Dinner for Eight

Recently, Rod posted an interesting conundrum about a fantasy dinner party for you, your spouse, and six other well-known people (living or dead, but in separate groups.) Here is my list, which took me a couple of days of hemming and hawing to complete and a couple of weeks to write about:

Rod noted that your list wouldn’t necessarily be the people you’d most like to meet or even the people you most admire; they should be people you really think would make good dinner guests. I like diversity, so I tried for an even mix of occupations, religions and gender (classic dinner-party etiquette mandates boy-girl seating, anyway.)

The Living:

Bono (Musician and Activist) He can make me weak-kneed with one soaring descant, and his occupation as a rock musician would certainly make for some interesting stories, but I’m actually most interested in his take on African politics and hearing about what it was like growing up under the specter of the IRA.
Carla Bruni (Model and Musician) No fantasy dinner party is complete without a French presence. She’s stylish, talented and completely classy, and the fact that she’s married to the President of France helps lend an air of political importance to the gathering. (The air is the important thing; actual politicians couldn’t possibly be interesting dinner companions.)
Atom Egoyan (Filmmaker) I want to know where his ideas come from (I wrote my senior thesis on The Sweet Hereafter) and I want to hear about Armenia — what it means to him and what he thinks its future will be like.
Peter Eisenman (Architect) Believe it or not, this pompous philosopher was one of the first on my list. Back in my undergraduate days, we’d all drag ourselves to Tuesday crit, sleep-deprived and nearly suicidal, only to hear about his latest dinner party. They included the most unusual guests (German philosophers and rock musicians) and he always had something interesting to say about the zeitgeist that inspired them. So I guess I’m taking a gamble that he’s more fun over a bottle of wine than in front of a wall full of blood, sweat and Rapidographs.
Sharon Astyk (Writer, Activist, Mother) I respect Sharon more than almost any person I know [of.] Her deep faith, commitment to traditional ideals, and desire to create a better world for her children are amazing. I also think she could hold her own against Eisenman in a debate (and could certainly make him feel like a bad Jew.)
Mother Aemeliane (Scholar, Nun) I couldn’t feel right hosting a dinner party without at least one Orthodox Christian guest, and I can’t think of anyone else who would be a better addition to this one. You may have heard the story of her miraculous rescue from a collapsed building, but unless you have been in her presence you can’t understand the tremendous force of spirit, combined with an even greater humility, that enables her to guide so many people with such grace.

The Eternal:

C. S. Lewis (Writer) He should be a required guest for any Christian taking part in this exercise. Brilliant, creative, thoughtful, funny, likes to smoke after dinner. Yes, please!
St. Brigid of Kildare (Nun) She’s my patron saint, a disciple of St. Patrick. And she once turned an entire bathtub of water into beer, so she’d be a handy person to have around!
Frederic Chopin (Musician) The token Frenchman: he lived a short life, filled with suffering, but bequeathed oceans of beauty to the generations that followed.
Anne Frank (Martyr) Another short, painful life, but one which inspired many. I worried about her young age at first but then remembered: teenage girls always have plenty to say.
e. e. cummings (Writer) Many poets are accused of being artists with words, but he really was one. The way he saw the world was truly unique.
Hester Prynne (Seamstress, Outcast) I was really stuck on this last one until I remembered there had been no injunction against fictional characters. Considering how thoughtful and introspective this group is, I think she would have a lot to add to the conversation.

Your lists, please! Answer or link below.

The Five-Minute Pitch

It started innocently enough. My students had just read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and were, fittingly, incensed:

“How can he just say this stuff?”

“People will never listen!”

“This would NEVER work.”

So although he did, and they did, and it did, I tried to channel their outrage into a more productive endeavor. Imagine you only had five minutes to change someone’s life by telling them about Christ. What would you say?

