Edge of Somewhere: Archival

Old Journals

It is an enlightening (or stupefying) journey to revisit one’s past life through old journals. I am sorting through boxes in my parent’s place and found today a journal from the mid 1990’s. In retrospect, I have several observations:

For some reason, (probably related to my university experience) it appears I was attempting to write in King James English. This, in and of itself, would not come across so bizarre if not for the fact that I was not yet wholly equipped to write in modern English. Consequently, I was writing in poorly structured King James English (sort of NKJV mixed with my dialect from West Virginia mixed with a hefty dose of sophomoric aphorisms).
I wrote in an extraordinarily cramped and elaborate script (it actually looks like the handwriting of a sociopath). This is also probably related to my university experience.
I would like to publicly apologise to any and all the poor girls who were subject to my attentions. (I can’t say this directly relates to my university experience, but I will go ahead and blame it on that anyway.)

Random Quotes:

At present you sound a bit like a melancholy romantic who is trapped within an insensitive, perhaps even hostile environment.
—Sid Sylvester, professor, making an observation about my writing

Freud Snack Crackers Just like your mother used to make

Had no black tea. I’m awake. I’m not upset, It’s not that I can’t think on anything. I’m just thinking about everything at once…my mind is like a beanbag; all the bits are there, but [shaken]. It’s all a jumble.

Today is our last day of classes. It’s raining. The Tree of Life plays on the stereo. It rains harder. I’ll stop writing now and gaze out the window.

I feel the need to travel. Sleep on trains. Carry one bag in Victorian dress with a pocket watch and brass flashlight. Write in a leather journal with matching waterproof case.

Why do people assume I’m thinking? Can they tell just be looking at me?

Some fingers feel unnatural in the ear.

What is the present? Even the photograph, the much glorified conquerer of time and record, cannot capture the present. No exposure is short enough to seize what is already beyond reach.

Pathatism: the art of arousing pity

Do you ever dream in fear but cannot call out for help? I’ll often, on morning walks, pass through a web—tearing away the beauty because I did not see soon enough. How the wind—the Breath—blows through beauty as it holds. Where does it root in me? Even dry bones heeded the prophet.

There is a great deal more; but this is not the place for such revelations; how different I was then though. What will the next ten years bring?

Congo 2005

From an e-mail shortly after my return from The DRC in the Summer of 2005

I’m back in the States and have somewhat passed the jet-lagged
stage…at least I’m not waking up at 3:00 in the morning now!

Of course, when one returns from a trip like this, everyone either

asks for every detail or
doesn’t realize I’ve been where I’ve been and continues on as if I’ve been hidden in a closet for the past month.

I’ve thought about sitting down and writing a synopsis of my trip; however, it’s going to take some time to digest what I’ve witnessed. The people who want every detail can’t really comprehend the nature of what I’ve seen (I can’t imagine what it’s like for people coming back to a peaceful land after witnessing war…or maybe I can a bit better now). The people who don’t know I’ve been away tend to grate on my nerves; On the flight from Washington to Philadelphia, the person sitting beside me asked if I’d heard Michael Jackson got away without charges. I wanted to scream. I’d just returned from a country where more than 30,000 people are killed by violent acts each month and the world’s attention (or, pardon, America’s attention) is focused on a perverted rock star.

In a sense, it would be easy to write about the specifics. I could write several pages describing malnourished children, corrupt governments, and generally unstable societies. But you’ve probably read all that already. (And, I’m sure some of you have witnessed it as well.)

With my eyes I’ve seen things people in the “civilized” world don’t wish to concern themselves with or don’t know to. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a giant disaster and, it has to be considered, there may be little hope for improvement. In the 1990’s and early this century there was a war (or, a series of “conflicts”) in which millions of people died. During this time, many aid groups pulled out of the country leaving the already tattered infrastructure bare (as there aren’t really any taxes, there also isn’t really any governmental structure for medicine, education, or…anything. Basically, everything comes from outside aid groups). During the conflicts, most hospitals and schools were looted. Teachers and doctors fled and the aid groups supporting them left. So there is now a generation of Congolese growing up without education. There is one doctor or nurse practitioner for every 100,000 people in the country. The unemployment rate is somewhere around 90 percent. The average ANNUAL income has just been revised to $120 USD. The country is as big as the United States east of the Mississippi River with about 56 million people (this population, barring epidemics or genocide, could double in the next 40 years). Police aren’t paid; they are expected to make their income off bribes and harassment. We saw truckload after truckload of tropical hardwoods on their way out of the country (giant ancient trees easily sold for sometimes $60,000 on the world market). The Congolese who sells the tree off his land may get paid $100.

