Poetry, News, and Metacognition

Did you know poetry is the best thing ever?

The naming of cats is a difficult matter;
It isn't just one of your holiday games...
But above and beyond there's still one name left over
    And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
    But the CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound mediation,
     The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
    Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
         His ineffable effable
         Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name. 

The Reading Day lesson plan for AmLit became the reading and enjoyment of T. S. Elliot's clever, humorous word play. Love for poetry has greatly boosted my enthusiasm for AmLit, for there is no other class that gives me an excuse to recite "To make a prairie it takes a clover" or to discuss "The Raven" for more than half a period. The perusal of poetry these days has made me miss a certain anthology on my bookshelf back home--Great Poems.

In other news, I am the best blogger ever! I have no pictures to put up from my most recent brief visit to a village ministry! My apologies. But honestly, pictures aren't really the best way to make me remember the names of the four fifth-grade girls that pulled me along to see different things, laughing at my lack of understanding Chichewa the entire time. Pictures won't tell you that holding a random little girl who walks up to you simply because she wants to be held is mildly heart-wrenching. I know pictures help raise awareness, emphasize needs, and share knowledge overall, but pictures can also become cliche. You might have seen the picture of an American girl in a long skirt holding a dusty, raggedy toddler. Or perhaps you've seen the child standing in a doorway alone with a runny nose? Images become common. They are far from unnecessary, but still they are cliche.

Sometimes I find them distracting. Whether I'm in a village, in the market, or anywhere else, I want to be hands on, enjoying the situation, not documenting it for future reference.

So I hold the little girl whose name I don't know, looking at fields of brush and at small groups of dusty, impoverished people, and thoughts ease into a mellow sense of understanding. I have little to say when I see something beautiful; I have little to think about when I see something harsh. But then this heart somehow starts to understand that no matter how disheartening it is to know so little and be able to do so little, I'm where the Lord wants me to be.