Sunday, November 29, 2015
Week 13
Well, I didn't have any ideas at the end of class on Tuesday about what to do for a service learning project next semester, so I figured I'd give it some time to see if anything came to mind before I blogged about it. That didn't really work out so well. A whole Thanksgiving Break has passed, and I didn't spend a single minute of it thinking about any sort of service learning project. I can't say that I'm surprised, though. To try to come up with something worthwhile, then, I've been reading through a few of others' blogs, and not many people seem to have much more inspiration than I do, so I'm finding comfort in the fact that I'm at least in good company. Anyway, since I barely know the requirements, goals, or limitations of this project, I don't have any groundbreaking ideas, but when do I ever? If I had to throw something out there, I would suggest that I further my involvement in where I already volunteer, GatheringPoint Church of the Nazarene. I don't know how I could connect my service there to this class, but, like I said, I don't know the limitations of this project, anyway, so I'm sure I could find a way. All I know is that I love serving there, it pertains to my major, and there is plenty of service and learning to be done there. At this point, that's all I got.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Week 12
Am I the only one who thinks that there was even less to write about this week than there was last week? I mean, we at least had good ol' Wendell Berry to discuss and evaluate last week, which is always fun, but this week, on the other hand, it almost seems as if we were slapped in the face with a couple of grim novels about unfortunate people struggling to make ends meet when the crap hits the fan in all areas of their lives. Oh, yeah, the novels were about farming, too.
Where is the value in that? At this point in the class and amid this current global episode in human history, must the bleakness of this world be reiterated? I think we get it by now. Hence, a hopeless depiction of humanity is surely not what we need to be exposed to right now, so why, then, are we being exposed to it? What is our goal in this? Are we increasing our appreciation of the earth by continually inspecting its imminent brokenness? Are we trying to become one with the earth and its Creator by becoming familiar with creation's problems? Doesn't this all seem a bit counter-intuitive? I could hash out my beef with the seemingly overwhelmingly pessimistic course material again, but anything I have to say about that subject has already been said in previous blog posts. I'll lay off of it this week and try to branch out in a bit of a different direction.
There was one thing that I did find rather apparent in both of the dark, depressing novels from this week: the value and implications of our interactions and relationships with others. In John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, he portrays people having no means of surviving the day other than relying on each other to help provide for one another; people helping other people thus constitutes as healthy relationships, according to Steinbeck. Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, on the other hand, portrays a very different side of human interactions and concludes that people abusing, killing (or at least attempting to), abandoning, and sleeping with other people constitutes as unhealthy relationships. I'd buy that. That makes pretty good sense to me. In either novel, though, relationships form the characters' personalities and affect their experiences throughout the story. In essence, then, I felt the novels were as much about man's relationship with fellow man as they were about man's relationship with the earth.
So what?
Well, maybe this truth is what ends up reconciling me with this class this semester. In these novels, when the characters are faced with difficulties, the adequate response, as implied by the authors, seemingly is to rely on others to survive troubled times, so maybe that's the solution to surviving these "troubled times" in this class. Throughout this semester, we've all been exposed to the same brokenness; we've all been together when we've seen the "crap hit the fan." So what ought our response be? Well, if we apply what these novels seem to imply, then we ought to stick together amid this abundant negativity to avoid being overwhelmed.
To me, this means that I ought to get out from behind this computer screen when voicing my concerns and actually attempt to become a part of the community of our cohort. This doesn't mean that I'm suddenly going to be raising my hand every six minutes in class; I think it's fairly obvious that that's just not who I am. Rather, like it's been established in class, it all goes back to a change of character more than it does a change of behavior. Thus, I need to fix my attitude. I need to stop viewing class discussion as a time of overly harsh criticisms and unnecessarily pessimistic analyses that lead to my disinterest in participation in the community and instead think of it as an opportunity to enhance my relationship with "fellow man" in order to avoid becoming exhausted from dissecting the class material on my own. Even if the thoughts I conjure when alone are meaningful and productive, there's only so much I can gain when distancing myself from the majority of our cohort. What can I say, though? Sometimes introversion gets the best of me.
I know I always seem to be learning a new lesson different from that which was presented in class each week, and I know that seems like I'm avoiding learning from the actual course material. Do know that that's not the case. There's just only so much that I can learn about agriculture and ecology, so I'm simply doing my best to find principles in the class sessions that apply directly to my life and help me come to peace with my difficulties and disagreements with this semester's class.
Where is the value in that? At this point in the class and amid this current global episode in human history, must the bleakness of this world be reiterated? I think we get it by now. Hence, a hopeless depiction of humanity is surely not what we need to be exposed to right now, so why, then, are we being exposed to it? What is our goal in this? Are we increasing our appreciation of the earth by continually inspecting its imminent brokenness? Are we trying to become one with the earth and its Creator by becoming familiar with creation's problems? Doesn't this all seem a bit counter-intuitive? I could hash out my beef with the seemingly overwhelmingly pessimistic course material again, but anything I have to say about that subject has already been said in previous blog posts. I'll lay off of it this week and try to branch out in a bit of a different direction.