I called it the Five-Minute Homily, but it was really more like the Five-Minute Pitch; the sales metaphor is less distasteful if you really do believe in hell and think you may never have another chance to help someone stay out of it. Plus, it’s a useful exercise in self-analysis: how well do you really know your own beliefs? And how can you distill them down without watering them down, intrigue and ignite without glamorizing and smoothing over?

After grading theirs, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and — you guessed it — ended up writing my own. You can read it if you want, but before you do, I encourage you to try your hand at the same exercise.

Belief is a funny thing. When someone says, “Believe me … ” you may profess that you do, but a part of you is always waiting — isn’t it? — to see if he really means what he says, because part of that belief can’t happen until later. You need to see that she’s sincere by watching what comes next. “Believe me, I hate to be late” can’t be true, really, if he’s always late, and “Believe me, I love kids” sounds a little less plausible when you’ve only ever seen her frown in their direction.

So, although believing that God exists is hard enough without a vision or sign, that’s actually the easiest part of faith. The difficult part is the lifetime that follows: will your actions, words and innermost thoughts profess that belief, or will it be another “I don’t believe in holding grudges” from one who can’t bring himself to forgive?

If you believe, your life will change. That is a fact. It will not be perfect, but your job is to keep trying, while at the same time admitting you can’t do it on your own. Loving your enemies? Honoring your parents? Giving to the poor? A life that is centered on God will include them all, and yet none of them are easy to practice.

In fact, life itself is far from easy: everyone knows this. The world is full of beauty and light, but there are also moments of darkness and pain so acute we almost feel we can’t bear them. Some of us have more of the first kind, and some much, much more of the second, but we all have burdens, many of them secret, all of them heavy.

And here’s what you may find incredible: your whole life, each joy and sorrow, the note from a friend on the day you really needed it and the car accident on the day you really didn’t — each of those moments were created for you by a being more powerful than you can imagine, who somehow saw fit to be involved in the smallest and humblest details of your existence. You don’t have to do this alone. He doesn’t want you to.

It’s incredible, really. So is the world, and yet we open and close our eyes to it every day.

Thirty by Thirty

Although I rarely have the chance to read them, I'm really inspired by the articles in my professional association's quarterly journal. They always have some interesting writing exercises that I'd love to be able to pull into my class.

A recent article about life goals brought me to a sort of bittersweet nostalgia. A teacher explains an assignment given to him in junior high -- thirty things he wanted to accomplish before he turned thirty -- which was memorable enough to repeat in his own classes much later:

I wish I had that list today. I distinctly recall how that silly assignment really stretched my brain, asking me to look beyond that which was right in front of my nose, year after year to what seemed like an eternity. Thirty was old. Really, really old.

What do I remember from that list? Not much except wanting a fancy car and hoping to parachute from an airplane someday. I’ve had a few cars, none nearly as nice as the one on my list, and I wouldn’t throw my body out of a plane if you paid me. I still long to see my entries, especially the ones after the first ten, the entries I really had to think about, the quiet ones.

I do the same exercise with my Creative Writing class; I ask students to write thirty things they’d like to do before thirty years old with no category repeats. In other words, they cannot just write thirty different cars they’d like to someday own (some could actually do this). I also ask them to consider items outside consumerism and money—what they’d like to learn or know, whom they’d like to meet, love, or help. This assignment should be a little difficult, I tell them, if they invest some time to think about it.

Of course this made me a little sad. I wonder about my own middle-school self: what would she have wanted me to accomplish by now? On the other hand, what would I have done that really impressed her?

So I decided to create a list of thirty things I've done of which I'm still proud, honoring the parameters of the original assignment (no category repeats). However old you are, I encourage you to do the same; if there are any surprises on my list, I'm sure you can find a few for yours.

Passed (briefly) for a native in several foreign countries.

Graduated cum laude from college.

Learned how to use a real film camera, and took some great photos with it.

Got paid to write.

Been a godmother to five lovely girls and one sweet, cuddly boy.

Survived two years of architecture school and many more of aftermath.

Taught lots of children (and a few adults) how to read, write, think and play.

