Flashback: Form and Substance: How a Sonnet Saved My Life

[While I am working on another project, I am re-posting some of my favorite essays. This post originally appeared on August 22, 2011.]

The Sonnet

The sonnet is the most restrictive of

Poetic forms. A scheme is strictly set

Dictating poet's rhyme and rhythm, yet

He chooses it for lofty thoughts of love,

Admiring noble deeds, or saintly stuff.

Indeed, the sonnet always seems to let

Transcendence have its way so as to get

A sense of freedom. Thus we see it prove

To be the highest, freest form to whet

A true Poetic. Often when I see

The bounds within which I must find my way,

(The cold collective spreads its mindless net

And freedom seems to fade) I wish to be

A living sonnet soaring through the day.

CLK                                       2/82

The sonnet, like so many aspects of society, provides rules, structure and boundaries. We can find comfort in those boundaries we see in society. Boundaries give definition to what is expected and provide security in our roles. On the other hand, boundaries can be restricting and oppressive. We have common metaphors that speak to this paradox: “keep your hand on the plow,” “stay on track” are just as familiar as “he was chomping at the bit,” or “pulling at the traces.” Boundaries indeed offer guidance, but sometimes one must slip the traces or jump the tracks. I recently read some words from Spanish poet Antonio Machado which speak poignantly and profoundly about how we make our own way to find our true path in life:

Why should we call

these accidental furrows roads?

Everyone who moves on

walks like Jesus, on the sea. [1]

The sonnet above is one that I wrote when I was 28 years old. I offer it as an example of how one can be awakened by one’s own poem. At the time, I was teaching English at Hong Kong Baptist College on a two-year assignment with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. I had graduated from seminary and had plans to go into ministry upon return to the States. During my first year back in the U.S., I was in the middle of a chaplaincy training program at Montclair Baptist Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. One evening I was re-reading the sonnet that I had written two years before. For some reason, I imagined myself as a 68-year-old man and a young man was reading the sonnet. The young man asked me if I ever learned how to be a living sonnet. The only honest answer I could give in that imaginary situation was, “No. I never did.”

It was at that moment that I realized I needed to get out from where I was at the time. Toward the end of my chaplaincy training, I was offered the opportunity to apply for an opening in the chaplain residency program at the hospital. To the director’s surprise, I never applied for the position.

Finding New Directions

“Where will you go from here?” the Pastoral Care director asked. I had no clear answer, except that I knew I had to go away from where I was at that moment. The next year proved to be a formative year. I left the Baptists and found St. Andrew's Episcopal Church where there was a commitment to high liturgy and social service. While there, I found employment at St. Andrew’s Foundation working with adults with developmental disabilities in group home settings. The overarching ideal at St. Andrew’s Foundation was “normalization,” meaning that we would allow each person to live as normal a life as possible, with normal routines rather than being defined by their disability.

St. Andrew's Church

The home where I worked was a couple of blocks away from St. Andrew’s Church.  In those days, the bell in the church steeple would sound out the hours. The liturgical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) were designated times of prayer throughout the day. This was a form that I was unaccustomed to, having grown up Baptist. While I worked with clients at the group home, even though those liturgical hours were unfamiliar, it was meaningful to hear the bells sound during the day. It reminded me to stop, if only briefly, to acknowledge that I was working within a larger context of meaning.

Even more than the liturgical hours in the background, the group home residents themselves gave my life a centering. More than teaching and certainly more than professional ministry, my work now seemed like real life. Teaching and ministry are both wonderful and needed professions, but my own strengths and abilities did not fully align with the tasks in either milieu. I was therefore not finding life within those structures.  At St. Andrew’s Foundation I sat on front porches and in living rooms of those group homes visiting and talking with residents who were limited in many ways, but they helped me to see more clearly what real life is about. All manner of assumptions were dispelled during those days. We were all learning each day how to better find our way in the world. They needed help with shopping, banking, household management, job training, and managing the conflict that arises just by living with other people. They were learning to have a home of their own, and I felt like I was finally home.

