HOLY's More than Sum-of-Parts

Dear Humanists, Dialecticians and American Literati

& Colleagues Across the Curriculum.

Never on Friday Lecture

St Valentine was clubbed to death and beheaded for making

a blind girl see. An act against  Nature.

Apparently with no surprise,
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play,
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on.
The sun proceeds unmoved,
To measure off another day,
For an approving God.

A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become—
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun.

Emily Dickinson

                   RELATIONSHIP

                

                

Usually a word involving people, couples, families:

how good any are in Just Getting Along with others.

But I want to turn up the realization that relationship

is another word for

relating,

relativity,

ratios,

rationality,

and reason

Understanding RELATIONSHIP is a liberal art.

.                              

                              Y

                           X       Z

Y (relationship) is on a “higher logical level” than

 X & Z – the “parts.” A ”marriage,” a “family.”  a

“class of students,” “a community” are relays and

relations and ratios and relationships-going-on;

a live liveliness—like a game, sport, interactive,.

converse action.  Can’t pin relationship down.
IT's beyond parts and partialities.  

Relationship et al: an “emerging phenomenon  rising

up (so to speak) between two or more ‘parts” 

Relationship is NOT the parts. It is  More than the 
Sum of the Parts  Parts-Talk will never do justice to

relationship—always a reduction & violation,

like flatlanding a sphere. .

Get it?

Relationship like weather, like communication is always

State of the Art—optimal: Is What IT IS.  Not what we

call it. We may not approve—but Relationship don’t care.

We call it good or bad, functional or dysfunctional.

Relationship is Relationship is Relationship whatever terms
we slap on it to suit our parts and partial agenda. .

Need we argue?

Nothing can be seen all by itself, but only in  relationship to

OTHER.  (Figure/ Background)

WE easily and conveniently  don’t factor in  the OTHER

or the Background, the context as well as the text—

and the relationship between....

Consider:

1. If a tree falls in the wilderness and no one there to hear,
                    does it make a noise?

2.  If there is no Agenda in the classroom,

                    is there any A.D.D?

3. If the wife isn’t present, is the husband

                     still a dumbbell? 

4. If no one is sitting on the rock,
                       is it hard?

Don’t be too quick to answer.  You may be Right as well as WRONG.

Actually, the  only way to be RIGHT in  your answer is to be right

as well as wrong.

Need we argue?

What is right (true) on the level of individuals, (parts)  is not at all

necessarily right  (true) on the level of  relationship (wholes) —in

fact it  might be wrong on the level of relationship.

              “Does this dress make me look fat?”

Do you want to be right and WRONG? Or wrong and RIGHT? 

Choose, if you know the difference.

 .

Telling a LIE  in many cases adheres to  to the TRUTH of relationship

Telling the truth can be nothing but a lie as far as relationship goes. .

Knowing these differences and relationships might be called liberal art.

I doubt I’m telling you what you don’t already know. Just turning

it up. ..

It’s the difference (among other things) of the SPIRIT and the Letter

of relationship. and which counts most for you—depending on the

relationship ..

You can be right  literally

and wrong in spirit..

wrong literally

and just right

in spirit.

St. Valentine.  Right and wrong in his miraculous healing.