Guardians of Lesser Galaxies

It has been a week-end of restocking supply shelves and catching up on maintenance tasks.  Even after 2 trips to the grocery store on Friday, I woke up yesterday and realized we had forgotten to get toilet paper.  So it was off to Walmart, and if I go to Walmart, why not stock up on other items, like baking supplies?

I've spent the last two week-ends at retreats, and we've been doing more repair/restoration work at the fixer-upper house in S'burg, so it's not surprising that the pantry had become a bit bare.  Plus it's been wiltingly hot, so I haven't felt like baking, cooking, or eating.

We did the grungy task of cleaning up the grill, a task far beyond the regular cleaning.  Something happened somewhere along the way, and the grease pan stopped catching all the grease.  As I wiped and scrubbed and went through a roll of paper towels, I wondered how our occasional grilling could generate so much grease.

Yesterday afternoon we decided we wanted something different to watch, and we've become a bit enamored of the baby Groot character of several short films of several years ago, like this one.  So we watched Guardians of the Galaxy, and then the sequel.  It was the perfect super hero movie for me:  accidental heroes, lots of great music from the 70's, and reworked mythology of all kinds that worked for me, even as much of it was over the top.

The savior story lines made me reflect on how much I yearn for this kind of over the top salvation.  One of my parishioners has lost her housing, and no matter how much church members try to help her, we find ourselves stymied.  I keep reminding myself that much of the difficulty is structural:  there's not enough low income housing for people who have really low income.  There's not enough housing, period.

During the past few weeks, I've found myself thinking about possible solutions, and I wrote a post on my theology blog about Lutheran safe houses.  I also try to be firm with myself about what a small church with a part-time pastor can actually do, as I worry about burn out for individual members--and about a member having nowhere to go, should the motel she's in decide she can't stay.  We're at the back up plan to the back up plan, and I am both worried and tired.

In fact, I'm feeling so tired that I did a Covid test yesterday.  My dean came down with Covid this week, and I just wanted to be sure that my off and on scratchy throat and exhaustion weren't anything transmissible.

As I was reading blog posts from past Septembers, I came across this fascinating poem possibility in this post from September 18, 2024:  "As I've been puttering this morning, I thought, I should write a poem with the title "Hildegarde of Bingen Forgets Her Feast Day." The poem could go in several possible directions: she forgets because she is busy, she forgets because it no longer matters, she forgets because she has dementia."  I went back to my files, and if I composed this poem, I didn't do it on the computer.

Chances are good that I did nothing with this idea because a few days later, I was dealing with the remnants of Hurricane Helene, which left us without power for roughly 9 days, without internet for roughly a month, and boiling water until early December.  Again and again, I am a bit whipsawed when I think about all we have managed to survive.

Deep breaths--let me do something with poetry before it's time to get ready for church--or just sit here and breathe deeply.

Love Poem in Strips

Some of my more interesting teaching ideas come when I get towards the end of what I have planned, and there's still a lot of class time left.  Some days, I just finish.  Some days I come up with something else because I've already let the class go early in the last week or two, and I don't want students to start to expect it.

Yesterday I went to my Creative Writing class with worksheets, along with two sonnets:  a traditional love sonnet by Constable and "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun" by Shakespeare.  In a 102 class several semesters ago, I created a Love Imagery Generator Worksheet:

Love Poem Imagery Generator


My love is like _____________________________________________________.

My beloved’s eyes are like ____________________________________________.

My beloved’s skin is like ______________________________________________.

My beloved’s personality is like ____________________________________________.

My beloved’s hair is like _________________________________________________.

I love my beloved the same way I love _____________________________________.

My beloved’s cooking is like ___________________________________________.

My beloved’s hands are like __________________________________________.

My beloved’s voice is like ______________________________________________.


We filled in the sheets; I encouraged them to feel free to make up a fictional beloved.  In fact, I advised it might work better as a fictional experiment.

I had taken out parts to make a new worksheet, and we tried making a love poem to a non-human, like a car or a phone or a pet:  My beloved's _________ is like ________.

By design, I had extra worksheets which I cut into strips.  I gave everyone 6 strips and had them fill in the blanks.  They could use the worksheets they'd already filled in or create something new.

I had planned to have them paste strips to pink paper on tables around the edge of the room, but I realized we'd end class 30-40 minutes early if I went with my original plan--not good.  So I pasted three strips per paper, strips I took from each student, with space in between.  I divided them into 2 groups of 4, with 2 pink sheets per table.  They worked in groups, or pairs, to put additional strips on the paper, which took 15-20 minutes longer than each student pasting strips would have taken.  On the 5th sheet of paper, I put more strips in a random way--students were working more than I anticipated to have the poems make sense and/or flow.

Before I read them, I asked what they expected.  Then I read them.  They were a mix of things:  intriguing imagery, cliches, weirdness that did and did not work.  It might have been interesting to have them take each poem and try to go deeper.  I thought that the completely random poem was no better or worse than the poems they took more care creating, but I didn't tell them that.

