Sunday Musings – May 31, 2020
Risk to hope; hope to risk
On May 28, 2020 the On Being podcast with host Krista Tippett rebroadcast the May 30, 2019 conversation with the lyric poet Gregory Orr. The podcast is entitled “Shaping Grief with Language.” Mr. Orr says, “And we just navigate our lives with this kind of interplay of disorder and order. And what poetry says to us is, turn your confusion, turn your world into words. Take it outside yourself into language. Poetry says, I’m going to meet you halfway. You just bring me your chaos. I’ll bring you all sorts of ordering principles.”
Later in the same conversation he posits, “Risk is our existential condition.” I was thinking about the fact that often I am hesitant to put words to paper for fear that I might not like or not be comfortable with what my words reveal. When I sit down to write it does not matter what I think I am going to write. Even if I begin with a thesis statement and am determined to follow the “rules” for ensuring that each sentence is closely related to or supports the thesis, the words soon take on a life of their own revealing to me what I was hesitant to “know” but already knew.
The succinctness of poetry especially challenges one to face truths which may feel very risky to face. Yet, I also know that without risk there is no journey. Risk is the fuel of this human journey. Hope both propels me to take that risk and provides the direction for that risk. Without hope there is only aimless reaction. Without hope there is no intent to risk. There is only the explosion of action As I write, in many places in the United States rage over the ongoing genocide of those who appear to fit into the box of black or African American has erupted into what many officials are terming simple lawlessness “attacking civil society and installing fear.” (Governor Walz). Yet the form of this rage is neither simple nor lawlessness. To call it lawlessness is to miss the point. These eruptions do not begin with hope and are not guided by hope. These eruptions say: “This is more grief than we can bear. We have asked, begged, pleaded and appealed to the sense of sacred which you promise. Instead of sacred you give us the profane time and time again.”
When we fail to understand that the current eruptions are not about risk or hope; When we fail to understand the core fear of those who use the threat of violence to end social distancing and closings; When we fail to understand that logic, hope and risk are not prime movers in the rancorous movement to “Make America Great Again”, we have avoided writing the words which will form the succinct poem which will risk the truth which will, in the end, free us.
It is, I believe, true that “The Truth will make us free.” The truth, however, is often uncomfortable. When we risk the truth of our poem we risk being uncomfortable. It is, however, in the center of that discomfort that we can find and embrace hope – direction.
Taking risk is frightening. Not taking risks is taking a bigger risk and, thus, more frightening. We must allow the words to reveal the truth. We must allow hope to emerge from that truth. Avoiding risk cannot be one of the choices.
Written May 31, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Sunday Musings – May 31, 2020
Risk to hope; hope to risk
On May 28, 2020 the On Being podcast with host Krista Tippett rebroadcast the May 30, 2019 conversation with the lyric poet Gregory Orr. The podcast is entitled “Shaping Grief with Language.” Mr. Orr says, “And we just navigate our lives with this kind of interplay of disorder and order. And what poetry says to us is, turn your confusion, turn your world into words. Take it outside yourself into language. Poetry says, I’m going to meet you halfway. You just bring me your chaos. I’ll bring you all sorts of ordering principles.”
Later in the same conversation he posits, “Risk is our existential condition.” I was thinking about the fact that often I am hesitant to put words to paper for fear that I might not like or not be comfortable with what my words reveal. When I sit down to write it does not matter what I think I am going to write. Even if I begin with a thesis statement and am determined to follow the “rules” for ensuring that each sentence is closely related to or supports the thesis, the words soon take on a life of their own revealing to me what I was hesitant to “know” but already knew.
The succinctness of poetry especially challenges one to face truths which may feel very risky to face. Yet, I also know that without risk there is no journey. Risk is the fuel of this human journey. Hope both propels me to take that risk and provides the direction for that risk. Without hope there is only aimless reaction. Without hope there is no intent to risk. There is only the explosion of action As I write, in many places in the United States rage over the ongoing genocide of those who appear to fit into the box of black or African American has erupted into what many officials are terming simple lawlessness “attacking civil society and installing fear.” (Governor Walz). Yet the form of this rage is neither simple nor lawlessness. To call it lawlessness is to miss the point. These eruptions do not begin with hope and are not guided by hope. These eruptions say: “This is more grief than we can bear. We have asked, begged, pleaded and appealed to the sense of sacred which you promise. Instead of sacred you give us the profane time and time again.”
When we fail to understand that the current eruptions are not about risk or hope; When we fail to understand the core fear of those who use the threat of violence to end social distancing and closings; When we fail to understand that logic, hope and risk are not prime movers in the rancorous movement to “Make America Great Again”, we have avoided writing the words which will form the succinct poem which will risk the truth which will, in the end, free us.
It is, I believe, true that “The Truth will make us free.” The truth, however, is often uncomfortable. When we risk the truth of our poem we risk being uncomfortable. It is, however, in the center of that discomfort that we can find and embrace hope – direction.
Taking risk is frightening. Not taking risks is taking a bigger risk and, thus, more frightening. We must allow the words to reveal the truth. We must allow hope to emerge from that truth. Avoiding risk cannot be one of the choices.
Written May 31, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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