The poem "To Margaret"

Well, I guess there are fewer people who get a kick out of literary analysis than I thought. So I'll give some answers to the questions I posed a few days ago (May 18, in the post "Happy Anniversary"--SEE BELOW) and let you all move on to other things.

But please do consider reading the poem once more--preferably out loud--and savoring it, especially after you've read my explanations.

   (1) Kind of poem: Sonnet (14 lines--was invented about 700 years ago in Italy, first came into English about 500 years ago)
   (2) Kind of sonnet: Italian or Petrarchan (yes, there are several kinds of sonnets, Italian or Petrarchan being the original version invented by Petrarch in the 1300s; the English invented another rhyme scheme, called the English or Shakespearean sonnet, though it was used a couple of decades before Shakespeare was born; and then in the 1590s, Edmund Spenser invented the Spenserian sonnet). All sonnets can be said to have an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines), but the division between the two is more prominent in the Italian or Petrarchan version. The rhyme scheme is the real giveaway: normally, abba abba followed by six lines with some combination of two or three rhymes (e.g., cddcee, cdecde, cdcdcd, etc.), but in the case of the one I've written, abb'a' a''b'ba''' cded'ce' (the apostrophes after some of the letters mean that these are "off rhymes"--meaning not very exact at all--so this is a "modernish" poem).
   (3) Quotations: The first two lines are paraphrased from A Grief Observed (C. S. Lewis) and refer to his wife, Helen Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis, who had just died of cancer. The book is the published form of the heart-wrenching diary he wrote after her death. His actual lines: "Her mind was lithe and quick and muscular as a leopard." She "was a splendid thing; a soul straight, bright, and tempered like a sword." "I see I've described [her] as being like a sword. That's true as far as it goes. But utterly inadequate by itself, and misleading. . . . I ought to have said, 'But also like a garden. Like a nest of gardens, wall within wall, hedge within hedge, more secret, more full of fragrant and fertile life, the further you entered.'"
      "Mine own, yet not mine own" is Shakespearean, from A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's said by one of the young lovers when they all wake up after a night in the woods and finally find they're all in love with the right person. I've always felt the line marvelously evokes the sense of belonging yet also of otherness, even strangeness, that comes with an intimate relationship. I am intimately connected, in some ways even merge, with my beloved. Yet that connection somehow makes me even more aware of how absolutely unique and independent, in some essential way, each of us is. As Levinas puts it, the other person "escapes my grasp by an essential dimension, even if I have him at my disposal." And in the case of love--if it is genuine (genuinely respectful and caring)--I am very careful about even seeking to have her at my disposal and in fact want more to be at her disposal. Paradoxically, or miraculously, I can in some sense "possess" her (or be possessed by her) while still respecting her agency and her otherness.
   (4) Jack and Joy: No, not from a nursery rhyme (that would be Jack and Jill?). Rather, C. S. Lewis and his wife. She went by "Joy"; he went by "Jack." Though the "C. S." stands for "Clive Staples," one day (age 8, I believe) he announced, "My name is Jacksie," and he was known to friends and family as "Jacksie" or "Jack" from that point on.
   (5) Other allusions: Besides the Levinasian overtones in "Mine own, yet not mine own," there's more Levinas in the phrase "your real and complete otherness." But that phrase also echoes Lewis (this is a point of convergence between Lewis and Levinas). In A Grief Observed Lewis says: "The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant--in a word, real." And then he applies this thought to God and to people in general, reminding himself he must never confuse his image or idea of someone with the real "someone" who is other than and outside of himself and who cannot be reduced to an image or idea: "I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want [my wife], not something that is like her. . . . Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of [my wife], but [my wife]. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbour, but my neighbour." For "All reality," he says, "is iconoclastic"--that is, it breaks apart the images we have created as a kind of subsitute. "The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality."
      That (from Lewis) sounds very Levinasian. Compare, for instance, this from Levinas in Totality and Infinity: the Other, in his expression, "at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it"; "The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me. . . . The face is a living presence; it is expression. The life of expression consists in undoing the form in which the existent, exposed as a theme, is thereby dissimulated. . . . This way of undoing the form adequate to the Same [that is, to my self-contained consciousness] so as to present oneself as other is to signify or to have a meaning." (I believe this is all on pages 50-51 and 66--for those of you who want to read the passages in context and figure out exactly what Levinas is saying.)
      One more thing: "many selves" refers to the seven nouns in the last two lines of the poem--that is, Margaret's many roles, many ways of being and doing, contained within one unique and eternal self. For the eternal dimension of selfhood, see Doctrine and Covenants 93:29 and the King Follett discourse. And for "queen and goddess," see Revelation 1:6, 5:10, 21:7, D&C 76:56-60, 132:20, Romans 8:17, John 1:12, 10:34, 1 John 3:2, 2 Peter 1:4, and several passages in Lewis's writings.

