Saturday, September 10, 2011

Beauty: Schizophrenia as Poetry

The opening session of PSYCH 101 had Dr. Smith with his the class of 150 fresh-blooded freshman, listening to 6 written passages (the 6 courageous souls should be commended as some of them were outright tonguetwisters), trying to evaluate unaided the origin of each. After once through the class was asked to give their impressions. Answers varied greatly from modern poets, ancient philosophers and everyone in between. He then enlightened us that 3 of the passages were from modern poets, while the other 3 were from a man who was institutionalized for schizophrenia. He invited us to listen again and try to decode which were from which source. Knowledge that there were only 2 possible sources did not make this task one bit easier. As part of this class we are to participate in an online forum, discussion, questioning, evaluating, critiquing and even outright disagreeing with that which we are presented or read in our text.

The exercise brought me to this revelation, although only so two days later early in the morning after a great Friday night with some new brothers and sisters.

Beauty: Schizophrenia as Poetry
Who could have thought that the line between poetry and a mind in utter chaos could be so fine? Schizophrenia is a terribly complex disease of the mind, which strikes with little warning, and yet it, if only to the untrained ear, can sound with all the beauty, eloquence and marvel of poetry.

The A.D.A.M Medical encyclopedia defines schizophrenia as a complex mental disorder that makes it difficult to:

• Tell the difference between real and unreal experiences

• Think logically

• Have normal emotional responses,

• Behave normally in social situations

This all makes sense as poetry is about beauty, emotion and life. Poetry while it has its devices; is free from many of the constraints of much of the other types of acceptable literature. Poetry, to me, is a response to the world, a response to one's surroundings, one's emotions, one's passions and desires. Poetry is a window, not as words into the mind, but rather into the soul of one's being. Poetry isn't about logic, normal behavior, social acceptance, controlled emotion or even staying in a present reality. Poetry is more than just the words, as those with schizophrenia are more than just the disease. Poetry is unconstrained beauty in words and schizophrenia is a mind not aware of the pressures of society to achieve perfection, to be better, to jump higher, to run faster and to earn more.

Beauty is a harder concept to grasp than one would think. Beauty, not unlike poetry, is not objective but rather terribly subjective. What one considers pure radiance, another thinks as absolute rubbish, and another still surmises it as just mediocre at best and while schizophrenia is horribly shunned in our society due to our set of societal norms it doesn’t belittle the beauty that is the person with schizophrenia. We seen a brief glimpse of that beauty during this exercise for which I am grateful. We must remember to separate the person from the disease; we all live, we all die, we all carry the same intrinsic value; we are all created beautiful.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Writing...the good, the bad, and what i write

Today was a pretty easy day, PSYCH 101 where we were asked to differentiate between 6 oral passages; 3 from a schizophrenic patient and 3 from "modern" poets. Easy right, well not quite so. The distinction between poetic and neurotic is seemingly as fine a line as that between confidence and arrogance.

Psych 101 was followed closely by ENG 101 - writing for academia or something of the like. This is the course for those who have in the past, distant or near, have already been to post-secondary education. As i am a illustrious graduate and distinguished alumni of Mohawk College (Slowhawk Cottage) I am not allowed to take the Global Issues class that all other newbies are required.

First off, the class size was far more manageable than that of pysch, or chem or bio for that matter, all of which have 130 plus plus in them. ENG 101 had about 30. The prof, a "mad woman of the attic" by her own admission, went through the first day rigamarole of rules and etiquette and all that jazz that we would be required to live up to for the next 4 months or so. But unlike the other 4 classes, she actually made us do work! Incredulous i know. This lovely woman, was passionate and i had a front row seat to the action, mostly due to the fact that all the freshman students seem to arrive to their classes redonkulously early. Keeners humph.

The first assignment was a 3 minute drill to free write to the question, "why write?" She then asked if anyone would be willing to share. Completely out of my character (very introverted, don't like to read aloud), i freely (well no one else was forthcoming) offered my response. It was well received with something to the effect of a "wow" from her to which i responded, "I'm old". She then asked me to read it again so she could pick it apart, all this was done in a loving manner, one that was extremely building and uplifting. Sometimes it pays to stick your head out, as the guillotine isn't always looming to strike.

We then ended with a "what is good writing? and how does that label apply to you?" question to respond to for submission no less all in 10 minutes...i could have probably wrote on it for a little longer but was generally pleased in my thoughts and the order in which they came out.

Nothing better for a procrastinator than a very tight deadline.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

A new day, a new dawn

Today marked the beginning of a new start, having given notice to my past employer some 3 months ago, selling the house, being homeless (or rather without our own house) for 3 weeks, buying a house sight unseen, carting all our worldly crap from onterrible to said house in PEI, and having the last 2 weeks of stay-cation at the new home; today it finally happened.

Today was my first day of school!
My first day of classes at least, i didn't learn much of anything, only that Biology, Chemistry and Foods all in one day is going to be a lot of work, not that i am adverse to work or so much science but it may become a lot. If nothing else it's alot of paper to drag around, well in excess of 4000 pages of text.

Now i know what you are saying, "hey, where's the first day back to school photo?"

Well i didn't take one, that will have to wait until next year or next degree.

I was feeling really anxious about this all last night as i am much older than i look, although younger than i feel. But thanks to a strange series of events, i had a restful night's sleep.

Upon arrival to PEI i pretty much straight away volunteered to take the church youth to Nova Scotia on a "rally". Had an amazing time, and expended far more energy than i had, and received far less sleep than i wanted or needed. Came back right bagged.

On that rally, i had a real God moment, now this is kinda new to me, but the coincidence of falling behind in my morning devotions with all the chaos of moving other lame excuses and whatnot.

But the first moment, first morning of the rally with the overarching theme of WHO.AM.I where the text of my devo was 1 Cor 3:23, " You are Christ's". Okay now that's the short answer and although not one i am seriously struggling with at present, not to say that struggle didn't happen in the not so distant past, nor to minimize the doubt and neglect of owning up to that title of ownership. It was a real confirmation that i was meant to be at the rally, to be there and to be present with the youth.

This morning after much anxiety, more gold from God, via his servant CH Spurgeon who expounded, albeit briefly, on the text of Isaiah 41:14, "'I myself will help you,' declares the Lord." This reminded me of a quote for Tim Keller: "when we worry we're saying, 'I know the way my life is supposed to go; and God's not getting it right!'"

The Lord will provide for all my needs, he knows all the is required and has sufficiency to fulfill each and every need. there is not a thing, need or worry that it is out of his realm of expertise in fulfilling. He who gave us his son as the ultimate sacrifice of atonement is sufficient to give us all that which we require in this decaying world of temporal needs.

God’s Everlasting Love
31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be[h] against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Today, was a good day. It had its hiccups and challenges, but it was good.

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.