Winner at Jacob's Well

I keep tabs from time to time on the web site for Jacob’s Well, a church in Kansas City planted by an acquaintance of mine, Tim Keel. In perusing the MP3 files on the Jacob’s Well site, I noticed that earlier this year they hosted Lauren Winner, whose three public speaking engagements were included in the MP3s. While each of Winner’s three talks are well worth listening to, I was particularly struck by the one on “Sex, Marriage, and Singleness.”

In discussing Matthew 22:23-33 , Winner notes that the passage rankles and confuses happily married people:

This passage is to my mind on of the most revealing moments in the gospel about the radical nature of Jesus’s call to us, because it suggests not that married people won’t see their spouse again, it suggests that marriage is not the defining relationship of even a marital relationship, and that the defining relationship between all of us, the relationship that will obtain throughout time and beyond time into eternity is the relationship of brother and sister in Christ. […] If that confuses what you think about marriage, just try to think about what it means for parenting. […] It would be pretty wild and radical to think that what my job was as a parent would be to raise my sister or brother in Christ, and that that would be my fundamental relationship. Weird.

More generally, the talk focuses on both marriage and singleness and the lessons each has to teach the church. It concludes with a quotation from an Eastern Orthodox theologian, Paul Avdokomov (sp?). The quotation is about marriage and singleness, but—more interesting to me—it’s also about calling and vocation more generally.

We should think of vocation as an invitation, a call from the friend. I accept it today in the contours of my present situation, until the time when I will perhaps see more clearly. One’s vocation is found exactly on the crest between necessity and creative freedom, along the line of faith which reveals the direction as its free and strong confession grows. One’s entire vocation, whether to marriage or singleness, is an option. It is an answer to a call that has been heard. It can simply be the present condition. It is never a voice that clarifies everything. The dimness inherence in the life of faith never leaves us. There is one thing we can be sure of, that every vocation is accompanied by a renunciation. One who is married renounced monastic heroism. A monk renounced the married life. The rich young man of the gospel is not invited either to marry or to enter a monastery. He had to renounce his wealth, his having, his preferences, in order to follow the Lord. However, in all cases of deprivation that scripture speaks of, grace offers a gift, and out of a negative renunciation it creates a positive vocation.

Folks interested in listening to the entire MP3 can find it here.

One Thing Leads to Another

First, gotta love the Fixx. Another one of those weird convergence moments hit yesterday. To explain it, I need to go back. Last year, I applied for and was one of three persons interviewed for a position at a large state university. The committee decided not to make a hire, which, objectively, I can see was a wise choice for everyone involved. While I believe I could have done the job well, it meant redefining my professional life in ways I wasn't sure I wanted to pursue so singlemindedly. And, from their end, I didn't have some qualifications they desired--like a publication record or administrative experience at a university with a larger, more diverse student body. (Of course, I could have simply come across as a moron. One doesn't really get feedback after such interviews.) In any event, I don't know that I would have been a good fit for the job nor the job for me. But, as I told some friends, "It's one thing to not want to go to the party. It's another to not be invited."

Fast forward back to the present. After reading Wendell Berry's essay "The Unsettling of America" and beginning to consider what it might mean to pursue "settlement" in my life, my profession, etc., I stumble across the web to find a brief announcement about the aforementioned position being filled. I wasn't experiencing much in the way of "settlement," I'm afraid. Mostly indignation and dissatisfaction. Not because of the person who was hired, but because I wasn't.

So what do I do? I start Googling. I skim a couple of articles from the new hire's admirable vita. Insecurities surface. Indignation. Resentment and regret over all the choices that led me to where and who I am. The prideful part of me starts to reassure myself that I could have the new hire's vita if I really wanted it. I consider downloading the new hire's picture and using it as a motivational wallpaper on my computer's desktop. I start thinking about the school loans that could have been paid with the salary I would have made. Should have made....

About half way through the second article, however, I begin to realize that--admirable as the articles are--they aren't the kind of thing I really want to do. They are the kind of specialized scholarship that simply doesn't excite me. Perhaps I've been thoroughly converted to the liberal arts mindset, but I still hope to find a way to write (and perhaps publish) regularly and productively without having to select a narrow academic specialty.

