Walt Whitman

Today in American Literature class (just as a forewarning, it is highly likely that a lot of my future posts will start with this phrase. This class really gets me thinking. :)

So, today in my American Literature class, our professor read to us sections of Walt Whitman's poem called "Song of Myself." He introduced it by pointing out that Whitman was the "Poet of America," and that he embodied ideal American radicalism.

Okay, that's cool.

So usually when I read poems by myself as a homework assignment, I try to read into it and make sense of it in my head (it usually ends up just going over my head completely). However, when I'm in class and the teacher starts talking about it, it seems the poem has the most obvious meaning on earth.

So that's what happened here. The professor started reading it and adding explanations along the way that made me feel like I was the worst English major ever. It was alright for a while. Whitman was talking about cool stuff like abolition of slavery and the equality of man. I was like "Yeah, man. You're pretty cool."

Then it got kinda weird.

Apparently Walt Whitman's idea of radicalism meant tearing down the veil of human sexuality (including homosexuality). Alright then.

We went on further in the seemingly endless poem. I wasn't really bothered until we got to these lines: "Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from...This head [is finer] than churches, bibles, and all the creeds."

Now THAT made me squirm in my seat. The first time I read it I thought, "Wow. He's equating himself with God." It's not really unusual in poetry to do that so it wasn't really shocking, but I read it a few more times....Whitman's not only equating himself with God, he's suggesting that he is better than God.

Um....what?

Just wait, it gets better.

Near the end of the poem, Whitman says,

"I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,

And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is...

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,

 (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?"

I had to blink a few times to make sure I saw that right. It made me a bit angry. It didn't really help that my professor often interjected with comments like "Isn't that just a beautiful thought?" throughout the entire poem.

The more I thought about it though, I became very sad. What a desperately lost soul he was!! This is something that I've been thinking a lot about in this class....Americans have so abused the freedom we have in this country. The freedom to praise God without persecution is an amazing blessing, but people have fallen deeply into self-focused, individualistic lifestyles in the freedom they possess here. Our culture cultivates and encourages it though. Whitman was a perfect model of how extreme one can become in abuse of freedom. He not only embodies radicalism...he embodies a fallen sinner whose self-focused mindset has led him to believe that man does not need God because man has himself.
How sad it is to read the thoughts of a soul so lost which has never tasted the joy that comes from knowing God!!

But then I thought about how I could have just as easily been another Walt Whitman. If God had allowed my sin to just keep on going, I could have been just as bad, if not worse. But God has saved me from enslavement to sin, freeing me from the freedom in America which cultivates and promotes self-importance and self-focus. We as believers are no longer lost souls! Oh praise Him!

Hallelujah, we are found!!!