More Beauty

Backlit, photo by M. David Orr 1999

Beauty, Poetry and Projection

Struck by Beauty

One night when I was in the U.S. Navy in Virginia, I took the jitney bus into Virginia Beach after work. I found an all-night restaurant, sat down and ordered a cup of coffee from this beautiful, soft-spoken brunette. Her name tag said “Kathy,” and my heart said, “YES!” I think I had enough self-control not to drool or hang my mouth open, but the feelings were there. This was 80% lust, 20% fantasy. I had no idea who this person was, but I endowed her with all truth and beauty.

I missed the last jitney bus back to the base at about 1 AM, and decided to stay the night at the beach. I left and had a couple of beers at a bar. The beer was really weak. Virginia Beach had a lot of young people visiting, so they lowered the drinking age for beer to 18, but only allowed the bars to sell 3.2% alcohol beer instead of the usual 6% stuff. Naturally, this meant the students had to drink twice as much to get drunk, which they, and we sailors, did. It made the bar owners happy, but did little to decrease drunkenness. Finally, the bars closed about 2 AM, so I went back to the restaurant.

Kathy was still there. I took a booth and ordered another cup of coffee. We exchanged a few words, but my old paralysis in the face of sexual attraction seized me. I couldn’t make a move to flirt, try to get to know her better, ask her out, or anything. I was aware of the sexual attraction and wanted to hide it. I’m not sure why I could function with some women who were beautiful and with average-looking women, but not with some strange, beautiful women. I believe now because I was hiding the sexual attraction, women like Kathy picked up on it and distrusted me, rightfully so--I was hiding.

I read for awhile, then began to write in a notebook. Poetry flowed. Over the next year I would write quite a few poems, usually in this restaurant with Kathy somewhere around. Was she my Muse?

Alienation

Many of these poems were angry, lonely, filled with the hurt of an idealist seeing the real world. I had thrown myself out of the mainstream of the culture. All around me the Sixties were blossoming--people had long hair down to their asses and sandals on their feet; drugs were everywhere; the war in VietNam was increasingly unpopular, as was anything to do with the military. There I was with short hair, black military shoes, and old-fashioned ideas.

It’s not that I didn’t accept some of the ideas of the Sixties--I did; but I didn’t automatically swallow every new idea or trend that came along. Many people, more or less, did. The Sixties had begun with the high ideals of the Civil Right Movement, which I joined wholeheartedly. In a way, this movement asked America to live up to her highest ideals of freedom and justice in the liberal tradition of Western civilization.

By 1968, Sixties thinking, or, more accurately, Sixties feeling rejected Western civilization, including Christianity, logic, rule of law, capitalism, civil order, and the stable family. A central tenet of many people was to tear down all institutions of “The Establishment,” the established order, and somehow a new, better order would arise.

I thought this view naive in the extreme and ignorant of the many examples of chaos in history. I thought the most likely outcome of the destruction of all institutions would be tyranny--the rise of a strong leader who would promise order in exchange for power. All of the Greek democracies ended in just this way. But the leftists of the Sixties thought that past history (experience) was irrelevant.

There was even a saying among the young leftists, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” But all of them grew older themselves. Maybe, they were right. No one over thirty can still be so rampantly irrational and at the same time so certain of themselves.

I eventually wrote a poem to Kathy that expressed my longing for beauty, my emotional impotence, and my despair with the times.

To a Gentle Lady

The light became her grace and dwelt among
Blind eyes and shadows that are formed as men;
Lo how the light doth melt us into song;
—Ezra Pound, "Ballatetta."

It is of little use, this gift for song,
It is of little use.
A timid heart
Received it from the Muse and flew away:
Like some sequestered bird let out to play,
Among the sheltered gardens, soon deceived.

Art is easy in the shade.
Artifice glistens in the glade on dews of grass
That human feet have never trod.
Let pass a light footfall in this quaint habitat,
Our heart will seek the forest's deeper part.

Yet we can call the ocean winds to blow,
And mount a swirling chaos in the main
To lash the thousand ships that boldly sail,
Or to some Grecian hero give his fame
Who in his pride and strength laid Hector low.
But Helen's face will make our tempest fail,
And she who is this war's most graceful root
Will scorn a city lost, its hero mute.
Old heart, in a young breast in younger times,
We will not call it genius if it rhymes;
You are Anachronism when you sing:
Gods are dead, "the world is too much with us"
—Paper diapers, Singer sowing machines,
The Holy Mary plastic, Jesus rock,
Our generation grown too dead to shock,
Too dead to sing,
Hope—a guided missile.

