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I'm reading this book called The
Promise of Winter. It's a good, easy read because it's
in short sections with lots of very cool, in fact chilly, black
and white photos with snow in every one. I like books with pictures.
The text by Martin Marty says:
The searcher of her heart recognizes that on any day, maybe
this day, memories of wrongs done and stabbings of guilt can
paralyze: "O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done
are not hidden from you." Yet her cry need not be the last
word. The crier, in danger of being swept along, remembers the
one hand that reaches, and responds: "In the abundance of
your steadfast love, answer me... rescue me... from the deep
waters."
(Yeah, it's a religious book, a book
of brief meditations on passages from the Psalms. And that makes
it not such an easy read. Oh, the writing is done well and all
- it's just that it is so-called "spiritual" writing,
a lable that has always bugged me because work in that genre
is too squishy and vapidly "christian", lacking a certain
necessary grit. But Marty is a respected teacher, a smart guy,
so I'm listening. His meditations here are mini-essays about,
as his sub-title says "Quickening the Spirit on Ordinary
Days and in Fallow Seasons." They make good psychological
sense and good spiritual sense. For me, those two things have
to run together - can't have one without the other.)
This is all about my previous entry
and the feelings I've been having around Terry's death - which
feelings are not primarily about Terry but about myself. I received
some helpful, if not coddling, response from friends. One usefully
suggested that I stop beating myself up for things that everyone
does. I guess I have a tendency to do that...and I hate when
I do that, but I don't always know what it is that everyone does
because there are things that we all do which we never talk about.
So in that entry I suppose I was talking about it. Right after
posting that entry I had occasion to stumble onto William
Blake's aphorism: "Shame is Pride's cloak." It
struck me that by feeling and then expressing my shame, I was
also in some perverse way boasting of it, proud of it? Well,
this kind of thinking creates an impossible mess. Should I be
ashamed of my shame because it's really pride and then tell you
all about it in order to feel more shamefully proud or proudly
shameful? Yikes. I need to get out more often.
Which I did last night. I chugged
off to Rivertree to see The
Talented Mr. Ripley which may not have been the best
choice for my current mood, but which was a good movie for many
reasons. I don't mind going to movies by myself, especially when
I really want to see that particular movie, but when I look around
I see that there are very few singletons in theaters. We are,
I suppose, a suspect lot - as unattached figures often are. Question
marks. Tom Ripley is a question mark...even unto himself.
Yesterday morning, Saturday, I proctored
the entrance exam for a roomful of eighth graders. They were
a pleasant group and I started memorizing some faces for future
reference when they show up in my classes next year, especially
the ones who seemed to be struggling with the test. There is
a big hot discussion occuring among English teachers on the NCTE list serve around the issue
of standardized tests. They say that in public schools these
tests are being used to negative ends for apparently nefarious
purposes. I know why people want to standardize things - I want
it in my food-processing. But why try to standardize people?
I shrink from it in my pedagogy. Pedagogy? Look it up.
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