"Your people, the Amish, despite their error, are the most successful resistors in this country today. You, in your error and your fervor to bring change to them, are a weapon which others are eager to wield against them. You do not see the entire equation. You do not understand the precarious balance. Your people love you and their conscience is hurt by what they have been forced by their mistaken belief to do to you. They cannot accept you without rejecting their belief. I think that you know all of this and that your reveling demonstrates a hurt conscience and desire to make sure that they will never accept you no matter how hard you try to change them. I think that all you really want is the life you had as a child and that you know you never can have it again because, although it was real, you lived it in ignorant bliss. I think that your having immersed yourself in the “gay world” is your way of “killing yourself”, so that you will not be able to harm your people. I wish you well in this." --John (blogger)"I feel the civil rights movement should be all inclusive so the Amish have all resources available i.e. The Trevor Project. It is not my intention to upset the apple cart...only use my position as artist to open dialogue on the issue." --JS
"You mentioned that I gave you a lot to think about and that if I cared to add anything to my “review” you would update it. You referred, in one of your blogs and/or comments to others, to the possibility of your writing a book. In one of your comments you said something to the effect that you were thinking about it but poetry is a jealous mistress. In your note on my review, you mentioned “civil rights” and I get the impression that being a political issue you feel it requires a degree of precision that you may not be able to give it in a book. That your facility with poetry, if applied to writing a book, might be like a sledgehammer. These are things bouncing around in my head that seem to be adding up to this idea I seem to be having.
One thing that comes out of it is that poetry is a good way to describe the indescribable. Could it be that you sense the book that you want write cannot be written in the way that you think a book should be written? That your preference of poetry, which you feel is an obstacle to writing a book, is a misinterpretation of your intuition? That your ideas of both poetry and “book writing” are too rigid and that what is needed is a kind of blurring of the lines or a poetic approach to writing a book? Some of the most indescribable things are feelings and subjective experience.
Civil Rights seems to me to be a factual domain for lawyers and journalists, who are like the prime movers of change. But they are really the finishers. A journalist’s facts can lead to legislation, but neither journalist’s nor lawyers set up the end game. They just play it out. They do not change the “hearts and minds.” It is the story of the people for who change is needed that really effects public consciousness. The story rendered poetically, in terms that allow people to perceive another disparate individual as themselves.
I think the best kind of poetry is that which does not present itself as such. The kind that sneaks up on you and makes itself felt rather than heard. It is a profound meaning which leaps upon one from the midst of prosaic discourse. A sort of poetry in motion. Even a sort of witchcraft, if you will. A guileful hidden purpose like the last move in a game of chess, which instead of trapping and defeating one, removes personal barriers and releases their compassion. Of course, this is dangerous ground and one is well advised of caution. It may be just my prejudice, but I think that one of the most important cautions is to ignore the journalists and lawyers, because facts and laws are only as good as the awareness of the people they represent, as the actuality of the hearts and minds which is the true factor of enforcement or regulation of those who are not aware.
Anyway, I think that the role of the artist is to render his or her own awareness in a way that personally involves the public. And the best artist is the one whose awareness is of his or her own experience. Those who do not have their own experience to draw on, who go around looking for stories to tell or pictures to paint, are journalists. They have their art but it is disconnected, a step removed, from reality. This is the greatest caution – that art should be real. Otherwise it is a lie. This is most of the art we see now which is driving so-called change. We can see this in the way that nothing really changes. Rather, the change is people getting more and more insensitive to each other and further and further removed from reality. And it is getting harder and harder to see anything with all of this art going on. But then, all I know is books and movies, if only as far as reading and watching, so maybe I don’t know much at all.
But my idea is that our stories – our experiences and especially our feelings – are what is needed, and that maybe we can help each other tell our stories in this sort of “review venue” that you started, and maybe a book or books can somehow come out of that. Like, I, quite presumptuously and brazenly, dug into your story, and instead of getting offended, you welcomed it. Although you reacted a little defensively, it was positive. I wonder what would happen if you picked up on the questions I raised about the feelings of your Amish (antagonists?) and your own feelings? Bared your soul, so to speak. And I wonder what would happen if I started a blog with my story and you dug into that? It would certainly be different. Maybe we could call it “Dueling Blogs” :-)
Anyway, I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. I went to my mom’s and stuffed myself. As usual, she was not happy with the stuffing, which she never makes the same way, but both me and my brother Tom thought it was great and the bird was tender and juicy, so that made her feel better. I got in a screaming match with Tom later over my “conspiracy theories,” which really irritates him sometimes. We were out in the garage where he watches television and smokes, so mom did not hear it. When he grabbed a stick and threatened to brain me, I told him that might be the best way to convince him of the effect that the wrestling crap he calls “entertainment” has on his mind. I always needle him because he just sits there being “programmed” without thinking anything of it. Not needling him, per se. I just “interpret” things that come across the damn box from time to time, just a few words here and there to challenge the hypnotic suggestions and try to create doubt. Just a little monkey wrench into the works to interrupt the flow. They are just drops in the bucket, but as Robert Jay Lifton pointed out in Thought Reform: The Psychology of Totalism, any contradiction in the information milieu can disrupt the entire process. This time, as evidenced by his extremely inappropriate response, I hit pay-dirt, which response, when I called his attention to it, itself helped me make the point to him. I matched him yell for yell and reinforced my point by telling him that I do it because I care about him. Of course, he dismissed me coldly, but after a little while I went back and we made up. I will probably never be able to get him to see the massive conspiracy of psychological warfare that we are all being subjected to, but I think I manage to somewhat mitigate its effects on both he and mom. It’s what I do. It has become my whole purpose in life, it seems. Pity I have to live like poor little Anne Frank – worse really. At least her family shared awareness of their dilemma." -- John (blogger) http://chk001000100.blogspot.com/
"Even straight, I would not have stayed Amish. Still, I have a lot of respect for the Amish. I was always the outsider not just because I was gay but because I am a dreamer! Hence, poetry is my most natural expression but I have not ruled out a memoir or novel on the subject. I hope open dialogue and progressive thinking will benefit all the gay Amish and lead to a proactive future.
As for conspiracy theories... did you hear the one about a woman...that was really a MAN??!" -- JS
