Greetings,
I laugh a nervous laugh with the psalmist who says, “You are my God. I keep looking for you.”
Modern scholarship and Old Man Time have eroded many of the traditional reasons for believing in God. Thus, I engage the search for a meaningful life with bookwork and headwork and penwork pressed by anxiety difficult to resolve. I settle for nothing less than satisfaction under the eye of modern philosophy. Recalling my first classes in philosophy with professor Gregory M. Zeigler, my preceptor par excellence, I repeat his words, “Philosophy probes the eternal questions.”
I value discussion with those of diverse opinions, and have poured over books that have challenged me, such as Richard Elliott Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible? (well-grounded, to whom I apologize for not always crediting in a scholarly way), and Harold Bloom’s Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine (stimulating).
I apply myself to poetry by way of the ol’ college try, longing that my message ‘breathes’ as I yearn to show it, hoping to stir up thoughts which are of more value than the impress of whatever opinion I might be testing. I strive for a voice ‘authentic,’ yet am I wont to ‘prose-in-stanza’? How does one say without saying that which one says?
I springboard from the teachings of the ones of spiritual inclination, from my early love of literature and my first glimpse of God from the Lutheran Church in America, wandering to my academic start in physics and mathematics with explorations through Bible churches, world religions, and philosophy both Western and Eastern. Early on I was coaxed to a love of the Bible, soon drubbed by dark readings of the Bible, noting the juggernaut of Christianity trailing a grim wake, now finding sympathy with stand-offs—disturbing in politics but intriguing in religion—Islam, like a sentinel with a message yet to fathom, Jehovah’s Witnesses, softening their once-harsh message of universal doom, and the tenacity of the Jews. I hold the Vedas, Analects, and such in the back of my mind. Respect remains in my heart for the conscientious eclecticism of all my fellow wayfarers.
I have come to see a pod of Bible prophecies in a light otherwise unseen. Have I therefore become a ‘sect of one’? Am I perhaps a ‘good-for-nothing slave’ on singular assignment? Or, alas, a ‘big disgrace, mud on my face’? Time will tell, as I announce a date of interest.
There are snippets I have adopted and own as I own words—sometimes shaped to my soul—presented sometimes in italics which may also signify my sense of asthetics—Not all who wander are lost—nearly said by Mr. Tolkien whom I love. Thus, my best lines may be stolen!
Not seeking recognition—wrinkled in rapport and spidery in substance—yet not wishing to hide who I am, I yield a name: Dan Baggett, born and raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico USA. (As to my pen name ‘poetchilde,’ a childe is a wellborn youth of yore.)
How can I withhold the rights of readership? I tremble.
Best hopes,
pc
Acknowledgements: (My post saying I have friends?)
Were I to list the ones to whom I owe thanks, I would not know where to draw the line nor how to avoid the impression that I sustain friendships in the midst of my faults and scars, my choices good and bad. Memories are precious, joyful for heartening and painful for righting, which I find in the sparkles of daily living. And were I to print apologies to all whom I have faltered or abandoned, it would endanger trees.
Instead, I hope my poetry serves as a peace offering to all whom I have scuffled, perhaps as a journal tracing why I fled your ways or failed your love, and certainly as a thank-you letter to all who have played a part in my journey, whether rough & tumble or exuberant a-plenty.
Bibliography: (My post saying I have a life?)
Modern Philosophy: an Anthology of Primary Sources, edited by Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins, published by Hackett Publishing Company, (most of which I have read then and again)
The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments, by Jim Baggott, published by Oxford University Press, (a biographical review of university physics)
Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine, by Harold Bloom, published by Riverhead Books, (on me an influence of anxiety)
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, by Harold Bloom, published by Oxford University Press, (tangy to chew; difficult to swallow; in admiration of a literary ‘strong misreading’ which continues the chain of excellence)
There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, published by HarperOne, (mature considerations of a philosopher)
Who Wrote the Bible?, by Richard Elliott Friedman, published by HarperOne, (finding the courage to ask how his God wrote His Bible)
The Exodus, by Richard Elliott Friedman, published by HarperOne, (questioning if and how The Exodus took place, and also what is the fate of the gods?)
The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery, by Richard Elliott Friedman, published by Little, Brown and Company, (insight into the internal harmony of Scripture and the fascination of how Dostoevsky and Nietzsche wrestled with God as a team although they never met)
Who Wrote the New Testament? the Making of the Christian Myth, by Burton L. Mack, published by HarperOne, (who? who who?)
Finding Darwin’s God: a Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, by Kenneth R. Miller, published by Harper Perennial, (evolution grand? or evolution in kind?)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra and/or On the Genealogy of Morals, by Friedrich Nietzsche, (what I happened to have chosen from Professor Friedman’s enthusiasm, begging a “strong misreading” of the ‘troubler of thoughts’ which ranges through Hitler’s Aryan Race to Friedman’s Disappearance of God to Hollingdale’s Superman the New God to replace the Dead God to poetchilde’s search for a meaningful life to Freud, Bloom, Kaufmann and whoever else)
Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science, by Carl Sagan, published by Ballantine Books, (reflections! with a quick comment on 1914 C.E. indexed under ‘religion, end of the world’)
A Friendly Introduction to Number Theory, by Joseph H. Silverman, published by Pearson, (pure fun! for poetchilde in the first chapters bogging him down in the end)
A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf, published by Harcourt, Inc., (the viewpoint of an extraordinary woman)
The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, by Gary Zukav, published by HarperOne, (if ‘woo lee’ means physics it addresses a spectacular model of nature which is not answering my current questions, and if Wu Li means patterns of organic energy, still, why did Wordsworth say that our sadness stems from our palms achieved?)