So, I never downloaded the new hire's photo for my wallpaper (but I won't rule it out just yet), and I'm in the process of re-establishing an awkward peace about the whole thing. The peace comes from knowing that my insecurities and indignation arise from a prideful desire for a salary and position that aren't really connected with what I want to do. The awkwardness comes from the questions that linger after reading Berry--questions about the distinctions between "settlement" and merely "settling."

Settlement

Okay. I’ve decided that I really need to get (back?) into the habit of using this blog. Given the fact that I’m reading a lot of Wendell Berry for a presentation at the 2007 Midwest Writing Centers Association (MWCA) regional conference in October, this decision means that this blog is going to seem like a Berry blog for a while.

After talking with Liberty about my summer reading, I’ve decided that I’m going to alternate between Berry’s collection of short stories titled That Distant Land and his collection of essays titled The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry (ed. Norman Wirzba). I just finished reading the essay titled “The Unsettling of America,” in which Berry sheds the dichotomy between conqueror and victim for the terms exploitation and nurture.

Let me outline as briefly as I can what seem to me the characteristics of these opposite kinds of mind. I conceive a strip miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the old-fashioned idea or ideal of a farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter’s goal is money, profit; the nurturer’s goal is health—his land’s health, his own, his family’s, his community’s, his country’s. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order--a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks of numbers, quantities, “hard facts”; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind.(39)

Berry prefers these terms, in part, because they “describe a division not only between persons but also within persons” (39). When I consider this division in my professional life, I have to confront the fact that I serve--in some capacity--“an institution or organization.” Thankfully, my role as professor and director of a writing center place me in the service of the people who come to the university. I get to be one of the nurturers (I hope) within the institution. But, I can’t help wondering when and how I slide into the role of exploiter. For example, when do I find myself thinking in terms of the writing center (as institution) rather than the writers we seek to serve? When do I find myself thinking of my students in terms of “how much and how quickly [they] can be made to produce”? To what degree does the nature of the institution (generally or specifically) enable me to think, act, and live as nurturer rather than exploiter?

A classroom of students can respond just as unpredictably as a piece of land, and that response is tied to a whole bunch of variables--some of which are outside of the farmer’s/teacher’s influence. But the analogy breaks down when one considers that those students--individually and collectively--have a will that one doesn’t find in a piece of land. Students, too, can find themselves wrestling with the divisions between exploiter and nurturer. Thus, in addition to self-examination, one must end up asking how to help shape a community that tends toward nurturing.

Berry asserts that the answers (to his questions, at least) "are to be found in our history: in its until now subordinate tendency of settlement, of domestic permanence" (45). What does "settlement" look like for a professor? For a student? For a writing center? For communities--like institutions of higher education--that depend upon recurrent waves of students with an ambitious and decidedly unsettled eye toward the horizon?

Remembering

One of the things I love about my life and the purposes and people it includes, is the potential for convergence--between...what? ...plotlines? ...themes? When one's life is dominated by story, a certain intertextuality just seems to occur more often. I suppose the same happens for other folks with other jobs, but the frequency of those moments just seems higher due to my life as a teacher and a reader.

Tonight, during (literally) a couple minutes of reading while I was waiting for my wife, who was waiting to switch laundry before coming to bed, a couple of plotlines intersected. And in this case, as in many others, Wendell Berry helped usher me to the crossroads.

First, as part of the board for the Midwest Writing Centers Association (MWCA), I'm working on the proposal review stage for our conference in October 2007. My own proposal focuses on literary worlds and how literary places--like Berry's Port William--might generate questions or perspectives that could inform our work in writing centers.

Second, even though there is still a solid month and tons of grading and a million other things to be done before this semester is over, I've been wrestling with that melancholy which arises when I realize students whom I admire, respect, and treasure--students who come as close to being friends as the barriers of age and institutional position will allow--are on the verge of leaving campus. Such melancholy is wholly selfish, of course, but I suppose that is part of what makes it notable.

