Essays
10/09/12 05:28
I have been posting to this blog for over five years now. That probably isn’t much of an achievement, but in that time I haven’t missed a single day. The blog has evolved over the years. It evolved from a practice of daily journal writing. I kept a journal as part of the discipline of learning for our sabbatical I n 2006 and early in 2007 I started blogging. Immediately the journals changed because not every journal entry is written with the possibility that someone else might read it. The blog assumes that most days at least one person will read and some days quite a few people read it. I receive comments from members of our church, from friends in other states and other countries that indicate that it is read, at least occasionally, by a rather wide circle.
A second reason for starting the blog was that I wanted to develop my skills as a writer. I have done a bit of freelance writing and editing over the years. Like many other writers, I have aspirations of producing a book. I’ve started several different volumes over the years and I completed the first draft of a manuscript during our 2011 sabbatical. I seem to have gotten bogged down in the rewriting, but there is at least the possibility that it will someday emerge as something worthy of publication for a small audience. Rewriting is a skill that I haven’t honed at this point. I can produce something relatively short, such as a magazine article with the necessary re-writing, but much of what I write are things that I don’t re-visit once they are out there. The blog certainly is one such adventure. What you read here are first drafts of essays that probably will never have a second draft.
From time to time I think about pulling together a “best of the blog” type volume, but to date no such work has been done.
Along the way, however, I think I am beginning to get better at the art of the personal essay, for that is what the blog has become lately.
The personal essay as a literary form had its beginnings – or at least its rise to popularity – through the writings of Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne lived in the middle of the 16th century in France. He was born into significant wealth and was known as a statesman in his time. After his death his massive volume, Essais, continues to be very popular. It is likely that Shakespeare read at least part of the volume and some of the later works of Shakespeare reflect some of Montaigne’s style. What makes Montaigne unique and fascinating to this day is his ability to combine serious intellectual thought with casual anecdotes and even a bit of autobiography. The title of the volume is probably the origin of the contemporary term, essay. A literal translation of the title would be “Attempts.” That is, the book consists of attempts at writing. His essays are first drafts of ideas that he put on paper, but did not himself consider to be fully formed.
In that sense, this blog has become the place of my “attempts.” In it I speculate about a wide variety of topics in an attempt to put down some of my ideas. It is perhaps more an attempt at sorting out my ideas than the creation of new ideas.
The goal, I think, is to achieve some sort of balance between the pursuit of intellectual knowledge and personal story telling. I enjoy both. The key is balance.
We don’t see too many examples of balance in contemporary culture. We have created such a divide between the academy and the community that there are few people who are at home in both worlds. I think that part of this comes from the structure of education that was prevalent in America during my formative years and still persists today. After the Second World War, there was a perceived “race” for knowledge and understanding. The incredible powers unleashed by scientific explorations and demonstrated by the technology of the war led the nation to embrace intellectual education, especially in mathematics and the sciences. The successful launching of a satellite by the Soviet Union was seen as a direct threat. So we were encouraged to pursue science and math in our schooling.
Early in our high school years, there was the division of the school into two “tracks.” The vocational track was seen as inferior: a place for those who lacked intelligence however that was measured. They were not college bound. The other track was for students that were expected to attend college. This resulted in the division of students based on other criteria than intelligence. The ability to take tests is not the same thing as intelligence. Neither is a strong set of verbal skills. There are plenty of people who are intelligent whose intelligence is not expressed in lots of words. It also resulted in a stratification of society based on racial and financial means. The students in the vocational track were often those whose parents had less money. The simple fact that college would be a luxury that could not be afforded by a family sent a student to the vocational track regardless of their natural skills and abilities.
After decades of dividing students into these groups, the two groups developed a great distrust of one another. Those in the vocational track quickly observed that those in the academic track lacked real world skills and common sense. Universities began to be seen by those outside of them as unrealistic communities that could not survive without the practical skills of those in the vocational track. University types labeled those in the vocational track as uneducated and saw them as not being worthy of high salaries or other benefits.
The truth is that we all need balance. We need intellectual balance and common sense. We need book learning and practical knowledge. We need to think high, lofty and philosophical ideas and we also need to know the basics of surviving in a challenging world.
Yesterday I was called upon to deliver a sermon to a church with full pews. I was also called to offer a blessing to our children. I was also called to lead worship in three different care centers. And, in the midst of all of that, I was called to take a plunger to a plugged toilet in the bathroom. Say what you want about all of the other things I did, had we left the toiled plugged up, the rest of the day would have been miserable and we would have forgotten the real reasons we gathered.