Cooked many amazing meals from scratch.

Treasured those close to me.

Been interviewed on television.

Failed a class. Fought back.

Ran a 5K. (Well, mostly ran.)

Aced standardized tests.

Made my cat purr just by talking to her.

Earned scholarships to pay for my education.

Planted a kitchen garden.

Sang (prayed) the most beautiful music in church.

Stayed to help when things came apart: folders, dishes, marriages, lives.

Took actual voice lessons from an actual voice teacher.

Lived and worked in Manhattan.

Discovered I love yoga.

Asked forgiveness. Constantly.

Married the right person.

Watched 70 perfect movies. (Most of the other 1842 belong on another list.)

Sent flowers, gifts and handwritten letters to lonely friends all over the world.

Played a spontaneous concert on Frank Lloyd Wright's concert grand. Shocked tourists.

Read these. And others.

Surprised my husband twice (party, guitar) and my father once (engagement.)

Arranged flowers for brides. Made them smile.

Written 472 posts on a blog that's been lots of fun.

Let's Get it Started

"The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach accordingly."

David Ausubel

My current grad course has an online forum, where we all take turns moderating discussions based on the text. This was my week, along with my colleague James (we teach at the same school, but weren't really friends until we met out of school. Isn't that funny?)

The effusive nature of most previous posts had bothered me, so I tapped into the Six Word Memoir for a framework: in six words, I asked my classmates to describe the methods of the most effective teacher they could remember. It was interesting to see the similar trends that emerged: openness and challenge were two of the most common.

Meanwhile, James used the above principle to run his forum. Is this the most important thing? he asked -- and if not, what is? Despite his many efforts at argument, he couldn't convince anyone to argue otherwise (except for the copout answer, "There is no single most important principle.") One student offered a story in support: tutoring for a state assessment test, she came upon a question that referred to a letter written by Robert E. Lee. Neither student knew who he was, so she tried to prompt them:

Me: Okay. Do you know any American Wars?
Students: Yes
Me: Alright. What was the very first American War?
Student: WWII?
Me: Well...actually i think it was the Revolutionary War... Do you remember what comes next?
Student: No. What does History have to do with this. I thought we were doing English.

So basically, I found out what they know....they know about different kinds of writing, but that isn't going to help them at all if they can't fit the writing into any of their prior knowledge.... I found out they don't know much about American history, so even though I am an English teacher, and responsible for them passing the English HSA, I have to not only backtrack, but backtrack completely out of my content area at this point.

After most of a semester in which you could hear a pin drop at any point in any class, we had suddenly revved everyone up. The student who had shared this story went on to explain that he believed socio-economic status to be the single most important factor in determining success in school; if you were raised without the benefit of parental supervision and expectation, he argued, you couldn't possibly be expected to do well. In reply, another student ended a rant with the following: "If you don't have the discipline to work things through for yourself, you deserve to be flipping burgers at McDonald's. THE END!" Another told of her own childhood as her voice shook with emotion: "My father was a drug addict, and my mother was never around. But I'm not an outlier; they'll never make a movie about my life. I just got myself to school, day after day, and here I am. I'm doing fine. I don't blame anyone."

James and I just gaped at each other as student after student broke his silence to unburden his soul and speakaloud of his insecurities and frustrations about the profession. Somehow we had struck a nerve. But how did we do it, and could we do it again? That's anyone's guess.

Whenever anyone asks me what I like most about teaching, I don't hesitate to say: "Its unpredictability." You just never know what might happen next, and what it will be that gets things started.

Consumed

I have profaned myself with coarse sins and consumed my whole life with procrastination. (Lenten Troparia of Orthros)

Yep, that's me. I have an almost-final exam on Wednesday and a list of 85 terms to learn before I take it. I have about 60 defined and a couple dozen learned. And what am I doing? ~~Procrastinating~~ Blogging.

