The Tyger and the Lamb

I think I've figured out what it is that bothers me about two poems that I've read and re-read for years. Blake offers his audience an astounding surety in response to the question "Little lamb, who made thee?"

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.

Yet in the same compendium, he finds himself asking the same question to a tiger either unaware or seemingly afraid of the answer.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
...
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Blake, is that fear I hear in your voice? Are you afraid to admit that God created the tiger and the lamb? Or is it disbelief? Or is it anger?

To some degree I understand your query. Sometimes I want to believe that God is only in the best of things: happiness, love, patience, calm, peace. But then I awaken to the disturbing reality that in me is sadness, hatred, anger, anxiety, turbulence, and discord. Is He there, too? In many cases—deliberate hatred, for example—He isn't. But then, I don't think God made hatred. Rather it's a product of the absence of love.

But what about sadness? I've had such a hard time admitting to myself that sadness is a part of the life I live. Did He, the source of all happiness, make sadness too? Can He be found there also?

The more I think about it, the more it must be true because when I search my sorrow, my anger, my insecurities, my anxiety, I so often find Him. Not to say that He deliberately made me sad, but that when I look at my life, I find a necessity for these kinds of oppositions. At the bottom of all my negative feelings I find love; I find God pleading with me to do the right thing, or comforting me in my difficulties.

This is what I think Blake was trying to depict when he drew this picture. We see God sitting on his throne in heaven reaching down, not with recklessness but with absolute control, to create. His hand is sure, his gaze fixed upon his task. With tools of gold and with infinite wisdom He deliberately draws, each stroke containing purpose. Did God create the man and accidentally discover that there were irreparable flaws in him? Was sorrow an accident? No, this creator's hand is steady, his purpose clear. He made us the way He wanted us to be. And as for all those flaws, He has not left us without a way to overcome them. He does not intend for us to remain this way, even if we must temporarily experience the bad. We may overcome through Christ.

Ah, there it is. You weren't asking in incredulity, were you, Blake? You were wondering in awe. The majestic tiger and the meek lamb; the sun and the rain; the joy of life, the pain; the happiness, the sorrow—the opposition is on purpose because both sides make me more aware of who I am and where I am going. Thanks for tigers.

Daniel

Dating Theory: To Refuse and Be Refused

Dudes:

When asking a girl on a date, if she says she's busy, you are entitled to one (1) attempt at rescheduling. After that, you start to look pathetic.

Not-dudes:

When being asked on a date, if you are not interested, say something to that effect. Saying things like "I'm busy for the next two weeks" and especially, "I'll tell you what, I'll let you know if my schedule opens up"** are both painfully transparent and tend to make the dude feel pathetic.

Daniel

**Yes, both of these have happened to me. Yes, it was the same girl. Yes, those two sentences were spoken in succession.

Dating Theory: Pockets

The fashion industry wants to believe that it affects us. Their clothes make us look good. According to them, we follow their trends. It's not true. After all they do, the people who are on the other end of the noses they look down—you and I—are the ones with the real power. After all, look what we did to pockets.

The way I see it, pockets used to be pretty homogeneous additions to pants. Each pair of pants had pockets—two in the front, two in the back—which served one, single function: they carried stuff. Of course, depending on the cut and size of the garment, pockets ranged minimally in size. But for the most part, pockets were what they were.

As has been the case since there were two humans of opposite gender on the planet, men continued to ask women on dates and to go out with them. And, as has probably been the case since there were two humans of opposite gender on the planet, women felt the need to carry significantly more than their pockets could carry. A man on a date carries keys, a phone, and a wallet. A woman carries lipstick, lip gloss, chapstick (yes, all three), eyeliner, foundation, a wallet, a phone, four pens, a small pad of paper, a light jacket (in case it gets cold), a toothbrush and toothpaste, a small flashlight, signal flares, pepper spray and/or a taser, a camera, a small sewing kit, keys, and paperclips. While useful, this kind of cargo merits an additional pocket that can be both organized and accessible. We call it a purse.

The problem with purses, as most women know, is that lots of activities (dancing, for instance) requires that a woman leaves her purse somewhere unattended while the activity is taking place. Not wanting to misplace her valuables, she removes some half of the contents of her purse to take along with her. The conundrum: they don't all fit in her pockets. The solution: the dude has pockets too. The over-preparation and scrupulousness of women is really the foundation of that phrase dreaded by men, "Could you put this in your pocket for me?"

A simple examination of formal wear yields the conclusion that fashion has quite obviously adapted to this peculiar phenomenon. How many pockets does a dress have? Zero. What does a man wear when he's out with a woman who is wearing a dress? A suit. I have four suit coats in my closet. Each one of them has six pockets—three on the outside and three on the inside. Put that on a guy wearing slacks and a button-down shirt and you've got a guy with eleven pockets. Eleven! Remember what a dude carries with him on a date? Keys, phone, wallet. Even at maximum distribution, that only uses three pockets. What about the other eight? Lipstick, lip gloss, chapstick, eyeliner, foundation . . .