There was one thing that I did find rather apparent in both of the dark, depressing novels from this week: the value and implications of our interactions and relationships with others. In John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, he portrays people having no means of surviving the day other than relying on each other to help provide for one another; people helping other people thus constitutes as healthy relationships, according to Steinbeck. Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, on the other hand, portrays a very different side of human interactions and concludes that people abusing, killing (or at least attempting to), abandoning, and sleeping with other people constitutes as unhealthy relationships. I'd buy that. That makes pretty good sense to me. In either novel, though, relationships form the characters' personalities and affect their experiences throughout the story. In essence, then, I felt the novels were as much about man's relationship with fellow man as they were about man's relationship with the earth.
So what?
Well, maybe this truth is what ends up reconciling me with this class this semester. In these novels, when the characters are faced with difficulties, the adequate response, as implied by the authors, seemingly is to rely on others to survive troubled times, so maybe that's the solution to surviving these "troubled times" in this class. Throughout this semester, we've all been exposed to the same brokenness; we've all been together when we've seen the "crap hit the fan." So what ought our response be? Well, if we apply what these novels seem to imply, then we ought to stick together amid this abundant negativity to avoid being overwhelmed.
To me, this means that I ought to get out from behind this computer screen when voicing my concerns and actually attempt to become a part of the community of our cohort. This doesn't mean that I'm suddenly going to be raising my hand every six minutes in class; I think it's fairly obvious that that's just not who I am. Rather, like it's been established in class, it all goes back to a change of character more than it does a change of behavior. Thus, I need to fix my attitude. I need to stop viewing class discussion as a time of overly harsh criticisms and unnecessarily pessimistic analyses that lead to my disinterest in participation in the community and instead think of it as an opportunity to enhance my relationship with "fellow man" in order to avoid becoming exhausted from dissecting the class material on my own. Even if the thoughts I conjure when alone are meaningful and productive, there's only so much I can gain when distancing myself from the majority of our cohort. What can I say, though? Sometimes introversion gets the best of me.
I know I always seem to be learning a new lesson different from that which was presented in class each week, and I know that seems like I'm avoiding learning from the actual course material. Do know that that's not the case. There's just only so much that I can learn about agriculture and ecology, so I'm simply doing my best to find principles in the class sessions that apply directly to my life and help me come to peace with my difficulties and disagreements with this semester's class.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Week 11
It doesn't seem like there is particularly a lot to say about class this week. I'm sure most everybody in our cohort is experiencing the same difficulty I am right now in trying to compose a blog post about only a couple of presentations over only a couple of Wendell Berry novels that only a couple of groups of students were actually assigned to read. I could reflect on the material of the novels, but Berry's thoughts in these novels seemed to be fairly consistent with his thoughts presented in the other novels of his that we've read over the course of the semester. Hence, any dissection of these novels that I could perform would simply be a repetition of any discussion our cohort has had about Wendell Berry, Andy Catlett, or Port William, so, for the sake of originality, I'll try to go a little further.
I don't think it's a huge secret anymore the issues I've been experiencing with this class as of late. After all, I kind of threw the whole system out of whack this past week by accepting Dr. Case's challenge to move to the front row of the class (my apologies to those whose seats Jayme, Joe, and I stole), so my efforts in creating thoughts about this class, working through those thoughts, and actually applying those thoughts to my life have been made rather clear. Hence, I think it's only fair that I further attempt to "connect the dots," to quote my last blog, with the new information and experiences from this past week's class. The problem, though, is that the only new dot that I have to connect is what little bit more of a glance into the works of Wendell Berry we received this past week, so it seems as if there isn't much more to contemplate. However, I think there might be an important takeaway from the works of Berry as a whole.
My biggest problem with what we've been doing in this class all goes back to our motives; I can't help but consider what is in actuality an informative, motivational presentation of solvable crises a depressing, degrading evaluation of the presence of inevitable dangers in the world. I've just been having difficulty grasping why we're doing what we're doing because a lot of it seems to be done in vain. Like I said, though, I feel like I've made that clear. Hence, when looking at the works of Berry this past week, I wasn't so much concerned with learning about what it appeared he was doing as much as I was about learning about why he was doing what he was doing; I wanted to evaluate his motive in order to better evaluate mine. In doing so, I found one truth so plain and simple that I honestly can't believe I didn't consider it before: Wendell Berry does what he does simply because he wants to.