Happy anniversary

I've been hoping to post something new--on Luke's gospel, on faith, on the movie States of Grace, or on that topic I keep promising to get back to, Groundhog Day and the ring of Gyges (I will! I will!)--but have been very, very busy.

It occurred to me that this might be the perfect occasion to wish my wife a happy anniversary--or almost perfect, since it was our 22nd anniversary yesterday (and we did celebrate, going to our favorite restaurant, Bombay House). We've grown together in many wonderful ways over those 22 years, and my appreciation and love for Margaret have deepened and continue to deepen. Besides our anniversary, we'll soon be celebrating Margaret's birthday (in June--but she'll be at a film festival in California). And of course we just celebrated Mother's Day.

So to honor Margaret Blair Young, I offer the following poem, written some years ago (May 1998 to be exact), but still very much an expression of how I see her:

For Margaret

"A mind as lithe as a leopard; a bright sword;
"A garden--gardens within gardens"--so
Jack wrote of Joy, and prophesied of you.
My wonder, my beloved--whatever word
Or words I choose, or borrow, pale before
Your real and complete otherness. This view
Of you so near and yet so distant, so
"Mine own, yet not mine own," is illusions' cure.

But you are more: a fount of love and life,
Fertile source of words, ideas, health
Of heart, deep questions and deep harmonies;
Holding many selves in one eternal self--
Writer, teacher, gardener, mother, wife,
Besides the queen and goddess yet to be.

Two notes: (1) As the poem suggests, any person is really unfathomable, and that's certainly true of Margaret. But if you want to get to know her better, you can read her blog essay (see the link below) or, for that matter, any number of other things she's written, including her six novels. Or better yet, hang out with her for a while--22 years or more if possible. (2) If you have responses to the poem or questions about it (like "who the heck are Jack and Joy?), please feel free to post comments.

A week and a half at the MTC

OK--I resisted (blogging) for three days. I want to report that Margaret and I have been loving our work at the Provo Missionary Training Center. We've spent two Sundays there. Julie has come to the 8:00 a.m. sacrament meeting (a miracle in itself), and Misha came with us last Sunday to eat dinner with the missionaries. On our way through the cafeteria to find the missionaries in our branch, we saw President Boone (MTC president), Brother Breinholt, and their wives and introduced Misha to them. Seeing our son in his Sunday almost best, tall, good looking, and with longish hair, President Boone said, "We love to see future missionaries." Misha's future mission (he's now fifteen) was also a topic as we ate with the missionaries.

I'll tell more about the routine later, but just two notes for now, one on new missionaries, the other on visits to the residence halls.

We had only 19 missionaries in the branch until Wednesday, when a new group of 15 arrived--12 elders and 3 sisters headed to the Canada Montreal and Switzerland Geneva missions (plus one to the West Indies). We spent several hours with them Wednesday evening helping to orient them.