I would later recount, "It was at St. Andrew's that I came to realize that people who live with disabilities have something very important to say about what it means to be human. How we respond to people with disabilities says something very important about who we are as human beings." [2]
 

Nothing is constant, however. After several years of rewarding work at St. Andrew’s Foundation, I was also starting a family and needing to broaden my possibilities. To that end, I went back to my old alma mater for a degree in Nursing. My first job in the Nursing field was as a psychiatric nurse at the same hospital where I had once been a chaplain. I remember walking across the hospital grounds one evening, recalling how I had made that same walk years before as a chaplain. Back then I was thinking, “I don’t belong here.” That night, however, as I walked the grounds as a nurse, I said to myself, “This is exactly where I belong!”

Writing New Avenues and Looking Inward

I continue to make a living in healthcare, and I also continue to write. The point of sharing my sonnet is to show how the process of writing can help us to know who we really are, at least that has been true for me. My writing has taken the form of daily journals, personal letters, dream journals, essays, and poetry. The poetry that I have written over the years often has served as a kind of spiritual diary, recording where I was, what I was thinking, and how I was feeling at the time. Sometimes the writing surprises me by opening up new windows and new avenues. Sometimes the writing, as with this sonnet, helps me to see a bit more clearly how to live more congruently with my inner self and ideals.

For all who have an interest in writing, I say, by all means write! Don’t worry about whether it is “good enough.” That sonnet that I wrote all those years ago is certainly no Shakespeare or Dante, but it contained a true observation that allowed me to take a probing look within myself. Make sure that what you write is your true voice. You will probably learn more about yourself, and the writing might even save your life.

                                                                                                               Charles Kinnaird

_____

1.  From I Never Wanted Fame, by Antonio Machado (translated by Robert Bly), Ally Press (limited edition) 1979.
2. From "An Ordinary Life" at http://notdarkyet-commentary.blogspot.com/2010/11/ordinary-life.html

*    *    *    *

You may be interested in reading these related posts:

• An Ordinary Life
• Any Tree That Falls: why creative people must create

*

Something Like the Peace Corps

Hong Kong Baptist College

I once heard news commentator Chris Matthews talk briefly about his service with the Peace Corps in Africa as a young college graduate. He said that serving in another country, offering humanitarian assistance, living in another culture affected everything he did subsequently in his life. He encouraged young people to get involved in some service like the Peace Corps, and to do it before age thirty for an experience to set the course of their life for the better.

I knew exactly what Chris Matthews was talking about.  When I was in my late twenties, I took part in a mission program with the Southern Baptists called the Journeyman Program. The purpose of this program was to allow college graduates the opportunity to serve for two years in various missions across the globe. There were over 80 of us in our group that went out in 1981. Within our group there were teachers, nurses, youth workers, agricultural workers, and a variety of other jobs that gave aid and supported church missions. I was an English teacher at Hong Kong Baptist College (now Hong Kong Baptist University).

Becoming a World Citizen

A moment relaxing after some
intense Journeyman training sessions

The director of the Journeyman Program at the time was Dr. Stan Nelson. Stan really made that program into the quality endeavor that it was.  He told us during training that after our experiences overseas, we would become world citizens. How right Stan was!  My time in Hong Kong definitely shaped how I view the world. Sometimes I tell people that my two years as a Journeyman in Hong Kong were like ten years of experience.

The Journeyman Program was my “Peace Corps.” You cannot view your place in the world or the plight of others throughout the world in the same way once you have lived, served and worked alongside people in another culture. I have found that in all of my subsequent roles and occupations since then, I have had a sense of mission that others around me often do not seem to grasp. My values, my hopes, and my endeavors have all been shaped and borne by my life as a missionary Journeyman.  What’s more, my path has not been at all what I had planned, but it has all been good.  I recently found a quote that resonated with me, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be.”

Renewing Old Friendships

Recently members of our Journeyman mission group have re-connected by way of the internet after thirty years. We have gone in many different directions as we have pursued careers, started families, and lived in various parts of the country and the world. It was amazing and invigorating to discover that immediate camaraderie that still existed after all these years.  I was excited to see the pictures that people shared commemorating their time overseas – it brought back such memories! I was equally invigorated to hear where my colleagues are now.  It was thrilling to hear one another’s stories of where life has taken them in the intervening years.

