SELF-PUBLISHING
Some great books are self-published. In many cases that’s the only way to get them into bookstores or listed on Amazon. Indeed, sometimes even a seasoned author cannot find a publisher for a potential bestseller. Such has been the case with my latest book, which I’m marketing on my site: ruthtuckersbooks.com.
I’m a talker, but occasionally I find myself speechless—a circumstance for which others are probably more than momentarily grateful. It can be the kiss of death, however, when a writer finds herself wordless. But not in this case. My latest volume is a wordless book.
Now some of you may think this concept could only be sold as remainders—if that.
Admittedly, I’ve been a bit deceptive. I have shamelessly used a name that sells books--and especially concepts--with or without words: Dr. Ruth.
My title is: “All the Joys of being a Submissive Wife.”
I initially intended to dedicate the volume to the “Ladies of the Southern Baptist Convention,” but that turned out to be cost-prohibitive. When you introduce words to a book, the cost of publishing immediately soars.
There was a time—in another life—when I could not have offered to the public such a volume. But in this life I’m married to John. When I presented the cover to him, he howled with laughter and said, “Go for it.” (And, he will be doing the mailings when the orders come in.)
The unwritten dedication is:
To
ALL LADIES EVERYWHERE
past, present, future
who have struggled with man-made concepts
of
submission and headship
and
have survived with a sense of humor
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
WOMEN IN A MALE WORLD
Miroslav Volf, Yale Divinity School theologian writes perceptively in his book "Exclusion and Embrace":
"Even where no strict injustice is perpetrated against women, they are often plagued by a vague but persistent sense of homelessness. The social world which they inhabit is not constructed according to 'their measure'; it is a male world and they often feel as aliens in it."
An older book that also picks up on this theme is "Women's Reality: An Emerging Female System" by Anne Wilson Schaef.
Miroslav Volf, Yale Divinity School theologian writes perceptively in his book "Exclusion and Embrace":
"Even where no strict injustice is perpetrated against women, they are often plagued by a vague but persistent sense of homelessness. The social world which they inhabit is not constructed according to 'their measure'; it is a male world and they often feel as aliens in it."
An older book that also picks up on this theme is "Women's Reality: An Emerging Female System" by Anne Wilson Schaef.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Children's Books
Sarah McIntyre is my favorite children's illustrator--and not just because she's a very good friend who keeps me connected to the UK. I collect illustrated children's books and hers rank at the top.
Among the books displayed on my 8-foot, 2-tiered book-rack are those in her colorful "Adventures of Riley" series, including "Amazon River Rescue" and "Dolphins in Danger."
Check them out on Amazon. Also check out her wonderfully illustrated website: http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/
The site doesn't include the illustrated Christmas card she sent me--the absolute best I've ever seen. Maybe she'll post it one of these days.
Sarah McIntyre is my favorite children's illustrator--and not just because she's a very good friend who keeps me connected to the UK. I collect illustrated children's books and hers rank at the top.
Among the books displayed on my 8-foot, 2-tiered book-rack are those in her colorful "Adventures of Riley" series, including "Amazon River Rescue" and "Dolphins in Danger."
Check them out on Amazon. Also check out her wonderfully illustrated website: http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/
The site doesn't include the illustrated Christmas card she sent me--the absolute best I've ever seen. Maybe she'll post it one of these days.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Nagging: The Gender Mystery Solved
Women nag. That’s the truism that has come down through the centuries, long before the medieval street drama featured Noah’s wife as the ultimate nag.
Why do women have such a reputation?
I solved the mystery this morning as I was standing at the sink, having been accused by my husband of nagging—though apparently the better part of valor kept him from using that word.
We were up north at our little farm and I was cleaning beets from our vegetable garden when I realized once again that he had thrown into the garbage our plastic grocery bags that I needed to transport the vegetables back home. How many times have I told him I need those bags, and now they were covered with garbage at the bottom of the trash.
So what erupted was the N-word.
He quickly found some outside work to do and I was left in silence at the sink cleaning beets and stewing about the fact that I would probably have to put them in my purse to transport them back home.
It was then that I solved the centuries-old gender mystery of nagging.
I was reminded of how he had early in our marriage (only 2 years ago!) ranted at me. Notice I don’t use the N-word. He like most men is way too manly to nag. He had ranted at me about throwing away the water that I’d cooked the beets (and other vegetables) in, which he drinks for the nutrients. Since I had never before saved the water, I unconsciously dumped it out more than once, but his rants were enough to stop me dead in my tracks until I became adjusted to automatically saving it—or scooping it out of the drain after it’s been dumped. (He doesn’t read blogs, so he’ll never know!) I heard his rants and acted on them.
