tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post8942231158130216412..comments2023-10-28T02:59:37.028-07:00Comments on E m e r g i n g ...Q u a k e r i s m ..L i t e r a t u r e ..R e l i g i o n ... L i f e: Past into Future?Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12396312339372162866noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post-33389823447199383372016-04-04T10:15:01.016-07:002016-04-04T10:15:01.016-07:00Thanks Micah.
Thanks Micah.<br />Dianehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12396312339372162866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post-19750961067820894432016-04-03T13:48:57.311-07:002016-04-03T13:48:57.311-07:00Great post, Diane. Thanks!Great post, Diane. Thanks!Micah Baleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06849915973708989620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post-46448728021000970562016-04-01T19:01:14.263-07:002016-04-01T19:01:14.263-07:00Daniel,
I wish I could have written as beautifull...Daniel,<br /><br />I wish I could have written as beautifully about the past as you did in this comment. I felt I understood what you were saying ... but we are closer in age ... yes, we need to keep trying.<br /><br />DianeDianehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12396312339372162866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265511791146423221.post-79057065400031765992016-04-01T09:16:31.736-07:002016-04-01T09:16:31.736-07:00Diane, Thanks so much for this powerful, reflectiv...Diane, Thanks so much for this powerful, reflective meditation. It took me deep.<br /><br />When you described your not-so-aha moment with your students and Grace Kelly, it brought back a similar experience I had as a literature teacher back in the 90's with a 9th grade class. I used analogies and allusions a lot because it helped them learn such literary terms in context and livened the ol' literature lecture when students eyes would glass over. <br /><br />I said, "you know like Simon and Garfunkel," (me at that moment in my inner mind below my words, back in 1963 hearing the poetic lyrics of "Sounds of Silence" boom loudly from my small speakers in my Corvair as I drove through heavy snow falling, giant flakes hitting my windshield in Lincoln, Nebraska.<br /><br />But the whole class, attentive students and the edgers, everyone all looked at me blankly like I had just spoken in Mandarin or Martian.<br /><br />Then it hit me. S&G, from 30 years before, were popular when their parents were little kids in Mexico.<br /><br />I realized with sadness that I probably could never convey the feeling of my first hearing that song in a snow storm. My experiences were truly as if from a boring alien. <br /><br />A few of the teens only living only a few miles from the Pacific Ocean hadn't even ever been to the beach! How could I possibly convey my experiences as a teenager in southern Nebraska in 1963. Most of them didn't even know where Nebraska was, what a Corvair was. Some of them hadn't ever seen snow falling except in a movie.<br /><br />You wrote powerfully, "...we experience the slippage between how things are versus how they were, we want to preserve and pass on the memory we have of how things were, especially what has changed. Yet the past is so fragile...<br />the feeling of a time..."<br /><br />Sadly, I'm not sure we can pass on the past in the sense of feeling, even in our stories.<br /><br />I observe modern Quakers--on one extreme those American Quakers who are enamored with Calvinism:-(, and the other, with nontheism, and feel very down. <br />Even when I tell them heartfelt stories<br />of my own deep experiences with God from back in the past,<br />it seems they don't really 'hear' my story, let alone feel the wonder of those spiritual feelings and transformational times.<br /><br />But we need to keep trying:-)Daniel Wilcoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05178375087492786696noreply@blogger.com