But this is important! I think I'm onto something. Deductive reasoning moves from general to specific, right? Starting with basic rules (children are more squirrelly on Friday than any other day) and moving logically to a conclusion (I will never teach another piano lesson on a Friday.) Inductive, meanwhile, goes from specific to general; it begins with observation (Maia is always waiting at the door when Rob pulls up) and moves to universals (cats must have very sensitive hearing.)

I have ten students in my Creative Writing class, and I think I can categorize them all as Deductive or Inductive writers. Deductive writers enjoy a very vague prompt ("Write a story about rain") from which they begin to construct specific characters, setting and plot. Inductive writers prefer something very specific ("Begin a story with the following quote: 'I can't believe you stole those flowers!'") around which they can build generalities of time and place.

Personally, I am firmly in the former camp. I always found those detailed prompts trite and constraining. But after assigning the flower prompt, I was shocked to read half a dozen fascinating and completely different accounts of stolen foliage and its subsequent denoument.

Back to work, that is, unless someone wants to further distract me with a response . . .

Inner Poet, Awake!

Or so I said to myself after reading a batch of my students' sestinas this morning. They were so powerful I couldn't resist trying one myself, though poetry is not my favorite thing to write.

The fun part is that sestinas practically write themselves. It's a great exercise to do with anyone who says they aren't creative (and if this includes yourself, so much the better!)

Start with six key words. Here are mine:

dress

plant

open

fringe

fence

second

You can use any words, but if you take some time to think of good ones, it will be that much easier to write. Look for connections: a fence can be built at the fringe of a yard, or fringe can trim a dress. Also, look for double meanings and flexible forms; plant could be a verb or noun, metaphorical (a spy) or literal (a philodendron.)

Now write six lines, each ending with one of your key words:

He pauses to stroke the satin of her fanciest dress
Laid out on the bed, next to the thirsty plant
That earnestly strains its tendrils toward the open
Window. His fingers weave in and out of the fringe
As he calls to her, his eyes fixed outside at the fence.
“I’ll be right out,” she says. “Just a second.”

Here's where it gets tricky, but only for a minute. Number the lines of your first stanza, and then rearrange your key words in the following pattern: 6-1-5-2-4-3. Like so:

second

dress

fence

plant

fringe

open

Now write six more lines, ending with your key words in the new order:

So he sits, watching the fleecy clouds as the second
Hand ticks away the time, waits for her to dress
And walk outside with him, past the fence.
He wonders idly when they will be able to replant
The newly-turned soil across the stream, at the fringe
Of the property. Then the door is open.

Continue this for four more stanzas, so that every key word appears in a different line. Then, at the end, use all six words in only three lines. It's interesting to see where the poem takes you; I certainly didn't start out with this in mind!

He can always tell when it’s her flinging open
The door; the pictures rattle, and for a second
He thinks a train is passing on the fringe
Of the town. But, no: it’s her way to address
Every object in her path with conviction, to firmly plant
Herself at the center, and never on the fence.

She enters the room easily, her smile destroying the fence
Around his heart, leaving it free and open.
He can’t believe she would purposely supplant
His grief with joy, but he knows the second
Emotion is unavoidable when she wears that dress;
It radiates from the straps all the way to the fringe.

He loves the way the wisps of her hair fringe
Her face like a fur-lined coat, as if there were a fence
Of cold stones around her, and not just a summer dress.
Her eyes are closed as he strokes her hair, then snap open
When she hears the insistent telephone a second
Time, or maybe a third. “Did you remember the plant?”

“Yes.” It had been awful before to imagine a plant
Instead of her, sitting forlornly at the fringe
Of the room; but now it feels right, a close second
To an actual person, a small but stubborn defense.
Against his will, the floodgates of his soul swing open;
He reaches for her and crushes his anguish into her dress.

There is no way to fence in sorrow, or erase it in a second.
They know this; each tries to plant the idea on the fringe
Of the other’s mind. She smoothes her dress and pushes the door open.

Found Poems

This may be the most fun you'll have all week.