He (and his gender), on the other hand, pay little attention to women’s quirks. My need for plastic grocery bags is so inconsequential that it’s ignored. I respond. Thus the accusation of nagging.
When he finally had the courage to return to the kitchen I presented my conclusions to him and told him I was prepared to go public.
He strongly disagreed with my position and insisted that anything I wrote in a blog must include his response, which was little more than a convoluted rationalization—something about “women go on and on and on and on.”
That’s as much as I remember because we ended in fits of laughter and I assume his position is little more than frivolity anyway.
The truth is he had no lucid response to my break-through—apart from calling me a horse’s ass!
My discovery is indeed a brilliant break-through. I have shifted the paradigm! No longer can mankind speak of nagging without focusing first on the naggee.
Women nag. That’s the truism that has come down through the centuries, long before the medieval street drama featured Noah’s wife as the ultimate nag.
Why do women have such a reputation?
I solved the mystery this morning as I was standing at the sink, having been accused by my husband of nagging—though apparently the better part of valor kept him from using that word.
We were up north at our little farm and I was cleaning beets from our vegetable garden when I realized once again that he had thrown into the garbage our plastic grocery bags that I needed to transport the vegetables back home. How many times have I told him I need those bags, and now they were covered with garbage at the bottom of the trash.
So what erupted was the N-word.
He quickly found some outside work to do and I was left in silence at the sink cleaning beets and stewing about the fact that I would probably have to put them in my purse to transport them back home.
It was then that I solved the centuries-old gender mystery of nagging.
I was reminded of how he had early in our marriage (only 2 years ago!) ranted at me. Notice I don’t use the N-word. He like most men is way too manly to nag. He had ranted at me about throwing away the water that I’d cooked the beets (and other vegetables) in, which he drinks for the nutrients. Since I had never before saved the water, I unconsciously dumped it out more than once, but his rants were enough to stop me dead in my tracks until I became adjusted to automatically saving it—or scooping it out of the drain after it’s been dumped. (He doesn’t read blogs, so he’ll never know!) I heard his rants and acted on them.
He (and his gender), on the other hand, pay little attention to women’s quirks. My need for plastic grocery bags is so inconsequential that it’s ignored. I respond. Thus the accusation of nagging.
When he finally had the courage to return to the kitchen I presented my conclusions to him and told him I was prepared to go public.
He strongly disagreed with my position and insisted that anything I wrote in a blog must include his response, which was little more than a convoluted rationalization—something about “women go on and on and on and on.”
That’s as much as I remember because we ended in fits of laughter and I assume his position is little more than frivolity anyway.
The truth is he had no lucid response to my break-through—apart from calling me a horse’s ass!
My discovery is indeed a brilliant break-through. I have shifted the paradigm! No longer can mankind speak of nagging without focusing first on the naggee.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
FAVORITE CHILDREN'S POEMS
Below are some of my favorite children's poems. It's chic to be interested in children's literature--thus, the topic, children's poems. The truth is, they are some of my favorites, and I'm an adult more than 3 times over.
For all you grandparents out there, here's a word to you. Memorize poetry and teach it to the little ones. If you don't get them before they reach eight, you'll never get them at all. Start as soon as they're talking. I say this to grandparents because most parents are too busy to memorize and teach poetry. As grandparents, if we're not memorizing and doing all sorts of other memory and verbal exercises, we'll be locked up sooner that we want to be.
So here are some poems I've memorized. I'll quote only so far as I know them. You can surf the web for the entire poems.
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold,
And the arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was the night on the marge of Lake LaBarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now, Sam McGee was from Tennessee
Where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the south to roam
'Round the pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
Seemed to hold him like a spell,
Though he'd often say, in his homely way,
He'd sooner live in hell.
On a Christmas day we were mushing our way
Over the Dawson Trail.
Talk of your cold--through the parka's fold
It stabbed like a driven nail. . . .
"O Captain! My Captain" By Walt Whitman
(A tribute to Abraham Lincoln)
Oh Captain! My Captain!
Oh Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won.
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring,
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. . . .
"September" by Helen Hunt Jackson
The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook,
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer. . . .
"My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stephenson
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. . . .
"The First Snowfall" by James Russell Lowell
The snow had begun in the gloaming.
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm tree
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticlear's muffled crow;
The stiff rails softened to swan's down,
And still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mable,
Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?"
