Is this the way:

that we are boxed  bodies

smiling from our rears

in pretense that our fronts aren't gleeful?

We are frightened containers

afraid of the gift our bodies are

the Gift we dare not claim.

What bare souls!

What guilt our spirit would cast aside

if there were a Yes

to all the poop the Lord released

to ev'ry drop of funky sweat

to all that bonds us to this flesh

to all the Kingdom's rejoicing over it

forever and ever amen!

*Thoughts of Gil Bailie:

-...we must not, in that dialogue, ask of people to drop their truth-claims at the door.  We must not ask Muslims to stop being Muslim in order to have a democracy.  And likewise, we Christians should not be expected to drop our Christianity in order to engage in that conversation.  I think it's much healthier, and we're more inspired to be charitable, if we acknowledge those differences and learn to love each other in spite of them - and in some ways because of them.

-These playwrights [Greek tragedians] understood that if you see violence, you get caught up in it, aroused by it.  I read not so long ago that the link between television violence and actual violence on the part of young people is more scientifically verifiable than the link between tobacco smoke and cancer.

-Violence is part of the world we live in, so it has to be a part of art in some way.

-...I would say that if the depiction of violence is going to be healthy for us, it should result in our experience of compassion, our sense of the pitiableness of the human condition.

No-Win

                                                                                                         (Dream poem)

Backed into a corner

alone and very confused

Tired of running away

My manhood has been abused

Not my choice 2 be so blunt

But u must fight fire with flame

I allowed myself 2 run once

and was haunted by the shame

if I must kill I will and if I must do it again

I would but the situation is a no-win

-Tupac Shakur