Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Purloined Pedagogy

O my Mother of Moodle
Pray for me in these days of
turbulence and turmoil.

Purloined

 
Poe’s "Philosophy of  Composition"
   ( the making of
                the making of
                             “The Raven”)

Anachronistically sucked up and pandered
to the SACS ongoing sweetheart crush on
knowing-what-you-are-going-to-do, doing
-it, knowing-what-you- did aka sticking in
a thumb,  pulling out a plumb &  O what a
good boy am I pedagogical procedure.)

And didn't he  march it all out logically
and  sequentially and rationally like an
algorithm, like a protocol for strategic
analysis — one controlled turn after
another make no mistake or slip
of the lip ever more?
 
    “Wait’ll they get a load of this!”
 
But: hoaxter Poe knew “rational” was
forever in  service to the  Irrational  no
matter the public  enlighten-mental age
of reason, rubrics &  measure mental
objectives.

He would  twit & tweak Common Sense
just when the  Rationalists  thought they
had it covered &  under control.

BOO!  Crashing up from cellar and
floorboards:  upos
—the problem of evil.
 
Who writes creatively, inventively, with
100 points of  rubricked  assessmentalism
driving them on? —every sentence  meaning
full: clarity, consistency, coherence & accurate
documentation lighting fire under my but?

NO No no.

Don't  work that way no matter how we talk
about, it , teach about i:  not if we want some
bonfire of the  intellective vanities to warm
the village it takes  to raise a child. 

Differ. No begging needed.
  Nevermind.

80 comments:

  1. I've been wondering: what is the difference between Luther saying "Do not let the Law ascend into the conscience" and Emerson saying (forget exactly) "I'll live entirely from within, never mind angels or demons." ? (small "a" and small "d")

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  2. Same in spirit? Different style? The difference-to-same ratio depends on the reader and the reader's bias/belief regarding the relationship between law and conscience.?

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  3. Depending on certain variables it could mean the same thing. But as the will is an ass, it matters who rides the donkey.

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  4. I'll grant you your God rides your Ass metaphor--but that may not speak clearly to Luther or Emerson's sense of the relationship between Law and Conscience. Conscience and Will aren't the same deal.' Will is the decider, regulator, governator--willing (nilling) on the basis of affect (conscience?) and intellect (knowledge). IN your case Will is an ass and love nothing better than that God be riding on it. St Francis called his body Brother Ass. and meant to be on good terms with it--but not ridden by it.

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  5. It's a daily battle with that stubborn ass. Even the sainted Mother Theresa prayed for love. And yet, you can't pull it up by the bootstraps. St. Francis had it with the ass, too, we see--seems to be popular metaphor especially with those living in proximity to donkeys.-- Reminds me of the first time I sat on a pony, as a child in a park. It just wanted to go to the ditch and eat grass. Certainly, I was not riding it very well.

    What do you think is meant by conscience? We talk about will, intellect, imagination and some about natural law. To me, natural law comes the closest to it.

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  6. But I think it meant something more overarching to Luther. Maybe there was a certain medieval consensus as to what they meant. I have a book on Luther that I haven't finished because it is very difficult: man between God and the devil. It was supposed to be landmark.

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  7. http://www.amazon.ca/Luther-Man-Between-God-Devil/dp/0300103131/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403212931&sr=8-1&keywords=Man+between+god+and+the+devil

    By Heiko Oberman. 2006.

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  8. Proper sense of guilt (owing, in debt)? One's sense of relationship and obligation to the whole? As opposed to shame--ones sense of others, peer pressure.?

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  9. Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God’s grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they’re smart enough to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools. Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do.“

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    1. This comment is in the spirit of Paul's Corinthian description of Love (grace). One has it or does not. I don't. I speak with tons of angles and clanging brass and my faith is obliviouisness. Who wouldn't ask God to work that kind of faith (grace, love) so as to freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone? Ask and ye shall receive, yes? Be a fool not to ask. And ask. And ask...