And I told of the good All-Father
Who cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snowfall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from the cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
"The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!"
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
There are many more children's poems that I love. I'll end this post with a favorite the grandkids will enjoy.
"THE COMPUTER SWALLOWED GRANDMA"
(uncertain author, poem circulating on web)
The computer swallowed grandma.
Yes, honestly its true.
She pressed 'control' and 'enter'
And disappeared from view. . . .
Below are some of my favorite children's poems. It's chic to be interested in children's literature--thus, the topic, children's poems. The truth is, they are some of my favorites, and I'm an adult more than 3 times over.
For all you grandparents out there, here's a word to you. Memorize poetry and teach it to the little ones. If you don't get them before they reach eight, you'll never get them at all. Start as soon as they're talking. I say this to grandparents because most parents are too busy to memorize and teach poetry. As grandparents, if we're not memorizing and doing all sorts of other memory and verbal exercises, we'll be locked up sooner that we want to be.
So here are some poems I've memorized. I'll quote only so far as I know them. You can surf the web for the entire poems.
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold,
And the arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was the night on the marge of Lake LaBarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now, Sam McGee was from Tennessee
Where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the south to roam
'Round the pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
Seemed to hold him like a spell,
Though he'd often say, in his homely way,
He'd sooner live in hell.
On a Christmas day we were mushing our way
Over the Dawson Trail.
Talk of your cold--through the parka's fold
It stabbed like a driven nail. . . .
"O Captain! My Captain" By Walt Whitman
(A tribute to Abraham Lincoln)
Oh Captain! My Captain!
Oh Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won.
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring,
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. . . .
"September" by Helen Hunt Jackson
The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook,
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer. . . .
"My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stephenson
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. . . .
"The First Snowfall" by James Russell Lowell
The snow had begun in the gloaming.
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm tree
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticlear's muffled crow;
The stiff rails softened to swan's down,
And still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mable,
Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?"
And I told of the good All-Father
Who cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snowfall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from the cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
"The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!"
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
There are many more children's poems that I love. I'll end this post with a favorite the grandkids will enjoy.
"THE COMPUTER SWALLOWED GRANDMA"
(uncertain author, poem circulating on web)
The computer swallowed grandma.
Yes, honestly its true.
She pressed 'control' and 'enter'
And disappeared from view. . . .
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Pontiff Kitsch and Inspiration: Edgerton and McCutchan
IMAGE: ART, FAITH, MYSTERY is a quarterly journal for edgy and artsy Christians and all others who love a good read. The latest issue (Summer 2006) includes a humorous story about pontiff kitsch and has uniquely inspired me as a writer.
First the inspiration: I've had 2 fictional works floating around in the back of my mind for many years, and this morning they got a nudge as husband John read from IMAGE. One article he read is an interview with Clyde Edgerton who was asked about his teaching graduate classes on creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The question: "What is the value of an MFA?" His response: "An MFA is like a mirror. When a born writer looks in, a born writer looks out, and when a scribbler looks in, a scribbler looks out. The born writers learn a few shortcuts that save them a few years in finding the characters and situations they were born to write about, and a few shortcuts that help them write better prose and poetry earlier in their careers than they would otherwise."
I can't really say that I'm early in my career. (I co-authored my first book most of 30 years ago.) BUT, I consider myself to be yet in the first half of my writing career. (Grandma Moses is a great role model--didn't start painting until she was 78 and continued painting most of the rest of her life, living to beyond 100.) I don't intend to get another master's degree, but I did vow this morning that I would--in the next year or two--take at least one creative writing course that will teach me some shortcuts. I'm convinced I'm a born writer.
More on Edgerton in another post. The other article from IMAGE John finished reading to me this morning was under the music section of the journal: Ann McCutchan, "Reaching for the End of Time." It's a lengthy article that begins with the sentence: "I first encountered Olivier Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time' in 1971 in the basement of Florida State University's music library, where I was employed as a work-study student. . . ." Now, that is not a first sentence that pulls me in, but John (a music professor) was familiar with the piece and had already read the article and insisted on reading it to me.
There's no way I can give justice to this wonderful article in this little post, but if I can convince even one person to search it out, my effort will be repaid. Here is a musician (clarinet player) and music professor who, due to health problems, switches careers and becomes a writing teacher. (This was a second nudge that will push me into at least one writing class.)
