{"id":1954,"date":"2015-10-02T07:25:16","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T12:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2015-10-02T07:30:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T12:30:03","slug":"poem-weepin-of-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/02\/poem-weepin-of-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Weepin of Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

His unwillingness to be a victim<\/strong>
\nSoully exceeded<\/strong>
\nBuy his willfulness to be a perpetrator<\/strong>
\nBetter to have<\/strong>
\nWilled a gun<\/strong>
\nThan mirrorly get<\/strong>
\nA ballad in ahead<\/strong>
\nThat imminently natural selection<\/strong>
\nOf hapless pray<\/strong>
\nRe: in force<\/strong>
\nSuch patriotic cant<\/strong>
\nAnd simp-ly a parent of chorus you can<\/strong>
\nToo the tear of awe<\/strong>
\nWeepin’s helled in our hands<\/strong>
\nSow a verse<\/strong>
\nThat thin red line<\/strong>
\nIn the thick of<\/strong>
\nThe deference<\/strong>
\nIn the seaminess <\/strong>
\nOf oppressor and oppressed<\/strong>
\nThe enigmatic quest in <\/strong>
\nOf weather you can<\/strong>
\nHave won<\/strong>
\nWithout the other<\/strong>
\nTo shed more hate than light<\/strong>
\nIn discriminating prism<\/strong>
\nOnly to con serve<\/strong>
\nCell preservation<\/strong>
\nOr wherever egos<\/strong>
\nFallowing death<\/strong>
\nA firm life<\/strong>
\nIn mortality<\/strong>
\nA test too<\/strong>
\nThey’re weepin of choice<\/strong><\/p>\n

This poem is a dramatic ode to the thin line between victim and perpetrator.\u00a0 There is a horror in\u00a0both estates of being.\u00a0 The truism that hurt people hurt people begs for a broken chain, often presenting itself to beat the hell out of others or take it as unjust a beating.\u00a0 Is there a fare-mined weigh to go on, strike?<\/p>\n

The horrific picture in my mind is that of children in war zones enforced into soldiering, specifically by being forced to kill someone else, typically someone they know, as an initiation into the invading forces.\u00a0 Or be killed themselves.\u00a0 The ensuing trauma, and the desperate promise of survival as a perpetrator rather than death or indigency as a victim, often seals one’s fate in a choice beyond most adults, let alone children.\u00a0 Such a display of soul murder is perhaps the most dramatic, even as an epic cautionary tale far removed from the real or contemplated lives of most adults in this world.\u00a0 Nonetheless, the daily bred of the victim-perpetrator cycle is mostly much more subtle and insidious.\u00a0 The routinized bargains most of us make are well fed by seamless self-serving rationalizations and hermetically sealed worldviews safely partitioning good and evil.\u00a0 We are grateful, even thank God, that we happen to be, well, on the good side. Our own cultural in-groups are neatly washed in the wringer of what we typically call civilization, a convenient euphemism for “us” — now, even 25% cleaner; progress you know!\u00a0 Our dark sides are projected on others, safely sequestered in “them” — the looming barbarous hordes, who mostly want to take our way of life (or jobs) — equally progressive and precarious — but will take the life of our hired mercenaries, peace officers, or even ourselves if we let our guard down.<\/p>\n

What I hope this poem inspires is some contemplation about what might be that thin chalk line around your soul that defines what you would not do to save your bodily life.\u00a0 What would you not do, even if a gun was pointed at your head?\u00a0 Such a boundary quite starkly outlines that which you re-guard as sacred, worthy of the sacrifice of your bodily life.\u00a0 If your skin in the game is only to protect your own skin (or kin), then the cycle of perpetrator-victim will be incarnated perpetually.\u00a0 Protect your own or sell your kind?\u00a0 What kind of quest in is that?\u00a0 Won of kindness — your own kind and every other kind.\u00a0 Dramatic examples can be highly instructive in contemplating the demarcations of our soul.\u00a0 Still, my hope is to provoke a more thorough deconstruction of our lives, as our lives are sow much more than bodily existence.\u00a0 What in your life would you be willing to lose for a higher purpose?\u00a0 My favorite definition of sacrifice is giving up something of value for something of greater value.\u00a0 I view this trading up as the primary vehicle for living up to our highest values.\u00a0 What material\/bodily stuff are you willing to trade up for that which is higher?\u00a0 What parts of your life are you willing to sacrifice for a greater whole?\u00a0 We all end up in a hole; not all become whole or make their fare share of the whole.\u00a0 Of course, the hierarchy of goodness is not simply some binary division of material and spiritual.\u00a0 Our bodies and material goods are gifts to be purposed and re-purposed in the progressive filling and fulfilling of our souls, shared humanity, and awe of creation.\u00a0 If there is anything that all spiritual and religious traditions lift up, it is that our purpose wrests in that beyond our self.\u00a0 Next in line would probably be that we each have a soul responsibility that cannot be contracted to others.\u00a0 As you confront the many weepins in life, may your soul purpose find itself bigger and better, not simply at a loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His unwillingness to be a victim Soully exceeded Buy his willfulness to be a perpetrator Better to have Willed a gun Than mirrorly get A ballad in ahead That imminently natural selection Of hapless pray Re: in force Such patriotic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,9,15],"tags":[294,581,519,574,385,392,608,65,317,76,388,305,493,200,456,359,611,438,454,34,448,658,94,585,316,31,409,128,333,718,531,30,478,163,203,549,550],"class_list":["post-1954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peace","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-awe","tag-cautionary-tale","tag-children","tag-creation","tag-death","tag-evil","tag-gift","tag-god","tag-hate","tag-hell","tag-hope","tag-humanity","tag-job","tag-jobs","tag-kindness","tag-life","tag-loss","tag-mind","tag-murder","tag-nonviolence","tag-ode","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-progress","tag-rationalization","tag-religious","tag-responsibility","tag-sacred","tag-sacrifice","tag-skin-in-the-game","tag-soul","tag-spiritual","tag-values","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-willingness","tag-worldview"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Weepin of Choice | Peace, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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