December 08, 2006
Listening for God; Invoking the Listener
Been chipping at this paper ever since I wrote it last spring. I'll present it at College Composition and Communication Conference in New York in March and ISHR (International Society of Rhetoric) in Strasbourg, France in July. Hopefully it will strike up some good chat. . .
In her book, Unspoken, Cheryl Glenn claims that silence functions rhetorically as a strategic agency of power and calls for further research into the rhetoric of silence in religion. Among 18th century Quakers silence was a mystical and rhetorical construct. Silence ensconced a sense of holiness among them yet contingencies complicated their ability to "listen for God."
Ideally among 18th century Quaker reformers, silent worship signified listening and feeling for the divine presence--a type of group mysticism. Yet the silence also served as a complex rhetoric that rebuked what they deemed materialism and "vain language." In the face of an increasing Quaker acquiescence to a colonial economy based on slave trade, Quaker reform ministers such as John Woolman, Elizabeth Wilkinson and John Churchman practiced a worship service of complete silent worship. In silent worship these Quaker ministers saw themsevles and the society receiving God's truth for them. They also saw their role as then prophetically holding Quakers responsible for their actions. Through silence, reform ministers sought for Quakers to dwell under the “holy anointing” and by charism discern God’s appraisal of their ethics and spirituality; silence as the classic check to one's motives.
Yet it plays out quite dramatically in particular instances. In the spring of 1750 John Churchman prophetically performed this kind of silence. Having just embarked from a ship in London after the 3000-mile ocean voyage from Pennsylvania, Churchman chose to sit silent throughout the entire Meeting--the Meeting that was the Quaker equivalent of the Vatican Counsel.
In his journal he rebuked the London Quakers wanting their “itching ear pleased.” But also--and what I found most intriguing--he rebuked them for hungering more for a preacher’s eloquent words than “the instruction of the pure word of life." This rebuke culturally harkened his fellow Friends back to the ethic of George Fox’s inner light: language itself needed a check. For Churchman, “God’s pure word” was ultimately unspoken. Thus Churchman rebukes vain speech that belies an absconding of social justice and the loss of hearing God’s directives. Silence was powerful speech.
Fellow reformer John Woolman also advanced this notion of silence as an extension of plain speech, plain living, and heightened practice of God’s presence but emphasized more how it helped strip away material distractions and aided an egalitarian ethic. For Woolman, silence unburdened one of the “load of unnecessary Expence” —forms, fashions and ceremonies “toward outward greatness.”
Silence freed the community from undue culture-bound status markers. Extending the doctrine of plain speech, both Woolman and Churchman equated the pure word of life as a priori and as such made the unspoken both a rebuke of outward display /inward pride and a call for Quakers to return to listening for God's directives. In silence they hoped their community could "once again" perceive the divine and marry it to humanitarian action. As Churchman said, such silence was necessary “that they might not only hear [the word] but be found doers thereof.”
For the reformers, silent meetings became sites for intensified listening that heightened the expectation of words as prophecy—or a calling out of Truth. They accentuated the normal practice of silence in Meetings seeking God's conviction of Friends to live “lives [of] an inviting Language.” Silence marked a prophetic embodiment of the holiness of God’s present word by the reformer and served as the preacher's petition that a “way be made clear” from the impediments of pride signified in adorned speech.
Posted by wkstaven at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2006
silence is praise
(photo by John Francis McCarthy)
"Silence is praise to you, Zion-dwelling G-d, And also obedience. You hear the prayer in it all." Psalm 65.1
Had a gorgeous silent retreat on Monday with my friend Dan Studt. We listened to water lapping the shore of Skaneateles Lake. All was enveloped in translucent steel grays; leaves down, water at ebb, and clouds hugging the steep meadows on the shoreline across from us.
We spent an hour listening for God. I closed my eyes, prayed and breathed. I imagined myself stepping out of a birch bark canoe here 300 years ago--that first foot on terra firma. And I thought I would be one of many feet that would step onto that bank over time. Like the perky diving ducks I laughed to see--the hooded mergansers whose mother's mothers swam and dove here, I’m here to take my dive, pop up, and pass on. Time is inherited, our lives are like vapors passing, God's hovering hand over a spring meadow.
I felt boyishly humbled and reveled in that tired, outdoorsy silly smile you get when you hike for miles. I shared space with creation and felt again asked to leave a legacy of time well spent; a life lived honestly in toughness and joy.
Waiting upon G-d--seeing life within G-d's timeline of eternity
Snow geese as one wing, glistened by the morning sun.
Posted by wkstaven at 02:31 PM | Comments (3)
November 18, 2006
"Hey--what happened to my favorite T shirt?": Shrunk Rhetorical Space
As Patricia Bizzell notes/hints in her latest C’s (College Composition and Communication) article, for decades it’s been “uncool” to use classroom debate as a pedagogical exercise. There are good reasons for this. In a class debate, too often students assume the binary of either/or trumps other kinds of thinking. Bizzell says this either/or binary closely correlates to a person’s social background and their predilection toward one position. Students’ friends, church life, family, and online community can limit the rhetorical give and take available in the classroom, if they are not allowed to acknowledge these influences.