Then, tonight, I picked up Berry's collection of short stories titled This Distant Land, mostly to preview quickly before bed, in hopes of getting an early start on actually developing the project for the conference. I got through the epigraph, and now I'm staying up late to write this blog post. Here's the epigraph, which will probably end up becoming an inscription on a graduation card or two. The epigraph is a passage from Berry's novel titled Remembering, and the formatting is in the original.

Oh that I should ever forget We stood by the wagon saying goodbye or trying to & I seen it come over her how far they was a going & she must look at us to remember us forever & it come over her pap and me and the others We stood & looked & knowed it was all the time we had & from now on we must remember We must look now forever Then Will rech down to her from the seat & she clim up by the hub of the wheel & set beside him & he spoke to the team She had been Betsy Rowanberry two days who was bornd Betsy Coulter 21 May 1824 Will turnd the mules & they stepd into the road passd under the oak & soon was out of sight down the hill The last I seen was her hand still raisd still waving after wagon & all was out of sight Oh it was the last I seen of her that little hand Afterwards I would say to myself I could have gone with them as far as the foot of the hill & seen her that much longer I could have gone on as far as the river mouth & footed it back by dark But however far I finaly would have come to wher I would have to stand and see them go on that hand a waving God bless her I never knowd what become of her I will never see her in this world again

Having typed it out, I wonder if it seems a bit too much for the wholly expected and not-nearly-so-permanent departure of students from a university. But it resonates somehow. It reminds me of E. A. Robinson's poem "The Sheaves," which always dominates my thinking during times of seasonal change.

ETF #1: Aslan's Forum

As I begin this project of Embracing the Funk (ETF), I'm going to start with Aslan's Forum--partly because it's on my mind today, and partly because its contribution to the funk is minimal.

Aslan's Forum is a readers' forum at Oak Hills Baptist Church. The forum, originally facilitated by Wendell Hoffman, was a big reason why my wife and I chose to attend Oak Hills. Moving from the Dallas metroplex to Sioux Falls, I had pretty much given up on the possibility of having a thoughtful, intellectual reading group, or something like Denton Bible Church's Lay Institute. But, when we visited Oak Hills, the sign for Aslan's Forum was stading smack-dab in the middle of the hallway. The group became a real blessing for me.

The forum continues to provide a number of blessings, as I get to enable and participate in an ongoing discussion of books that both interrogate and support the Christian faith. In some ways, Aslan's Forum is what I wish teaching could be--interested and engaged readers gathering to learn from one another. (On the best of days, that's what the classroom can be like.)

Aslan's rarely contributes to the funk. There are, of course, moments when one wishes turnout was greater, but I'm thankful for the core group of regular attenders who allow me to learn from them. There are, also, times when I think I ought to be reading other poets, criticism, etc., in order to reinvigorate my writing life. But the books and the discussions associated with Aslan's Forum provide the sort of nourishment that shapes my thinking about my faith and my world, thereby serving any writing I do, rather than detracting from it. And, the forum comprises my most consistent means of serving and ministering inside the church, which I think is vitally important.

For those who might be interested, the reading list for 2006-2007 is included below. Anyone interested in participating can obtain more details from the web site for Aslan's Forum.

• October 2006: Stephen Prothero's American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a Cultural Icon
  
• November 2006: Kathleen Norris's Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
  
• December 2006: Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz
  
• February 2007: Andrew Beaujon's Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock
  
• March 2007: Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
  
• April 2007: J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
  
• May 2007: C. S. Lewis's The Four Loves
  

Embrace the Funk

Thursday, after a very busy day of committee work, I received an email from a colleague noting that I looked tired and thanking me for a list of committees and concerns to which I have been contributing. Then, today, I attended the South Dakota Festival of Books, and--as always happens when I attend such events--I came away with this huge sense of...well, I've described it elsewhere as a "funk."

