"I Believe"
May. 6th, 2005 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaI actually wrote it in iambic pentameter!!! Shakespeare, who's your daddy???
"I Believe”
I believe I don’t know what to believe in everything.
The only certain truth I know is this:
All men ought be allowed to choose their own.
Regret it though some may, all truth
Is merely what we make of it ourselves.
Decried though is this relativity,
What man can know—if only one—this truth?
I believe in God who is loving.
The God I know is never full of wrath,
Allowing suffering only as means
To extricate that weakness we possess
As mortals fearful—forgivably—of death,
And immerse ourselves in inherent spark of good,
That holiness within us all He made.
I believe in the inherency and immortality of goodness in man.
That trait of human love, compassion is
The means of binding us to fellow man.
More so, it serves as means to holiness:
The man called Jesus became himself divine
Through acts in which he ministered this good.
He “saved” all men by act of example.
I believe in love as universally platonic.
Such mysticism falls on the word “love,”
Yet I find it quite easy to explain:
Unselfishness is love, in purest form:
The care for someone else before one’s own.
Romantic love is merely friendship grown,
—Attraction, intimacy—added to.
I believe in succumbing to and displaying emotion.
My feeling is what comprises my soul,
And my emotions never ought be checked.
Though sensitive at times, or even stressed,
It’s easier to let it out than not.
I believe in rational debate.
I love that spur to knowledge, argument;
The changing mind is healthful, too, I find.
I often touch the controversial most;
The gadfly spurs society to change.
Ironically, I prefer it rational,
With tactful words—no points meant to offend.
I believe in compromise.
More practical results are found in this:
Enlightenment—its key is compromise,
Like Ryouanji Temple, where one stands
Unable to see rocks— fifteen— at once
Unless one’s stance is compromised to view
A sacrifice of one for halves of two.
I believe in trust.
I freely give all I have to say away;
Barely my own secrets have I kept.
As one should never be ashamed of truth,
I willingly tell all that I feel and know.
If all man feels the same as I have felt,
What risk lies in sharing our common bond?
I believe in remembering.
Descending on me fastest at this hour,
Comes Change—the force I fear the most.
Unsure of what may come—what I shall lose—
I cling to things long past for confidence.
I always have been one for memory
To bring me back to times I loved the best.
I think I sound pretentious, but I actually like the way the poem came out sounding in iambic pentameter.
The ending is cheesy as hell, but, you'll have that. Hey, it's SENIOR YEAR. Plus it's nothing compared to some of those . . .
I don't talk about sexuality or fidelity in there at all. All I say about friendship is tied in with platonic love. I guess, really, that my "virtues" are even further out than just virtues . . . it's like the basic nature of religion and human nature, not just what I like about them.
Though, really, it's not like anyone's going to say, "I don't think people should have integrity." That's like besides the obvious. I wanted mine to be controversial, in a way.
It sort of is, I guess . . . particularly in regards to the glorification of Relativism (Truth is only what you make of it!) and my admission that I side more Arian and believe Jesus was a man who became divine through his actions on earth (if He even became divine at all and wasn't just a really respected martyr), not born divine. It was, well, really, just a reaction to all those insanely Fundamentalistic papers everyone wrote last year. My goodness. I didn't know so many people were that to-the-note about it. It's fine, of course . . . but I almost wonder if some of them did it to take up space by quoting the Bible rather than actually thinking about and expatiating upon their own views . . .
On a side note, I felt particularly social today. After school, I talked to like five people. I was talking to Robert and Alice and Liz when the bell rang, and then I talked with Mr. Briddell about how I looked like Nora when I was a little kid, and he agreed that yes, indeed I did (and also stole my quartet picture and I think he's going to use it . . . damn . . . Alice, Lindsey, I'm sorry . . . that was just supposed to be to SHOW him and Mrs. Hershberger . . . I argued with him about it . . . I tried . . . lol . . . ), and then I talked with Brock and Andrew about how Andrew needs to get his freaking Summer Shakescenes form in, and that Brock wants to play a Bill Cosby-type Othello who stabs people with Jell-O Pudding Pops (???), and then I talked to that one kid (I feel bad because I forget his name) who is in Improv and used to be in my Theatre class and used to talk all the time (I always find them, don't I? Ahh, well, we seem to stick together . . . ). Yeah. So I felt social ^_^ This was all just out to my car, between the minutes of 3:15 and 3:25-ish-about.