The history of the country since Belgian colonization ¹ in the late 1800’s has been one of constant brutality, blood, enslavement, and destruction. I have never seen a place of such desolation.

I could go on; I heard harrowing stories from the missionaries about safety (the missionaries in Kinshasa live under the protection of US Marines), about massacres (the former president went on the radio one day and declared all Rwandans enemies of the State; he then called for the people to kill Rwandans. The missionaries have pictures of bodies lining the streets of Kinshasa), about having family meals and singing hymns under live fire, about despair.

We visited several hospitals on this trip (the American Baptist mission work in Congo is in partnership with USAID, the US government’s humanitarian aid organization). I spent a morning in a surgical ward watching a cataract surgery, an ovarian cyst removal, and a prostatectomy — all done under local anesthesia in a room that looked much like a cross between an old garage and the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein. We saw patients two to a bed with every kind of tropical illness (many of the people we saw are already dead; all the patients with HIV/AIDS will be dead in 2-5 years. There is no way they can afford treatment). Even people with easily preventable diseases will most likely die from them; there is just no medication readily available for them (I had to have about $400 USD worth of vaccinations to travel “safely” in Congo plus the $100 of anti-malarial medications prescribed for me; there is no possible way for the vast numbers of impoverished peoples there to afford such medicines).

On and on and on…

This month, the government was supposed to hold elections. There is absolutely no way this is going to happen. All the countries surrounding Congo have dibs on adjoining land and are agitating rebel groups and the general population. One of the missionaries said the markets are already sold out of machetes. [Last Friday, the US Department of State issued a travel warning for US citizens to avoid travel to DR Congo and for Americans in the country to be prepared to evacuate.] Congo could, in the next couple weeks, descend into complete chaos. Or not. Hopefully not; but in a place of such desperation, it just takes a little bit to tip the scale one way or the other (note: there were no elections and, other than some street unrest and a couple riots, the situation calmed fairly quickly; however, it remains tenuous as the parties in control loose legitimacy. Their central claim to power is that they will usher in a freely elected government. This will be all but impossible in a country with little communication infrastructure and no census. Also, the government barely has control over just the capital city {there is a frontier around the city that is closed at night to lessen the chance that rebels will overrun it}).

A representative of the United Nations says Congo is the worst unspoken humanitarian disaster in the world. ² I don’t even wish to recount some of the documented atrocities I’ve read and heard from the missionaries. (Currently the Pygmy tribes that live in Northeast Congo are subject to an unspeakable genocide. There is a bush legend that Pygmy peoples have special prowess in the jungles and are able to perform superhuman feats. Various of the rebel groups are hunting Pygmy, killing, and eating them to gain these powers. This was, unfortunately, not the worst of the stories that were recounted to me).

We have no idea. It’s hard to complain about minor issues here when there are millions of people living in houses made of dried dung who could at any moment be overrun by the military of their own government or militias from the country next door, whose crops and forests are sold for nothing to make houses in Japan or sugar for Chicago.

I’ve never had people stare right through me; we drove into Bas Congo in a USAID SUV (US Embassy plates, we weren’t stopped or harassed because we could call in a bunch of Marines with big guns). People looked at us with empty desperate and sometimes hateful eyes. Simply, I was white and obviously had some sort of connections and protection. People on the street had none of this, not even the protection of the law. Nothing; they are completely exposed and have to fend for themselves in one of the most hostile environments on earth. I had never understood where the title Heart of Darkness came from. I have some understanding now.

Despite all this, there are people there doing good; I have never been so impressed with people working as missionaries. They do so at great personal risk. They also sacrifice a lot concerning their families. There are doctors working there in bad conditions; they could easily work in pristine well-equipped hospitals in Europe or America and make large salaries doing so. Instead they work with just a little to make what difference they can. It’s very touching. It is a small shimmer of hope though on a otherwise dark place.