Yes, that is a simple truth, but let me elaborate. Berry, like all people, has certain passions and certain gifts; he obviously has a deep passion for the earth and for agriculture, and he certainly has the gift of writing. Thus, he combines the two to create a lifestyle that embodies who he is and makes an impact on the world in which he lives. It's really that simple. He's merely in tune with himself enough to know what problems of the world he deeply wants to solve, but since he's also aware of which ones he truly can't, he's able to prevent himself from becoming overwhelmed with the many tasks at hand. He doesn't observe the earth's seemingly endless number of imminent crises (like we sometimes seem to be doing in this class) and, as a citizen of the earth, feel inherently obligated to act upon every single prompting to do good in a world of pain and suffering. He only acts when he wants to, but his wants are shaped by a deep understanding of himself and of the world around him, not by mere desire.
I know that this is a dangerous philosophy to follow. Only acting when one wants to do so is not necessarily good advice, especially to people who can be as lazy as I and my generation can be sometimes. However, that is not necessarily the lesson that Berry's life teaches; Berry, rather, models a proper formation of one's wants that encompass one's innermost being. After all, last week I concluded that life is "not about doing the best that I can as much as it is about being the best that I am," so this week only served as affirmation of that discovery. Being who I truly am will not only serve as the best method of countering the evil that is present in the world, but it will help form a man who will become better equipped to counter the evil that will be present in the future. Overall, then, perhaps this class hasn't taught me as much about agriculture, ecology, food production, and stewardship as much as it has taught me about myself. Perhaps my difficulty in processing this information and seeking answers to my questions is because I don't, in essence, "want" to solve the problems presented in this class. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but if I apply my observation of Berry's life to my own life, perhaps my passions and gifts don't exactly align with these countless ecological crises. Maybe, deep down, I "want" to act to leave an impact in many other areas, and the evils that have been presented in this class are thus clashing with the evils to which I am actually called to act against, leaving me confused and overwhelmed.
Again, I know this sounds like a cop-out, and I'm not necessarily saying that I want to not want to resolve these issues in agriculture and food production, if that makes any sense. All I mean to say is that Wendell Berry has gotten me thinking about what my wants truly are, and I would encourage others to do the same.
I don't think it's a huge secret anymore the issues I've been experiencing with this class as of late. After all, I kind of threw the whole system out of whack this past week by accepting Dr. Case's challenge to move to the front row of the class (my apologies to those whose seats Jayme, Joe, and I stole), so my efforts in creating thoughts about this class, working through those thoughts, and actually applying those thoughts to my life have been made rather clear. Hence, I think it's only fair that I further attempt to "connect the dots," to quote my last blog, with the new information and experiences from this past week's class. The problem, though, is that the only new dot that I have to connect is what little bit more of a glance into the works of Wendell Berry we received this past week, so it seems as if there isn't much more to contemplate. However, I think there might be an important takeaway from the works of Berry as a whole.
My biggest problem with what we've been doing in this class all goes back to our motives; I can't help but consider what is in actuality an informative, motivational presentation of solvable crises a depressing, degrading evaluation of the presence of inevitable dangers in the world. I've just been having difficulty grasping why we're doing what we're doing because a lot of it seems to be done in vain. Like I said, though, I feel like I've made that clear. Hence, when looking at the works of Berry this past week, I wasn't so much concerned with learning about what it appeared he was doing as much as I was about learning about why he was doing what he was doing; I wanted to evaluate his motive in order to better evaluate mine. In doing so, I found one truth so plain and simple that I honestly can't believe I didn't consider it before: Wendell Berry does what he does simply because he wants to.
Yes, that is a simple truth, but let me elaborate. Berry, like all people, has certain passions and certain gifts; he obviously has a deep passion for the earth and for agriculture, and he certainly has the gift of writing. Thus, he combines the two to create a lifestyle that embodies who he is and makes an impact on the world in which he lives. It's really that simple. He's merely in tune with himself enough to know what problems of the world he deeply wants to solve, but since he's also aware of which ones he truly can't, he's able to prevent himself from becoming overwhelmed with the many tasks at hand. He doesn't observe the earth's seemingly endless number of imminent crises (like we sometimes seem to be doing in this class) and, as a citizen of the earth, feel inherently obligated to act upon every single prompting to do good in a world of pain and suffering. He only acts when he wants to, but his wants are shaped by a deep understanding of himself and of the world around him, not by mere desire.
I know that this is a dangerous philosophy to follow. Only acting when one wants to do so is not necessarily good advice, especially to people who can be as lazy as I and my generation can be sometimes. However, that is not necessarily the lesson that Berry's life teaches; Berry, rather, models a proper formation of one's wants that encompass one's innermost being. After all, last week I concluded that life is "not about doing the best that I can as much as it is about being the best that I am," so this week only served as affirmation of that discovery. Being who I truly am will not only serve as the best method of countering the evil that is present in the world, but it will help form a man who will become better equipped to counter the evil that will be present in the future. Overall, then, perhaps this class hasn't taught me as much about agriculture, ecology, food production, and stewardship as much as it has taught me about myself. Perhaps my difficulty in processing this information and seeking answers to my questions is because I don't, in essence, "want" to solve the problems presented in this class. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but if I apply my observation of Berry's life to my own life, perhaps my passions and gifts don't exactly align with these countless ecological crises. Maybe, deep down, I "want" to act to leave an impact in many other areas, and the evils that have been presented in this class are thus clashing with the evils to which I am actually called to act against, leaving me confused and overwhelmed.