Start with a book and a theme. My class was talking about secrets in the Scarlet Letter, specifically those kept by the friends Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth from each other. We compared notes: some of us said secrets thrilled and excited us, while others felt burdened and guilty having to carry them around. (I'm in the second camp. Planning a surprise party for Rob was one of the most excruciating experiences of our marriage; I hadn't anticipated how much lying and sneaking around I'd have to do, all in preparation for that one glorious expression of shock on his face.)

Now, open your book to a somewhat-random page. Underline or highlight your favorite words and phrases -- the most poetic-sounding ones, even if you don't necessarily understand them. You're going for the feel of the words more than anything else.

Next, start playing with said phrases to compose your own. This will be much easier if you've ever used Magnetic Poetry: picture each word as a movable object, and enjoy the sound of the words next to each other and the shifts that take place when they're shuffled. Changing endings is okay (-ed to -ing, etc.) Borrow from other words and sentences. In fact, try not to keep too many words together. Use only words on the page, though -- these parameters are limiting, but that's what's fun about it.

My students were a little intimidated by the assignment at first, but they relaxed quite a bit after I modeled one for them, and they saw that rhyme, meter and grammatical rules were truly suspended. They amazed me, as they often do: their poems reflected great depth of thought and understanding about a text that is really quite obtuse at times.

You want to hear mine? Oh, okay:

In Utter Darkness

Those ugly, tortured nights,

Not deluded by the power to smile;

The realities were unspeakable, false misery.

Constant introspection, solid

On sorrow-laden shoulders;

In the remote dimness,

Diabolic shapes grow more bitter

And become shadows.

The whole universe is false

To the untrue man.

The Greatest Gift

On the last day of my second decade, I stood in front of my students and asked them about perspective. Technically, I was opening the class with a journal prompt, something designed to loosen their minds from the tight grip of the thesis statement and get them thinking in a more free-flowing way. At the same time, I was giving myself some space, time to take attendance and prepare for class while they worked busily at their computer screens.

But really, what was I doing? I needed their advice. When I turned twenty I was not much older than them, but the next day I would be nearly twice their age. I didn't feel any older than I did on my first day in the classroom -- or, for that matter, the first day of my own junior year of high school -- and, in fact, many of the same insecurities and ambivalences remain. What purpose has my life served thus far? What do I have to show for the intervening years I've spent wandering and occasionally doing something of value? Am I really helping anyone? Is any of this worth it?

"Get up," said the journal prompt. "No, really. Get up and move to a different desk, next to a different person." There were groans from all corners of the lab as the students realized I meant it. They negotiated chairs and backpacks and binders and settled in with a friendly poke or shy smile for their new neighbor. "Now look around, from your new seat, and think about the last time you experienced a change in perspective. What caused it (A new dress? A special birthday? The redesigned box of your favorite cereal?) and what did you learn from your new point of view?"

Their fingers flew for the next ten minutes, and when I asked for volunteers to share, quite a few hands went up. One girl had spent her first afternoon in rush-hour traffic the day before, and when she arrived home cranky and out of sorts, she realized suddenly what her father had gone through for years, and forgave him for his own grumpiness. Another got a ride home with her father, whose truck can't fit in the garage, so he parked under a tree instead; as she got out, she suddenly saw the grass littered with pink and white petals as if for the first time, and felt the reproach of the natural world she tends to ignore when she's in school. "I yelled and threw my arms in the air and rolled down the hill just for fun."

We pray and move on to the day's lesson. Preparing for disappointment, I ask for a show of hands: who read the assignment sheet and prepared their homework, a rough draft of a personal memoir? Everyone except one, a student who had the forethought to come by during break. I direct them to read and comment on each other's work, and as they do so, I come around to do the same for each one.

