Didactic

"Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In the book "Infidel" Ayaan Hirsi Ali confronts the reality of her own experience as a Muslim woman. She is faced with the unequal treatment of women and the "absolute" didactic in the teachings of the Quran. In her book she states, "Humans themselves are the source of good and evil... We must think for ourselves; we are responsible for our own morality. I arrived at the conclusion that I couldn't be honest with others unless I was honest with myself. I wanted to comply with the goals of religion, which are to be a better and more generous person, without suppressing my will and forcing it to obey inhuman rules. I would no longer lie, to myself or others. I had enough of lying. I was no longer afraid of the Hereafter." Quite a brazen statement for any kind of believer.

It stopped me in my tracks! "I would no longer lie, to myself or others." I find I am choosing this same thing, starting with myself. It is unleashing both fear and a new sense of reality. I haven't fully reached the layer of others because I am not yet sure of how I believe or what I believe like being in the middle of a lake treading water. I don't have too intense a fear or guilt about this anymore but this change of faith has created a lot of unrest in me, some loss but gain in all as experience creates growth. I think and choose for myself now. I make peace.

She illustrates further how Muslim women are still walking about veiled even though they were living in Holland and how "Islam was like a mental cage". She gives a painful illustration and writes, "At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for the bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage." I find this to be true for a great many things, this kind of internalized imprisonment. We choose beliefs of all kinds to live by thereby creating a system of thoughts to live by and then ultimately embody. Is it not then very, very important to review what you believe about yourself and God?

When I say stuff like this I get scared because of "what" I am questioning because of my upbringing. The scared part is the indefinition of things now, where I have made room for "my" self, at the expense of my belief.

I stepped away from God because I couldn't believe anymore in what I was saying, or my role as a christian wife, so I stopped. I started unwrapping the anger I contained inside after saying all those things to myself, all those years, so to be what I thought correct. God was never unloving, it was just that I found life on this earth to be less than sacrosanct so began acting on what I felt rather than what I thought. It really wasn't Gods fault I had no more faith to believe or to pray. I just didn't believe things were ever going to be any different than they were in certain area's of my relationship and I still don't. People are who they are and some things just never change. Sometimes things don't turn out the way you think...

So after my separation I faced the question of unlawful sex!! After being sexually active in marriage for 16 years was I to wait to be married again in order not to be immoral? Did I have to get married to qualify for the right to have sex? What if I didn't want to get married again? Was I never to have sex again? Most of this I've pondered on my own occasionally asking questions of God but finding no answers because the questions seemed inappropriate. So I figured I could have sex or go to hell so I decided for sex and against hell. I can hardly believe what I'm saying. And why do I think so much?!? Mmmm... This is part of my mental cage. I still think of Jesus and haven't quiet decided how I fit into that picture. He's been a great teacher of mine.

Didactic

Etymology: Greek didaktikos, from didaskein to teach
Date: 1658
1 a: designed or intended to teach b: intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment 2: making moral observations.

Itinerant

Itinerant
Etymology:
Late Latin itinerant-, itinerans, present participle of itinerari to journey, from Latin itiner-, iter journey, way; akin to Hittite itar way, Latin ire to go — more at issue

: traveling from place to place; especially : covering a circuit
Date:
circa 1576

This word so describes me on so many levels. Physically, mentally, spiritually, romantically, everything is enroute to another destination. If it were any more swift or grueling I would have to decline. It's meaning and timbre is completely unfamiliar, uncommon to my people, my family, myself. My chaplain/counselor helps me to understand that this is a place I did not ask for but arrived at. Life has brought these questions to me. Their candor uncovers and embarrasses me in this present place. How could I be so unhappy and call it the truth simultaneously. I reflect some years back to a family camp we attended with our church. SSSOOOOO UNhappy was me. I remember at that time being under so much personal marital duress I was grasping and clawing at anything just to find peace. I remember finding some narrow space between mind and life encounters were I wasn't thinking. It was in this narrow spiritual place I thought if only I can stay in this narrow space, between my pain and what I am and what Christianity tells me to be I will be able to maintain my marriage. I produced a painting illustrating this called "The Narrow Gate." I tried to make the title mean more than what I felt to be aspiring to Christianity. The title somehow mimicked some scripture in order to further validate the concept but all it really was, was the space in which I could find a place of peace in my marriage as a christian that was nearly impossible to reach or sustain. It was sheer mental space between my ears. Quiet space. As I expressed it further at a public gathering at family camp I described it as having hope because I knew that someday it would be over and I would be away and in heaven. I was shunned for having wept opennly exposing my grief and told to get anti-depressants. My husband was embarrassed. Maybe I was going to lose it anyway.

