religion

Author photo of David Shields, 2012.

I was first introduced to David Shields by my Creative Writing professor Laurie Uttich. He recently attended the Master Artists-in-Residence, a program provided by the Atlantic Center for the Arts. I did not have the pleasure of going, but had Mr. Shields as a guest-speaker during one Spring semester lecture and I have to say, he is relaxed when it comes to speaking. He tackles topics of controversy, such as social stigmas in Jeff, One Lonely Guy and untold traumas in That Thing You Do With Your Mouth, treating them with direct language while offering simple resolutions. Shields’ works are comprised of what he calls a literary collage, a collection of personal selections in the form of emails, exchanges between people and friends and the like, coupled with background knowledge on the subjects he discovers more about.

He enjoys working with the taboo, taking the unspoken and private matters and making them public and establishing a point of interest. During the lecture he shared a quote from Immanuel Kant, borrowed by Isaiah Berlin (I forget whom he attributed it to), and it was, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” David Shields’ goal as a writer is to find trauma’s answer; what is the root of it all and how do we treat it? Most of his books are their own answers dealing with their own traumas, but what better realization to have than the one that affects us all: mortality.

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With every life comes the inevitability of death, and in accepting as much, no one harbors on death, but instead embarks on life. David Shields charts life with his experimental autobiography and biography by giving his account of his enduring ninety-seven-year-old father’s life along with that of his own. The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead explores what it means to be mortal and where it leads. Through his remarkable fact-checking, Shields is able to connect both his and his father’s lives to meticulous accuracy and accordance to scientific research on aging. The moments of memoir in his book should also be noted for their journalistic approach. Considering his father is not always forthcoming with his feelings or personal history, he manages to ease his father’s stories out of him with his father’s rich but short-lived dialogue. Most of the dialogue is enough to serve as supplement for immersion into his father’s life and the quotations, in great numbers, he picks and pulls from history is much appreciated insight.

Shields’ book is divided into four sections of life: Infancy and Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood and Middle Age, and Old Age and Death. To start, Infancy and Childhood offers early development statistics, proving a rapid beginning of life. For example, “Babies are born with brains 25 percent of adult size… by age Ⅰ, the brain is 75 percent of adult size.” His father’s knowledge is then matched by the scientific fact from his teachings in the Midrash where a baby enters the world with clenched fists to show inheritance and where on the day the baby leaves this world his or her hands are open showing nothing has been received (6-7). Shields recounts his father’s near-death collision with the Long Island Rail Road. Being saved that day brought life to Shields and in turn made it possible for him to experience the birth of his own child.

Facts establish Shields’ expository on the subject of aging and dying between his experience and his father’s, showing an uncanny resemblance to each other through these short pieces of memoir. Dialogue in the large format of famous quotations are also rendered applicable to the direct dialogue of Shields’ friends and family. A quote from a friend’s daughter about being a frog becomes a call to observe that in each person is this “animal,” this body to claim. Shields is careful to provide his own understanding as well: “We are all thrillingly different animals… The body—in its movement from swaddling to casket—can tell us everything we can possibly know about everything” (23-26). From Adolescence, there is the newfound attention and curiosity of one’s self one wants to explore and, with great surprise, discover. Shields’ definition of self is through the body which “has no meanings. We bring meanings to it” (74). The human condition is blatantly described as the body, out-in-front and unashamedly aware of its mortality, and in turn, its immortal inclinations.

Further in Adulthood and Middle Age, the watershed moment of aging, one does not have to like the first sign of becoming an elder. One can however embrace a better feeling of it by being rapt with the body one’s given rather than reprimand the limitations setting in. Instead of settling at the age of 56, Shields’ father with the love of baseball pitches to his son and his friends with an unnerving strength (97). On the other hand, sometimes limitations are made. The alcoholism F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered for example, may have been further provoked by his low white blood cell count: “Beginning at 40, your white blood cells, which fight cancer and infectious diseases, have a lowered capacity… F. Scott Fitzgerald, who died at 44, wrote in his notebook, ‘Drunk at 20, wrecked at 30, dead at 40’[1] (96). Midlife crises do not have to be tragedies, they can be triumphs. According to Shields, the body is a temporary vessel in that the “survival instinct and the reproductive instinct are opposed” (125). Survival is due in large part to reproduction and without it, survival is at half-mast (127-128). Shields’ father in his 80s challenges this reproduction-equals-survival mentality with his own attempt at love: “‘Lady, it’s high time to get on with the rest of your life, whether it’s with me or anybody else’… I told her that I needed and wanted the love and warmth of a good and fulfilled relationship…” (133-134). His father believes life does not stop for reproduction or after it; life keeps moving forward. What keeps Shields’ inner animal or sense of body going is one of his many “hoop dreams” where he finds his “animal joy” or love of life most from playing basketball (135).

Lastly in Old Age and Death, much of what was gained gradually in youth has now reached its same peak, only this time at the decrepit level. For instance, the “brain of a 90-year-old is the same size as that of a 3-year-old” and sadly, Shields’ father is not able to combat this faculty (143). All is not lost in old age for the reason that most accomplishments vicarious and small are worth the effort of living. His father’s love of sports gave him direction in his life (216). Aging was not so much the concern as was the business of living (186). The repetitious pattern of fact-checking, dialogue and memoir compliments the order of life Shields presents in his novel. In this way, he exhibits life as it is lived and how close it can resemble the life of others. All that is left to do is live life.