My colleague's email inadvertently highlighted a list of invovlements and activities that are important, but not necessarily a part of my job, and certainly not a part of the larger vision I would like to be pursuing for my career and my life. I have fallen back into the very conditions I promised myself I would be escaping. Here's a passage from my tenure portfolio, submitted and approved last year:

As I began my career at USF, I envisioned myself initiating and maintaining a writing center while most of my more research-oriented activities centered on my life as a writer. Instead, five years later, I find my program of professional development shaped largely by the wonderful complexities of writing center work and the joy of teaching a variety of coursework within the English department. My writing life, on the contrary, has taken a back seat. The pendulum has swung too far, and my goal looking forward is to renew the pursuit of the balance.

Three weeks into a new semester, it's become increasingly clear that I've yet to "renew the pursuit" of anything, much less balance. Indeed, I appear to have strayed further from the goal, taking on involvements that aren't obligations, that aren't likely to be productive, and that aren't--or shouldn't be, really--my job.

Thus, over the course of the next week or so, I'm going to embrace the funk, as I attempt to evaluate my involvements and figure out what to winnow. If you're on a funk-free kick, then you'll probably want to avoid this blog for a week or so.

A Remarkable Thing

Well, today is a better day, as the pre-semester funk has abated for now. One reason for this was the chance to talk with members of the freshmen class who chose to participate in USF's freshmen reading program. Last-minute preparations for our discussion of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead reacquainted me with the following quotation from the novel:

A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even in the most private thought--the self that yields the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider. (45)

That is a remarkable thing, and one so easily forgotten in the rush of syllabus construction, and photocopying, and scheduling, and anticipating the mountains of papers coming my way over the next few months.

I know the parallel between preaching and teaching is potentially problematic for many. (And for me, depending upon how one defines/characterizes those two endeavors.) But, as I conceive the two, the parallel seems to resonate. Almost eighteen months ago I found myself considering a similar notion.

Pre-Semester Funk

The fall semester gets underway here at USF on Wednesday, and I've suddenly been struck with the pre-semester funk. I've been excitedly working on syllabi and planning out courses. I've been looking ahead at all of the projects and opportunities that the semester holds. And I was (and am, mostly) looking forward to everything. But then....

1) I received an email from John Poch, a treasured friend who was writing to encourage me--to goad me, actually--into applying for a Bush Foundation artist fellowship. I placed an advance order for John's new book and then left the Bush Foundation stuff to check for another day.


2) My wife and I screened Akeelah and the Bee to see if the kids were ready for it. (Not yet.) At the heart of the movie is this quotation by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

3) One of my closest friends emailed an update on his writing project, stating that it wasn't going to be done for this fall (as originally intended), but that he was writing regularly and felt good about the sudden burst of discipline in his life.

4) Following my friend's email, I looked up the guidelines for applying for the Bush Foundation artist fellowships, only to find that I haven't published enough in the last six years to qualify.

Suddenly the semester ahead seems too full. Too encumbered by the duties and obligations (and yes, the joys) of teaching, and serving, and administrating, and ...committee-ing. I'm suddenly in a funk, and these two poems come surging back into my mind. The first by Rilke. The second by James Wright.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We never knew his fantastic head,
where eyes like apples ripened. Yet
his torso, like a lamp, still glows
with his gaze which, although turned down low,

lingers and shines. Else the prow of his breast
couldn't dazzle you, nor in the slight twist
of his loins could a smile run free
through that center which held fertility.

Else this stone would stand defaced and squat
under the shoulders' diaphanous dive
and not glisten like a predator's coat;

and not from every edge explode
like starlight: for there's not one spot
that doesn't see you. You must change your life.

Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

ENG 200: Wilfred Owen

As I was re-reading the poems for class, I found myself thinking about Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" ("It is sweet and fitting"). At the most superficial level, I suppose one could catalog my response to the poem under the category of "the more things change...." One can't help but be struck by the relevance of this poem (written in 1920) within the context of our current role in Iraq and around the world. Given our culture's general lack of an historical mindset, the poem's emphasis one chemical warfare--as opposed to tanks or mortar rounds, or some other more conventional weapon) seems hauntingly prescient. Except, of course, it wasn't. Chemical warfare was a part of WWI just as it is a part of contemporary war.