We scream for peace;
We who've known little else
But outward calm have robbed ourselves
Of God, of Hope in life or life to come,
This "long disease" prolong-- and "peace" we hum.

Gentle lady, graceful one.
Pardon if my Muse is mute;
She does not envy you,
But would protect her son;
For she well knows
That when he breaks his rhythm, loses time,
That when his song has ceased to rhyme,
He who was timid, shy in the wood,
Breaks forth a roar and fury,
Calls the sea to foam and dash
The liquid marrow from his drying bones.
Or he would brave Olympian heights
To steal the flame right from the gods
And feel their fury dash him home,
As still he clasps the spark he stole
For some fair creature that he loves,
To lay his weary head upon her breast
And sink into an earthly rest to dream...

This song is ended.
May its singer find his peace,
With his gentle lady find his rest.
May his song distill
Some sweetness from her face,
Or, if to no avail,
Lie mute upon her desk.

MDO '68

I wrote the poem in one night, and took it to her the next morning. I just handed it to her saying, “I wrote this for you,” and left. A couple of days later I came back and asked her how she liked it. She said, “It was beautiful. It made me cry.” I didn’t have a clue how to follow up with her, so I said, “I’m glad you liked it,” and left. I wrote one other poem to express my longing.

Cathy

These eyes fall upon you
As if they had no hope
Or will but in your features
Earthly haven to find.
Saints at a shrine, they gaze
To see themselves imparadised
In Heaven's open arms.

MDO ‘ 68

I felt unable to translate the strong feeling I had for her into action to get her. The truth that I can see now is that I did not know her at all. I was in love with the image of her in my head, and it may have had nothing to do with who she really was.

Projection

Gestalt psychologists believe that everything we think we see and understand in the external world is a projection of our own mental and emotional state. I saw Kathy and projected my internal image of ideal femininity onto her and fell in love with this image. I had no idea what music she liked, what her philosophy of life was, what values she lived by, how she made love, but I was in love with her? I believe many young men (and women) do this same thing at a certain age. Relating to a real person, of course, is a different matter.

Learning lessons like this is called growing up. It’s probably good that we don’t know everything we think we do when we are young, otherwise we would never learn humility. Age teaches that God and the Universe conspire to humble us, like it or not.

Art and Spirituality

In 1995 at a men's retreat, I identified my life's mission: “To create beauty and share it with others.” I now understand this mission is, in an earthly way, sharing in the Creator's creative power. (Beauty has a particular significance for me, see the post below “What is God's Name?”)

Some things I've learned about creativity:

1. The number one enemy of creativity in me is fear--fear of who I really am, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of spontaneity, fear of criticism.

2. Repression of any kind in the creative expression ruins art. In a way, art is a self-portrait no matter what the subject matter. If I repress--anger, sexuality, fear, joy--anything, I've censored my true self from the expression, and it will be a lie and be boring to boot.

3. The best art comes when I am able to forget myself in the Buddhist or Christian sense and just let things happen. This is true whether I am doing abstract work or representational work.

When I succeed, Beauty emerges and people are moved. In abstract art, I think of the art works as Little Pieces of Spirit. In representational work, I mostly paint women. The work captures their naked persons (clothed or unclothed), the person under the social mask. This person may be all sorts of things in the moment--arrogant, angry, depressed, joyful, challenging; but always the Beauty is there.

I like the Muslim expression, "God is great!", because that's how I often feel in the gratitude of participating in the creative process. There is a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, in which the author says that God loves artists because He is one Himself. (I know this is seeing God in my own image, but it's a nice thought anyway.)

Poem: Everglades

Everglades Sunset, Phot0 by M. David Orr

I see a shadow drifting
Out across the Everglades,
Darkening the wilder places.
A cloud moves overhead,
The sun behind,
And I stand gazing
From a small hill at the space,
Broken by tall grass, cedar tree, and vine,
Alligator hole, and long canal.
I see no waste,
For every rotted trunk
Gives place for fungal life
And teeming insect hoards.
The subtle water drifts among the grass
Moving slowly in its path
Toward the Gulf of Florida,
And we men bring our noise
Among the quiet flowing,
Silent growing,
Hidden death and life.

