Knowing then seems personal...

Antony Gormley's "Sound II" in the Winchester Cathedral crypt,
Winchester, UK, with tour guide, Angela Forder, in the background.


Knowing then seems personal,

not just because I am a person 

but because coming to understand anything

seems to require the same curiosity, 

humility, and discomfort

that is required to know another person.


But here too we find a kind of contradiction. 

Knowing is complicated by my neediness, 

blindspots, assumptions, privileges.

There is no me that is not also 

me the grandson, me the father, 

husband, neighbor, friend. 


And yet I am distinct. 

My story and my way of seeing 

are not universal. 

Some things are my responsibility

and some things aren't.


It takes something that doesn't fit my current stories 

to make me stop and notice what I didn't know before.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How can we talk about character and ethics?

Image
The Oklahoma County Courthouse facade,  facing Park Avenue in  Oklahoma City, Okla.  Several  role plays in the  new prison curriculum lacked realism, she said . And she wanted to know how I got a job writing character-training material for prisoners. It was family day  for the faith and character pods at the Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ Mabel Basset Correctional Center. She had a tear tattooed in the corner of her eye, and I had a feeling her...balogna...meter was finely tuned. The DOC had contracted with my then employer, Character First, to see whether character-based programming could―in connection with anger-management, cognitive behavior change, and other programming―change the culture for long-term prisoners. Apparently it was obvious I didn't have much experience in prison. But her question triggered two questions in my mind. First, on what basis can we talk about ethics? Because we talked about various character qualities―aspects of perso...
Read more

We walk through loneliness...

Image
We walk through loneliness and fight  these broken battles in our brains. Fear strangles light  and chokes the air. We inhabit sorrow, darkness, toil; Oppressed by what we choose and do not choose. Death promises relief And drives all other thoughts away, We hunger, thirst,  and wander to not be alone. And yet we breath and taste  and make and come to know. Previous  §  Next
Read more

Growing up in Pentecostal churches...

Image
The pulpit at Stadtkirche Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany,  altarpiece by Lucas Cranach in the background. Growing up in Pentecostal churches,  there were missionaries and miracles  and messages in tongues.  There were revival meetings where God's power was supposed to move.  And one evangelist that prayed for me  to receive the “Holy Spirit,”  by which I think he meant  that I should speak in tongues.  And I discerned I wasn't very spiritual. Previous  §  Next
Read more