More specifically, I found myself really admiring the opening spondees in the first two lines. I can't help but read those lines with something of a sneer, in part because of that insistent rhythm at the beginning of those lines.

Also, the following lines were compelling:

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. (13-14)

As I reread the poem, I the words "panes" and "thick green light" for some reason linked in my brain with the media-saturated nature of our current war. In a way, we're all watching kids die through the "misty panes" and "thick green light" of our television sets. Except, of course, that we're not. We're not watching kids die. We see explosions and bombing raids, but we're isolated from the not only the dangers, but also the meaningful perception of those dangers. We don't have to walk along "behind the wagon," and thus we remain--over 80 years later--still willing to tell our kids that "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." For sure, we say so with less enthusiasm than we might in another time, but the message is largely the same.

gad

Peanut Butter for a New Semester

Probably the greatest thing about living the academic life (well, a good thing, anyway) is the opportunity for a new start every semester. New books. New students. Since my students in ENG 222 will be required to maintain a blog as a reading journal, I get the chance to revitalize my own blogging practice.

We're also trying a new experiment. We're using a wiki for the first time this semester. Students will post information connected with their lit. circles to the wiki, creating sort of a mini-reference book for the semester, etc. I'm anxious to see how it unfolds.

I chose to use PBWiki. They provide a free account. (Premium accounts are also available.) And the interface seems to be quite straightforward, which I'll need since both me and my students are covering new ground.

Let the games begin.

Aslan's Forum: 2005-2006

For the past couple of years, I've facilitated a readers' forum at Oak Hills Baptist Church. The forum, titled Aslan's Forum, was started in the late 90s by Wendell Hoffman.

The forum was a big reason why my wife and I chose to attend Oak Hills. Moving from the Dallas metroplex to Sioux Falls, I had pretty much given up on the possibility of having a thoughtful, intellectual reading group, or something like Denton Bible Church's Lay Institute. But, when we visited Oak Hills, the sign for Aslan's Forum was stading smack-dab in the middle of the hallway. The group became a real blessing for me.

Now that I'm facilitating the group, the hardest part of the job is compiling the list of books to be read during a given year. I get several helpful suggestions from group members, but much of the process consists of me putting together a list of books that I find compelling, and then tweaking the list in hopes that it is perceived as intellectually rigorous and compelling without being too academic. I'm never sure if I succeed.

The reading list for 2005-2006 was generated with a loose theme centering on the senses. Four of the seven books have some connection with one of the senses. Of course, some of those books are more closely connected with the senses than others. In any event, here's the reading list for the next year. It goes public in September. Anyone interested in participating can obtain more details from the web site for Aslan's Forum.

• October 2005: C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
  
• November 2005: Philip Yancey's Rumors of Another World
  
• December 2005: Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday
  
• February 2006: Henri Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son
  
• March 2006: Robin Jensen's The Substance of Things Seen
  
• April 2006: Michael Schut's Food & Faith: Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread
  
• May 2006: Richard Mouw's The Smell of Sawdust
  

There Goes My Life

I dropped the kids off with the grandparents today. It's the first time they've gone away on their own. Usually if both my wife and I have to be out of town or something, then one of the grandparents comes to South Dakota to stay at our house. In any event, as I was driving home--like that scene from the movie Better Off Dead, Kenny Chesney's "There Goes My Life" came on the radio. (Those unfamilar with the song can at least take a look at the lyrics here.) While the song is about a young man who became a dad as a teenager, and I didn't become a dad until my 30s--and under much different circumstances, I suspect it is a song that resonates with most fathers of little girls (of all ages). At least, I hope it would on some level.

I'll admit to being a guy who tears up at some odd things. For instance, Bill Murray's Scrooged makes me well up every time. Chesney's song hits me in a similar fashion, especially on days when I've just started driving north while the kids are riding south. It was a bittersweet three or four minutes.

Those minutes did, however, revive my memory of a web-based writing project that crossed my brain a while back. One that I've considered using as sort of a special-topics-creative-writing-over-Interim course. Given the impact that music has on our lives, the way songs can function almost as bookmarks allowing us to flip back to particular emotional places in our past, I have this notion of a web site called "The Synoptic Jukebox."