Similar to students' predilection to adopt the either/or binary in class debates, students easily adopt the either/or binary when viewing very emotionally heated film clips that are not adequately foregrounded by the teacher or balanced by the showing of clips with the opposing view.
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Posted by wkstaven at 06:05 AM | Comments (2)
September 08, 2006
me and my gang
Know the Rascal Flats song? It's a fun one. "We got hippies, gypsies, freaks and geeks/High class women in Daisy Duke denim/Bangin' on gongs and singin' our songs/Dude named Elrod jammin' on an Ipod." Sounds about right for the mixed makeup of people in any college class. Of course I'm not exactly Rascal Flats and you guys aren't exactly fans coming out for a concert. Nonetheless, I still bump into “formers” who still hang with friends they made in my classes. And I'm jealous for your professional success as well. I've seen an independent film maker (Light Works) catch the vision in a creative writing class I taught, saw a former student serve as an intern this past summer with a Congresswoman, and have a student beginning his work as a Hollywood video editor. Life is too short not to risk getting to know each other and to make something out of this class. At minimum when we all invest in the class, it becomes more than just a place for me to serve up knowledge; it becomes a furious Middle Eastern market of exchange--people playfully and seriously bartering passionate ideas. That's my goal.
Now to the task—here’s what I want to cover in this entry: where we are, plans for next week, and focus for project one.
Where we are: I think for the most part we have an open class spirit in both classes. I’d say 90% open, which isn’t bad for this point in the semester. Most of you haven't shut off your brains or thought yourself too brilliant for class yet. Hang in there for the writing component of class and keep bringing fire in your analysis of the articles. We've defined rhetoric and begun to build a "portfolio" of knowledge about conversion by reading key articles. In this class, you'll get techniques of rhetoric steeled and refined by great thinkers across the span of 2000 years. Most of you seem to understand that my passion is to help you harness their/our techniques of persuasion, identification, and memory making.
For Monday (9/11), Engl101 students should be ready to bring heat to the debate. Specifically reference the article by Adler: what works, what doesn't, and why. Kudos to John and Rachel and the justices for asking smart specific questions that drive us toward this analysis. As I mentioned, please be ready to write a paragraph offering your specific analysis of how the text works or doesn't work (in other words show_your_mind). On Monday I will also review how to write summaries with you.
Wrt 105 crew: on Tuesday please be read to both positively and negatively critique John Sutton's article by using some of the ideas that Sally McFague offers in her article. I'm going to split us into small groups at the beginning of class to help you synthesize your independent analyses but won't give you much time to come up with some strong points. Some participation points are on the line. Please be ready to bring it.
In terms of the Writ 1, I can guess that some of you are already having some anxiety over what to write about and what format to use in writing the essay. For ENGL 101, we will take the next two weeks to brainstorm questions you might ask and answer in your essay. I will lecture briefly on brainstorm techniques and some essay writing conventions that we can pursue and challenge. For WRT 105, the last part of TU's class and much of TH's class will focus on the brainstorming/invention strategies and essay organizational techniques. We'll debunk the mythology that the five-paragraph essay is most beloved by college professors. If you've ever felt pinched by this form in high school, hope is on the way. And if you perfected the form and would like to use it, there's room for that too as long as we understand that it's more helpful to allow one's ideas to shape and determine your essay format.
This project calls on you to start the essay with a savvy question and then passionately defend it. After you've justifies the reason/purpose for asking the question, work through evidence from at least two of our texts that would support, and complicate the answer to your question. Ending this essay with a sense of further questioning is fine, even invited.
Everyone please reread the essay guideline sheet (not just for harvesting the format and length information). On Monday (ENGL 101) and Tuesday (WRT 105), I'll look for you to ask specific questions about the project based on your reading of the guideline sheet.
Life is good. Let's keep making it that way.
Posted by wkstaven at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2006
pink and poor
So Micah says to me: "Daddy, my bike broken." Micah is three.
I tell him I'll buy the nuts and washers to attach the training wheels to his hand-me down pink bike. And I did. The guy at Wrightway Hardware smiled as if he had a three-year old himself. But probably not a pink bike.
Funny being poor (relatively). I grew up fairly rich--at least in access. And I still am rich in culture and knowledge. But having taken the pay cut to come from a position as a PR Director in charge of five teams, two employees, a sizeable budget, and 50 volunteers . . .well you can pretty much read my periodic "numbers envy" for the good old days. Going for one's doctorate is not commensurate with making the big bucks.
Given. And even so, I feel good about pink bikes in a few regards. My boys are learning that some points of gender labeling don't matter. Being in the country, not near any other boys, and living relatively on the cheap has its advantages in that regard: I don't have to do battle with major BMX and trick-bike envy. My boys have no neighbors to compare the pink glow of Micah's bike with the ride of the latest "Mosh" or "Mongoose" free style thrasher. And hey, he's three, so how much of a Mosh bike does he need? MTV will look to latch on to him soon enough.