We, like the water,
Each have our own flow,
Our sometimes seen and sometimes hidden paths
Toward that great Gulf
That marks our end
And our unseen beginning.
We have our little deaths and lives.
We grow and rot and grow.
The Sun gives life,
The Water drives our flow,
And it is not ours to know,
Moving among the grass and trees,
What we are completely,
What we are to be,
Out where meet
The water, sky, and sea.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

Painting - Focii

Focii by M. David Orr, watercolor, 10"x 17," 2001

A Fresh Look

I wrote an essay about two years ago when I lived in Chicago and hosted a forum on Ryze network called God Talk. It always amazed me how much people argued from preconceived notions and handed-down phrases. The essay has a mild Christian slant, but has much to offer for anyone concerned with seeing things with your own eyes.

A Fresh Look

It's hard to take a fresh look at the Bible (Hebrew Scriptures plus the books of the New Testament approved by Catholic of Protestant authorities.) After all, in the West, we have been born into a heavily Judeo-Christian-influenced culture. Even some leftists who have rejected God as a mistake of the past are still influenced indirectly by Judeo-Christian culture (e.g., in Marxism there is a compassion for the poor not unlike that in the Bible. I believe it is no coincidence that Marx grew up in a Judeo-Christian culture.) So we have pre-conceptions when we come to The Book.

I grew up Southern Baptist, become an atheist in college, became a born again Pentecostal Holiness in my early twenties, became a Roman Catholic in my thirties, and have been influenced by Eastern thinking since then, while remaining Catholic. Leaving aside what all this movement says about me personally, I can attest that each of these cultures has different assumptions about the Bible and how to apply it to daily life.

Southern Baptists focus on the Bible as an inerrant document that can be taken as literally true. It is the guiding star pointing to the Messiah Jesus Christ. For Southern Baptists, disagreeing with part of the Bible is dangerous and tantamount to rejecting the authority of the whole. Baptists start with the assumption that the Bible is the Word of God

Atheists tend to reject the Bible as a mistake of the past, a book filled with fabulous stories from pre-scientific cultures that believed that spirits animated everything. Monotheism was just the abstraction of this principle. Atheists can look to the Bible for some insight (e.g., when I was an atheist, I liked Ecclesiastes because of its existential, world-weary tone. ("Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.") It has some great quotes (e.g., “the sun also rises,” borrowed by Ernest Hemmingway and others.

Pentecostal Holiness and Catholic charismatics are like other fundamentalist Christians except they emphasize certain experiences recounted in the New Testament about the Holy Spirit descending on people, who then speak in tongues and work miracles. People get saved, and then they experience a Baptism in the Holy Spirit (a mystical experience of sensing the in-filling of the Holy Spirit and sometimes of speaking in tongues.) I experienced this when I was about 23.

Catholics tend to emphasize church tradition and passed-down apostolic authority over the Bible (The Church decided what the Bible is.) This approach allows Catholics to look at the Bible as written by men who had inspired insight. Nevertheless, these men could be wrong about matters of fact, and were definitely located in a culture and had human limitations.

Eastern thinking tends to view the Bible and religions like Christianity as one of many ways to the truth. Personal experience is more important and teachers who help lead people toward trusting themselves (their own personal experience) to find their own truth (what works for them). There are also elements of renunciation, also found in ascetic Catholicism.

Currently (at the time this was written two years ago), I live in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. My neighbors’ view of the Bible (they don't call it that) is different from that of any Christian, and they all read it in the original Hebrew, not in translation. Their tradition is written in the Talmud, a collection of rabbinical writings and has a heavy influence on how the scriptures are applied to daily life.

So, it's hard to come to the Bible with a fresh view. When I try, I see certain passages that are really interesting--for example, the Roman Centurion with the sick servant. He approached Jesus and said he had a sick servant and could Jesus help. Jesus started to go with the man, but the Centurion stopped him and said something like, "Look, you are a man of authority; just say the word and my servant will be healed." Jesus was stunned at the depth of the man's faith.