You can watch David Shields talk about his book here. He also has a Tumblr and Twitter.

[1] A low white blood cell count may suggest the development of cirrhosis, a possible affliction for Fitzgerald: http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/cirrhosis

“Somebody’s knocking at your door!”

Before you consider this a slapdash complaint, let me clarify. I’m not one to harp on anyone’s beliefs or herald my own in replacement of them. What we believe in one way or another fulfills us with a purpose to live meaningful lives. The way I see it, and collectively speaking, I believe each religion while varied or not in practice, shares the same God you or I call God. The word’s of an omnist would agree that all religions are acceptable, but a human being would furthermore be just plain accepting. How the Qur’an has Muhammed and the Holy Bible has Jesus Christ, for example, as the people’s disciples in their respective faiths, shows different texts but similar rituals. Whoever you follow and which ever doctrines you take up, I’m not against. To continue, I’ve had a history with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. While not a bad history or any means of civil rivalry, (which is an awful oxymoron; since when is rivalry used in a civil manner?), there remains a line between us that I personally wouldn’t want to crossover.

From middle school as early as I can recall, Jehovah’s Witnesses caught us at the lull of morning. It began usually at nine or ten o’clock, when the neighborhood is either fast asleep or vacant. In our case, we’d been used to eating breakfast at that time and paying a visit every Sunday. My father would be at the ready to relay his message, of course providing them that they share their’s first. After a ten minute or so chat, we got on with our weekend. Then they would send a roulette of Witnesses to our door, sometimes on Saturday instead and sometimes back-to-back. Now as open-minded as my family is, we’re not casting away Jehovah’s Witnesses and disregarding who they are. We know they are a people with good intentions and that’s how they proclaim and show their faith. However, the only stipulation is that Jesus is not considered the Messiah in their eyes. For them, they still lie in wake for God’s merciful return to save the earth’s believers or those who serve Him, an event addressed as Armageddon.

“The pamphlets used by Jehovah’s Witnesses for discussion.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t count out Jesus entirely though. He’s still the Son of God, but is treated as a disciple for God’s plan overall. For us, what Jesus did was proclaim the Gospel through the Lord our God. Without Jesus’ life and death, we wouldn’t be washed away of our sins or the original sin from the beginning. This is the Catholic faith, and as Christians we believe Jesus is the Messiah because of this. Coming from my perspective, you can’t afford to miss this, regardless of the minor accepted differences between us. That’s just my faith. Jehovah’s Witnesses continue this proclamation with their own translations (literal at times) and publications from which Jesus carried out alongside his disciples and followers, but don’t accredit him as much as they do God. It’s understandable; God created everything after all, but with His Creation came an important part of it which I can’t help but feel Jesus is responsible for because of Him and through Him.

This confuses me for two reasons. Jesus was a devout Jew and preached the Christian practices found in Catholicism. If anything, was it not Jesus that brought all varying people, Gentile, Jew, Christian, or what have you, together to share in a bonding faith involving God? Again from my perspective, that sounds a great deal paramount for the basis of unity. Also, if Jesus was Jewish, how come he isn’t considered the Messiah for Jehovah’s Witness? It seems to me because Jesus brought other believers under one faith, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are doing the same, they argue it was God and God alone for Jesus’ doing as well as their own, again. It makes sense that Jesus would be the Savior for Jehovah’s Witnesses, because He’s Jewish and He came from God. Unless they see Jesus’ practice in two faiths a religious anomaly, then there’s a rough patch. Other than that, I can’t find another reason why.

“Siddhartha is a portmanteau for ‘one who has found meaning of existence.'”

More than recently, my mother has befriended a couple of ladies from Jehovah’s Witnesses. She’s been visited by the same two women ever since I got out of high school, every Wednesday afternoon now. Every week brings a new topic and I will say, jokes aside, I admire their persistence. They’re disappointed when she’s not home as they come prepared just for her since she’s the only one they’ll talk to. If I answer the door, they say, “No problem, next time.” When it’s my mother, the Spanish knot has been tied. Once they find relatable ground, there’s a cushion to fall on before and after they speak their subjects for the day’s hour (or longer depending on how sociable they are). They’ve grown attached and my father knows it the most; he still tries to convince her to kill them with kindness. She can’t bring herself to do it despite her leniency and on top of that, we don’t want to discount their beliefs as lesser to our own.

Dad’s words were always, “We believe Jesus Christ died for our sins,” and he leaves them with that. His candid statement doesn’t spark conflict, just disappointment I can imagine. I imagine that’s the case when two religions meet. You hear about religious wars and I’m sitting here thinking: what religion tolerates war? I’m a peaceable fellow and I’d never tread on others virtues and their sense of it. Nor would I force my beliefs onto others, which isn’t the intent I’m trying to convey of Jehovah’s Witnesses. My father speaks of my family’s faith with the most finality, and I admit he isn’t as open-minded as I am (he wouldn’t let me buy Hermann Hesse’s novel, Siddhartha, even though I’ve read it in school), but I think it’s healthy to know of other religions, even if you don’t take them up as your own. To have that knowledge helps us understand where people come from, not just in religion but in morale and lifestyle choices. Rather than being in opposition, we start to feel an apposition for the good that we all can embody. I thank Jehovah’s Witness for that. Also, my Humanities class. Go humanity!