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Eastertide 2016
“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge. It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men and women have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. Such is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge.”
Howard Thurman
Dear Family and Friends,
About mid-way through my Fulbright Senior Lecturer posting in China a decade ago, the Department of English of the School of Foreign Languages of Northeast Normal University decided I might offer a couple of lectures to the “junior” faculty. [You don’t lecture the “senior” faculty there anymore than you do here!]
We are fortunate to have some record of what I said, mostly because of the daily journal Nancy kept. I noted in the course of the first of these lectures that of the 21 Fulbright lecturers in China that year, eleven were in law and eight in the social sciences…there was only one in history, one in American Studies, and one (me) in language and literature.
At the close of the talk, I concluded with this thought:
“Right now our countries have a fragile relationship. Sometimes, like now, it blows hot; sometimes cold. When the winds are warm, as they are now, then law and social sciences are helpful and useful, because they have an impact on society directly and the climate is right for that now. But, when the winds blow cold, then it is my belief that it will be literature and the humanities that will help most. The Humanities don’t immediately affect society as a whole; they affect the individual human heart and, when the wind is cold, only the human heart bent on true harmony will bring peace.”
Though the metaphor of winds and breezes stuck with me (I used it for the title of my most recent chapbook of poems), I never dreamed that what I said that day would be true not only of the relationship between China and the USA but of our own relationships with one another in the American body politic.
It is, to me, no surprise to see vitriolic name calling take the place of reasoned political discussion, the winking part of what Mark Binelli calls the “flirtation with fascism”.* The whole spectacle is in part a direct result of the denigration of the “liberal arts” (that is, the Humanities) in our schools and universities over the past two to three decades. The training in thinking clearly, logically, and precisely that comes with experience in reading and writing, speaking and listening, defining and researching—crucial arts—has been marginalized as “just another” area of study, denied its former “privilege” in the academic community, and as a result, more than one generation has been denied the sort of literacy on which civil discourse and self-government are both dependent.
No school of education, no public or private school administration, no college administration or vehicle of faculty governance can escape some culpability for the current state of affairs. All of them contributed to removing the primary academic impetus to a “human heart bent on true harmony.”
As the West began to recover the ideals of education lost to it in the so-called Dark Ages, institutions arose dedicated to peace amongst a bellicose set of emerging nations…they trained priests for peace keeping among individuals, lawyers for peace in society, and diplomats for peace among nations. That beginning lasted nearly a millennium before the combined forces of corporate profiteering and individual greed began to shred the tapestry. I have watched the destruction at work over the 40 years of my teaching career, watched it at work in the Church, and heard it last night as three candidates for our open legislative seat could seem to see no place for education except as it contributed to skills to be used by American business and agriculture.
This was decidedly not the view of such wild-eyed pinko liberals as Dwight Eisenhower, who pushed the National Defense Education Act. It is decidedly not the view of those who are alarmed by the rapid decline in critical thinking skills that have placed the USA far behind at least a dozen other nations in computer skills. But here we are, just 60 years after Eisenhower, following the lead of that great American Richard Nixon, who figured out early that it wasn’t business and technology majors who were putting a crimp in both his cold and hot wars and so started us down the road of so-called “career education.”
Careers are a legitimate concern of society and of any youngster growing up, but careers pursued by people with no idea of civic virtue or community welfare, much less any aspirations to social justice and world peace, still less any idea of the need to cultivate our own souls, are also a legitimate concern. What we are seeing today is the simple result of the fact that we have been addressing only one of these concerns, addressing only means and not ends…and granted not even addressing the means very consistently.
And can this neglect of the mind—the mind of the scholar, the mind of the citizen—be seen as part of another Dark Age, the first Dark Age being dark because it could only see the world to come, this Dark Age being dark because it can only see the world here and now. We suffer from a lack of feeling for eternity, an appalling absence of significantly spiritual rules of life, a blind eye to a universe seen through the lens of the crucifixion and resurrection events.