Their first memoir assignment was mediocre, and I am expecting more of the same. What I read shocks me. They have just finished discussing an excerpt from Angela's Ashes; they commented on McCourt's breezy, conversational style and humorous use of run-on sentences and quasi-dialogue. And they have used it in their own work with great success. Two students have me in tears -- one about the day she learned of a friend's eating disorder, the other about a family friend's death. Descriptive, chaotic images pile on top of each other, re-creating the fabric of grief in a compelling and brutal manner. I read another and am suddenly shrieking with laughter, thumping the table as I read the final lines: the kindergartner who smuggled a secret item to school and went to the bathroom just before Show and Tell only to emerge buck naked, wearing her mother's bra strapped around her head. "Ta-daaaa!"

Another has written eloquently about the high that accompanies performance: afterward, shaken, she wonders, what just happened? Then she hears the applause and knows. I did a good job. Everything is right. She thinks it's trite and melodramatic, but I disagree. "Anyone who has performed from the heart has experienced what you describe. It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing it."

My heart is so full from their stories, each one a votive offering inviting me into their minds and souls. They don't know that tomorrow is my birthday. But they have just given me the greatest gift I could imagine. Like a performer, I am shocked by the results of my efforts to engage them; I leave the dim classroom and walk into the hall, flooded with light and gratitude. I helped them. This is why I am here.

The Family Y(ode)r

I come from a big red barn,

From newlywed dreams of pigs and beef cattle

And maybe a few cats to keep the mice out of the corncrib.

I come from piles of warm, sleepy kittens,

From puffy tails, shaped like Christmas trees,

And insistent mewing than quiets only

When there is something interesting to chase.

I come from Varnes & Hoover Hardware,

From rows of shiny brass lanterns and sparkling Mason jars,

Where the cheerful Amish gentleman behind the counter

Is just as polite to the girl in the T-shirt that reads, in neon green,

“MY FEET HURT FROM KICKING SO MUCH ASS”

As he is to the woman in the pristinely pressed bonnet.

I come from grilled pork in barbeque,

From salads with sugar and mayonnaise

And overstuffed subs sold by the thousand

To pay a boy’s medical bills.

I come from toasted olive-nut sandwiches

At the Olympia Candy Kitchen,

Where patrons shake their heads and say airily,

“You just can’t find this anywhere else.”

I come from wide-open prairie skies,

Blue and hazy all day, inky black all night,

And in between, a glorious palette of golden-tinged pastels

That demands further investigation,

That demands you stop and gaze.

I come from an old, weathered pier, with flaking white paint,

From crawdads and leeches and seaweed

And the delicate balance between the hot skin of the water’s surface

And the cold, murky, uncertain depths below

That vulnerable toes would rather avoid.

I come from prizewinning eggplants and Merino sheep,

From the Big Pig sleeping on a pile of damp hay

And fluffy, trembling rabbits and feisty draft horses

And gowns with perfect, even seams

Made by tiny, deft fingers

Whose skills I can only dream of, three times older.

I come from lazy, roundabout conversations

About kids and baseball games;

From the pause between catching up and resuming a life lived apart,

From counting rail cars at a crossing,

So fully focused on the moment

That weightier matters slip away; instead,

128 (plus two locomotives) is all that ever mattered

in the whole wide world.

An Uncanny Coincidence

Eliot may not be American in the technical sense, but I snuck him into the curriculum this year because Prufrock is such an interesting foil for Gatsby. We read it in class the other day; much to my surprise and delight, the students were almost as taken with him as I am.

So I spontaneously assigned them a biography for homework. Who was Prufrock? Why was he so filled with malaise and uncertainty? What had made him so "deferential, glad to be of use / politic, cautious and meticulous / full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse"?

Students love to make up stories (see "Why don't you have your homework?"), so their assignments came back amusing, depressing and surprisingly intuitive. Two students (not friends) reached the exact same conclusion: Poor J.'s sister had died in a tragic accident when he was a boy. He was never the same, they wrote; he always blamed himself and bitterly mourned the untimely loss.

The names they chose for this fictional, ill-fated younger sibling? Emily and Abigail.

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