¹ For an excellent laymans commentary on the history of colonization in The Congo, read King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild. It’s published by Houghton Mifflin.
² United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland speaking before the UN on humanitarian aid issues.

Here is a journal entry from Dr. Bill Clemmer concerning our trip to Congo. Dr. Clemmer is the coordinator of the medical aid program we were documenting.
Also see the BBC’s ongoing country profile and stories concerning The DRC (and just about everywhere else, for that matter) on their website.

A Nation Dreamless Sleeping II

Dreamers
Dreaming everyday dreams—
Lost in mental alcoves,
Never shared never spoken
Never rising beyond orthodox sleep. Together
Many multitudes of memories intertwined
Like wind whistling between buildings.
Something moving
Chills the skin
But indistinct; en mass and lacking the distinction
Altogether felt.
Dreamers dreaming together
The blunt force of silence
Like the buzz behind background speech
Felt among the masses.
Their thoughts are thinking—though not
Specific dreams
Recalling the missed, the gained, the
Hoped for, the ironic, compassion.
Consider those dreams
Among children who play and run from
fears while so many multitudes
Of dreamers dreaming everyday thoughts together
Seek imaginary hope.
Dreamless sleeping. Or waking
Only to remember nothing of dreams or hope
Or even proper excitement or alarm.
Waking only to the taste of a dry mouth and the bothersome
Trouble of another day to trudge through.
Won’t we begin beholding
Every dreamer’s spirit accompanying us?
Or have we forgotten how to catch even that little breath
Of the massed winds about us?
Hope, let’s say.
Not dreams while sleeping, but
Dreams where each of us stand at any fateful moment
Dreams in the romantic, hopeful sense.
What if dreamers cease dreaming?
What is the price to pay for wholesale silence?
One nation, under God
Dreamless
Asleep—
Set us alight
Who dare to wake
Dreamless dreamers,
Shaken—slumbering without dreams
And remind the waking
When the sleeper’s voice returns.

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment

Locust Voices

Ten thousand thousand Locust voices
Sing in chorus; a cathedral of trees hold
The Devout devouring.
All God’s people said,
“Amen.”

Hold Light to the world,
You, the sometimes darkness children,
Now above the noonday sun.
All God’s people stood and said,
“Amen.”

Preacher, Preacher call on me.
My hand’s up high; can’t you see?
This heart inside—a
Mark of pain.
Will it ever reach back up again?
All God’s people stood, shook off dust, and said,
“Amen.”

Speckeled daisy-dresses ladies fan themselves
Heatedly.
Remember what breath this world has to
Offer—and, dasies,
It is wilting—nothing.
All God’s people stood, shook off dust, clasped their hands and said
“Amen.”

Sinner, Sister don’t you know
Where the sinnin’ spirits go?
Now heads all bowed—eyes all close
Tis’ not the time for time to wait,
It’s time for fear and a time for faith.
All God’s people stood, shook off dust, clasped hands, bowed heads, and said,
“Amen.”

All God’s people waited
While dinner finished cooking.
Ten thousand thousand Locust voices
Sing in chorus; a cathedral of trees hold
The Devout
Devouring voices in a service—outside
The church.
Sunday dinners
Rarely burn.
“Amen!”

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment

Noise

Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise.
I am kept awake tonight.
Outside my open door
The inconsiderate television flares.
Its jitter crawling shadow slithers across the wall
Like a drive-in B-movie
Escaping its abandoned theater.

This society isn’t going to make it, is it?
The reservoir of our culture
Will only hold so much stagnant water
Before it overflows
Or bursts.

The commentator speaks.
He’s holding his microphone too close.
His voice, distorted and breathy.
A group of women argue with him,
Or, at least those sound like angry voices.
“I’ll give five thousand dollars to the first
one of you to take her clothes off right here.”
Five thousand dollars.
Are the women angry over the paltry amount
Or might each know what an abuse of chastity
Such questions are?

Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip.
Flit, Flit, Flit, Flit, flipping through the cable channels
Tributary to the pool of America.
Where does my America drink tonight?
Silver rivulets of blue electric water
That burn the soul and scorch a quenched thirst.
The public service is poisoned.
What treatment can squelch out
The runoff?

The newsman said today
That missiles may protect us from missiles.
Will missiles make the madmen go away?
Mankind makes mad men masters of misery.
Are we protected for the sake of hot dogs and barbecue?
For the sake of public supply,
Please pass the mustard gas.

