PROGRAM DETAILS: UPDATED January 2017 • Audio is released each Wednesday.
Audio features guest interviews, “Soul School Lessons”, or other types of programing.
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Today my guest is the Associate Editor of FULLER Studio and Magazine, Michael Wright (MA, Theology and the Arts). *photos used by permission from FULLER Studio of Fuller Seminary
to Episode 97, with Michael. The Access Pass will also unlock all previous episode Show Notes and include all episodes of February 2017.
• WHAT ARE SHOW NOTES?
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The TWO EPISODES in which Tammy is my Spark My Muse guest:
What it’s like living in an intentional urban communal arrangement as a family.
Follow-up episode answering listener questions & on the power of confession.
MIN 5:00
Reads All Seasons (NOV 2007)
MIN 8:30
How Anita got started in poetry?
and her family background and education.
MIN 10:00
Her introduction to rhythm, poetry, and rap music to express emotions
11:30
Her spiritual formation and rediscovery of her faith as an adult.
MIN 14:00
D Boy and Preachers in Disguise (PID)
Reverend Rhyme
Being homeschooled
Teaching 7th grade
MIN 19:00
Deciding who you want to be.
Bringing poetry into the classroom.
MIN 21:00
The role of the arts during times of trouble (including the current racial tension and tragic recent event like the slaying of police officers in Dallas)
MIN 23:30
Anita’s thoughts about seeing racial violence and violence against police unfold right in front of her in her own hometown.
MIN 25:00
Nothing will get back to order if there is no justice.
What the arts can do for the issue of Justice.
MIN 28:30
Performing poetry that relates to racial and social justice issues–now seems even more powerful.
Anita performs “In Memoriam of Morality: end quote”
It’s hard to look for a good laugh
when so many of our channels expose the madness
of what seems to be consistent harassment
of what some might call . . .
How do you converse and talk about
videos and uploads from people on their walk about
showing millions and millions what to gasp about
because honestly to see so many videos about . . .
Well, that might be where we get stuck
or unable to label true stories or fables
either over dinner or all too often under the table
dealing with people who . . .
Well that might make things sticky
when hearing only one side of a story sure makes things iffy
and so we are left with a tricky . . .
What is race?
And is that the question?
Or what is racism
and is that the conglomeration of too many. . . swirling in one population
with too many nationalities, ethnicities in one or several locations?
Again, is that the question?
I watched videos of the recent incidents
and no lie, I felt completely absent from joy
and completely different from indifference
but also distant from revenge or payback.
I honestly felt more under attack
not from a color, but from a sin
something within every human
and because we are fallen
we lack the courage to say what C.S. Lewis so eloquently expressed:
“We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
end quote.
Isn’t that utterly ridiculous and even senseless?
But, oh dear friends, he is speaking to our present day existence.
We take Jesus out of schools
and are stupid enough to demand and look for values.
We sanction abortion,
but lock up thieves.
We “Hooray!” same sex marriages
and question why little boys and little girls struggle with identity.
We laugh and mock politicians,
but stay out of the polls
and then when we turn on the tv,
we have the audacity to ask, “What is going on?”
So is that the question?
What channel should I watch just to get away from this humiliating madness?
What channel can I view to escape the constant harassment?
To be honest, friends,
when I watch these videos again and again,
I fall to my knees in utter repentance
because I start to see color when I see brutality.
I start to see race when I see crimes against humanity.
And I only feel that way when I lack the courage to say these words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“Judging others makes us blind whereas love is illuminating.”
end quote.
Then no wonder we can’t see.
Our judgements have burned down these cities
and we wrestle all night
wondering who and what color will be the victim of our fights
like 2 wrongs ever made a . . .
Mother Theresa smiled and said, “God will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?”
end quote.
Is that the question?
That question will expose the reality in our hearts
as we 60-mile-an-hour brick through windows
hoping that will cover up the anger and grief in our souls
and so we submit to temporary exhilarations
contributing to an ongoing deviation
of how not to deal with a systemic situation
as we watch those bricks shatter bank accounts
but do we even take into account
the morning after the one night stand
when fumes consume the inability to resume
the life we presume or desired.
I have a question because I can’t put out this fire:
How do unjust deaths lead to grocery buggies with flat screen tvs
car trunks with microwaves and DVD players?
Yeah! I’m a hater.
What are we doing and what have we done?
We’re teaching a younger generation that sin has a color
and revenge is the other route to avenge
and we’re letting them grow up with another lie.
Why are we quiet?
If we choose to send a message of silence
we are inevitably advocating the violence.
It’s hard to see through the anger in our hearts,
the unforgiveness in our carts,
Add to cart
the grudges in our cart
Add to cart
the vindictive actions that tasted sweet but only backwash tart
Add to cart
Check out!
HECK NO!
Some of us need to check in and ask yet again “What is the question?”
What can we do to get away from this stench of sin covered in revenge
covered in avenge someone’s death.
Our plight has us fight against skin,
but the only real fight is the one against sin,
but how do you fight a force you can’t grab, you can’t choke?