Again, I know this sounds like a cop-out, and I'm not necessarily saying that I want to not want to resolve these issues in agriculture and food production, if that makes any sense. All I mean to say is that Wendell Berry has gotten me thinking about what my wants truly are, and I would encourage others to do the same.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Week 10
This post is going to expand on my post from two days ago, so if you haven't read that one, you might not follow what's to come. This is my attempt to "connect the dots," to quote Dr. Case. Fair warning: I'm not sure what kind of a picture is going to appear after all of these dots have been connected, but I'm going for it anyway.
The world is a broken place. That's clear, that's certain, and it's rather unfortunate, to be honest. I understand that that's a very depressing thought with which to begin a blog post, but it's a thought that really embodies all of what we've discussed throughout the course of this semester. For instance:
The world will be massively and dangerously overpopulated within the next fifty years. What are we going to do about it?
Climate change is imminently becoming a concern for our well-being, and we have no idea whom to blame. What are we going to do about it?
Cocoa plantations in Africa thrive off of child labor and human trafficking. What are we going to do about it?
The church has lost sight of what Sabbath-living is, and it's destroying our quality of life. What are we going to do about it?
That's been the guiding question through a lot of this: what are we going to do about it? Brokenness, after all, seems like it constitutes the need for repair, right? But does it really? Are we supposed to actually do anything about any of this?
Consider this: like I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm an RA in Nesbitt this year (one of the "dots" I'm trying to "connect"). About a week ago, one of my residents, who has great difficulty connecting with others, opened up to me about his struggles with depression. He's going through some ridiculously dark stuff, but the only thing I could do in the moment of his confession was listen. I have no special abilities to lift a man out of the "pit," to quote the Psalms, so all I had to offer was my receptivity and solidarity. Did that brokenness constitute a need for me to repair it? Certainly not.
However, since that moment, his life hasn't exactly improved all that much. Surely he has become more comfortable with me and with his life in the dorm, but none of the problems in his life have been solved. He has since come to me again and further revealed to me the depths of his depression, but I still lacked the resources to heal him. In this moment, instead, I had to advise him to seek professional help because even though I am not called to repair his brokenness, I pray that somebody out there is.
Does brokenness truly constitute a need for repair? Well, let me answer that question with another question: if it doesn't, then what are we doing with our lives? If we aren't fixing anything that needs to be fixed, then are we leaving any impact on this world around us? Are we following the call of the Gospel if we don't react to the brokenness we see?
I think maybe the biggest gray area with this debate is the definition of "repair." To go back to my example as an RA, even though I was unable to "repair" the brokenness in my resident's life in a classical sense of the term, who's to say that I didn't repair something? Surely my presence had some effect, and the fact that my heart broke for his allowed me to embrace his pain completely. That's all the repair I could offer as his RA, so maybe it's not about doing the best that I can as much as it is about being the best that I am.
Let me relate this to Wendell Berry's Remembering so that this post actually has something to do with what we did in class this week. Andy Catlett finds no self-value because of his predicament; he's lost his hand in an accident, and now he can no longer perform his task, farming, to the best of his ability. He focuses too much on doing that he loses sight of the importance of being. It is only when he comes to the realization that life's inherent value does not lie in what he is able to do that he finally finds peace.
This is what Wirzba was trying to say in his novel. This is what Bouma-Prediger was arguing what the problem was all along. I get that, so it's not like I'm saying that I've come to this revolutionary discovery (because I haven't), but I think that I have a different answer to my original question.
Does brokenness constitute a need for repair? Berry, Wirzba, and Bouma-Prediger might argue that no, it doesn't. Like I've just established, our reaction to brokenness in the world needs to embody our innermost being, not our rashest action, so we don't need to be overly concerned with repairing what we see as broken. However, as I've discovered in my life as an RA, our innermost being can bring about repair just as our rashest action can, just only in a different sense. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a broken world; we don't need to go looking for brokenness, so if who we are as a person has any positive influence in our respective sphere of influence, then yes, I'd say that we are responsible to repair what is broken. We may not be responsible for righting the darkest wrongs of the world because our value of a person lies not in what we do; it lies in who we are.
Let me summarize the dots that I've connected:
The world is broken. This class and my life as an RA make that abundantly clear.
I can't do hardly anything about the brokenness I see in this world, and that frustrates me, which is why I'm frustrated with this class (in essence).
Berry, Wirzba, and Bouma-Prediger all say that it doesn't matter what I do; it only matters the kind of character I have, which will, in turn, affect my behavior.