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  10. Intro to Romans. A good conscience to him is also a mind and affect at peace, not worried, not forever scraping together what it ca get, because of trust. As you sometimes point out, the relationship is primary, the rest falls where it goes.

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    1. I have to say I do not have a good conscience--but worry and scrape and wrangle and wrestle

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  11. Does the "whole" stand, in a way, for God? How does one have a right relationship to the Whole?

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  12. I thought of using the word God, Whole. Holy. I don't know how one has a right relationship to the Whole, but that might be how one frames it: to be in accord with the whole, to be in tune. The personification of God the father is as much a liability as asset--and is why some religions do not say the word God. Doing the best they can to avoid idolatry--but it's impossible.

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  13. To be in tune. Can't be vaguer or more ambiguous, though. As a singer, I know in tune. It's a clear thing connected to physics on one level, and an artistic expression, and also a blending with the choir. Speaking of which, I am directing and playing with the seniors today for the birthday party for all those in the area 90 years and older. You can understand the decimation continuously going on in both groups. I forced a hymn into the line-up. "Great is thy faithfulness, oh God our Father." He himself is the "sun"; it's the only way to stay in tune. ( not a church choir)

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  14. Good work--your work with seniors. To be in tune. To be in accord. "The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all," says John Cage: this puts one in accord with nature in her manner of operation." The vague and the ambiguous and the ambivalent and the doubt-full: have the advantage of not being specific, perfectly clear, nailed down--hammered. Slant.

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  15. The seniors and I: it's a good relationship. They love me and I love them. Afterward we sit and have coffee and hear all about who is sick or died, and laugh about this and that. And I have to chastise them for not holding Fermatas, and so on. The pianist is in Japan right now, unfortunately. But she is also a lovely soul. The tiniest girl, eating all the cookies. She can just put them away. We laugh and laugh and laugh.

    Re: ambiguity: we see above that Luther strove to explain faith as something above the scholastic style debate re: faith vs. works.

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  16. Sounds like a good time had by all. Do you tell them how much you hate them after a session like that? I say that to my students and they laugh and laugh. Transcending the sholastic debate above faith and works. Or above the literal and the metaphorical. Or above spirit vs letter or Law vs Gospel. (without doing injustice to the opposition): that's the dialectical practice.)

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  17. Spirit vs. law and gospel distinction?

    Laughter cements the relationship, doesn't it. Laughter and looking at each other.

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    1. So much play and so much warfare is generated out of the spirit vs letter of the law. In Xtian terms: Law vs Gospel -- the crucial disinction and relationship.

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  18. The right kind of laughter shows the right kind of spirit.

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  19. Can't do it over the internet, properly.

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  20. Genuine laughter is the embodiment of the free spirit, of faith and boldness.

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  21. humor, science, art: from the collision of 2 or more matrices (realms, cultures, customs, conventions) Arthur Koestler 's Act of Creation.

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  22. The levity provides playroom. So does seriousness, as it protects from abuse. Serious levity. Holy joy. Perfect innocence. Seniors with life experience but hardly anything left to loose. Preschoolers with a sandy beech and a bucket but someone keeping an eye on them... Middle-aged women mucking with clay contemplating profound questions posed by a leader, trying to do things the way Jesus would have done them, but in my own setting and calling, according to my own conscience.

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  23. How would Jesus have done linguistics and fiction, and various aspects of American Lit as well as Dialogue&Dialectic with a mixed and varied life-style and mostly liberal late teens and early 20's?
    Ai

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  24. How could you be you, do your work and still be a creedal Christian? A kind of dialectic for you, or incommensurate? Or just distasteful.

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  25. Jesus engaged his culture plenty, dealt with scripture and came up with fiction that was his own style, to explain by surprise something higher. He had his own rhetorical style... And he loved them and did revelry thing well. Plenty of stuff for all of us to work with.

