Aches and Pains

My heart hurts today; love, it seems, is not enough.

I have a heart for the Church. I've tried so hard not to. I have spent a lot of time being resentful, bitter, and risked cynicism because I couldn't handle the silent oppression for being different. I heard a sermon last week in which the pastor said that you can't forgive institutions, you have to forgive people. What he meant by this, I think, is that it is individuals who make mistakes and it's inaccurate (at best) to indiscriminately blame a group for the failings of a few. In this case, however, I'm pretty upset with the whole lot. The lot of church leaders who are so aware of the nuance and uncertainty surrounding verses in Scripture, verses that are the foundation of long held Church teachings. And the lot of their congregants, the silent flocks who feel in their hearts the call to love, the call to listen... the call to wrestle with the nuance and uncertainty. Perhaps even the call to change.

I was talking to a friend recently. She's an adamant supporter of LGBT equality. I asked her what she knew about how the above church was handling the issue of minority gender and sexual identities. She told me that she'd had a meal with church leaders at the above church, and that they were very sympathetic. They had acknowledged that the issue needed to be dealt with, that LGBT folks needed to be invited and welcomed into the church. But, in the words of my friend, they had said, "There are 500 ways to screw this up, and only one way to do it right." Their fear is that the very discussion would divide the congregation.

I'm reminded of times not-so-long past, when some churches used Scripture to exclude other groups, openly denying other minorities the opportunity at loving community. People of color kept in the fringes, isolated into communities of outcasts, worshiping with one another. I see a similar trend today, with LGBT folks, their friends and allies all worshiping the same God that they've been told doesn't accept them.

I've also seen the deep hurt, the tears and the weary eyes of my LGBT friends who open their hearts so wide to a community that will not, perhaps cannot listen. The oppressed bending over backward to show that they're human, that they deserve to be loved. To be heeded. To be given the dignity of a listening ear.

Granted, LGBT folks have their share of patience to contribute; dialogue is a two-way street. But when the balance of power is weighted to one group, shouldn't it be that group that sacrifices a bit? Else it becomes the right of the oppressed to restore this balance?

I guess what I'm asking for is a little awe. I want the Church to open their eyes to the great sacrifice that it's calling LGBT folks to make. A call to celibacy, in some denominations, or, at the impasse of an unchanging gender/sexual identity, the forfeit of their church communities altogether. All this based on church teachings with a foundation on a few sketchy verses and a long history of heterocentrism and homophobia. Perhaps this will lead to a little respect, a lot more love, and some serious, long-overdue understanding.

I'm Coming Out -- You should too!

Hello, everyone. I have an announcement to make: I am a gay man.

Until recently, every time I said that, there was this twinge of fear, a fuzz of shame. I was slightly embarrassed, felt like I was telling a secret about myself that could spell disaster. I'd usually follow up with a comment that somehow defended my place as a "straight-acting" man, able to blend into the heteronormative society surrounding me. As time progresses, though, and as I progress along the path of coming-out, I feel less and less reservation about claiming my gay identity. The journey to this point has been long, a story about negotiating prestige, power, and gender and sexual identity amidst deep-felt fear and judgment from myself and my friends and family...

Yeah, you guessed it, I grew up in the Church. In fact, I was a staunch Christian; I asked my parents if I could attend a private Christian school for my last year of high school. I even offered to pay for half of the tuition with money I'd made working in a local coffee shop. Around this time, I began to know that I was gay, but back then, I called it "same-sex attractions." This term was used among myself and my counselor to describe the attractions that I had to men. My counselor was a Christian man, a psychologist -- a good one, actually. I have my misgivings about his Christian approach to my sexual orientation, but I certainly benefited from our interactions. We talked a lot about how gender expression didn't have to conform to the strictly structured gender norms of American culture. I could play the violin, write poetry, and sing, and it could be masculine just because I claimed a masculine identity. It was here, too, that I learned to differentiate between sexual desire and sexual expression, a distinction that has shaped my philosophies of romantic love, and sexual practice.

Perhaps I'm not critical enough of the way I was brought to think about sexuality early in my dealing with my sexual orientation, but the fact of the matter is that I identify a lot with Christians, especially when they humbly and honestly grapple with the reality of sexuality and their deeply-held faith. That's what I was engaged in around this time, as well. After attending counseling, I joined a group at a local church that was committed to engaging with the tension of being a Christian and finding oneself attracted to the same gender. Not ready to call my self gay yet, I would only ever admit to being attracted to men. I was careful, too, to place myself in the social world of males, and had a girlfriend, off-and-on, until my freshman year of college.