The article chronicles Ann's life journey in wrapping herself around the late French composer Olivier Messiaen and his lengthy "Quartet for the End of Time"--through performance and travel (flying around the country wherever the Quartet was being performed). All that is interesting, but it was her writing style--and humor--that grabbed me.
I particularly enjoyed her story about pontiff kitsch. To comprehend "Quartet for the End of Time," she reasoned she needed to get into the head of Messiaen, a Catholic:
"I have always dabbled in religious matters, which might make me a sort of aspirant, implying upward movement toward some sort of triumph. But I am continually quashing the vertical impulse and reacting against it in others. I want the Shaker hymn 'Simple Gifts,' not the Protestant battle anthem 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' There was a time in my thirties, not long after the third quartet performance, when Pope John Paul passed through San Antonio, and the idea of a pope, a king of a religion, struck me as so preposterous that I cultivated a collection of pope memorabilia as a local corrective. Friends aware of my delight in pontiff kitsch made me gifts of pope paper-dolls, pope snow globes, pop soap-on-a-rope. My most prized possession was a signed and numbered pope lawn sprinkler: a three-foot replica of John Paul, painted on plywood, fitted on the back with a hose connector and some plastic tubing. When hooked up to a hose, the pope's hands spouted water. The sprinkler's official name was 'Let Us Spray,' and it was the envy of my unchurched friends, as well as many of the churched ones. One morning I found it missing from my garden, and though I was angry about the theft, I joked that God was not amused by my irreverence and had seen fit to cast out my graven image. The next time I moved, I carried the rest of my pope trumpery to the Salvation Army. Presumably it was divided into piles headed for the toys and housewares departments, and even the women's clothing, where an 'I Prayed with the Pope' T-shirt from Denver, featuring the pontiff surrounded by a pestilence of prairie dogs, was snatched up, I hope, by someone with a sense of humor."
There's much more in the McCutchan article for musicians--and the rest of us. Go to the library and check out the journal. In the meantime, I'll be searching for other writings by this woman who has so recently grabbed my attention.
IMAGE: ART, FAITH, MYSTERY is a quarterly journal for edgy and artsy Christians and all others who love a good read. The latest issue (Summer 2006) includes a humorous story about pontiff kitsch and has uniquely inspired me as a writer.
First the inspiration: I've had 2 fictional works floating around in the back of my mind for many years, and this morning they got a nudge as husband John read from IMAGE. One article he read is an interview with Clyde Edgerton who was asked about his teaching graduate classes on creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The question: "What is the value of an MFA?" His response: "An MFA is like a mirror. When a born writer looks in, a born writer looks out, and when a scribbler looks in, a scribbler looks out. The born writers learn a few shortcuts that save them a few years in finding the characters and situations they were born to write about, and a few shortcuts that help them write better prose and poetry earlier in their careers than they would otherwise."
I can't really say that I'm early in my career. (I co-authored my first book most of 30 years ago.) BUT, I consider myself to be yet in the first half of my writing career. (Grandma Moses is a great role model--didn't start painting until she was 78 and continued painting most of the rest of her life, living to beyond 100.) I don't intend to get another master's degree, but I did vow this morning that I would--in the next year or two--take at least one creative writing course that will teach me some shortcuts. I'm convinced I'm a born writer.
More on Edgerton in another post. The other article from IMAGE John finished reading to me this morning was under the music section of the journal: Ann McCutchan, "Reaching for the End of Time." It's a lengthy article that begins with the sentence: "I first encountered Olivier Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time' in 1971 in the basement of Florida State University's music library, where I was employed as a work-study student. . . ." Now, that is not a first sentence that pulls me in, but John (a music professor) was familiar with the piece and had already read the article and insisted on reading it to me.
There's no way I can give justice to this wonderful article in this little post, but if I can convince even one person to search it out, my effort will be repaid. Here is a musician (clarinet player) and music professor who, due to health problems, switches careers and becomes a writing teacher. (This was a second nudge that will push me into at least one writing class.)
The article chronicles Ann's life journey in wrapping herself around the late French composer Olivier Messiaen and his lengthy "Quartet for the End of Time"--through performance and travel (flying around the country wherever the Quartet was being performed). All that is interesting, but it was her writing style--and humor--that grabbed me.
