she picked out Kate Chopin's The Awakening from her bookshelf and curled up to read it in her favorite chair.

I'm Not Hungry Any More

These are just rough drafts of my thoughts. I haven't figured out much concretely yet. Please keep that in mind as you engage with the content below.

Halfway through a midnight showing of The Hunger Games it occurred to me that I was participating in exactly what the movie condemns: consuming violence for entertainment. And I even paid ten bucks to do it. The premise of the books and movies is that the citizens of the Capitol oppress those in the districts in order to live a consumeristic lifestyle of excess. I live in America; by default I am an excessive consumer. Need I be excessive? With effort, I believe it is possible for me to consume less.

The content of the consumption, though, is, I think, a matter of greater importance. I was sitting in the movie theater watching children kill each other in the name of Entertainment. My ten dollar tithe to the god of Hollywood gained me admission to watch an artificial bloodbath. Does it make any difference if the blood is real or not? I used to think it was just fine to watch gore and violence as long as I knew the images were fake; not actors were harmed in the filming of this battle. But now I have a different question: Why would I want to be entertained by visual representations of people dying gruesome deaths?

When I first read The Hunger Games, I doubted the premise that humanity could come to the point of forcing children to kill each other. My cousin quipped that the Romans did something close in the Colesseum. I doubted his argument. Plus, I didn't think society could "devolve" to something like that. Especially after the Holocaust. I mean, hasn't humanity learned anything from history? It took me a while to catch the chronological arrogance of my thinking. People are people, and I am no better than Romans who tossed people into the Colesseum or Nazis who tossed people into ovens.

Somehow during the movie I realized not only would the premise hold up in a futuristic dystopia, but it functions in our society right now: I was participating in it.

What then? By the time I made it to my car at three in the morning I wondered if I would ever be allowed to go to a movie theater again guilt free. Could I even ever watch another DVD? What was it that really plagued me while sitting in the movie theater? The consumption of violence for entertainment.

I think.

I'm still not really sure because somehow I don't feel guilty reading the books. What's the difference? I see two significant difference. First, the consumption of a book does not contribute to oppression in the same sense the consumerism of Hollywood does. Suzanne Collins can write a book and publish it without the entanglement of materialism inherent in the movie business. Second, the words in the book have the power to provoke my own imagination and I can steward the images in my own head. Violence on the screen is imposed on me with no opportunity to filter what I receive.

It's important for me to clarify that sometimes we need the imposition of violent images four our selfish minds to break away from their default incurvature to engage with others in a positive way. Visual media is incredibly valuable in so many ways. I could never discount the power of movies or documentaries that offer a glimpse of life in poverty in order to give those with too much a chance to share. In some of these cases violence is necessary to accurately describe or portray the circumstances. Examples like Hotel Rwanda and Born into Brothels are quick to come to mind. Both of these films have violence and graphic content presented to move the viewer emotionally rather than to titillate or amuse. The fake killings in Hotel Rwanda created to represent real ones and the real brutality captured in the documentary Born into Brothels are not there for entertainment purposes. They are there to make a point. And, I believe, they are intentionally used not to toy with the emotions of the viewer, but to move the audience into action in response.

Any good work of literature moves the reader to respond, to somehow live differently. I think that good movies do the same. Maybe the movie represention of The Hunger Games  was just so good it moved me to stop watching violent movies for entertainment.

An Open Letter to My Sister

Nini,

I love you. Contrary to what a lot of my words and actions would lead people to believe, I love you a great deal. I do, though, find it very difficult to get along with you. I genuinely want to work on that, and as part of my effort to get along with you better, I here attempt to articulate my difficulty opening up to you.

I really value literature. You know that I like books, but it's really much deeper than that. You see, the Word became flesh, and it radically impacted written texts. The Creator of our amazing universe gave us language and texts as a form of communication. We both know this truth, but we have responded differently. I have devoted my life to search for deeper relationships between the textual worlds and the empirical one based on the understanding that when the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, the empirical world was forever changed. I strongly believe that texts are infused with power, and they ought to be used responsibly. They deserve respect, not abuse.

You once told me that you read to escape, and at that very moment I completely shut down emotionally and have not allowed myself to be emotionally vulnerable around you since (I'm not saying we haven't fought since - I have just been emotionally disengaged from all communication with you) because I consider reading as an escape to be such a horrendous abuse of a text. You are using a text to disengage with your life rather than respecting it as something capable of enhancing your ontological reality.

Now, as I'm sure you were quick to notice, my disengagement from you, an actual ontological person, is no better than your treatment of textual worlds. I admit my sin, and I ask your forgiveness. I won't even ask you to read any differently. All I ask of you is that you understand that when you disregard textual reality, it's a personal wound to me. You see, sometimes I feel like Mali, the gardener of the Sea of Stories. In Rushdie's tale, Mali's sole purpose is to care for all of the stories in the ocean. I feel a responsibility to care for texts, and when someone pollutes the ocean which I care for, and which also sustains me, I get sick.

I can't know for sure if telling you this will actually help you understand me any more, but I'm making an effort to remove any road blocks I have put up to prevent you from knowing me. For example, hiding the fact that I have a blog from you for over a year (and still hiding it from most of our family - again, I can't keep you from blabbing, but I ask you respect my wishes right now) kept a lot of who I am from you. My writing makes me feel incredibly vulnerable, and I have hidden it from some of the people I love the most because they are capable of hurting me the most deeply. You are capable of hurting me most deeply, Nini.

I know that there are many careless readers on the internet capable of stumbling upon my writing and abusing my text with only a surface reading, but I cannot think of a single human being who would wound me more by doing that than you, Nini.

And so, I hope, begins a dialogue.