What to make of this? Was the man already "saved" in the Fundamentalist sense? Had he been baptized into the Church in the Catholics sense? Had he received the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal sense? Is it all a fable as the atheists believe? Or, had the man simply sensed (experienced) the spiritual power of Jesus and relied on it in the Eastern sense? Certainly, we have no record that Jesus asked him to profess any faith, get baptized, or agree to any facts, join anything. Jesus just marveled at the man's faith.

So the challenge is how can we see with our own eyes, and not the eyes of others?

The Infinitely Plastic Jesus Healing My Soul by M. David Orr, watercolor, 8"x10," 1994

Poem: Fearing the Divine

Fearing the Divine is like a fish
Swimming in a stream
And fearing its own flesh.
It's like a bird flying in the blue
And fearing flight.
It's like an artist painting
On a canvas
Fearing color
Or the background white.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

What's Underneath?

Concentric, a photo by M. David Orr, 1998

I made this photo while touring some of Chicago's old steel bridges one Saturday in November. There was a rock causing the ripples on the surface. This photo reminds me of the human condition--why do you think so?

Personal Limits

Personal Growth, Personal Independence: The Limit Is Me. One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big advice on the door on which it was written: "Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym". Photo credit: ">Fred Goldstein In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who was that man who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself.... [Robin Good's Latest News]

This article reminds me of a preacher I once had who said, "Everytime I point the finger of blame at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at me." David Orr

Cyber-Savvy Pastors Blog When the Spirit Moves Them . Pastor Ben Arment spends several hours each week carefully preparing his Sunday sermon for the 100 members of History Church in Oak Hill. In contrast, he takes just minutes to jot down a few thoughts on faith for his blog; within 24 hours, his message has reached about 300 people. By Megan Greenwell.

The Stranger by M. David Orr, 8"x10," watercolor and ink, 1995

Poem: Judgment

Judge not, that ye be not judged. Matthew 7:1

We seek the things most like our selves we like.
We shun the things most like our selves we hate,
And all the rest we hardly see at all.
Daily we judge ourselves in part unfit.
That part we toss upon a rubbish heap,
And all resembling parts in other people.
Up from the heart,
Unruly thoughts are turned,
Feelings flow chaotic.
We are twisted inside out,
Like soil stirred by the plow.
Rotting roots and loathsome grubs
Disenchant this hallowed inner ground,
Our person's place infested more with weeds
Than finer flowers.
This is not the hour we feel we need.
We think ourselves unsound.
We put an ear to ground
And hear the rumbling traffic
Under over-earthy soil.
No matter how we toil
To clean the covering grass,
The under soil shows through.
We are earth, indeed.
We cannot hide from who we are.
There is a Plow that turns our soil.
There is a Heat to drive the bugs up.
There is always Light to give us vision,
And, if this process has a name,
We call it Grace.
In it, we see a truer image of our face.
In it, each day we have a chance
To love ourselves anew,
And loving all we see in us
Is loving all we see in others too.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

Creating God in Our Own Image

I once stopped to listen to a Black Muslim preaching to the crowds on State Street in Chicago. Something he said really stuck with me: We all have an image of God in our minds, but we should not worship that image because it is just that, an image. It is not God himself, but an idol.

Muslims are very strict about not having graven images in their mosques. This guy was spiritualizing the principle of not worshipping idols (graven images).

The psychological principle that relates to this man's insight is projection--the idea that we unconsciously project fragments of ourselves onto external events and people. We filter reality, interpret it, and impose patterns on it through our own perception of reality. This perception can be altered by upbringing, trauma, intellectual constructs, etc. In a very real sense our perception is an idol of our own minds.

I sometimes think that we ALL create God in our own image, and God is constantly breaking down that image to enlarge it or to get us to abandon it altogether, along with the implicit attempt to control God (have Him/Her be like we think He/She is). I expect this principle applies whether we are Christian, Muslim, Jew, Pagan, or Atheist. (Many Atheists have an image of God too that they reject.)

If this principle of projection is correct, I think it calls for humility in dealing with people with different perceptions. After all, if I condemn certain things in myself, I am surely going to condemn them in others; and, I will certainly think that God condemns those things too. Am I right that God condemns these things? Maybe, or maybe I will learn compassion for myself and others, and, presto, project that compassion onto God also.

Have a person describe what they hate in others, and you have a self-portrait of the person's unacknowledged shadow. Have a person describe their God, and you've just had them create a self-portrait of both their shadow and light.