My character, even though it doesn't seem to "repair" the brokenness like some people think brokenness should be repaired, does plenty good because it is all I have to offer to a broken world. Thus, I don't have to be concerned that being inactive goes against the call of the Gospel.
Those are the dots. It doesn't seem like much, but it's what I've got. What kind of picture does it make? Well, to me, it kind of looks like the cross. All I can do is be the best that I can be as a student, an RA, a Christian, and a human being and hope that the cross will repair whatever I can't.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Making Leman-ade
This post is not one to be graded for this class; however, it has everything to do with this class. This really is just a much needed vent for me, so don't feel obligated to read it, although I would be happy to receive feedback. Anyway, to go along with the title of this blog, I've felt like life, metaphorically speaking, has been giving me a lot of Lemans lately, and it's about time I reciprocate and, well, make Leman-ade. So here it goes:
For those of you who don't know, I'm an RA this year in Nesbitt Hall, and I've discovered that, at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, RAs, especially in a freshman dorm, are really the glue that holds a lot of this campus together- the "unsung heroes" of Olivet, if you will. I don't mean to say that RAs are responsible for keeping this boat afloat, but you would have to agree that without RAs, a lot of what goes on behind the scenes at Olivet would fall apart. Hence, RAs are exposed to a lot of what occurs in the lives of the students here, and I'm certainly no exception. This week, especially, I've seen a great deal of brokenness, failures, and pain in several people, both in my dorm and across campus, and I've been carrying it with me all week. Being responsible for thirty-five freshmen can become overwhelming, but I won't go into the details. Ergo, it's been a really dark week; my heart has been truly broken by knowing the amount of suffering that surrounds me, knowing that I can't do hardly anything about it, and knowing that it is only a fraction of the suffering that exists even just at Olivet. It reminds me of a scene from Apollo 13 where Ed Harris' character asks his crew about the team of astronauts in space, "What do we got on the spacecraft that's good?" After a moment of silence, one of his crew members answers, "I'll get back to you, Gene."
That's what the life of an RA can be like, from time to time. All of the problems that we see cloud the positive aspects of this life, and we fail to recognize what's good. Of course, this is only when the life of an RA is at its worst; it's not always this bad. However, I've found that this class, believe it or not, contributes to this feeling of overwhelmingly imminent suffering. I mean, we spend so much time simply discussing things that are wrong with the world seemingly just for the sake of discussion. This week in particular, when my mind was flooded with countless depressing thoughts that had consumed me for the majority of the week (as mentioned above), once I knew that we would be having a guest speaker come in and, in essence, explain more problems of the world merely from a different perspective, I tuned out what he was saying before he even started speaking. Seriously. I have no idea what he said in the entire class period. If a professor is reading this and wants to dock my grade because I'm admitting it, go ahead. I really couldn't care less because I am openly saying that I was and still am in no mood to point out any more of life's problems. I'm done with it, so I don't expect to give any effort in discussing anything in class that feeds my pessimistic tendencies. I get enough of that from my job.
On that note, let me offer a disclaimer before I continue: this is not a cry for help. I'm not saying that the depressing aspects of my job are causing me to spiral into depression myself. I'm doing just fine. It is my job to handle things like this, and I am well equipped to do so. Actually, I thoroughly enjoy my job as an RA, so please don't read this as a plead for someone to come talk through my life with me and lift me out of this dark state. That's not what this post is about. This post isn't even about me; it's about this class.
Obviously, I understand that this class is not an end itself but rather means to an end. We aren't being fed this information about countless crises in the world just to increase our knowledge; we're supposed to take this information and do something with it, but what exactly are we supposed to do? The class itself is very static and discussion-oriented, so it's not like it's equipping us to act on the course material; heck, it's barely even encouraging us to do so. Furthermore, even the bulk of the class, the discussions, is often empty. I don't think it's a big secret the amount of students who neglect the required readings prior to class, and based on my conversations with many other students within our cohort, we, as a cohort, are very open about our ability and proneness to B.S. a class discussion and a blog post. So to go back to my question about the class material that has clearly failed to provoke meaningful thought in many students, what exactly are we supposed to do?
Even though that's a fair question, that's not the question I want to emphasize. Here's a better one: what are we doing? Seriously. I mean, based on my experience in this class, we who have spent more than fifteen minutes of serious contemplation over the class material are merely self-inflicting pain on the human race in an overly-critical self-evaluation of our treatment of the earth with no intention of actually applying the results of our self-evaluation to our behavior due to a lack of instruction of how to properly do so. Am I the only one who feels that way, and if not, am I the only one who's tired of it?
