If you are used to reading what my fellow bloggers "religiously" contribute, you may find this post esoteric at best. As one who believes wholeheartedly in being a culturally-engaged Christian and literary critic, I recently went through a period of self-questioning while reading a book by John Steffler (Canada's current poet laureate) entitled The Grey Islands.
You see, the book's narrator and I have a little in common: we've both been dissillusioned with contemporary life and are looking for "A way to corner [ourselves]. Some blunt place [we] can't go beyond. Where excuses stop" (13). For Steffler's narrator this involves a summer-long trip to the Grey Islands, abandoned fishing outports off the coast of Newfoundland. For me, it has involved a move to Newfoundland, away from the academic urban centers of southern Ontario.
When I'm honest with myself, I wanted to move out this way to be somewhat secluded: in a way to see if my reformed convictions will still burn in high winds of rigorous academic scrutiny and engagement, without the sheltering fellowship of like-minded, believing friends and fellow academics. This is not to say that I think I can "go it alone" - if it were not for my wife and a loving church family here, I would be in a bad way. Coming here was never meant to be a prideful experiment in existential survival but more of a head-on interaction with the world through my discipline: something I had confessed to be necessary and creational but something I had, as yet, never actually done.
My desire to move to the far east coast of Canada is, I think, less existential than Steffler's narrator's desire to inhabit an abandoned shanty on the rocky edge of the north Atlantic. But I guess this is all to say that I understand that impulse to find that place beyond constant noise and deadlines and "cultural engagement" so that when I return it is after having spent times in enough silence and solitude to hear God's voice, not just in relation to my discipline but in relation to my home life and my church life as well: all three of these intricately tied together for me.
I haven't found that "blunt place where excuses stop," not yet. But I'm looking for it. Lately I have begun to wonder if this "place" is less a place and more a person, a person in whom, I'm sure, I could stand to place more trust.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
"Some blunt place where excuses stop"
Posted by Q Prentice at 6:11 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I really resonate with this, and often find myself wishing I had taken a full PhD position in England for exactly this reason. I recall the time I spent in Japan in a similar way - "a blunt place we can't go beyond; where excuses stop".
I've heard more people reflect that doing a PhD (while being an academic hazing ritual) is something akin to an intellectual journey to "find oneself" - and what it is you actually believe, and how you'll try and live it out.
My question for you: how do you pattern your day, it's activities, rituals, business and silence in order to explore these "blunt places" outside the scheduled world of doctoral studies?
And, another question: what place does finding a "blunt place" have in the life of a working man?
To Adunare: My wife usually presents me with the "blunt place" and tells me we're going for a walk or I'm taking the evening off researching to watch a movie or play games. I don't seem very good at extricating myself.
To O'O: The search for that place has been a reason why friends of mine have changed jobs, switched careers, or simply saved up enough time in banked hours at work to take a week off.
For my father-in-law, a farmer and factory worker, it is not in a quiet place (as it often is for me)but in having time at home with his family.
Post a Comment