That's the other thing. I'm getting into a Quaker ethos here. When is a thing a thing? I mean, when is an object relative to the time and love shared between us as fam' beyond the market? I say pink is beautiful (it doesn’t' have a flower basket, ok) and I'm even up for him playing with Maya's littlest pet shop dolls, if we're all in the mix playing together. Because the Mongoose--and MY version of such a toy--would have kept me later at work and from the joy of hanging with my kids, lovin' on my wife, sharing moments that come out of that peace with the students and insights for the doctorate. Pretty simple, isn't it: money and toys don't add up.
Of course it's not that simple in another way. Poor scholar pouring over books instead of playing with the kids is another conundrum. But I can slot those times of reading books to the perimeters of the day. If I was still working the PR stint (the communications machine that sucks you in as human fuel), I would not have as flexible hours as I have now, pursuing the doctorate and work in academics. Probably the last bastion of reasonable capitalism in America: some place where you don't necessarily have to work 50+ hours. (hate those surveys showing Europe knowing the value of time and its workers getting it).
Short term poor and pink can work: I'm high-fivin my beatifuls.
Posted by wkstaven at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2006
the experiment
I rested with my hands palms up on my knees. It was 5 a.m. I hadn’t slept for an hour. The mangle of hotel bed sheets lay behind me. I felt the temptation to quit the whole experiment and go over and adjust the knobs on the air conditioner. But the palms seemed to slap down well on my knees, and I was too tired to move.
Leaning forward, I said silently, “Talk to me. Tell me who to pray for.” I heard nothing. I chased flashes of light off the back of my eyelids. “Okay, so is there an image or phrase you want to give me today?” I saw it. Like a twist turn banking hard on a roller coaster—whirling, then freeze-framed:
In my mind’s eye, I saw the man with crumpled blankets alongside a dirty pool protesting—waving his bony hand to shun the man standing next to him. The moment from the Bible. Jesus, the man standing next to him. The man with crumpled hotel sheets waving him off. Me saying no I didn’t want to get up. I wanted my woven mat sealing its mud marks on the chipped tile. I wanted to retain who I was, not to walk. I didn’t want to accept an uncrippled forgiveness. Who are you to tell me to take up my mat and walk?
Posted by wkstaven at 11:40 AM | Comments (1)
April 26, 2006
inviting mystery as instruction
I munching on a bagel; she sculpting back a wisp of hair that had fallen across her forehead. We were sitting downstairs at a table in Hendrick's chapel, talking deeply about what it means to cross boundaries of diversity--what it meant for me as a 38 year-old instructor and Ph.D. student to understand her as a 20something person; undergraduate student, lesbian, and sojourner kicking through life.
She mentioned almost blithely how as a a junior in high school she had had her hair shaved to raise awareness for a cancer fighting organization. I felt probed by the pause that followed. How willing would I be to allow an aspect of my outer beauty to be cut for a cause that didn't afffect any of my family relatives?
"What was the reaction?'
"It was funny. A third of my class thought it was because I was going butch. A third of thought I had cancer. And a third knew my main reason."
"Your family's reaction?"
"My Dad didn't know what to say. He finally just said he was worried I'd look like a freak when going for college interviews."
"Did you feel you had to explain yourself?"
"No, after a while, not really."
It made me think of and mention Quaker John Woolman who in the late 1750s became convinced that he should not wear dyed clothing because slaves made the dye. The irony was that a non-dyed hat was in fashion at the time, his motive was often misunderstood and he construed as a "fashion-plating" Quaker. He too, like Michelle, felt compelled not to explain himself.
Seems right. Solidarity with suffering is rightfully mysterious and a private public unspoken. The holiness of pain that no one else can truly say "they know" should be honored by not trying to give register to oneself with words.
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Posted by wkstaven at 06:06 AM | Comments (7)
April 03, 2006
to be the fool
Last night I narrated portions of our church's Easter Cantata. I found myself weeping after delivering one text. No, I didn’t weep on stage, but I found myself weeping off stage, spent experiencing the words: "Can anything ever separate us from the love of God? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble, disaster, are cold, hungry or threatened with death? No. As the apostle Paul stresses, 'I am convinced' that neither nothing can separate us from His love. Death can't, life can't. Angels can't and demons can't. Our fears today, our worries for tomorrow, even hell itself can't keep God's love away. Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God."
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Posted by wkstaven at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2006
the contemplative WC and presence and absence in ancient rhetorics
Could not resist the WC wordplay. And at onset, I confess partial coverage here of two exemplary panel sessions I attended at the 2006 Conference on College Composition and Communication. Nonetheless here is a summary of points from a panel on dealing with fundamentalist students in writing classrooms, writing centers and sciptoriums, and ancient Hebrew rhetoric.
In "Writing and the Word: Religion in Composition Spaces" (Friday at 9:30 G.05), the presenters were Traci Freeman, Director of the Excel Writing Center at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Christopher LeCluyse, Visiting Professor at Southwestern University, and Sue Mendelsohn, Director of the Writing Center at Saint Louis University.
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Posted by wkstaven at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)