Is that why we burn down buildings because at least with smoke
we can see the ruin of our demise
and yet even when I close my eyes
I can’t shut out or shout out the images inside.
I’ve already seen them – the punches, the chokeholds, the funeral and in these last days my brothers and sisters, get ready for more turmoil.
All men sin and fall short;
that’s nothing new to report
accept with that terse verse feel free to rehearse your own shortcomings.
May not have involved a chokehold or a gun
but a sin is a sin, and in the end,
we all desperately need repentance.
Don’t we?
Isn’t that the question?
end quote.
MIN 37:00
Civil Rights movement
Black Lives Matter movement
MIN 41:30
What do you think people with light skin can do to make things better?
MIN 43:30
Having conversations about privilege.
Telling our stories and making sure the friends and connections you have are very diverse.
MIN 47:30
On diversity in community
MIN 50:00
Making adjustments to deal with the events of the summer.
I hear lot of people batting around the terms “mystic”, “mysticism”, and “contemplative” lately, so I thought it might be helpful to speak about what some of these terms and concepts mean and speak about some common misunderstandings too.
If you’d like me to go into more depth in an upcoming episode, send me a note or a question!
(If you hear audio in the episode that you’d like to share, click on the Clammr icon below.)
On Sunday April 24 Spark My Muse will be 1 year old!
HOORAY!
Thank you to everyone who has helped by listening, with encouragement, and with gifts to keep the Spark My Muse show going.
To celebrate there will be some very interesting things happening in the…. #weekofSPARKle —stay tuned!
Today, I have a return guest!
My soul friend, Shane Tucker. He has a new book and you can get it free.
Today we converse about it and Irish culture
–two fire-makers are sparking things…what’s not to love?
SCROLL DOWN for much more about my guest and about this special episode.
If it is not already obvious, on Spark My Muse I feature people and topics I find interesting and important. I feature people from a variety of backgrounds and traditions: people of some kind of religious faith and people without belief in the supernatural are my guests. What they all have in common is that I think they are working on something worthy of attention and conversation. It doesn’t mean I agree or come to the same conclusions with every guest 100% but I appreciate them very much and I want to make space for them here and learn from them. It will spark my muse and yours.
Currently, few people meet that standard more than my guest today: Jennifer Michael Hecht. What I have deeply appreciated about Jennifer Michael Hecht‘s work is her curiosity, investigative way of working and writing, her sense of wonder, and her wonderful and sense of humor that comes out perhaps most often in her poetry.
In our conversation we cover topics in some of her books, her background, and she even reads a poem (swoon), but the main topic covered is extremely important.
In fact, it’s a matter of life and death: Suicide. There are common myths about why people kill themselves and those myths create more deaths. No more.
If you feel the urge to end your life, don’t. Wait out your mood, please talk about what is bothering you, and seek help. Stay alive.
I too have had time of deep darkness and thoughts of taking my life have gone through my mind. I haven’t planned how to carry it all out because the finality scares me and the thought of putting my loved ones through hardship hurts me.
The statistics tell us that having these thoughts are normal, just as any other type of thoughts. Our thoughts our not our identity. They are things our brain does to try to solve problems. Sometimes our brain should not be listened to. We must not listen to any murderous thoughts either, right? (Like the ones we have during road rage moments or when we feel like we want to strangle our child when they sass us or boldface lie.) Our meat-like brains might think bad things. So, if a thought of taking your life is happening now, or ever. Please stay. Don’t be rash. Hang on. AND Thank you for making a choice to stay on.
The best thing we can do during those dark and bad times is to wait it out and support others doing the same. We can also talk to someone to sort things through. If you feel like you are in a desperate mood, try your best to stay until you feel better. Jennifer says it and I concur, your future self will be happy you did. Others WILL be happy you did.
Don’t do anything you can’t undo. First Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
To share an audio snippet, click on the red and white icon below.
Thank you for listening. This is a very important episode and I urge you to pass it along to as many people as you can for when a very desperate mood may strike them.
Scroll down for notes of the show listed by-the-minute. More resources are at the bottom.
GUEST: Jennifer Michael Hecht
BIO
Jennifer Michael Hecht is a poet, philosopher, historian and commentator. She is the author of the bestseller Doubt: A History, a history of religious and philosophical doubt all over the world, throughout history. Her new book is Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, out from Yale University Press. Her The Happiness Myth brings a historical eye to modern wisdom about how to lead a good life. Hecht’s The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropologywon Phi Beta Kappa’s 2004 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award “For scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity.”
Publisher’s Weekly called her poetry book, Funny, “One of the most original and entertaining books of the year.” Her first book of poetry, The Next Ancient World, won three national awards, including the Poetry Society of America’s First Book award for 2001. Her new poetry book called Who Said, just came out from Copper Canyon in November 2013. Hecht has written for Politico, The New YorkTimes, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirerand The New Yorker. She holds a Ph.D. in the history of science/European cultural history from Columbia University (1995) and has taught in the MFA program at Columbia University and the New School in New York City.