What the F. I find it maddening and all sort of weird and programmed the further away I go. In principal it's good but distorted in reality. Huminahumina...

Still sad in some way not sure why from day to day so many issues have erupted for me. Things I have to identify and show respect for within myself in order to regain my livelyhood. What does it matter anyway. I left out of respect for you and I left out of respect for me. Now I have to sort and reapproach what I think about these things I have chosen and left.

Renee'

All the Miles

I had a small life exonerating personal revealation yesterday. I was driving my car down the long stretch of road to work yesterday and said, "How about you quit blaming yourself for everything you did." After all there was more than just me in the relationship. There's "you and me", there's the us in we. This really lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I have been trampling myself for months now. It sort of set me free.



As I continued in this frame of thought today I reviewed my accomplishments rather than this grand looming failure, and realized I've satisfied alot of my desires and dreams as an individual. The relationship is a 20 year success in acceptance, motivation, committment, redemption and love. The fact that I left the relationship is it's own piece, not meant to reflect upon and tarnish all those years of committment. It's a part of my life.

Reform

When considering my overridding guilt about leaving my spouse; my inability to qualify myself in making this decision, the word "reform" rises up in me. I/my mind needs reform. My soul has closed to the intimate union. ...I lament the loss of our unity & our adventures at the cost of my inherent need to be known.

Carried in my role, every moment I was keeping
but in it was aware there was something sad and sleeping.
My yellow hair kept tied in a ribbon 'neath a bow
and all the whilst was running from derision to and fro.
My cumbersome desires growing deeper by the minute
I untied the vile habit drawing colors from my closet.
He chided my emmisions, belittled all my fears,
colored me with choices drawing nothing from my ears.
With wings extended wide the words were driven home,
there aren't any pennies in the river on the moon.
My mind it's smile abating, being driven by the scorn
was itself a tethered horse 'neath the leather all was torn.

Quiet eyes. Quiet will. Quiet ways I know you.
No words convey your meaning to his mind sullied by his thought.
Chilly transmission no measures no timbre.
I give up. I am covered in night.
I die waking basking in the deep.

Measured somber half sleep waiting, laying beside cool waters...
Tell me something I say my heart like a stone,
"Lone cold crime drowned deep mourning slather".
I am alone in this chasm of thought, while echoes hollow deep.
I find no answers here but know I cannot return from where I have been.
There are no road posts, only space as I stare into this pain...
Why must I choose, your life or mine.





sully

: to make soiled or tarnished : defile



abating

1 a: to put an end to b: nullify 1 2 a: to reduce in degree or intensity : moderate b: to reduce in value or amount : make less especially by way of relief 3: deduct, omit 4 a: to beat down or cut away so as to leave a figure in relief obsolete : blunt5: deprive 2intransitive verb1: to decrease in force or intensity2 a: to become defeated or become null or void b: to decrease in amount or value
— abat·er noun



derision

1 a: the use of ridicule or scorn to show contempt b: a state of being derided2: an object of ridicule or scorn



reform

1 a: to put or change into an improved form or condition

b: to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses

2: to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action

3: to induce or cause to abandon evil ways

4 a: to subject (hydrocarbons) to cracking b: to produce (as gasoline or gas) by crackingintransitive verb: to become changed for the better

Waiting...

lonely, strangled,
imbedded in you
cajoling, laughing, covered in love
color, sinter, bloody at times
ginger, splendor and all the while waiting
for the slumber of winter and mourning to end
the waiting and wandering 'round you babe.