I had them take pictures of the poems, just in case they wanted them later.  They will be taking one of the poetry projects we've done and revise, plus a short process piece:  a love poem, a photo with haiku, and either a villanelle or a triolet are the options.

I'm so pleased with how this class session went--my students were engaged, even though I could tell that some of them were mildly frustrated at times or perhaps baffled is more accurate--or both.  They worked together, even though they weren't sure what they were doing.  We all seemed to leave in a good mood, astonished at what we had created--or maybe it was just me who was astonished.

Inkspire and Other Events of the Week

I am tired this morning--it's a good tired because of a more intense week of good stuff, but a good tired is still tired.  Let me collect some fragments before they float away:

--One of my colleagues at Spartanburg Methodist College has been bringing in watermelon from her garden, which seems miraculous to me.  I've never been able to grow the larger, slower produce:  winter gourds/squash or melons.  I've been feasting on melons that someone else has cut up for me--a real treat.

--I was asked to be part of the search committee to find a new, full-time Speech hire.  I said yes, and I have no regrets:  as our provost said, it's one of the more important tasks that a college does.  But it will take a lot of time, and just thinking about it makes me tired (in a good way, but still tired).

--I am part of a student's Capstone project, and yesterday was her first event with me as a guest speaker.

It went really well.  It was a small group, but they were attentive.  I decided to talk about blocks and distractions that might keep us from writing and some techniques for dealing with those.  It was nothing earthshattering:  write in smaller increments--10 minutes a day can lead to having 150 to 300 pages in the course of a year.

--I love this broader view picture, the Inkspire event among many other events:

I love being part of a college that has so many events happening.

--Yesterday was a pizza party for Humanities majors, and we got good turnout.  Delightful!  But also tiring.

--In the midst of all of these events yesterday, I was sad to hear about the death of Annie Dillard.  She was not one of my writing/reading touchstones.  I remember a college summer of commuting when I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which I had heard so much about--but I was underwhelmed.  I felt the same way about all of her work, and I feel weird about that, with so many people whom I respect having a different experience.

--It's the time of the school year when I feel like it's getting harder to stay ahead, especially with copying.  In part, it's because I have a lot of competing ideas for my creative writing classes, and all of them seem worthwhile.

When I want to remember why I tend to do the same thing semester after semester in English 101, it's so that I can devote creative energy to other classes.

--The work on the fixer-upper house has felt more intense.  Last Thursday we rented a floor sander, and now the big spaces are done.  Now we need to get the insides of the closets and the edges near the baseboards.  We're renting a different kind of sander today--here's hoping it makes it easier.

The Ghost in the Machine and the Holy Spirit

In late 2022 and early 2023, I first heard about ChatGPT and the current incarnation(s?) of artificial intelligence, I heard a lot of experts telling us that machines/programs/AI can't learn the way humans can learn.  Then they'd explain the creation process of these technologies and how humans programmed them to learn, and I thought, that process sure sounds the way my students learn.

Now I'm hearing a few people talking about the technology and issues of morality and spirituality.  Granted, more people are talking about how AI might kill us all--this week, at least, more people are talking about those dangers.  I saw one pastor post his notes from a Carey Nieuwhof webinar on AI and the Church and this bit intrigued me:  “AI doesn’t have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. AI doesn’t pray.”

When I was growing up in the 1970's, almost every Christian faith tradition taught that humans were God's supreme creation, the best of the best.  Many of those traditions taught that only humans go to Heaven.  It's a different faith scene now--says this pastor who is thinking about her first blessing of the pets as part of a worship service, at least first as one I've led.

This morning, I find my mind coming back to AI, to our beliefs (hopes?) about how human neurons are superior to silicon neurons.  I think about an NPR show back in the early days of this century that had philosopher Daniel Dennett as part of a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence. He said that he thinks that silicon based life forms (like computers) are eclipsing carbon based life forms (like you and me). Further, he said that computers are using humans to assist in the evolution of computers. The part of me that loves sci-fi was intrigued, and continues to be intrigued. The part of me that doesn't understand machines was horrified at the thought of enabling them to take over the world and enslave us.  The rest of the panel scoffed at Dennett's idea.

Now it seems like prophecy--or that Dennett was keeping up with the research in a much more comprehensive way than most of us.

I am aware of the dangers of anthropomorphizing this technology, and yet I keep thinking of Claude or ChatGPT praying.  What would those prayers sound like?  Would God hear them?  How would God respond?

This morning's pondering took me back to other times when I've tried thinking about God in different ways than I was taught in childhood.  It's made me think of a poem I wrote a long time ago, when I looked up at the pre-dawn sky and thought about how many astronomical objects are cold, hard rocks as far as we can tell. It led to this poem, which has become a renewed favorite of mine, after the spouse of a dear friend told me how it had stuck with him and made him think about the universe differently. It was published in my first chapbook Whistling Past the Graveyard.


Geology, the True Life Science


Our planet—warm, gooey corner
of a cold, lifeless cosmos,
a primordial ooze which forms
the perfect building blocks for life,
a miraculous exception to the universal
rule. The official astronomer’s story.