SHOWNOTES
MIN 2:00
Her first love: poetry.
min 3:30
PhD at Columbia in the History of Science
5:00
The hard sciences in her roots influencing her educational pursuits.
6:30
How she came to write the book Doubt: A History
The End of the Soul (her dissertation)
The Society of Mutual Autopsy
Brain dissections (Paris) done to prove the soul did not exist.
The members of this group left records of their atheism and she decided that there was not a good record of atheism and the tradition of it.
15:00
Disbelief is “a kind of atheism”. The splits and religions that come about as people question the prominent god or gods and religion of the time.
16:30
The people throughout history who reject the supernatural and accept only the natural world.
17:30
The mixing of cultural and religions in our times and the current idea of spirituality that you can contact the supernatural inside yourself.
19:00 The secular argument against suicide.
Ages 15-44 3rd leading killer of Americans
Ages 44 and up is the 10th leading killer. It happens in greater number among the older population.
In 2000, 30,00 people per year.
In 2010, 40,00 people per year killed themselves and raising.
There seem to be trends like in other social trends like drug use, and the trend rises when people feel it’s a solution others like them are choosing.
23:00 The Christians who leave suicide notes and say that they think that God will understand (and forgive them.) need to hear the reason why to stay.
The TWO MAIN ARGUMENTS in the book STAY:
Suicide harms community
People close to you, that you may never wish to harm to be harm irreparably (especially children who are 4 times more likely to also commit suicide if their parent does, depending on how old they are).
Neighborhoods, schools, families, groups, communities have increased suicide and trauma statistically after a suicide occurs.
Suicide hurts your future self
28:00
People don’t realize how common it is to have a sudden (fleeting) thought that it might be better if they weren’t lying any longer when things are going badly. It’s a mood. Some people act in the worst way about a bad mood.
95% of people who try suicide, if they live, will never try it again.
29:30
Having faith in your future self.
30:30 This is a worldwide problem. 1 million per year. Up 60% worldwide.
32:00
Suicide is more impulsive and is more impulsive than we’ve realized.
Shame has something to do with suicide. People had suffered a humiliation in romanic, at work, or in some other way.
34:30
Knowing ahead of time to be on guard against the perils of impetuous thinking about suicide.
“Don’t let your worst mood murder all your others. The other moods don’t want to do that.”
“Depression happens to you. Not suicide. Suicide is a behavior.”
36:30
Pain can be a helpful teacher. We are stuck with it and it seems to help us grow.
39:00
On Robin Williams’ suicide.
41:00
The executive function and planning portion of the adolescence brain is not finished until age 25. There are many reasons to wait and see that things get better as your future self.
45:00
Looking for the warning signs in ourselves and stay for ourselves and others. You don’t get to choose who suffers.
50:00
The Wonder Paradox (her new book she’s working on)
About poetry and wonder
The people who do not affiliate with any religion. What rituals do and what people use for marriages or funerals, etc. What Poetry can provide for that.
“American religions have offered meaning and an afterlife, yet millions of Confucians and 5,000 years of Egyptians didn’t believe in an afterlife.”
55:00
“Meaning always came from culture and community.”
56:00
Keats’ tuberculosis poem
57:00
On the universe and vastness of creation and our consciousness.
59:00
“We are the universe seeing itself and marveling.”
1:01
On the darkness and struggle.
1:05
Jennifer reads her poem:
History
Even Eve, the only soul in all of time
to never have to wait for love,
must have leaned some sleepless nights
alone against the garden wall
and wailed, cold, stupefied, and wild
and wished to trade-in all of Eden
to have but been a child.
In fact, I gather that is why she leapt and fell from grace, that she might have a story of herself to tell in some other place.
Plus another poem
As promised, I’m including another of Jennifer’s poems in the shownotes. Below you can click to heard it read aloud and that enhances the experience.
Funny Strange
We are tender and our lives are sweet
and they are already over and we are visiting them in some kind of endless reprieve from oblivion, we are walking around in them and after we shatter with love for everything we settle in.
Thou tiger on television chowing, thou very fact of dreams, thou majestical roof fretted with golden fire. Thou wisdom of the inner parts. Thou tintinnabulation.
Is it not sweet to hand over the ocean’s harvest in a single wave of fish? To bounce a vineyard of grapes from one’s apron and into the mouth of the crowd? To scoop up bread and offer up one’s armful to the throng? Let us live as if we were still among
the living, let our days be patterned after theirs. Is it not marvelous to be forgetful?
Click to hear this poem read aloud–it’s marvelous that way. It was downloaded from the Poetry Foundation. Visit it and read some of her other poems here and visit her page at the Poetry Foundation HERE.
• If you enjoyed this, you will like maybe to hear my personal story in audio I created about six months later:
• In October 2016, I had Ryan J. Bell as a guest, who is a mutual friend. You will also enjoy our conversation that includes a very interesting JMH “girl crush” tangent. Enjoy!
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