The trend is even more reprehensible on casual wear. There is a style of men's pants called "Cargo" pants. Cargo? What cargo? What on earth are we walking around with that could be possibly be given so bulky a term as cargo? I'll tell you what: my date's phone for one thing. And why doesn't she put it in her pocket? Either her pants don't have any, or on her hip is but the vestigial remains of a once flourishing pocket community. She can't even fit her hand into it, let alone store something in it.

And when it's not in my pocket, her phone is sitting on a table, or in her room, or in her car, or in her purse, or somewhere where she doesn't even notice it ringing and never answers. This is the catastrophic though unintended casualty that has been sustained by men. Complain all they might about the lack of forwardness, Facebook courtships, or the decline of normal guys asking normals girls on normal dates, women—as a gender—simply cannot deny their involvement in this terrible turn of events: the tragic lack of pockets in girls' jeans which leads to an unanswered phone call and reduces the already nervous gentleman on the other end of the line to a neurotic, self-conscious idiot (frankly). All I'm saying is, it's not all our fault.

Daniel

Big and/or Awesome Words: Part 6

Conflation:

The word conflation literally means the amalgamation of two things to become one. However, its specific use is fascinating. The word "conflation" is used to describe the erroneous combination of two ideas that share similarities but are not completely equal to the effect that the unique properties of each combined idea are lost and only the similarities are kept.

Wikipedia provides the example of the word 'respect' which can mean either 'to recognize one's right to have an opinion' or 'to hold in high regard.' Quoth Wikipedia, "we can recognise someone's right to the opinion that the United Nations is secretly controlled by alien lizards on the moon, without holding this idea in high regard. But conflation of these two different concepts leads to the notion that all ideological ideas, for example, should be treated [in high regard], rather than just [honoring] the right to hold these ideas."

Issues

Gmail sent me a little warning today. It said in totality, "Gmail is temporarily unable to access your Contacts. You may experience issues while this persists."

So, until I can access my Contacts again, I'm just going to assume that all issues that arise are related to this problem. So far I've used it to explain why I'm tired, the mess in my apartment, the difficulty I have completing my quantum physics homework, my lack of desire to actually cook a meal for myself, and my continued lack of dates.

I just wish Gmail would have let me know earlier that it was their fault.

Daniel

La Langue d'Amour

Once upon a time, I took a weekend trip up to Salt Lake City with the girl I was dating. We stayed at her grandpa's house and spent time with her sister. Saturday morning was a clean-the-church service project, which we attended. The project wasn't too involved: yard work and general landscaping. We spent several hours trimming bushes and the like.

The entertainment, however, was provided by the bishop's wife, a self-appointed matchmaker. I gather that she wasn't terribly picky on who she matched with whom when she set herself upon us; me and the girl that I was currently dating (unbeknownst to the bishop's wife). She started by commenting on how I worked hard and how that would be something a girl might look for in a husband. Later, she dropped by and saw us still working together and said something like "Well, this much time spend together deserves a lunch date, at least!" (as it happens, we were going to the temple later that day, though we hardly mentioned that to her).

Immediately before we left the premises, she arrived to seal the deal. As we talked, she learned that I spoke French. This, of course, caused a new tirade from our persistent matchmaker of the endless romanticisms that I could whisper into my girlfriend's (which fact she still didn't know) ear. "If he says, Je t'aime (I love you), that's a good sign!" she said with nary a blush. "And there's another one the French say . . . oh, what is it?" She looked at me inquisitively, as if to draw this unknown phrase from my lips. So I indulged her.

"Je sors avec la facteuse sans ta connaissance"*

"That's it!" she exulted. "Oh, isn't French romantic? How could you not love a man who can say things like that!?" She was about to leave, her work completed, our fates sealed. But, in curiosity (and because she forgot what exactly it was supposed to mean) she asked one last question, "What does that mean again?" I was honest. "Oh, it means, 'I'm seeing the mailwoman behind your back.'"

I've never been able, in all my ponderings on the face that she made then, to accurately determine the emotions she was feeling at that moment. Anyway, a new joke was born and a new discovery made that absolutely anything you say in French sounds romantic to an American.

Daniel

*Facteuse is a decidedly Quebecois word, so any of you who know "real" French may not recognize it.

Insomniac Poetry

Thoughts sing underneath trees
And sometimes in the dark
(But not always)
Soft lullabies and wispy elegies.

They get tangled in the branches
Never sounding quite the same
As when they left.
But the music doesn't fade.

It seems to echo, ever softer,
More melodic, less complex
Off hearts (and ears)
And under whispered rustling of trees.

Until—at last—it blends harmoniously
Not as it came out at first,
But changed
By the trees and by listening.

Daniel