The interface to the site would function like one of those old countertop jukeboxes, where you flip the pages to see the various songs available. When readers select a particular title, they would be met with a collection of writings connected in some way with the song. The writings wouldn't be about the songs--at least not directly--but about those emotional places that we associate with various songs. Hall and Oates's "Sara Smile," for example, might connect with an account of a high school dance where some goofy young teen (to remain nameless) requested the song in order to orchestrate the perfect moment to ask a certain Sara to dance. But, perhaps the DJ at this dance, who said he'd be glad to play the song, never got around to doing so, and the goofy young teen--waiting for the perfect moment--never asked the girl to dance. That's just one hypothetical example.

The intersections of music and experience seem such fertile ground that the site could grow rapidly, and given a sufficient number of voices, could become quite fascinating. Regional difference. Generational difference. Etc.

gad

Llamas, Tigers, and Ducks

My wife is out of town for a week, so the kids and I went to the zoo this morning. It was probably the single most impressive visit I've ever made to any zoo. The tigers (a mother and two "teen-age"? cubs) were frisky. Wrestling. Pouncing on one another. Chasing. Even, at times, standing up on their hind legs swatting at one another like sparring partners. In the truest sense of the word, it was quite awesome.

Of course, when we got home (after a trip through McDonald's), I asked my kids about their favorite things at the zoo. My son (3) informed me he didn't have one. My daughter (5) rattled off the following list:

• the mama duck with chicks that ran across the rhino's pen.
  
• feeding the ducks and swans.
  
• the duck that half bit her finger while she was feeding it.
  

No tigers. No bears. Not even the llama-like creatures getting it on while all the parents snickered nervously and the children asked "Why is he making that noise?"

My daughter, the more conversant of the two kids, then asked me about my favorite thing, at which time I reminded them about the tigers. Her reply was, "Oh, yeah."

The conversation got me thinking about the extent to which learning is often serendipitous. My kids may never see tigers playing so actively at any other point in their lives, and chances are they won't remember this moving sight. Had the event occurred five years from now, the impact may have been different. Similarly, I've heard folks say of any number of novels, "You have to be at a certain point in your life to really enjoy it." While I suspect that line is often used as some combination of excuse and encouragement, I also suspect that there can be some truth in it.

The point I guess, is this: The feeling I had today with my children was not entirely unlike the feeling I sometimes get with my first-year composition courses. Some of the students are "ready." The events in their lives have brought them to a place where they are receptive to and appreciative of the discoveries and the challenges and the rewards of writing. Others--even while academically and intellectually prepared--see the course as a hoop to jump through. (Perhaps because we've framed it that way?) Certainly, I was in these same shoes as an undergraduate. In such instances, I find myself wishing for something along the lines of a "ghost of Christmas future," some way to provide a bit of perspective that hasn't yet been generated in the course of one's life to date.

gad

The Funk

Okay, this isn't going to be much of a post. I've been dealing with some sort of funk for the last three days--coughing, intermittent fever. Not debilitating, but bad enough that all I want to do is sleep.

The last three days were supposed to be spent scraping my house in preparation for a new paint job, and engaging in the blogging phase of the DWP E-Writing Marathon, and finishing up some comments for an independent study that I'm overseeing at the moment. I've done little of any, and I've found myself thinking some about my students, their illnesses and absences, and my reactions to them. I simply don't remember being sick very often when I was an undergrad, and after the last three days, I'm quite thankful for that. Combine this funk with my 20-year-old-self and a 16 credit hour load, and I think it's fair to say that I would be just about ready to make my run on Jeopardy.

gad

Dakota Writing Project Electronic Writing Marathon

Well after nearly three months without posting to this blog, I should have a flurry of activity over the course of the next week. In the summer of 2004, I began my association with the Dakota Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project. This summer, I'm helping to facilitate an "electronic writing marathon," a six-week opportunity for teachers in the DWP network to explore various electronic writing media and their potential applications for pedagogy.