Over the course of the semester, I've often blamed this thought process on my inability to see the point of what we're studying. I've thought that I merely haven't been giving enough effort in this class, and I hence missed the point because of my apathy and laziness. I mean, even though I've done the required readings, attended the required class sessions, and written the required blog posts, I did just zone out during an entire class period, after all. I don't think this is the problem, though, because even when I've found that I give the most effort in this class and am commended because of my ability "to leave thought provoking comments on several students' blogs" (to quote an email from one of our professors) and to be "straight forward" (to quote a message from another student in our cohort), I've discovered that all I'm really doing is finding points with which I disagree and being overly-critical of the arguments of both the authors of the course texts and the students on whose blogs I comment. Since when is being an intellectual synonymous with being harshly analytical? Why must we be negative and, frankly, pretentious in order to have meaningful discussion? Not to mention that all of this makes me really look forward to next semester's class, entitled "Issues in Society." That class sounds like it'll be a joyride...
If this is what it means to be an honors student, then I am almost ashamed to be one. I don't want to label myself as a man who sits down and bashes the human race for the sake of having and voicing an opinion. I certainly don't want to label myself as a man who fakes critical thought in order to earn a certain grade, so if a professor is reading this and thinks that my thought process has completely missed the point of what we're doing in class, then, by all means, give me an F, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend like this class has enriched my mind with a plethora of life-altering thoughts. If that's what it means to be an intellectual, then I don't want to be one, and I am willing to admit that. If that's what it means to be a Christian, then I think we've missed the point of the Gospel. If that's what it means to be human, to go back to the theme of this class, then I'm disappointed in what we've become.
This is what my experience has been in this class this semester, and I understand that I am severely generalizing in my analysis. Honestly, though, I haven't entirely hated this class, nor do I hate the Honors program as a whole, but I certainly haven't enjoyed myself this semester.
So that's my Leman-ade, and I understand that it's pretty sour, but I guess that means I'm just turning out to be a pretty sour Leman.
For those of you who don't know, I'm an RA this year in Nesbitt Hall, and I've discovered that, at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, RAs, especially in a freshman dorm, are really the glue that holds a lot of this campus together- the "unsung heroes" of Olivet, if you will. I don't mean to say that RAs are responsible for keeping this boat afloat, but you would have to agree that without RAs, a lot of what goes on behind the scenes at Olivet would fall apart. Hence, RAs are exposed to a lot of what occurs in the lives of the students here, and I'm certainly no exception. This week, especially, I've seen a great deal of brokenness, failures, and pain in several people, both in my dorm and across campus, and I've been carrying it with me all week. Being responsible for thirty-five freshmen can become overwhelming, but I won't go into the details. Ergo, it's been a really dark week; my heart has been truly broken by knowing the amount of suffering that surrounds me, knowing that I can't do hardly anything about it, and knowing that it is only a fraction of the suffering that exists even just at Olivet. It reminds me of a scene from Apollo 13 where Ed Harris' character asks his crew about the team of astronauts in space, "What do we got on the spacecraft that's good?" After a moment of silence, one of his crew members answers, "I'll get back to you, Gene."
That's what the life of an RA can be like, from time to time. All of the problems that we see cloud the positive aspects of this life, and we fail to recognize what's good. Of course, this is only when the life of an RA is at its worst; it's not always this bad. However, I've found that this class, believe it or not, contributes to this feeling of overwhelmingly imminent suffering. I mean, we spend so much time simply discussing things that are wrong with the world seemingly just for the sake of discussion. This week in particular, when my mind was flooded with countless depressing thoughts that had consumed me for the majority of the week (as mentioned above), once I knew that we would be having a guest speaker come in and, in essence, explain more problems of the world merely from a different perspective, I tuned out what he was saying before he even started speaking. Seriously. I have no idea what he said in the entire class period. If a professor is reading this and wants to dock my grade because I'm admitting it, go ahead. I really couldn't care less because I am openly saying that I was and still am in no mood to point out any more of life's problems. I'm done with it, so I don't expect to give any effort in discussing anything in class that feeds my pessimistic tendencies. I get enough of that from my job.
On that note, let me offer a disclaimer before I continue: this is not a cry for help. I'm not saying that the depressing aspects of my job are causing me to spiral into depression myself. I'm doing just fine. It is my job to handle things like this, and I am well equipped to do so. Actually, I thoroughly enjoy my job as an RA, so please don't read this as a plead for someone to come talk through my life with me and lift me out of this dark state. That's not what this post is about. This post isn't even about me; it's about this class.
Obviously, I understand that this class is not an end itself but rather means to an end. We aren't being fed this information about countless crises in the world just to increase our knowledge; we're supposed to take this information and do something with it, but what exactly are we supposed to do? The class itself is very static and discussion-oriented, so it's not like it's equipping us to act on the course material; heck, it's barely even encouraging us to do so. Furthermore, even the bulk of the class, the discussions, is often empty. I don't think it's a big secret the amount of students who neglect the required readings prior to class, and based on my conversations with many other students within our cohort, we, as a cohort, are very open about our ability and proneness to B.S. a class discussion and a blog post. So to go back to my question about the class material that has clearly failed to provoke meaningful thought in many students, what exactly are we supposed to do?