But perhaps God prefers rocks and minerals.
Why else create such a diverse abundance?
Maybe animals and humans are the experiment
gone horribly wrong, an accident of pumping liquids
surrounded by decaying flesh.

Bones calcify, kidneys form stones, arteries harden
with plaque—instead of medical disaster,
perhaps our bodies move towards their ultimate evolutionary
destiny, seeking God’s pleasure.

A Different Approach to Peer Editing

As a teacher, I have had students do peer editing a variety of ways:  in pairs, in groups of 4-5, as a big group passing papers to the left every ___ minutes, online as a discussion thread, and so on.  My new approach with peer editing in my two different creative writing classes has gone better than any other experience, and it's been so good that I'll try it with my English 101 class next week.

My Creative Writing class is a sophomore level class which attracts all sorts of students, but most do have an interest in Creative Writing.  They're not taking the class just because it's the only one where they could get a seat or the only one offered at a time that works with the rest of the schedule.  My Nonfiction Writing class is an upper level class; students who take that class are English majors for the most part.   

Both classes are much smaller than my 101 class.  The Creative Writing class is 10 students, Nonfiction 8.  My 101 class has 24 students when they all come to class.  

Back to my new approach.  I gave 2 days to peer editing not just one.  On the first day, we sat in a circle, each student with their rough draft.  We did timed readings, roughly 4 minutes per reading, no writing/feedback, pass the draft to the right, repeat.

My theory was that if they had done a quick reading, they could spend less time reading when it came time to give written feedback.

On the second day, I moved the tables so that each table would operate as a station with 2 chairs.  Each station had several copies of the rough draft and peer editing feedback sheets to fill in.  I also gave each writer a sheet where they could ask for specific feedback, which I won't do with my 101 class.

Students could move from station to station, reading at their own pace.  Some students read more slowly, while the ones who read and responded more quickly, could move to other stations.  Each writer got several response sheets, and most writers got responses from every student in the class.  No student sat idle--everyone was engaged on some level during the whole class period.

It was such a success that I'll try it next week with my 101 students.  Will it work?  Stay tuned!

Satisfying Sunday

Yesterday was a fairly good day.  At church, as I was moving through the communion liturgy, I could feel my throat about to crack, and sure enough, I went into a coughing fit.  Because I was at the words of institution, I felt weird about having someone else speak the words--Lutherans believe that only ordained or specially appointed ministers can consecrate the bread and wine.  I think it would have been fine, as long as I was there, but I don't really know how members feel.  So I drank some water, coughed a bit, and powered through.  People were kind.

I have spent most of the week wondering if I'm fighting off a cold:  I'm more tired and less hungry, and my throat has felt a bit scratchy off and on.  And I'm still not here.

I felt good about my sermon, although I'm aware of all the ways it could be improved; you can view it here on my YouTube channel and read it in this blog post).  We spent Sunday afternoon as we usually do, watching other people's sermons from churches where we feel a connection.  No one else preached on the Gospel.

I wanted something else of depth before we reverted to our usual viewing of old TV shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway?  We watched this podcast of David Brooks interviewing philosopher Meghan Sullivan. My spouse and I both have solid liberal arts educations along with graduate degrees, so it wasn't groundbreaking for us, but it felt nourishing.

I did some stitching in the evening so that I stayed awake past 7:15--success!  I'm making smaller squares, the first level of a log cabin square--but they're not all the same size.  I may put them aside and go back to the quilt I'm making for my cousin's first child who graduates from high school this year.

And now, another week:  week 6 at one school, week 3 at another.  We've got sanding to finish at the fixer-upper house.  The work at Faith Lutheran continues.  Onward!

Overscheduled Saturday

Yesterday was an overscheduled Saturday, full of rewarding activities, but almost too full.  I had Zoom calls, one after another, along with a conference call with the church council which was meeting in Bristol, and a phone call to catch up with my sister.  I volunteered at the Lutheridge Camp Store, a frustrating experience because I don't do it often, and can't quickly ring up purchases--we don't have a scanning system, but instead a touch screen where the volunteer clerk must look up items to add them to the cart.

At the end of the afternoon, I pulled out a different sewing project.  I wanted to puzzle through a pattern for a ditty bag; I've said I would make several for a woman who is serving as a chaplain to those who work on boats and ships on the Mississippi River.  I wasn't sure how the drawstrings would work, but they do.  I went ahead and finished the whole thing by hand, even though I had only intended to figure out the drawstring mechanism.

Even though I went to bed very early, which is not unusual for me these days, I'm still a bit tired.  We're at the time in the semester where the early enthusiasm is waning, and yet there is still so much to go.  I have a similar thought about the S'burg fixer-upper house.  We're making progress with floor sanding, but overall, there is still so much to go.

I've also felt a bit of melancholy as all the September 11 remembrances aired:  so much loss with reverberations across the decades.

But let me also remember the joys of recent days, particularly when it comes to working together:  my spouse and I strategizing about renting sanders, church folks figuring out how to help a fellow member, patrons at the camp store waiting patiently.  Let me remember that my students are wonderful and thus, I want to be my best teacher self.