But once again we have observed Lent, rehearsed the passion of Christ, welcomed the Happy Morning! And around our world, hopeful signs of change are indeed in the air—only breezes now, perhaps, but breezes destined to be winds. Every day comes a small, encouraging note—each a still, small voice in the midst of the whirlwind of loud and nasty accusations, measures of hope against the cynicism of fear and the exploitation of fear for power and profit.
Knowing Jesus to be raised, Peter prompts us to ask what manner of people we should strive to be. People, to be sure, who can accept the amazing idea that God cherishes us and that, when we try to live within God’s love, we do indeed turn the world upside down. Our charge is simple: to speak the truth in love…a rule to govern the varied aspects of the human being and the varied roles of leading human beings.
Whatever it is you celebrate at this time when God’s creation and God’s love for creation spring us onward and renew our joy, we pray for you to have what we all need: something to do, something to love, something to hope for!
Love,
Chuck and Nancy
*“The Good Fight,” p. 42, Rolling Stone, March 24, 2016
Brief highlights of our recent life:
Opening the year for Tom M’s Tuesday Night Workshop; a visit with Geri Henderson and Chuck’s lunch with Paul Olson; Katie Sherrod’s “women’s stations of the cross” at St. Luke’s; lunch with Jim Schmitt; continuing news of Bob Hamblin’s current biographical projects; “being” Shallo Peek-Abu in CASA’s “Men in Tights” fundraiser; counting the days until Faulkner with Jim and Bev Carothers; presenting (with Jerry Fox and Ron Crocker) for Senior College our program: This Is Nebraska: Out Loud and in Your Face; teaching the Senior College classes on Icons of Innocence and The Bible as literature: the Prologue to Genesis; meeting new friends Bobby and Rachel Fox and supper with them at Mary Haeberle’s; taking part in the caucus for our county; making Cuban tamales with old friends Jerry and Janet Fox and company; enjoying an evening with Jerry Ness hearing Jason Emerson’s “CloudServer” composition played at UNK’s 16th new music festival; hearing St. Matthew’s Passion on Good Friday evening prior to dessert at Alley Rose with Stan and Carol Dart; Nancy’s enjoyment of baby showers in the Paxson and Anderson families; Jeanetta Drueke’s guided tour of UNL Love Library’s new Learning Commons; and most especially the birth of Chloe to Tony and Amy Anderson.
Upcoming:
Enjoyed Easter with the Ptomey’s, and look forward to a possible visit with George when he plays in Omaha, and the ordination of Kyle Martindale. This week I start an OLLI course in Lincoln. Meanwhile, I’ll be helping with laying to rest my classmate Brad Booth and, before that, Kathleen Rutledge’s dad, Dick Fischer, and between the two, the celebrations of life of Charlie Stubblefield and Olive Cunningham. Shakespeare’s birthday will mark a poetry reading at Buffalo Records with Terry Schifferns and Samantha Howsden, and I’m talking about poetry and my newest book of poems at the MONA book club. Then comes the Cather Spring Conference on Cather and WWI; supplying at Holy Spirit, Bellevue, while Tom Jones is on sabbatical; teaching at the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference on Faulkner and the Native South; and on to our weeks in Milwaukee. Coming highlight: Rowan, our oldest grandchild, graduating high school in May, planning on Mid-Plains Community College’s welding program and, at some point, Army Reserves.
Happily, the new book, Speaking Aloud at Grace Church (homilies from two decades of preaching in Catherland), has arrived in time for Spring Conference…any profits from its sales go to the Cather Foundation. Parsons Porch did a good job with it. (Thanks Jeffrey Nelson for the publisher tip!) You can order the book through the Willa Cather Foundation (see their website).