Four Views on Free Will: Second Edition, by Fischer, Kane, Pereboom, and Vargas, published by Wiley Blackwell, (exploring much work on the conundrum; aware we still lack the definitive answer)
The Best Poems of the English Language: from Chaucer through Robert Frost, selected and with commentary by Harold Bloom, published by Harper Perennial, (I reference Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” as well as an education and a snippet or a rhyme scheme or a voice from other poems and poets, noting that Wallace Stevens’ vexatious poem “Sunday Morning” was written in 1915)
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, published by Back Bay Books, (I make allusions to #286, #254, #475, #1129, #847, #301, #288, #216, #501, #501(reprise), #921, #657, #315, #290, #216(reprise), #1601)
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Poetry Collection, editors and publisher “in a coign of the cliff,” (“Dolores” could have been entitled “Our Lady of Pain”)
William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, general editors Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, (the Bard)
The Wild Fox of Yemen: Poems, by Threa Almontaser, published by Graywolf Press, (at war hunting her girliness, hunting her destiny)
Water I Won’t Touch, by Kayleb Rae Candrilli, published by Copper Canyon Press, (transgender poetry built from pathos, humor, and concern)
Modern Poetry and/or frank: sonnets, by Diane Seuss, both published by Graywolf Press, (scuffling Job’s path of trying to understand a world of woe)
The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems, by Arthur Sze, published by Copper Canyon Press, (“how you look at a series of incidentals and pull an invisible thread through them all”)
The New Testament: 1526 Edition, translated by William Tyndale, published by Hendrickson Bibles
The Holy Bible: Conformable to the Edition of 1611, Commonly Known as the Authorized or King James Version, published by Barbour Publishers, Inc.
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures: with References, published by Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures: revised 2013, published by Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York
JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, published by The Jewish Publication Society
The Bible with Sources Revealed: A New View into the Five Books of Moses, by Richard Elliott Friedman, published by HarperSanFrancisco
The Qur’an, a new translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, published by Oxford World’s Classics, (leaving me happy to have found a good translation of the Qur’an, or at least one that counterbalances the rude translation to which I was directed years ago)
Understanding the Qur’an: Themes and Style, by Muhammad Abdel Haleem, published by I. B. Tauris, (one of many commentaries, here pointing out that no translation of the Qur’an can capture the subtleties of the original Arabic)
Everyman’s Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages, by Abraham Cohen, published by Schocken Books, (many words drawing near to God? or drawing near to everyday life?)
Commentary on the Torah, by Richard Elliott Friedman, published by HarperOne, (reads front to back in the Hebrew way as it turns a few of our thoughts around)
What Does the Bible Really Teach?, published by Jehovah’s Witnesses, (available at www.jw.org. For a more visual overview of their beliefs, see Enjoy Life Forever)
The Other Prophet: Jesus in the Qur’an, by Mouhanad Khorchide and Klaus von Stosch, published in translation by Gingko, (asking exegetically, how can it be one God over Torah, Gospel, and Qur’an? Jesus rewrote Torah; Christology separated camps and was challenged by Qur’an; would remembering Moses as a shepherd, Jesus as a carpenter, and Muhammad as a trader have been helpful?)
“No One to Run With,” performed by The Allman Brothers Band, written by Dickey Betts and John Prestia, (Jimmy!)
“Parasol,” (giving us permission to be seeded), “Gold Dust” (naming my quasi-bio), and “Winter,” (left on our own), by singer-songwriter Tori Amos
“Slow Train” and “Standing in the Doorway,” by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, (as close to God as he is given)
“Amanda,” sung by Waylon Jennings, written by Bob McDill and Robert Lee McDill, (father and son)
“Last Chance Texaco,” by singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, (onset of adventure in my first attempt at marriage)
“Imagine,” by singer-songwriter John Lennon, (paradise?)
“Learning How to Listen” and “Wholly Earth,” by singer-songwriter Abbey Lincoln, (my all-time favorite jazz vocalist)
“American Pie,” by singer-songwriter Don Mclean, (possibly the theme song of the clergy class on the day the great tribulation strikes)
“Tell Me Why,” by singer-songwriter Melanie, (she sang at Woodstock! My heaviness thwarted my desire to go)
“Kaw Liga,” sung by Charley Pride, written by Fred Rose and Hank Williams, (can a wooden Indian love a crafted Maiden?)
“The Ones We Couldn’t Be,” by singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt, (reaching deep)
“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” by singer-songwriter Otis Redding, written with Steve Cropper, (covered by such as Popa Chubby)
“When a Man Loves a Woman,” sung by Percy Sledge, written by Andrew Wright and Calvin Lewis, (summarizing my second and final attempt at marriage)
Heavy, a Hollywood movie I saw long ago rated R because had it been PG patrons expecting action would have thrown rotten tomatoes at the screen, or had it been G patrons with families of little ones would have thrown rotten tomatoes at the screen
King Richard, a Hollywood movie emboldening me to continue my singular course
The Pink Panther series and the MIB series sporting with the bale of the human race
Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (with rhymes to aid the paradigms), published by G. & C. Merriam Company
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, (from aardvark to zyzzyva), published by American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc, and Houghton Mifflin Company
The Synonym Finder, (from aback to zzz), by J. I. Rodale, completely revised by editors, published by Warner Books, (my copy out-of-date, but do-I-care?)
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