The bond that was formed as we prepared to go out into the world so many years ago was immediately renewed.  I tried to explain that camaraderie to my daughter, but my words probably fell short. It’s an experience that you can really only know by being there.

The Rewards of Service

I am extremely grateful for having been part of such an awesome group of people. We were young, inspired, and on a mission. We were setting out to parts unknown and we subsequently met with many wondrous encounters. There were joys as well as struggles and sorrows that occurred within our various experiences, but most seem to agree that those were transformative years for us – those two years of service.

I would like to echo the sentiments of Chris Matthews that I mentioned at the outset.  I would encourage all young people to consider giving a year or two of service overseas before you start your career. It could be with the Peace Corps or it could be with your church or religious organization. It will be challenging yet rewarding and you will not be the same thereafter.

Many Possibilities

I should add that if you are not in that youthful category, it is not too late. Did you know that Lillian Carter, President Jimmy Carter’s mother, joined the Peace Corps and went to India when she was 68 years old? My brother spent his vacation time for four or five summers providing assistance to a village in Brazil in a church-sponsored mission. There are nurses I know who have assisted with medical clinics in Central and South America for one to two weeks at a time.

Furthermore, there are many avenues of service available. Some that I know of are Doctors without Borders, SIFAT, and Oxfam. Other organizations that I have recently heard about are Give a Year Partnerships for college students, Proworld, and the Global Volunteer Network. The Quakers also have a number of service opportunities available.  By giving a gift to others somewhere else in the world, you will also be giving a priceless gift to yourself!

Some students from one of my English classes at HKBC

Members of the English language Sunday School class

I taught at Emmanuel Baptist Church

(in Cantonese, that would be pronounced 
Yee-mah-loi-lay Tsum-wui Lai-bai Tong)

Sunday School class at picnic outing in the park

Group shot at church picnic, Emmanuel Baptist Church  

*    *    *    *    *

Previous Posts about my Hong Kong Experience:

Hong Kong Memories

Crossing the Harbor
To a Local Goddess
Memories from China

Old Canton

Farming in China

Form and Substance: How a Sonnet Saved My Life

The Sonnet

The sonnet is the most restrictive of

Poetic forms. A scheme is strictly set

Dictating poet's rhyme and rhythm, yet

He chooses it for lofty thoughts of love,

Admiring noble deeds, or saintly stuff.

Indeed, the sonnet always seems to let

Transcendence have its way so as to get

A sense of freedom. Thus we see it prove

To be the highest, freest form to whet

A true Poetic. Often when I see

The bounds within which I must find my way,

(The cold collective spreads its mindless net

And freedom seems to fade) I wish to be

A living sonnet soaring through the day.

CLK                                       2/82

The sonnet, like so many aspects of society, provides rules, structure and boundaries. We can find comfort in those boundaries we see in society. Boundaries give definition to what is expected and provide security in our roles. On the other hand, boundaries can be restricting and oppressive. We have common metaphors that speak to this paradox: “keep your hand on the plow,” “stay on track” are just as familiar as “he was chomping at the bit,” or “pulling at the traces.” Boundaries indeed offer guidance, but sometimes one must slip the traces or jump the tracks. I recently read some words from Spanish poet Antonio Machado:

Why should we call

these accidental furrows roads?

Everyone who moves on

walks like Jesus, on the sea. [1]

The sonnet above is one that I wrote when I was 28 years old. I offer it as an example of how one can be awakened by one’s own poem. At the time, I was teaching English at Hong Kong Baptist College on a two-year assignment with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. I had graduated from seminary and had plans to go into ministry upon return to the States. During my first year back in the U.S., I was in the middle of a chaplaincy training program at a Baptist Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. One evening I was re-reading the sonnet that I had written two years before. For some reason, I imagined myself as a 68-year-old man and a young man was reading the sonnet. The young man asked me if I ever learned how to be a living sonnet. The only honest answer I could give in that imaginary situation was, “No. I never did.”