Our personal information remains the same:
Nancy: 308-293-3386, nancyjpeek@gmail.com
Chuck: 308-293-2177 cpeek.cp@gmail.com
2010 Fifth Avenue, Kearney, NE 68845
Blog: CAPeek.WordPress.com
Tabu Abu: same as above except only receives snail mail
In this season of resurrection, we remember those we’ve lost since our Christmas letter/blog/post:
Mother Angelica (founder of retrenched “catholic” television)
David Bowie, singer (shall we add “of note”)
Natalie Cole, “unforgettable” singer
Pat Conroy, “princely” writer
Patty Duke, actor and advocate
Umberto Eco, Namer of the Rose
Glenn Frey, “Eagle Scout”
Joe Garagiola, sports figure and sports and long shadow caster
Boutros Boutros Ghali, UN Secretary General
Jim Harrison, ‘fallen legend’
Ken Howard, actor
Ellsworth Kelly, artist
George Kennedy, actor
Harper Lee, just after she set a watchman
Meadowlark Lemon, Globetrotter
Edgar Mitchell, the 6th Moonie
Lawrence Phillips, the doomed exile from all Greek tragedy (and former Husker running back)
Nancy Reagan, 2nd wife of the 1st family values president
Alan Rickman, actor
Wayne Rogers, MASH star turned FOX news right winger
Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice, after a “30-year battle with social progress” (0nion)
Garry Shandling, comedian
Dallas Taylor, not the kind of drummer who sells you stuff
Abe “it was just business” Vigoda, aka Fish
And among those close to us:
Barbara Bancroft, friend and former parishioner
Brad Booth, high school classmate
Dick Fischer, father of friend Kathleen Rutledge
Delight Fox, St. Luke’s oldest parishioner
Maureen May, Deacon of this Diocese
David Porter, former college president, classics scholar, musician, treasurer of the Cather Foundation Board of Governors, and everyone’s idea of what the phrase “gentleman and scholar” should mean
LaDean Ramsay, former parishioner and part of St. Mary’s Bible Study
Barbara Schlachter, environmental activist and priest, wife of friend Fr. Mel Schlachter
Luis Uzueta, Priest, Journalist (forced to choose his job or his integrity!)
Rick Wallace, friend, former UNK student
Sid White, former parishioner, member of historic no-losses, never-scored-on GI football team
Dennis Wright, neighbor
Random thoughts from posts we get and what we are currently reading:
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -Abraham Joshua Heschel,
When you turn the corner / And you run into yourself / Then you know that you have turned / All the corners that are left. -Langston Hughes, poet and novelist (1 Feb 1902-1967)
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Walt Whitman
Our shouting is louder than our actions, / Our swords are taller than us, / This is our tragedy. / In short / We wear the cape of civilization / But our souls live in the stone age. -Nizar Qabbani, poet and diplomat (21 Mar 1923-1998)
What I want to happen to religion in the future is this: I want it to be like bowling. It’s a hobby, something some people will enjoy, that has some virtues to it, that will have its own institutions and its traditions and its own television programming, and that families will enjoy together. It’s not something I want to ban or that should affect hiring and firing decisions, or that interferes with public policy. It will be perfectly harmless as long as we don’t elect our politicians on the basis of their bowling score, or go to war with people who play nine-pin instead of ten-pin, or use folklore about backspin to make decrees about how biology works. -PZ Myers, biology professor (b. 9 Mar 1957)
“We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others.” (Episcopal House of Bishops unanimous statement)
And as usual, a poem for your enjoyment:
Lost in Space
So, you knew it would be the man who told us he’s crossed the Seneca Bridge
Who would be the one to believe that a city alley, and that alley dark as night,
Would be less dangerous by far than the countryside of rural Americans.
But I, one who has burned a few bridges behind him, and not just a few before
He got to them, don’t quite see the distinction our poet friend makes—
A crack house or meth lab or predator or dearth being pretty much ‘seen one seen all’.
Whatever differences in the dangers pale next to the sheer perils of staying alive,
Especially if you try to keep your sanity, not let your bile get out of hand, and not
Let yourself get too roused up by just any old vicissitude common to the van of progress.
No, it’s not the local dangers that frighten you out here, its space itself,
The vast openness of it, its sudden silences in a noisy world, the immensity of its sky,
The conviction it drives home that there is no place to hide, not even from yourself.
When it yawns here, it yawns wide, its mouth soon a pitch-black cavern’s dead ends,
The lightless space where trivial differences like hero and culprit disappear in darkness,
The underworld that harbors all the dark desires that have ever disturbed any peace
not passing all understanding.
October 8, 2014
capeek 