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  26. I pulled out the Oberman books. "Man between God and the devil" is not a difficult read, after all. It is the other one about the "Dawn of the Reformation" which dealt with the philosophical underpinnings of medieval thought that left me in the dust with so many Latin terms and things I don't know anything about. I see that I underlined everything and understood nothing and quit at around page 50. Maybe, I'll try to get the gist of it.

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  27. Don't consider my self creedal How can I be me and do the work I do? Best I can. Don't know Oberman .

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  28. Scholar at the University of Arizona, I believe. Gotta get the hubby up and get my butt to church and "play" organ. It's confirmation Sunday and it will be full of farm families. Playing only cheerful things today, plus it's spring. Seeding should be done by now.

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  29. After 20 years starting up and serving a church in an affluent Connecticut suburb, my good old man retired and spent 17 years serving 4 different rural churches in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Farm families galore. Doxological.

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  30. Sorry. Seeding was completed a long time ago. Grain looks green and about 8 inches tall from the road. Glorious day. Full church. Could use lots of stops and played loud and soft and let her rip. Gave myself goosebumps. Thought of you at " in battle we'll engage" (mighty fortress). Met all the people at the party. All the kids I had in Sunday school, my kid's age. Seems like the girls are all teachers and therapists and employed. One went to Vancouver to study interior design; no job yet. The guys are in farming, police work, or industry. Marriages but no babies, yet. My daughter is talking babies.--Learned about "reverse integration" from the young rural professionals. Of course, my son is missing from the group.

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  31. Something happened in Connecticut.

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  32. Dad turned 65 in Connecticut and re-tired as he called it. My niece's son (19) shot himself in the head a couple weeks ago--also now missing from the group. His grandfather , my brother in law, an Episcopalean priest conducted the service. All is well and all is well and all manner of things is well--the Episcopalean book of Common Prayer.

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  33. Vert Sorry to hear. There is always the presence in the absence, right. But it hurts.

    My husband told me again which girls had had crushes on him, as if I did not know and as if he was not repeating himself.

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  34. He must still be looking at them all as potential daughter-in-laws.

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  35. Advent

    God's dead.
    Prerequisite
    to alive, ho!

    Present only
    in absentia;
    absent in
    presents.

    Makes my
    heart grow
    fodder.

    Don't know
    what I've got
    till it's gone.

    What a short time
    between paradox
    and cliché.

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  36. That's where I like myself a good "dour" Lutheran hymn.

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  37. LOOK! Lyle Lovett does "Lord keep us steadfast in your word" !!! Well done. No cliche.

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  38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ZsskiAcFw

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  39. Dour for sure: almost Gregorian,

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  40. You can pick some really interesting stops for this: almost bagpipe-ey. Hits the spot.

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  41. Did you like it? Makes my hair stand on ends. The text so simple, plain and solid. I could cry.

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  42. (I am a sucker for things in minor keys. Always have been, even as a child. We had a song about the snowman melting in front of the forest. It was entrancing. Nevertheless, this is one of the great hymns.)

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  43. It's drear and stolid. We used to have Wed night hymn sings at the church. Dad wouldn't call on me and my request (my hand up) so as to seem impartial. "Bringing in the Sheaves" In the summer by the lake: family vespers. I liked "Day is Dying in the West."

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  44. Presence in the absence. It is emotional because it's not over the top like so much else.

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  45. If something is present--all the rest is absent. That's why I'm always liable and accuse-able. I focus on some "this" and ignore the rest. A crime against the whole. (Descriptively speaking)

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  46. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cv6B82T2rY
    Day is dying in the West, is lovely. Had not heard it before. Maybe my seniors sing it, though if they are anything, they are mostly Catholic.

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  47. Hmm..I guess it sounded better with our weak voices sitting among the birches and slapping mosquitoes. Cream Hill Pond in front of us, Gold Hill behing, in the west.

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  48. Bonhoeffer's thing was a Capella singing. We get so attached to our way.

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  49. There was an a Capella competition on tv for a couple seasons. Triple Quartets. Excellent.

