I have a friend who used to have a party every year to introduce the new label of a particular French wine (Beau -- something, I don't remember). Her taste is impeccable. Her style elegant and edgy with an occassional glimpse toward the practical. She is trained in law.
I asked this friend for her house rabbit's poop. She'd never had anyone inquire before. With a laugh she assured me that she'd be pleased to see it go to my garden. "I don't know how I'd get it out of the litter stuff we get from the pet store, though," she told me. "And I don't know what they put in that. I could switch to sawdust, I guess."
"You could. Or... do you have a paper shredder?" I asked.
"I don't, but I probably should."
"Well, if you get one, you could just use shredded paper as litter. The pet store doesn't want you to think too hard about what you have around the house that will work."
"Oh," she said. "You're so worldly, I should have known that you'd have some idea on this. That sounds great. Let's do it."
And to think: a college degree and a reading of the classics only got me to a place where I could wish to be worldly. Here we stand within the evolution of our language, a culture catching hold to earthen roots by way of words.
To be "worldly" now includes some cleverness with poop.
Calendar and Current Events
12 years ago
3 comments:
Let's see - what's the next thing to be considered worldly???
I just love the metaphor of transforming printed words into compost, Kristin. Is that the scoop on poop, or poop on scoop? Wordplay, quite the giggle, isn't it?
Of words and wordplay such as ours, I sense we and others so very often succumb to the illusion that technological and symbolic action - writing, for example - somehow contains the world-changing potential of action manifested in the flesh - that poetry, or documentaries or letters to the editor or websites or the law will change the world. I can sense disagreement in the making here (smile). But, as Louis McNiece observed, "Life is not literary." And then there was Auden, no slouch, averring: "poetry makes nothing happen." Was he alert to the potential of NVC, though? (grin)
Perhaps what these two poets were pointing to is word-encapsulated by the contemporary American poet Anne Waldman: "Performance is implicit in the role of the poet", she says. Yes, it may be this is the essence of what it is to be worldly, then, to embody wisdom in meatspace as we move through it or as we stand still and time washes over us, as elegantly as we are able. I sense this notion of worldliness is what Shimon ben Gamliel was referring to when he said, "Compassion fills no mouths, pity builds no houses." Yes, there are so very many times when all we can do is to ponder, to be heart-centered and still, to wait and be present, but I am convinced that more than words and sentiment, no matter how profound, are asked of us in ripening time into what it is.
Worldliness, fully-lived is surely what Christian mystics refer to when they talk of the Word made flesh. How then, to redeem the Logos, to make the revelation in language, prophetic or poetic, experiential? This, I believe, is a foundationally eschatological impulse. And, like you, just now, 'I' am making compost.
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Kristin, you ARE the most worldly person I know, in that you understand the workings of the REAL world: food, plants, and animals with 2, 4, or even 6 legs (see below). You are a wealth of information and inspiration. Not only would I not know what to do with my rabbit poop, it would never have occurred to me there might be a Useful Purpose for such a substance. You always know.
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