Some Final Thoughts... for now

I am sure it appears that I earned the first National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar grant to study the intersection of culinary arts and social group formation. I certainly enjoyed the food of Tuscany and Umbria and spared you all many details of medieval life, Franciscan art and the life of St. Francis. I make no apologies; food is a great love of mine and these regions are a couple of the world’s finest for eating. And I discovered that I may be more of a foodie than I thought. I indulged, no doubt, in some of the world’s great food with near-reckless abandon. Writing about food is also a great deal of fun; it’s meant to be shared.

But there was a lot more to this summer than culinary debauchery. And it will take me far more than a weekend to fully figure out what it all was. In fact, I suspect it will be many, many years before I fully understand all that it meant to me. I do know now a few things:

- I am intensely interested in big, epistemological questions. I desperately wanted to finish the sources on Francis and get to their meaning for us today. Here’s a guy who has been dead for 800 years and still has resonance for us today. But how and why? What can we learn from a guy who gave up all his wealth to live a life of poverty and austerity? Did that bring him any closer to holiness, oneness, or peace? Did his avoidance of women make him any more committed to his god? Did his severe self-deprivation allow him any special insight? Is living like the poor at all similar to helping them? Is living an austere life really creating any change? Was he really interested in creating structural or societal change, or was he most consumed with bringing himself closer to his god? Did he really want to be a living rebuke of authority, or was he willing to follow authority? Are those mutually exclusive ideas? I think I have some partial answers for some of these, no answers for others. My partial answers actually led me farther away from admiration for Francis, and that was disappointing and strange to deal with. I have come around to restoring some admiration, largely through what I perceive to be a very real connection with the natural world, a commitment to standing up for those less fortunate, and a commitment to peace, even if that is only implied. I will continue to struggle with how he dealt with authority and reform only because I’d like to see his approach similar to mine – and that’s my issue, not his. I wish we had had greater opportunity to explore these ideas, but from a teachers’ point of view, this can be challenging. Discussion of these sorts of questions have no clear answers, have multitudes of textual support for all viewpoints, and have no ending in sight. You would have to be a cat wrangler to guide 15 brilliant minds through the conversation without losing it all. Still, I would have liked more of such analysis.

- I was also struck by the clear similarities between Francis’ approach and some Eastern viewpoints and experiences. When Francis says he finds pleasure, contentment, joy or wonderment in everything – the wolf, worm or bunny, the cloudy days, thorny bushes or perfect sunsets – he is referring to a healthy form of contentment quite similar to Zen’s satori. Leaving a life of comfort and wealth to live a life of poverty is parallel to the experience of Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha. So the questions arise for me… What are the universal spiritual ideas? Are there archetypal religious experiences? Is there worth for someone to pursue explanation of these universal truths and experiences? Why do people get bogged down in the details, even go to war over them, when the essence of their beliefs are the same? That is where I get cynical, even offensive, by pointing out that the essence of Christianity, for example, is that Jesus is God on earth, not the Sermon on the Mount and nutty ideas like loving your enemy, clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, or actually living in any particular way…. Just believe and be saved. All those ideas just become inconvenient to peoples’ daily behaviors. So how could we move the religious thought and dialogue to more discussion of how to live one’s daily life. I’d contend there’s not much you can prove or know about a potential diety, after-life or next-life, so we’d better live a pretty good one now and not waste our time debating what we can’t know.

- I discovered that I need to completely revamp my teaching of Medieval European art, and all art more generally. I have the equivalent of an art history minor plagued with a similar analytical approach – look at technique, tools and materials throughout Western art leading to the diversity of 20th century expression. But Bill Cook brought to art history an outsider-historian’s eyes that looked at content instead. The result was that Bill teased the stories out and built a narrative of the Franciscan experience over its first couple centuries. To look at art was to be engaged in story-telling, not evolution of technique. I found this refreshing and genuinely fun. Furthermore, this approach is what could make looking at art far more fun for teenagers. It also ties directly to skills that our students must develop in our hyper-visual modern world. We all have to become skilled at recognizing the choices a producer makes in presenting us any visual. But so often we just consume the image unquestioningly. A visual – painting or movie, etc. - must be consumed with the same critical reading that a text deserves. By looking at the textual sources and the Franciscan visuals over the course of the 13th century and just after allowed us to see the choices artists and writers had to make. Why did one story make it onto a dossal and not another? Why did an artist choose to illustrate the landscape in that manner? What larger political/ social/ economic/ religious point may they be trying to make?