2005 found me at a small, private, Christian liberal arts college, stumbling around and getting in arguments with my peers about queer theology. I'd always make sure to distance myself from the argument a bit, hedging my words with, "Well, one argument to what you're asserting is that..." By the end of two years at this school, however, I found myself tired, my growth stunted, and my monetary funds depleted. It was time to transfer to another school, where I could figure myself out, cope with my orientation, and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I landed at Grand Valley State University, again not far from my hometown. Amidst my parents divorcing, and having increasingly negative experiences with hegemonic heterocentrism among my Christian friends, my faith was finally put to rest; I had shed the skin of the faith I grew up with to embrace a bigger, more mystical view of the metaphysical. With this came a process of becoming fully comfortable with myself, my gender expression, and my gay identity.

Today, I see many of my gay friends at the place that I was a couple of very short years ago. I'm brought back to what it was like to consider my feelings "not okay." I remember thinking that while God may not have had a problem with my sexual orientation, the attractions I felt were due to some systemic brokenness of society or spirit. It may not have been a condemnable sin, but to me, homosexuality was the product of sin. I wasn't able to see it then, but this headspace was so oppressive! It contributed to my stunted growth, hindering me from pursuing actualization. I thought I was in need of fixing. That, or I faced a lifetime of coping with the fact that my attractions could never be as pure as those of my heterosexual friends. Since becoming convinced of the validity of my gay identity, I have never felt freer, lighter, more able to take on the world. But it was only through a long, painful process of coming out that this was possible.

All that to say this: It is almost as oppressive to witness many of my friends in this a similar headspace. I see it on their faces, hear it in their words, and it distresses me. In a recent Gay.com story, the author wrote about being unwilling to date men who were not out. At first, one might react negatively to this discrimination, asserting that we're all in various stages of the coming out process, as some commenters did. In evaluating my own response, though, I found myself agreeing with the author, but not on the grounds that he cited. I'm fully willing to be a support in the coming out process. I must admit, though that on this topic, I'm impatient; I'd have a very hard time adjusting to seeing someone with whom I'm close internalize the oppression of homophobia and heteronormativity. I say this not to warn potential suitors of my requirements. Rather, this is to illustrate the level of urgency that I feel about this. It is from this place that I implore my fellow queers to blurt it out, blush like hell, and begin the process of being open with themselves and others about their noble identities as LGBTQI people.

Meaning, Hermeneutics, and A Season in Hell

Hello, all.

Here's something different: a link to a podcast about (and dramatic reading of) a piece of queer poetry by Arthur Rimbaud (Louise Varèse, tr.) titled A Season in Hell. The discussion is specifically about Delirium I, a small part of the much large poem, and questionable usefulness of history/enquiry into the life of the author in understanding the meaning of a text. Big topics discussed include the Death of the Author, and the Fusion of Horizons.

This podcast was produced to fulfill a requirement for a class I took during the winter semester of 2009 called Meaning. In it, we studied and discussed the construction and deconstruction and reconstruction meaning in light of structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstructionism (Derrida, mostly), and Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics, (among others). Enjoy!

Language Variety--Even in America

This was an extra credit response in my Sociolinguistics class. Seeing as it was internet based, I thought I'd share.
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For a country that has no official language, the American system sure can push English. Many of my family members, for example, still get offended when hearing people speak Spanish in public. Silly as this may be, the sentiment is shared by many Americans who perceive that English is, was, and should be the country’s only language. Listening to their rhetoric (or lack thereof), a power differential usually emerges, with the English speaker’s linguistic toes being stepped on by the utterance of a foreign tongue, and their imposition of a presumed English monolingualism in this country. However, this view, it could easily be argued, does not fit with the democratic ideals to which this nation claims to adhere. That’s why it is so good to see, hear, and experience a pluralism of manners of speaking in links such as the one to the MLA Language Map or the International Dialects of English Archive site.