Even though that's a fair question, that's not the question I want to emphasize. Here's a better one: what are we doing? Seriously. I mean, based on my experience in this class, we who have spent more than fifteen minutes of serious contemplation over the class material are merely self-inflicting pain on the human race in an overly-critical self-evaluation of our treatment of the earth with no intention of actually applying the results of our self-evaluation to our behavior due to a lack of instruction of how to properly do so. Am I the only one who feels that way, and if not, am I the only one who's tired of it?
Over the course of the semester, I've often blamed this thought process on my inability to see the point of what we're studying. I've thought that I merely haven't been giving enough effort in this class, and I hence missed the point because of my apathy and laziness. I mean, even though I've done the required readings, attended the required class sessions, and written the required blog posts, I did just zone out during an entire class period, after all. I don't think this is the problem, though, because even when I've found that I give the most effort in this class and am commended because of my ability "to leave thought provoking comments on several students' blogs" (to quote an email from one of our professors) and to be "straight forward" (to quote a message from another student in our cohort), I've discovered that all I'm really doing is finding points with which I disagree and being overly-critical of the arguments of both the authors of the course texts and the students on whose blogs I comment. Since when is being an intellectual synonymous with being harshly analytical? Why must we be negative and, frankly, pretentious in order to have meaningful discussion? Not to mention that all of this makes me really look forward to next semester's class, entitled "Issues in Society." That class sounds like it'll be a joyride...
If this is what it means to be an honors student, then I am almost ashamed to be one. I don't want to label myself as a man who sits down and bashes the human race for the sake of having and voicing an opinion. I certainly don't want to label myself as a man who fakes critical thought in order to earn a certain grade, so if a professor is reading this and thinks that my thought process has completely missed the point of what we're doing in class, then, by all means, give me an F, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend like this class has enriched my mind with a plethora of life-altering thoughts. If that's what it means to be an intellectual, then I don't want to be one, and I am willing to admit that. If that's what it means to be a Christian, then I think we've missed the point of the Gospel. If that's what it means to be human, to go back to the theme of this class, then I'm disappointed in what we've become.
This is what my experience has been in this class this semester, and I understand that I am severely generalizing in my analysis. Honestly, though, I haven't entirely hated this class, nor do I hate the Honors program as a whole, but I certainly haven't enjoyed myself this semester.
So that's my Leman-ade, and I understand that it's pretty sour, but I guess that means I'm just turning out to be a pretty sour Leman.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Week 9
I actually enjoyed chapter six of Steven Bouma-Prediger's For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care entitled, "What Kind of People Ought We Be?" This is probably the first chapter of this book with which I did not have serious issues, which surprised me, but I think I realized why I was more receptive and appreciative of Bouma-Prediger's writings while reading this chapter. It wasn't because I was necessarily any more open-minded than usual, and I haven't necessarily become any more prone to embrace ecology over the course of this semester. Rather, I believe that I liked this chapter most because it, in essence, has nothing to do with ecology.
Okay, I understand that the chapter actually has everything to do with ecology. Care for the earth is the primary focus of the entire book, after all, but the practicality of Bouma-Prediger's arguments presented in this chapter extends far beyond the field of ecology. At the core of the chapter, Bouma-Prediger asserts that to counter the many ecological crises in this world, we, as humans, need to become a more virtuous people; our treatment of the earth, according to Bouma-Prediger, is a reflection of our character, so we ought to reevaluate our character before considering how we ought to change our behavior. He explains virtue in an Aristotelian sense, presenting several virtues, such as respect and receptivity, humility and honesty, and benevolence and love, for example, in contrast with their vices and relating said virtues to ecological behavior.
This certainly isn't the first of Bouma-Prediger's points in his book with which I have agreed, but I found the most truth in this chapter than I have in any other. That being said, I wish he would have expanded. Virtues are not specific to ecology; human behavior as a whole can be revolutionized if virtue gains value in the world. Thus, I wanted Bouma-Prediger to conclude that a virtuous people will not simply be an ecologically sound people; they will be a well-rounded people in almost all regards.
Consider respect and receptivity, for example. Bouma-Prediger's audience is primarily a Christian one, so his argument has a certain theological element to it. He claims that "creation has a God-given integrity and value. Humans have a moral obligation to protect and preserve nonhuman species. Therefore, in the shaping of our character we must cultivate the virtues of respect and receptivity and actively discourage the vices of conceit and reverence, of autonomy and addiction" (137). He's completely right; having a respect for creation will certainly yield a more appropriate treatment of it, but why stop there? Respect could change the world! Respect could resolve disputes between political parties. Respect could settle workers' rights. Respect could even stop simple playground bullies in their pathetic, prepubescent tracks, if it is properly embraced.
