For your "must read" list--and mine

Chuck and I have laughed about being late bloomers recently. In his case, he has two articles just published or coming out this fall--the first in years. One modifies what he spoke about on a panel on sabbaticals at the math meetings last January. It appeares in the MAA Newsletter, Focus, in the Aug-Sept. issue. The other will come out in November in the MAA Monthly. It reviews three books on the philosophy of mathematics, the fruit of his own sabbatical three years ago, or is that four! This next math meeting will see him participating in a panel discussion honoring the 300th birthday of Euler. He will explore the philosophy and religion of this famous man. In addition, I am pretty sure he is also working with the phil of math sub-group to chair another session for them. All this better late than never :)

As for me, I am still waiting to hear what my editor says about the mss, but in the meantime, I have been invited to speak on Muslim Christian dialogue at the college/city's annual Clergy Academy of Religion. This invitation came as a complete surprise (my theology is not really in synch with the typical participants), but I've been given essentially free rein to speak about what is important to me. This will happen next March. Also in the meantime, I have my own "must read" list, which just keeps getting longer, not shorter. On it: My Uncle Napoleon by Pezeshkzad (recommended by Nafisi); a book of Iranian essays, My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes, also a Nafisi recommendation; Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and DAvid Relin (I forget where I learned about this book); and lastly Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza, recommended by my dear friend S and a poster at the Wayne Co. Public Library. Then there would be fun stuff like the next books in Alexander McCall Smith series about Botwswana and Edinburgh. Maybe after the semester is over? Of course, there's the theology books my brother recommended last Christmas still sitting by my comfy chair....

"The highest form of morality...."

I have doubled the autographs I have collected from significant late twentieth century authors by getting one from Azar Nafisi last night. Her book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, was the summer reading/essay response for the incoming first years here. (In fact, I helped read the many top exams and my own two students' essays were ranked 11th and 14th, though only the top ten could go to dinner with her--essay writers, that is, not essays.) Nafisi is a dynamic, engaging speaker, and it was a privilege to hear her and to speak with her however briefly. During the public Q&A, I asked her if she were to write a book called "Reading XXX in Baltimore," what three or four contemporary novels would she analyze in order to help her American audience gain empathy for the Muslim world. Surprisingly, she struggled to answer it because she didn't want to list any book that was not Iranian.
Empathy....One of the key phrases from the book, which has become a central theme of this year's forum series, is a quotation she cites from Theodor Adorno: "The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one's own home." Nafisi's thesis in her book is that only through reading literature (particularly novels) can persons develop empathy for those different from themselves. The primary sin of the characters in the four novels she taught in her clandestine class in Tehran all lacked empathy as (of course) did the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime, which so stifled their self-expression and abused their lives. For her, empathy is the highest good, fostered (only!) by literature and designed to make us uncomfortable with the comforts of our own worldview.

What do you think? How would you finish the sentence "The highest form of morality is...."

I'll give you a clue to my response after having this tumbling round in my mind for several weeks. (Don't continue to read if you would rather figure yours out alone...) Morality for Adorno and Nafisi does not exist in a God-shaped world. They do not refer to "loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind." Hence, however lovely the idea of empathy for others, it cannot thrive or even exist without the spiritual power of God in our lives. However, if we were just to be thinking about obedience to the second table of the law, loving your neighbor as yourself, then this is probably one challenging way to rephrase it. It certainly echoes the significant theme of our being "strangers in a strange land" because we cannot fit comfortably into our culture if we are followers of Jesus. Our loyalties are elsewhere, but I can only not feel at home in my own home if I have another home, the kingdom of God, whose demands on my heart and actions are greater than those posed by people living in a different home than mine (which is American middle-class culture).

The forum theme this year is "Piety and Heresy." (Guess which one is privileged!!) Chuck is going to speak at WCF later this fall after the visit of Michael Ruse who has written about creation/evolution (again, guess the perspective). I think that I am going to respond to the whole forum theme when I speak in November by raising this question of the highest form of morality.

O, Mousie, Where Art Thou?

We thought we had our mouse problem licked, really we did. However, occasionally in the last couple of weeks there was irrefutable evidence that we did not. It was the occasional part that baffled us. Finally, I got C to set the traps again but they yielded nothing. Then Thursday morning, an apple sitting in the dish of fruit I keep out on the counter had many mousie bites in it. We moved the traps upstairs to the kitchen, but again nothing. Then yesterday morning, C noticed a strip of light coming from under the door to the garage (he had shaved off some of the door after our new, thicker carpeting had been installed and put a carpet guard on it so opening and closing it wouldn't snag the carpet). Oh, maybe the mouse was just coming in from the garage when it was hungry. He readjusted that guard and set the traps outside the door in the garage itself. When I checked the ordinary places this morning, no evidence of mousie and the traps were still untouched. Hmmm, maybe we had solved the problem. Then I saw the tomatoes sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen. Mousie had been enjoying the late summer bounty last night. Then, when we came home from church, all the traps had been sprun--but no guilty party. Now what??? A rat or a chipmunk in the garage? Oh, Ruberad, where didst thou purchase those new, better mousetraps that had turned the tide in your battle? Not at WalMart, that's for sure. Please send news of reinforcements soon!

Revelation 19

I'm still not cleaned up from the annual WCF welcome to first years picnic, but I came downstairs to put the tablecloths in the washing machine and stopped by the computer. The event is always a happy one and this year is no exception (though a little smaller than they expected because they are in touch with about 25 or so new folk, so we have leftovers for the next couple of picnics, coming up very soon). We welcomed some new first years, including from the Netherlands and Romania, and a grad from Ghana stopped by. In his honor we sang "Revelation 19," Wooster's Gospel Choir's signature piece. T-V has a gorgeous voice and now he is using it in NJ and the banking industry, praising God for providing a job which was hard to come by. Love that song!! It's so good to have a group singing around the piano. Some are still there and others, those whose studies are not pressing (yet), are playing cards in the living room. Like Ellen, I have a few posts swirling around in my head about the first few days of the new semester, but they will have to wait a bit longer. The singers and the dishes are calling.