The MLA Language map is very helpful in revealing the full extent of the US’s language diversity. A full 18% of speakers in America, it reports, use a language other than English. While ten percent of these speakers use Spanish or a Creole thereof, the other eight are a hodge-podge of languages like Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Gujarathi. This diversity does not just point to a cultural or ethnic diversity, but a plurality of expression. Because our worldview is expressed largely through language, our processing takes on different structure, mood, or connotation based on our choice of expression. In my Sociolinguistics class, for example we looked at The Bilingual’s Creativity (1987) by Kachru (sorry, couldn't find a link to the full text outside of my school's library). It's a study of the discourse and stylistic features of dialects of English that emerge out of contact with other languages. It shows the abounding depth and texture to the English of bilingual speakers. Language plurality, therefore, is instrumental in maintaining a diversity of perspectives often neglected under the hegemony of English’s ubiquity.

Ironically, because of this ubiquity, English has been stretched into many different dialects the world over. The International Dialects of English Archive indicates the full extent to which English varies, while the Dictionary of American Regional English and Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English both show hearty variation on more domestic and local scales. English’s marked adaptability has been a huge part of its success. Because it is so widely used, it’s assimilated words from all over the world, with some 25+% derived from French languages. English’s ability to accommodate new vocabulary, and even calques, has been cited as “an adaptive strategy undertaken by speakers to enrich certain registers of a language, rather than having to switch to the new language for that register. (Mesthrie et. al. 2000)” Furthermore, despite efforts toward standardization, English continues to be used in new ways by speakers applying their native language's semantic and grammatical structures to English, and insodoing, contributing to variation within English itself. It is due to its plasticity that English enjoys the place it does today.

Notwithstanding, the prestige of English lends itself to pride and a strongly dominant posture among its speakers. American non-English speakers are often stigmatized for their lack of fluency.* But homogeny has never made for a realistic (let alone healthy) goal. Moreover, existing in community is inherently pluralistic, as no individual expresses in the same way, nor could they have the same ideologies, exactly. Then, to participate fully in this community, we go beyond what seems familiar, and exercise patience with something new, perhaps uncomfortable, and recognize the great value in someone else’s linguistic ways. In short, English’s prestigious speakers could learn a lesson from their language’s history, and then turn an ear to learn from the tongue of another.

[*Sometimes, even, they're assumed to be much less fluent than they might actually be, just because of a thick accent. Accents can be virtually impossible to eradicate from one's language outside having learned another before the speaker hits puberty.]

REFERENCES

• Baker, W., & Eggington W. G. (1999). Bilingual Creativity, Multidimensional Analysis, and World Englishes. World Englishes, 18(3), 343-358.
• Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A, and Leap, W. (2000). Introducting sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

True Poetry

Again, I'm sorry to say that it's been quite some time since my previous post. I am, of late, preoccupied with studying Chinese in Taiwan. Any blogging that I've been doing is for my other blog. Recent events, however, have me thinking more about linguistic magic than Chinese studies, so here we all are.

The magic I speak of is the ability of words to hit so soundly on the intangible. That is, to refer to things far outside of the realm of the physical. I wrote in a previous entry that some things are simply incapable of being expressed with words. On the other hand, though, words can be bafflingly good at pinning down things bigger than the here and now. The example that comes to mind is a poem by Dylan Thomas called Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. And boy, it's a good one. Before we take a look, however, I'd like to share a bit about what I've been considering lately.

The realm of my understanding is most certainly composed almost completely of the here and now. There's no denying that I can rarely transcend the physical realm, just as much of my language has a concrete physical referant. "Shoe" refers to that thing that you put on your foot. Perhaps your concept of shoe-ness is complete with laces, a sole, and even a little tag by which you pull the heal onto your foot, as mine is. Even abstract words. Like love for example; for me it's usually conceptualized or rationalized by thinking of actions. Or perhaps the definition has to do with feelings, which again, grounds the word to some type of here-and-now-ness.

The mere fact that I have the ability to consider that "love" has an intangible, irrational, or incomprehensible quality leads me to believe that somehow, there is something beyond the here-and-now. Perhaps this "thing beyond" is merely some sense of social sentiments, or, as some philosophers call it, "fellow-feelings." Perhaps it's a collective consciousness or collective intelligence. Perhaps it really is God's Higher Purpose for our lives, after all. Whatever it is, I think it is. And that's all I can really say.

Because we humans can conceive of these things, and because we need a way to talk about them, and because the way we talk is with words, words are able to point beyond the physical realm. Poetry, good poetry, I think, is the most important method of doing so.