"I Believe”
I believe I don’t know what to believe in everything.
The only certain truth I know is this:
All men ought be allowed to choose their own.
Regret it though some may, all truth
Is merely what we make of it ourselves.
Decried though is this relativity,
What man can know—if only one—this truth?
I believe in God who is loving.
The God I know is never full of wrath,
Allowing suffering only as means
To extricate that weakness we possess
As mortals fearful—forgivably—of death,
And immerse ourselves in inherent spark of good,
That holiness within us all He made.
I believe in the inherency and immortality of goodness in man.
That trait of human love, compassion is
The means of binding us to fellow man.
More so, it serves as means to holiness:
The man called Jesus became himself divine
Through acts in which he ministered this good.
He “saved” all men by act of example.
I believe in love as universally platonic.
Such mysticism falls on the word “love,”
Yet I find it quite easy to explain:
Unselfishness is love, in purest form:
The care for someone else before one’s own.
Romantic love is merely friendship grown,
—Attraction, intimacy—added to.
I believe in succumbing to and displaying emotion.
My feeling is what comprises my soul,
And my emotions never ought be checked.
Though sensitive at times, or even stressed,
It’s easier to let it out than not.
I believe in rational debate.
I love that spur to knowledge, argument;
The changing mind is healthful, too, I find.
I often touch the controversial most;
The gadfly spurs society to change.
Ironically, I prefer it rational,
With tactful words—no points meant to offend.
I believe in compromise.
More practical results are found in this:
Enlightenment—its key is compromise,
Like Ryouanji Temple, where one stands
Unable to see rocks— fifteen— at once
Unless one’s stance is compromised to view
A sacrifice of one for halves of two.
I believe in trust.
I freely give all I have to say away;
Barely my own secrets have I kept.
As one should never be ashamed of truth,
I willingly tell all that I feel and know.
If all man feels the same as I have felt,
What risk lies in sharing our common bond?
I believe in remembering.
Descending on me fastest at this hour,
Comes Change—the force I fear the most.
Unsure of what may come—what I shall lose—
I cling to things long past for confidence.
I always have been one for memory
To bring me back to times I loved the best.
I think I sound pretentious, but I actually like the way the poem came out sounding in iambic pentameter.
The ending is cheesy as hell, but, you'll have that. Hey, it's SENIOR YEAR. Plus it's nothing compared to some of those . . .
I don't talk about sexuality or fidelity in there at all. All I say about friendship is tied in with platonic love. I guess, really, that my "virtues" are even further out than just virtues . . . it's like the basic nature of religion and human nature, not just what I like about them.
Though, really, it's not like anyone's going to say, "I don't think people should have integrity." That's like besides the obvious. I wanted mine to be controversial, in a way.
It sort of is, I guess . . . particularly in regards to the glorification of Relativism (Truth is only what you make of it!) and my admission that I side more Arian and believe Jesus was a man who became divine through his actions on earth (if He even became divine at all and wasn't just a really respected martyr), not born divine. It was, well, really, just a reaction to all those insanely Fundamentalistic papers everyone wrote last year. My goodness. I didn't know so many people were that to-the-note about it. It's fine, of course . . . but I almost wonder if some of them did it to take up space by quoting the Bible rather than actually thinking about and expatiating upon their own views . . .
On a side note, I felt particularly social today. After school, I talked to like five people. I was talking to Robert and Alice and Liz when the bell rang, and then I talked with Mr. Briddell about how I looked like Nora when I was a little kid, and he agreed that yes, indeed I did (and also stole my quartet picture and I think he's going to use it . . . damn . . . Alice, Lindsey, I'm sorry . . . that was just supposed to be to SHOW him and Mrs. Hershberger . . . I argued with him about it . . . I tried . . . lol . . . ), and then I talked with Brock and Andrew about how Andrew needs to get his freaking Summer Shakescenes form in, and that Brock wants to play a Bill Cosby-type Othello who stabs people with Jell-O Pudding Pops (???), and then I talked to that one kid (I feel bad because I forget his name) who is in Improv and used to be in my Theatre class and used to talk all the time (I always find them, don't I? Ahh, well, we seem to stick together . . . ). Yeah. So I felt social ^_^ This was all just out to my car, between the minutes of 3:15 and 3:25-ish-about.