It was at that moment that I realized I needed to get out from where I was at the time. Toward the end of my training, I was offered the opportunity for a residency as chaplain in the hospital. To the director’s surprise, I never applied for the position.

Finding New Directions

“Where will you go from here?” the Pastoral Care director asked. I had no clear answer, except that I knew I had to go away from where I was at that moment. The next year proved to be a formative year. I left the Baptists and found St. Andrew's Episcopal Church where there was a commitment to high liturgy and social service. While there, I found employment at St. Andrew’s Foundation working with adults with developmental disabilities in group home settings. The overarching ideal at St. Andrew’s Foundation was “normalization,” meaning that we would allow each person to live as normal a life as possible, with normal routines rather than being defined by their disability.

The home where I worked was a couple of blocks away from St. Andrew’s Church.  In those days, the bell in the church steeple would sound out the hours. The liturgical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) were designated times of prayer throughout the day. This was a form that I was unaccustomed to, having grown up Baptist. While I worked with clients at the group home, even though those liturgical hours were unfamiliar, it was meaningful to hear the bells sound during the day. It reminded me to stop, if only briefly, to acknowledge that I was working within a larger context of meaning.

Even more than the liturgical hours in the background, the group home residents themselves gave my life a centering. More than teaching and certainly more than professional ministry, my work now seemed like real life. Teaching and ministry are both wonderful and needed professions, but my own strengths and abilities did not fully align with the tasks in either milieu. I was therefore not finding life within those structures.  At St. Andrew’s Foundation I sat on front porches and in living rooms of those group homes visiting and talking with residents who were limited in many ways, but they helped me to see more clearly what real life is about. All manner of assumptions were dispelled during those days. We were all learning each day how to better find our way in the world. They needed help with shopping, banking, household management, job training, and managing the conflict that arises just by living with other people. They were learning to have a home of their own, and I felt like I was finally home.

I would later recount, "It was at St. Andrew's that I came to realize that people who live with disabilities have something very important to say about what it means to be human. How we respond to people with disabilities says something very important about who we are as human beings." [2]
 

Nothing is constant, however. After several years of rewarding work at St. Andrew’s Foundation, I was also starting a family and needing to broaden my possibilities. To that end, I went back to my old alma mater for a degree in Nursing. My first job in the Nursing field was as a psychiatric nurse at the same hospital where I had once been a chaplain. I remember walking across the hospital grounds one evening, recalling how I had made that same walk years before as a chaplain. Back then I was thinking, “I don’t belong here.” That night, however, as I walked the grounds as a nurse, I said to myself, “This is exactly where I belong!”

Writing New Avenues and Looking Inward

I continue to make a living in healthcare, and I also continue to write. The point of sharing my sonnet is to show how the process of writing can help us to know who we really are, at least that has been true for me. My writing has taken the form of daily journals, personal letters, dream journals, essays, and poetry. The poetry that I have written over the years often has served as a kind of spiritual diary, recording where I was, what I was thinking, and how I was feeling at the time. Sometimes the writing surprises me by opening up new windows and new avenues. Sometimes the writing, as with this sonnet, helps me to see a bit more clearly how to live more congruently with my inner self and ideals.

For all who have an interest in writing, I say, by all means write! Don’t worry about whether it is “good enough.” That sonnet that I wrote all those years ago is certainly no Shakespeare or Dante, but it contained a true observation that allowed me to take a probing look within myself. Make sure that what you write is your true voice. You will probably learn more about yourself, and the writing might even save your life.

                                                                                                               Charles Kinnaird

_____

1.  From I Never Wanted Fame, by Antonio Machado (translated by Robert Bly), Ally Press (limited edition) 1979.
2. From "An Ordinary Life" at http://notdarkyet-commentary.blogspot.com/2010/11/ordinary-life.html

*    *    *    *

You may be interested in reading these related posts:

• An Ordinary Life
• Any Tree That Falls: why creative people must create

*