This week, our focus is on blogs, so I'll be posting at least three times in the next few days. (I'm going to try to prevent this initial post from being one of the three.) Hopefully this flurry will spill over into the rest of the year ahead.

gad

Disheveled in the Pulpit

Okay, I've taken far too long to post to this blog, even if I'm talking to an audience of one. Early in this semester, Kirby--in his Monday-night class on calling--asked us to describe last semester in a word, and our hopes for this semester in a word. My two words were "fog" and "joy," respectively. Well, this semester has become a fog as well, and perhaps in more pronounced ways.

My epigraph for this blog--taken from Annie Dillard--emphasizes the connection between verbalization and seeing. Well, I haven't had/made the time for verbalizing (as indicated by the gap between posts), and as a result, I'm not seeing very clearly right now. I'm very much in the fog.

Today was one of those days when I didn't even have the time to get naked (see the post titled "Naked in the Pulpit," below). Nor was I hiding behind an impressive if metaphorical set of threads designed to perpetuate in others some perception of control, authority, or even competence. I was disheveled today.

Part of the mess was the relative apathy that hits both students and faculty alike at this time of year. Part of it was a completely unproductive weekend. Also, by attempting to not let work overwhelm me, I've managed to let work overwhelm me. Tons of papers to grade. Lots of other administrative type stuff to be done as well. Plus the onslaught of more personal obligations and events that surface toward the end of the school year. To misquote Jerry Reed, in that masterpiece of American cinema--Smoky & the Bandit--"I've got a long ways to go, and a short time to get there."

I don't mind being "naked in the classroom." Indeed, that's my goal, really. Today, however, was one of those days where I simply couldn't get out of my sweats.

Now that I've run a perfectly apt metaphor into the ground, I'll try to get some grading done.

Naked In the Pulpit

Let me throw out another link to some stuff by Tim Keel. This time, it's an article titled "Naked in the Pulpit," published in Leadership Journal. The article reflects on Tim's movement from a more planned, scripted, didactic manner of preaching toward a more personal, intimate, relational approach. As I'm not a preacher, I find the article interesting mostly for the potential parallels to be drawn between Tim's reflection on preaching and my own manner as a teacher.

For example, consider the following:

If the only kind of speech we use is speech that deals with comprehension, then we will only talk about that which we understand. As a preacher, I am invited to describe a reality that I am just beginning to get the hint of. That means being willing not to know, to stumble over language so I might tell a story. I'm not so interested in merely providing comprehension; I'm interested in describing reality, even if that leaves room for confusion.

In many ways, this same interest is what most motivates me as a teacher. It is this interest that pulled me back to graduate school to begin with. On the good days, this goal comes close to being realized--at least for me. (You'd have to ask my students whether or not I ever really come close from their perspective.) On the not-so-good days, this goal seems miles away. I find myself wondering about my ability to pursue such a goal, to overcome the various forces--cultural and personal--that can inhibit the pursuit (e.g., the assessment culture, NCLB, etc.).

Self Split

Now, in my fifth year at USF, I'm finally getting to do something that I thought I'd be able to do when I first accepted my position--namely, take advantage of the opportunity to sit in on classes that feed my whims and questions-of-the-moment. My wife regularly comments--half-jokingly--that if we hadn't gotten married, I'd still be in school somewhere, pursuing a degree in something. She's probably right.

This semester, I'm sitting in on Dr. Kirby Wilcoxson's course titled Spirituality, Calling, & Service. In tonight's class, we engaged in something called "class splits," where Kirby presents the class with certain choices, and each individual in the room indicates his or her choice by moving to one side of the room or the other. The final question of the night was something like the following: "Those of you would like to hear audibly God's account of what will happen in the next ten years of your life, move to this side of the room. Those who wouldn't want to know, move to that side."

I moved to the "wouldn't-want-to-know" side. As we discussed our reasons for choosing to know or not to know, we quickly saw that part of the issue may have been the way the question was worded. Would it have made a difference if God were revealing merely the destination, rather than the entirety of the next ten years? Then, one of the individuals on the "want-to-know" side asked why we wouldn't want to know? Afterwards, I sat half listening to the rest of the discussion, trying to clarify my own thinking.