- I discovered a real fascination with the relationship between Francis and Lady Jacoba. Among his rules for the friars was to have no contact with women unless absolutely necessary for penance and communion. He, like many of his time, believed women provided a potential distraction that could draw a man away from his commitment to God and Lady Poverty. At one point Francis says he did not know any women and would only recognize two, Lady Jacoba of Rome and Clara or Chiara of Assisi. But near the end of his life we get a glimpse of a different side of him. He had some sort of unexplained, unclear relationship with a woman known as Lady Jacoba, a wealthy, widowed Third Order Franciscan. In various sources we have suggestions of three incidents of their interaction. In one, Francis visits Rome for the Fourth Lateran Council and is assigned to stay at her house. She makes him a special cookie or marzipan. At some point, Francis sends to her a lamb as a gift. This lamb becomes her constant companion, even attending mass and communion with her. In the final, Francis sends for her in Rome to visit his death bed in Assisi. Little does he realize, she is already entering the city as if called by intuition; Franciscans would call this a miracle. She has his favorite cookie and he shortly thereafter passes away. When she dies she ends up entombed in the crypt across from Francis in the Basilica of Assisi. I am struck by the implied tenderness of their relationship. It is clear they care deeply for one another, but there is something different. How does Francis virtually deny the existence of women, even calling Lady Jacoba Brother Jacoba, but have such a tender relationship with her? And I don’t think it can be identified as familial, and certainly not romantic… so what’s up?


- The next time I do some sort of summer travel/educational experience it will not be for six weeks unless I bring Kristy or the Dalai Lama, Barack Obama, or John Lennon is leading it. Six weeks was just too painfully long to be away from home. It will not be to a place I know and love; it must be to a place well outside my comfort zone so as to challenge myself much more. Walking a lot up and down hills must be part of it, as I will eat the local culture and must be able to still lose weight, as I miraculously (was that a Franciscan posthumous miracle, dossal-ready?) did this summer. And it must be to someplace cheap… maybe.

- I was strangely quiet from 8:45 to noon most days and rarely shut up after that. Not sure why. I need to spend time contemplating the morning sessions, community formation, personality traits, intellectual engagement, questioning, assertiveness, and pedagogy.

- I have amazing colleagues. Every time I leave town to do anything with teachers and/or schools I return home so proud to teach at Hickman. Sure, we have our fair share of challenges, but we deal with them so well (mostly). And the expectations are intimidatingly high. And we are all better teachers and people because of it. Our community and students get to benefit, though let’s be clear – they are getting a bargain! But I genuinely believe that every large department in the school has half a dozen teachers that would be star teachers in any other place I have seen. The vast majority of the teachers I work with are NEH-worthy. At HHS renewal, revamping, reflection leading to change and greater challenge is part of what we do. We also have great support from administration and community. Trust me, all things are relative, and we are fortunate. I still say that I teach in Mayberry.

- I have the best friends a man could ask for. Numerous times this summer I thought about my lunch crowd and others, in Columbia and elsewhere. I am so lucky to be surrounded by a multitude of friends with similar interests in both life and profession. Having friends with whom you can be yourself – good, bad and ugly – is a gift. If they are also committed and incredible colleagues who fully expect that everyone do things like an NEH, all the better. Friends like that make you a better person.

- I wish I had spent even more time with Bill Cook. I feel like we had a lot in common, which ought to scare him. At the end I discovered that he is a Mortimer Adler/Great Books guy. When I started teaching, I was too and still have a strong commitment to the idea. I want to discuss more. His commitment to raising good young people is palpable, and I want to know more. His humor and storytelling are addicting; I want to write his book.

- Bill said two things in the final days that are worth keeping in mind...
****“Teachers are American heroes.” I cannot express how wonderful it is to be told this by someone who is not in the same environment every day. Sure, he’s a college professor, so he gets a good taste of what we deal with. But he genuinely believes in what we do. Thanks, Bill
****“Good teachers are subversive.” Amen. We have to fight the stronger currents of the world around us. We have to frequently fight bureaucracies with other concerns. We have to fight through jungles to get into to our students’ heads sometimes. Bill and others, if you haven’t already, grab copies of Neil Postman’s Teaching as a Subversive Activity and the follow-up, Teaching and a Conserving Activity. And click on the link to Subversive Teaching over there on the right.

- I left with three books brewing in my head, and I return with six – not counting helping Bill record all his crazy stories.

- And without getting all mushy… Damn, I missed Kristy!