So we continue to seek balance between intellectual and practical – between high ideas and personal stories. I keep telling myself that if I miss the balance in a single essay, I might approach it in a series. After all, my essays are only attempts and tomorrow I’ll make another attempt.
A second reason for starting the blog was that I wanted to develop my skills as a writer. I have done a bit of freelance writing and editing over the years. Like many other writers, I have aspirations of producing a book. I’ve started several different volumes over the years and I completed the first draft of a manuscript during our 2011 sabbatical. I seem to have gotten bogged down in the rewriting, but there is at least the possibility that it will someday emerge as something worthy of publication for a small audience. Rewriting is a skill that I haven’t honed at this point. I can produce something relatively short, such as a magazine article with the necessary re-writing, but much of what I write are things that I don’t re-visit once they are out there. The blog certainly is one such adventure. What you read here are first drafts of essays that probably will never have a second draft.
From time to time I think about pulling together a “best of the blog” type volume, but to date no such work has been done.
Along the way, however, I think I am beginning to get better at the art of the personal essay, for that is what the blog has become lately.
The personal essay as a literary form had its beginnings – or at least its rise to popularity – through the writings of Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne lived in the middle of the 16th century in France. He was born into significant wealth and was known as a statesman in his time. After his death his massive volume, Essais, continues to be very popular. It is likely that Shakespeare read at least part of the volume and some of the later works of Shakespeare reflect some of Montaigne’s style. What makes Montaigne unique and fascinating to this day is his ability to combine serious intellectual thought with casual anecdotes and even a bit of autobiography. The title of the volume is probably the origin of the contemporary term, essay. A literal translation of the title would be “Attempts.” That is, the book consists of attempts at writing. His essays are first drafts of ideas that he put on paper, but did not himself consider to be fully formed.
In that sense, this blog has become the place of my “attempts.” In it I speculate about a wide variety of topics in an attempt to put down some of my ideas. It is perhaps more an attempt at sorting out my ideas than the creation of new ideas.
The goal, I think, is to achieve some sort of balance between the pursuit of intellectual knowledge and personal story telling. I enjoy both. The key is balance.
We don’t see too many examples of balance in contemporary culture. We have created such a divide between the academy and the community that there are few people who are at home in both worlds. I think that part of this comes from the structure of education that was prevalent in America during my formative years and still persists today. After the Second World War, there was a perceived “race” for knowledge and understanding. The incredible powers unleashed by scientific explorations and demonstrated by the technology of the war led the nation to embrace intellectual education, especially in mathematics and the sciences. The successful launching of a satellite by the Soviet Union was seen as a direct threat. So we were encouraged to pursue science and math in our schooling.
Early in our high school years, there was the division of the school into two “tracks.” The vocational track was seen as inferior: a place for those who lacked intelligence however that was measured. They were not college bound. The other track was for students that were expected to attend college. This resulted in the division of students based on other criteria than intelligence. The ability to take tests is not the same thing as intelligence. Neither is a strong set of verbal skills. There are plenty of people who are intelligent whose intelligence is not expressed in lots of words. It also resulted in a stratification of society based on racial and financial means. The students in the vocational track were often those whose parents had less money. The simple fact that college would be a luxury that could not be afforded by a family sent a student to the vocational track regardless of their natural skills and abilities.
After decades of dividing students into these groups, the two groups developed a great distrust of one another. Those in the vocational track quickly observed that those in the academic track lacked real world skills and common sense. Universities began to be seen by those outside of them as unrealistic communities that could not survive without the practical skills of those in the vocational track. University types labeled those in the vocational track as uneducated and saw them as not being worthy of high salaries or other benefits.
The truth is that we all need balance. We need intellectual balance and common sense. We need book learning and practical knowledge. We need to think high, lofty and philosophical ideas and we also need to know the basics of surviving in a challenging world.
Yesterday I was called upon to deliver a sermon to a church with full pews. I was also called to offer a blessing to our children. I was also called to lead worship in three different care centers. And, in the midst of all of that, I was called to take a plunger to a plugged toilet in the bathroom. Say what you want about all of the other things I did, had we left the toiled plugged up, the rest of the day would have been miserable and we would have forgotten the real reasons we gathered.
So we continue to seek balance between intellectual and practical – between high ideas and personal stories. I keep telling myself that if I miss the balance in a single essay, I might approach it in a series. After all, my essays are only attempts and tomorrow I’ll make another attempt.