Probably my favorite duty so far at the MTC has been visiting the missionaries in their residence halls. We've done that twice now, the last two Thursday nights. (I think it was after our first visit that Margaret said, "This is the funnest calling we've had.") Last night, after dropping Margaret off at the sisters' hall, I went to visit the elders, chatted with them, asked how the new ones (and the older ones) were doing, and then joined them for a hymn and a prayer. I also shared a scripture--and they asked me for news "from the outside world." I mentioned the Romney-Sharpton controversy (in vague terms) and said one thing I was happy about was that, on CNN, representatives from both major parties had defended "the Mormons." (On a side note, I especially liked James Carville's attitude; the Republican representative was good too, but when asked if Mormons were Christians, he hummed and hawed a bit, while Carville said, "I would point out that the preferred name, I think, of their church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They certainly say they're Christians. I believe them. . . . they certainly do believe in Jesus Christ" [click here for more].)

But what the elders really wanted to know is how well the Jazz were doing. (If you don't know who the Jazz are, consider moving to Latvia--when we visited there in 1996 and mentioned we were from Utah, a young Latvian said, "Oh, the Jazz!") I had heard they had won two of their recent games, but I wasn't helpful beyond that. I promised to do better. As Margaret and I drove home, I found out she knew all about the Jazz's latest game, having heard the whole story while working with her co-documentary makers earlier in the day.

The highlight of the evening was probably the hymn I sang along with the elders, one I had never heard before, though the music is familiar (from Dvorak's New World Symphony). Called "Souviens-toi, mon enfant," it is unique to the French LDS hymn book. Here are the words:

Souviens-toi, mon enfant: Tes parents divins
te serraient dans leurs bras, ce temps ne’st pas loin.
Aujourd’hui, tu es là, présent merveilleux,
ton regard brille encore du reflet des cieux.
Parle-moi, mon enfant, de ces lieux bénis,
car pour toi est léger le voile d’oubli.

Souviens-toi, mon enfant, des bois, des cités.
Pouvons-nous ici-bas les imaginer?
Et le ciel jusqu’au soir, est-il rose ou gris?
Le soleil attend-il la neige ou la pluie?
Conte-moi, mon enfant, la couleur des prés
et le chant des oiseaux d’un monde oublié.

Souviens-toi, mon enfant: A l’aube des temps,
nous étions des amis jouant dans le vent.
Puis un jour, dans la joie nous avons choisi
d’accepter du Seigneur le grand plan de vie.
Ce soir-là, mon enfant, nous avons promis
par l’amour, par la foi, d’être réunis.

It's an absolutely beautiful hymn, evoking eternal memories and reminding us of eternal possibilities. For a translation, or my attempt at one, click on the comments.

The Dangers of Blogging

The blogging world is wonderful in so many ways, but it has at least one great danger: the danger of addiction. That danger is not so great with a blog like mine, where I post every few days and get only a smattering of comments. (Please, sir, may I have more?)

But as I've dropped in on some of the sites where Margaret occasionally blogs ("By Common Consent," etc.), I have encountered the dangers in active, vivid form. Of course, I wanted to read Margaret's moving blog essay (see the post preceding this one, below), and I wanted to comment on it. But soon a conversation began, with multiple parties, and I was writing little mini-essays of my own as my "comments." And I kept checking in to see what people said in response to my comments and in response to each other's comments and to respond to people's responses to my responses. In short, it got to be a problem. I'M SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING A BOOK!--and with the computer screen in front of me, the temptation is always there to check in on the blog conversation between and in the midst of other tasks.

And I have to confess, I got distracted by a couple of other conversations on "By Common Consent" and "Mormon Mentality" (see here, here, here, here, here, and here for bits).

So Margaret and I are both working on restraining ourselves, maybe developing a 9-step program of some kind. But remember: MY blog in non-addictive (so far), and you can explore it safely and, I hope, with only pleasant and beneficial effects.

Link to a post by Margaret

Margaret has written a beautiful essay on another blog explaining what it means to be a Latter-day Saint. Her essay is a wonderful mini-autobiography and should become a classic in our own family, I hope for generations to come. Here's a link for any who would like to read it: http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2007/05/to-the-pastor/