Of course, respect is not the only virtue that the world needs to value; all of the virtues Bouma-Prediger mentions, because they are very interrelated, could have the same effect on society. Hence, virtue, while it certainly ought to be the basis of a truly Christian care for the earth, really ought to be the basis of a truly noble life. I understand that Bouma-Prediger is not asserting that virtue is only valuable to achieve ecological order; he truly believes that virtue, in the Aristotelian sense in which he describes it, allows humans to be complete in character. However, his chapter, regardless of its truth, seemed unnecessary.
Let me put it this way: Bouma-Prediger's arguments presented throughout the chapter are like a person saying that since cigarettes are a large contributor to forest fires, people should stop smoking to prevent forest fires. While this is undoubtedly true, there are countless other, more severe dangers of cigarette smoking that are known and have been made abundantly clear. Ergo, even though there is value in arguing that people should stop smoking to prevent forest fires, it seems more appropriate to argue that people should stop smoking to prevent any number of other harmful consequences.
That's a little what Bouma-Prediger sounds like in this chapter. While there is value in saying that people should be a more virtuous people to embody a Christian care of the earth, it seems more appropriate to argue that people should become a more virtuous people for the sake of any other issues in the modern world. I don't mean to prioritize the problems of the world; ecological crises are not inherently less urgent than any other crises, so we, as humans, do not need to solve other, more important problems before developing a proper care for the earth. All I mean to say is that a truly virtuous people, whether Christian or not, will be so much more than a people who know how to take care of their home; they will be a people who truly know how to live in their home.
Okay, I understand that the chapter actually has everything to do with ecology. Care for the earth is the primary focus of the entire book, after all, but the practicality of Bouma-Prediger's arguments presented in this chapter extends far beyond the field of ecology. At the core of the chapter, Bouma-Prediger asserts that to counter the many ecological crises in this world, we, as humans, need to become a more virtuous people; our treatment of the earth, according to Bouma-Prediger, is a reflection of our character, so we ought to reevaluate our character before considering how we ought to change our behavior. He explains virtue in an Aristotelian sense, presenting several virtues, such as respect and receptivity, humility and honesty, and benevolence and love, for example, in contrast with their vices and relating said virtues to ecological behavior.
This certainly isn't the first of Bouma-Prediger's points in his book with which I have agreed, but I found the most truth in this chapter than I have in any other. That being said, I wish he would have expanded. Virtues are not specific to ecology; human behavior as a whole can be revolutionized if virtue gains value in the world. Thus, I wanted Bouma-Prediger to conclude that a virtuous people will not simply be an ecologically sound people; they will be a well-rounded people in almost all regards.
Consider respect and receptivity, for example. Bouma-Prediger's audience is primarily a Christian one, so his argument has a certain theological element to it. He claims that "creation has a God-given integrity and value. Humans have a moral obligation to protect and preserve nonhuman species. Therefore, in the shaping of our character we must cultivate the virtues of respect and receptivity and actively discourage the vices of conceit and reverence, of autonomy and addiction" (137). He's completely right; having a respect for creation will certainly yield a more appropriate treatment of it, but why stop there? Respect could change the world! Respect could resolve disputes between political parties. Respect could settle workers' rights. Respect could even stop simple playground bullies in their pathetic, prepubescent tracks, if it is properly embraced.
Of course, respect is not the only virtue that the world needs to value; all of the virtues Bouma-Prediger mentions, because they are very interrelated, could have the same effect on society. Hence, virtue, while it certainly ought to be the basis of a truly Christian care for the earth, really ought to be the basis of a truly noble life. I understand that Bouma-Prediger is not asserting that virtue is only valuable to achieve ecological order; he truly believes that virtue, in the Aristotelian sense in which he describes it, allows humans to be complete in character. However, his chapter, regardless of its truth, seemed unnecessary.
Let me put it this way: Bouma-Prediger's arguments presented throughout the chapter are like a person saying that since cigarettes are a large contributor to forest fires, people should stop smoking to prevent forest fires. While this is undoubtedly true, there are countless other, more severe dangers of cigarette smoking that are known and have been made abundantly clear. Ergo, even though there is value in arguing that people should stop smoking to prevent forest fires, it seems more appropriate to argue that people should stop smoking to prevent any number of other harmful consequences.
That's a little what Bouma-Prediger sounds like in this chapter. While there is value in saying that people should be a more virtuous people to embody a Christian care of the earth, it seems more appropriate to argue that people should become a more virtuous people for the sake of any other issues in the modern world. I don't mean to prioritize the problems of the world; ecological crises are not inherently less urgent than any other crises, so we, as humans, do not need to solve other, more important problems before developing a proper care for the earth. All I mean to say is that a truly virtuous people, whether Christian or not, will be so much more than a people who know how to take care of their home; they will be a people who truly know how to live in their home.
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