Sea of Faith
by John Brehm
(In The Southern Review)
Once when I was teaching "Dover Beach" to a class of freshmen, a young woman raised her hand and said, "I'm confused about this 'Sea of Faith.'" "Well," I said, "let's talk about it. We probably need to talk a bit about figurative language. What confuses you about it?" "I mean, is it a real sea?" she asked. "You mean, is it a real body of water that you could point to on a map or visit on a vacation?" "Yes," she said. "Is it a real sea?" Oh Christ, I thought, is this where we are? Next year I'll be teaching them the alphabet and how to sound words out. I'll have to teach them geography, apparently, before we can move on to poetry. I'll have to teach them history, too- a few weeks on the Dark Ages might be instructive. "Yes," I wanted to say, "it is. It is a real sea. In fact it flows right into the Sea of Ignorance IN WHICH YOU ARE DROWNING Let me throw you a Rope of Salvation before the Sharks of Desire gobble you up. Let me hoist you back up onto this Ship of Fools so that we might continue our search for the Fountain of Youth. Here, take a drink of this. It's fresh from the River of Forgetfulness." But of course I didn't say any of that. I tried to explain in such a way as to protect her from humiliation, tried to explain that poets often speak of things that don't exist. It was only much later that I wished I could have answered differently, only after I'd betrayed myself and been betrayed that I wished it was true, wished there really was a Sea of Faith that you could wade out into, dive under its blue and magic waters, hold your breath, swim like a fish down to the bottom, and then emerge again able to believe in everything, faithful and unafraid to ask even the simplest of questions, happy to have them simply answered.
peace, dwight
sea of faith
I often think the challenge of explaining 310, org behavioir, network theory, relationship limits (150 connections) and the like, is a lot like explaining poetry.
When I hear people knocking the structure of 301 models, it reminds me of the statement "How canit be poetry? It doesnt rhyme!"
How do we share this paradigm, with grace?