I think I can feel that bigger thing when I read Thomas's poem. I feel like this spectacular thing that we call life - the animating spark of the physical, the something that makes us breathe and laugh, and write poetry - is very precious. And its ceasing is to be lamented with fierce, burning tears of indignation. This poem, points so far beyond the words that are used, and it does so loudly, overtly, and unwaveringly. Thats the genius of it.

Here's the poem, after all (and for your listening pleasure a link to hear Thomas himself read it):

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Long time, no see!

How long it has been since I posted last!

In light of my impending trip to Taiwan, I'd like today to write about Chinese Language, or Zhong Wen, or Han Yu, depending on the specific thing we're talking about. (Zhōng Wén, or 中文, is the written language, and Hàn Yǔ, or 漢語 more usually refers to the spoken.)

Chinese's influence is broad and varied, and it's importance is increasingly obvious as the country gains economic and political prowess. So why not dive in?

Chinese is a tonal language, employing four tones, and one neutral tone. The tones make similarly sounding words completely different words to Chinese speakers' ears as the link will show.

As an analytic language, Chinese gets a lot of it's meaning from the word order in sentences. This is very similar to English: "The dog bit the boy," is quite a different sentence in English from "The boy bit the dog." The same goes for Chinese. Directions of verbs from subject to object are indicated by the order in which the nouns appear. So "我愛你" (wǒ aì nǐ) means "I love you," and not the other way around.

Another important thing to remember, is that Chinese has hundreds of dialects, many of which are completely unintelligible to one another. Usually when people talk about Chinese, they're talking about Mandarin Chinese, kind of the central government's dialect. Many Chinese people (and East Asians, for that matter) speak fluent Mandarin along with their local dialect.

Chinese hasn't had much interplay with the more western languages, largely because they're so different, but some words that English has from Chinese are katsup (from ke tziap for a condiment previously used in the Roman Empire), kowtow (from kou tou) and the phrase, "Long time, no see," (literally translated from hǎo jǐu bú jiàn). Notice how each word or phrase goes from a tonal and distinctly Chinese pronunciation, to an Anglicized version of the word fitting our phonetic system, and then gets smashed together as we repeat the word or phrase. This is very common, if not ubiquitous in borrowings from other languages.

Lastly, here's a vid that tries to teach a bit of basic Hàn Yǔ. You can get a feel for how Chinese sentences are formed, and hear the tonal differences in words. Keep in mind that Chinese is a language that comes with a whole different way of thinking; that's how "You Good," can mean something slightly different than the words separately. Cheers!

Unspeakable

In my experience, very many things are hard to explain. Such a predicament is a frequent source of frustration for me, eliciting gritted teeth and a cursed apostrophe to Reason or Communication or some such. Most of these dis-communications are usually re-communicated with some level of relief, even if the speaker has to go on arduously explaining what she means with a long winded sentence such as this. But no matter how deep a hole one digs on these matters, she can always, with enough time and effort, dig herself out. Lately, though, several conversations have brought me outside of the world of the communicable, and into the clouds.

Matters such as equality, ethics, emotion and (though I hate to break the e-lliteration) true-selfhood bring me away from this reality, and beyond what I find myself able to explain. I suppose this has something to do with the field of Metaphysics, though on a much less Theo-centric twist. I'm reading about Taosim as of late, and I get the feeling that reading books or talking with people is not the way to learn. Some things are better left to intuition and experience.

Embedded in this frustration at non-lucidity is the notion that one should be able to clearly explain ones ideas, so that two minds become one in their understanding of such-and-such a notion. It seems that with enough words and explanation, our interlocutors and we should have a crystal clear view of the truth before us. After all, if Truth is absolute, it would be the same for everyone, right? And, if we cannot express it, is it possible that we don't know what we're talking about? (For what do we know that we cannot express?) If I can't tell my classmate what I see from my perspective, could it be that my vision is too foggy to say, for sure, what (or how) the visage is?

My guess is that we do indeed see foggily. Our vision is never infinitely good. And, similarly, our communication is never infinitely lucid. As my friend and I talk about the truth from our own perspectives, undoubtedly our vantage points are different, and we could indeed be seeing two very different angles of what may be the same concept. Your side of the beach ball could be blue and orange, and white. The ball , I'll argue, is red, and white and yellow.

And we'll talk, and talk, and talk ourselves dizzy until we acknowlege our inadequate communication, our differing paradigms, and our own flawed vision.