On Writing

I wasn't much of a writer in high school and didn't get a lot of encouragement either. Fortunately I fell into the hands of a great prof at university who believed students needed to learn how to write if they were going to learn how to think. Tom Graham taught us how to read and how to write and in the process to think. I will always be grateful to him for his fourth year methods seminar, one of the hardest courses I ever took and one of the most helpful.

Now Ben Myers has written this wonderful post on the writing life and I recommend you check it out.

I still struggle with this aspect of writing:

4. Writing and discipline. The self has a tendency to leak and dribble. Left to itself, it loses all definition, becomes a shapeless puddle. Writing, like ritual, is a cast into which the self is poured. Writing is care of the self. ‘He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem’ (Milton). A book is a few seconds of inspiration plus a few years – or a lifetime – of discipline. You cannot have a campfire without the first spark, but the spark is useless without the slow labour of gathering wood, building the fire, and maintaining it when it begins to die.

Reading Lists

In the latest issue of Christian Century there are lists of theology books the contributors think are essential reading if you want to know what has happened in theology for the past 25 years. The lists are interesting - you can read them here. Although the preamble is that these are essential for understanding what has been happening in theology I think they are more revealing of what has been happening intellectually for these contributors. But that's okay. I liked reading the list and have added a number of the books to my list of what I want to read. I also spent some time thinking what five books have influenced the way I think about things in a significant way so here is my list:

Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity

Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace

Sarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions

James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment

Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, Resident Aliens

and what would your list be?

Food Production in Canada

This ad is making the facebook rounds and is really worth watch. I spend a lot of time with farmers - in most cases they are the last generation to work their family farms.

The Italian Heritage

Having just been to the home of Armani and having spent much of that visit in churches and museums considering the art and architecture of the Christian tradition I really appreciated this article. And now I have another reason to go to New York.

The Letterpress

Here is a story about a person I admire and a craft which interests me. In the process of watching a documentary about a craftsman still keeping alive the craft of the letterpress Evan notices that one of the jobs is an invitation to the ordination of Sarah Coakley. I'm fascinated by the letter press - I love the look and feel of what it creates so the documentary is interesting in its own right. But I'm also a great admirer of the theologian Sarah Coakley. So check it out and maybe check out some of her essays!

Florence

More from Berry on the University

The thing being made in a university is humanity. given the current influence of universities, this is merely inevitable. But what universities, at least the public-supported ones, are mandated to make or to help to make is human beings in the fullest sense of those words — not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens but responsible heirs and members of human culture. If the proper work of the university is only to equip people to fulfill private ambitions, then how do we justify public support? If it is only to prepare citizens to fulfill public responsibilities, then how do we justify the teaching of arts and sciences? The common denominator has to be larger than either career preparation or preparation for citizenship. Underlying the idea of a university — the bringing together, the combining into one, of all the disciplines — is the idea that good work and good citizenship are the inevitable by-products of the making of a good — that is, a fully developed — human being. This, as I understand it, is the definition of the name university.

From “The Loss of the University,” in Home Economics.

hat tip to Bill