The television man went away.
Popular culture has quit my home.
I turned on light and darkness fled.
There is a drug now for people who
Fear public places.
Is there no drug for those addicted to the noise?

I am half awake now.
The sudden flicker of society disturbed my sleep.
How many are half sleeping?
Of what do dreams consist?
Perhaps I should awaken more; this
Pool is going to overflow, isn’t it?
I can feel the cold pressure building
From deep below.
Water returns to its source.
Tune in next week.
It’s going to break out soon
And
Flood all the rivers in Hell.

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment

Fireflies

However—
Here are fireflies.
For a moment—
Then away.
Returning—Revelation
Of inner flames,
Ministers out into the darkness,
Beacons of Higher light.
Cupped in a child’s hand
For a moment—
Then Away.

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment

Many Months, Many Promises Later

I do not know and am afraid.
So many words—So many words spoken or left silent
for never speaking
or speaking at the missing time
always the wrong time that lingers.
We sometimes hear ourselves speaking what we wish
Without first consulting reality
Or speaking what we would want as truth
Without first consulting God—We speak rashly.

...Time and Light
Both constant—Time fades
Beyond the use of Vision
Though I remember–years
And cherish the event of memory
Though some keep little Joy—
We sometimes cherish pain—
By Pain living comes.
And by Pain,
Too often, my words come to living.
I would not have it so
Would share joyful words
But something negates
And many months, many Promises
Constant constant fade fading
What if light and time had fallen–there?

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment [1]

Circles and Synthesis

Sometimes,
When many words seem to roll around the brink
And one wonders which will fall out and be lost—
Which will tip inside and kept as treasure,
Sometimes,
I’m afraid to push upon the words
They may crush themselves
Or burden the Spirit of another and my own.
Sometimes,
Words and hot tea,
Either given or taken in a rush may burn
To burn away some of taste forever.
Sometimes,
There is more to singing than our voices
And more to knowing than our words
And more to love than touch.
Sometimes,
I should pause to listen
While smaller voices whisper still.
Few know how to touch anymore.

Dream well—
Few know how
To Dream
Or fear
To Dream
Or listen
Or touch
Or Love.

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment

With Some Pretense

The Poet
Has only room for speaking
In the interlude between
Words.
Poets are often quiet—when
Silent Speaking sounds above
Words that cannot bear
Suppression.
Sentiment is more than speaking.
Love is beyond expression of Emotion.
After sounds
A poet is mute—though
His voice may deafen
And his whispers move
The Spirit—
Alive.

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment

Fugitive Silent

In some fugitive silent moment
Alone,
Waiting for the next event—the Last,
Every man Pauses for the
Quiet between heartbeats;
The sudden pausing
Falling away
A death
Between surges of living.
EveryMomentEveryMan
Nears the longer space of
Dying
‘Who is the Wise man;
Who shall know the end of
A matter?’
The end of silent hearts
Or the end of moments
Moving together—
Of Pain.

Every failing memory
Recalls this movement of despair;
And everything still sudden,
Hoped for and sullen.
Falling away in time
Fading
Still fugitive
Among the permanence of knowing
All moment and memory
Fleeting
From the contained reality
Of uncommunicated Hope—
Misunderstood alone.

II
I heard music once.
Now I strain to listen
Without those once beside
Who wait for me ahead.
I thought I knew.
Now knowing—All falls away to
Silence.

III
So that some may hope
I spoke words from this Word.
Some may hope
For things not yet seen
But existing—
If in spirit only so.
Remainders of ancient Faith
Cannot live for many moments today
But Words remain forever
To bear life into The end of Breath
And Spirit moving.
So that some may hope
Yet, not seen
But promised and existing
If only in my Spirit—
And his—Shared between two and
All these hoping.
Hope is Vanity unless in faith.
Remember past days—Remember Hope
Or all is despair and a measured method of
Unbelief—Falling
Away Alone.

Poetry • Archival 25 July 2006 Comment

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Old Journals

Congo 2005

A Nation Dreamless Sleeping II

Locust Voices

Noise

Fireflies

Many Months, Many Promises Later

Circles and Synthesis

With Some Pretense

Fugitive Silent