As best as I can recall, my first thoughts in reaction to the question centered on the joy of discovery, and the avoidance of limits. There is something in me that cherishes the ability to learn and discover, the freedom to drop one subject and follow another if my interests dictate. I think this is one reason why I was drawn to an emphasis in creative writing throughout graduate school. Rather than being an end in and of itself, the study of creative writing was, for me, the study of a means--the means to explore ideas, experiences, memories, emotions, and discover what might be learned, to discover what I think. To arrive, in short, at what Robert Frost calls "a momentary stay against confusion."

Somewhere within all of that reflection, I found myself moving (albeit metaphorically) to the other side of the room. I thought back to Matthew 7:9: "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone." God's design for my life would presumably reflect, develop, and utilize my personality traits, habits of mind, strengths, weaknesses, dispositions. Given that assumption, I suspect that if God spoke his 10-year plan to me--especially if it focused on the larger goal rather than the specific path--it would be necessarily vague, allowing me to follow my passions and retain those joys of discovery and whimsy. Emphases might shift. Specific behaviors might need to change. Motivations would certainly be called into question. But, for the most part, I suspect an audible expression of God's plan would address--and perhaps even highlight--those longings that moved me toward the "wouldn't-want-to-know" side of the room.

Jayber Crow: The Second Time

My Interim course concluded by reading Jayber Crow, a novel by Wendell Berry. It's my second time through the book, and different things jumped out at me this time around. Here's the passage that has continued to linger:

My mistake was not in asking the questions that so plagued my mind back there at Pigeonville, for how could I have helped it? I can't help it yet; the questions are with me yet. My mistake was ignoring the verses that say God loves the world.

But now (by a kind of generosity, it seemed) the world had so beaten me about the head, and so favored me with god and beautiful things, that I was able to see. "God loves Port William as it is," I thought. "Why else should He want it to be better than it is? (250-51)

All of us have heard folks talk about how being a parent opens up a new understanding of God's love. In my four years of fatherhood, I've sensed this to be true. Felt it to be true. Berry has helped me to understand how it is true. Our society is one that tends to equate love with an uncomplicated acceptance. The key word there is "uncomplicated." Love includes acceptance. There is no question that I will accept my kids in any situation. I can't help but to do so. But that acceptance is complicated. There's more to it. It is because of my love for my kids that I want them to "be better." That desire for betterment doesn't negate acceptance. The two are intimately tied to one another. The presence of one to the exclusion of the other is necessarily a diluted love that more poorly reflects God's love for us.

Practice

For the next Aslan's Forum at Oak Hills Baptist Church, we're discussing Lauren Winner's Mudhouse Sabbath. Having grown up Jewish and converted to Christianity in her college years, Winner reflects upon Jewish practices that she misses, "places where Christians have some things to learn"(ix). The following passage convicts me every time I read this book.

Jews do these things with more attention and wisdom not because they are more righteous nor because God likes them better, but rather because doing, because action, sits at the center of Judaism. Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity.(ix)

Certainly, I'm thankful that my ability to have a relationship with Christ is based upon faith rather than works. And, certainly, in a mature Christianity the dichotomy between belief and practice becomes almost a false one, as the two undergird and support one another. I do think, however, that perhaps the pendulum has swung a bit too far in one direction. I fear that most of us--myself included--too easily dismiss the spiritual disciplines meant to enrich and deepen our faith and steady us in those times when belief lags or wavers. Combine this tendency with R. R. Reno's discussion of acedia (see previous post), and we risk cultivating a faith that remains incredibly abstract and qualified.

As an academic, I believe in critical distance. I sometimes wonder, however, if our embrace of critical distance is pursued as a corrective to an un-practiced belief. I suspect the conviction I feel from Winner's passage is sparked by the likelihood that critical distance (which comes fairly easily) must be combined with spritiual discipline (much more difficult) if our belief is to purposeful, tangible, and vital.