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  50. Oh, but Bonhoeffer would have it unison. No harmonizing for him in his underground seminary.

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  51. Maybe, I'd feel the same under the circumstances. The Hymn writer Jochen Klepper committed suicide with his wife.

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  52. http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/63b6ae5c0e/bitches-ain-t-shit-acapella

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  53. I have to go to the real computer to copy and paste this, it seems.

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  54. I bought Lovet's "Lord keep me steadfast" for $1.29 and played it for my husband at lunch. He loved it so much, he made me play it 5 times, and at dinner again twice grasping my hand. He loved it so much, he learned how to play it on my I pad with the Bluetooth speaker from Costco. He loved it so much, he packed it all up and played it for someone else, some place else, where someone finally grasped the usefulness of this technology.

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  55. Bonhoeffer probably wouldn't appreciate the Barnard girls a Cappello piece, but Luther would. Don't know about your husband.

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  56. http://www.poetryinvoice.com/poems/wolf-lake

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  57. We were in Compton once, and didn't know at the time that it was one of the worst places in the US.

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  58. Amazing poem. Where is Compton? How is it one of the worst places in the US--and in what sense "worst"?

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  59. Yes, I learned about it from CBC.

    By Philadelphia. I forgot in which way. Some silly statistic, but must be crime related.

    Bonhoeffer must have had a good stomach, too. He started out as pastor to the workers in the coal industry. He shared communion with his co-conspirator brother-in-law in the basement of the most notorious Nazi prison in Berlin, scraping together bare morsels. Most moving account I have ever read, by his biographer and friend. He was in as much shit as these girls, only not doing it himself.

    I have to get my day on the road.

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  60. Except for the conspiracy to violence. It was the excruciating decision of his life, and that is why he was killed, too.

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  61. Very interested in Bohhoeffer in th 80's and read a bio on him--can't recall the title. Popular, I think. The girls are covering some rap artist known for his misogyny -- as that brand of music is. Their version of a put-down.

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  62. http://www.lylelovett.com/index.php/front/iphone

    Lyle Lovett is performing in Asheville, on August 28th.

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  63. Asheville gets large band and Emelia Harris; Edmonton gets acoustic band. It's not fair.

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  64. Lyle's a Lutheran. Life's not fair. Lyle married Julia Roberts the summer my folks died, my son's girlfriend wrecked our car, My daughter got dumped and married on the rebound. She was a Lovett fan back then--93
    A favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4evzpIVnMVs

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  65. My husband knows what happened in what year, too.

    My uncle Paul's funeral is today in Germany. I miss all events. Talked to my aunt Gertrude. She is the last of four siblings and couples. My mother passed the year I met my husband. They never knew each other. She was the great singer and ambitious promotors of my skills and education. "Education mother" , the Japanese call it.

    We sang all the time, especially long and difficult rounds. You have to keep your part against all the others. Great training for a kind of dialectic. Don't fold.

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  66. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cwSWdZFgoVQ

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  67. Reminds me of my first 3 years teaching iat Buckingham Friends School in Bucks County Pa.

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  68. My Hatha Yoga instructor, cancer survivor friend whom I met at the gad-awful writing meeting where I shared my yoga thoughts invited me to a different meeting. They write and discuss on the spot. She says it's much better.

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  69. This is her Yoga bog. Flowery. After "mucking about" class, I took her for coffee at the roof top cafe and we talked. I talked to her about dialectics and napalm in the morning. She laughed saying that that was about the last thing she needed in her life. She practices writing to improve her blog. She is super-kind, like my Egoscue teacher--and of course she knows her, too. Small world as per usual. I am wondering though, what we are coming to that everyone needs to be silent and hold poses to practice breathing and mindfulness and joy, as opposed to, for example, doing all that singing together, I mentioned.
    http://yogainspired.wordpress.com

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  70. Run on sentence. Question mark. It's hard to see what you are writing in these little com boxes.

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