I particularly enjoyed her story about pontiff kitsch. To comprehend "Quartet for the End of Time," she reasoned she needed to get into the head of Messiaen, a Catholic:
"I have always dabbled in religious matters, which might make me a sort of aspirant, implying upward movement toward some sort of triumph. But I am continually quashing the vertical impulse and reacting against it in others. I want the Shaker hymn 'Simple Gifts,' not the Protestant battle anthem 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' There was a time in my thirties, not long after the third quartet performance, when Pope John Paul passed through San Antonio, and the idea of a pope, a king of a religion, struck me as so preposterous that I cultivated a collection of pope memorabilia as a local corrective. Friends aware of my delight in pontiff kitsch made me gifts of pope paper-dolls, pope snow globes, pop soap-on-a-rope. My most prized possession was a signed and numbered pope lawn sprinkler: a three-foot replica of John Paul, painted on plywood, fitted on the back with a hose connector and some plastic tubing. When hooked up to a hose, the pope's hands spouted water. The sprinkler's official name was 'Let Us Spray,' and it was the envy of my unchurched friends, as well as many of the churched ones. One morning I found it missing from my garden, and though I was angry about the theft, I joked that God was not amused by my irreverence and had seen fit to cast out my graven image. The next time I moved, I carried the rest of my pope trumpery to the Salvation Army. Presumably it was divided into piles headed for the toys and housewares departments, and even the women's clothing, where an 'I Prayed with the Pope' T-shirt from Denver, featuring the pontiff surrounded by a pestilence of prairie dogs, was snatched up, I hope, by someone with a sense of humor."
There's much more in the McCutchan article for musicians--and the rest of us. Go to the library and check out the journal. In the meantime, I'll be searching for other writings by this woman who has so recently grabbed my attention.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Marilynne Robinson on Courage and Truth
The bestselling author of GILEAD and HOUSEKEEPING also writes essays--essays as creative and cogent as her novels. In "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion," in THE DEATH OF ADAM: ESSAYS ON MODERN THOUGHT (255-262), she begins:
"Courage seems to me to be dependent on cultural definition. . . . Courage is rarely expressed except where there is sufficient consensus to support it. . . . Physical courage is remarkably widespread in this population. There seem always to be firefighters to deal with the most appalling conflagrations. . . .
"Moral and intellectual courage are not in nearly so flourishing a state. . . . Let us say that the sort of courage I wish to consider can be defined as loyalty to truth. . . . Trivial failures of courage may seem minor enough in any particular instance, and yet they change history and society. . . .
"To illustrate this point, I will make a shocking statement; I am a Christian. . . . I have a strong attachment to the Scriptures, and to the theology, music, and art Christianity has inspired. My most inward thoughts and ponderings are formed by the narratives and traditions of Christianity. I expect them to engage me on my deathbed.
"Over the years many a good soul has let me know by one means or another that this . . . tradition that is so essentially compelling to me is not, shall we say, cool. There are little jokes about being born again. There are little lectures about religion as a cheap cure for existential anxiety. Now, I do feel fairly confident that I know what religion is. . . . Nevertheless, I experience these little coercions. . . . Don't I know that J. S. Bach and Martin Luther King have been entire eclipsed by Jerry Falwell? The question has been put to me very directly: Am I not afraid to be associated with religious people? . . .
This is only one instance of a very pervasive phenomenon, a pressure toward concessions no one has the right to ask. These are concessions courage would refuse if it were once acknowledged that a minor and insidious fear is the prod that coaxes us toward conforming our lives, and even our thoughts, to norms that are effective markers of group identity. . . . These signals of inclusion and exclusion, minor as they seem, have huge consequences. . . . The example of coercion I have offered . . . has had the effect of marginalizing the liberal churches and elevating fundamentalism to the status of essential Christianity. The consequences of handing over the whole of Christianity to one momentarily influential fringe is clearly born out in the silencing of social criticism and the collapse of social reform, both traditionally championed by American mainline churches, as no one seems any longer to remember.
The bestselling author of GILEAD and HOUSEKEEPING also writes essays--essays as creative and cogent as her novels. In "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion," in THE DEATH OF ADAM: ESSAYS ON MODERN THOUGHT (255-262), she begins:
"Courage seems to me to be dependent on cultural definition. . . . Courage is rarely expressed except where there is sufficient consensus to support it. . . . Physical courage is remarkably widespread in this population. There seem always to be firefighters to deal with the most appalling conflagrations. . . .
"Moral and intellectual courage are not in nearly so flourishing a state. . . . Let us say that the sort of courage I wish to consider can be defined as loyalty to truth. . . . Trivial failures of courage may seem minor enough in any particular instance, and yet they change history and society. . . .
"To illustrate this point, I will make a shocking statement; I am a Christian. . . . I have a strong attachment to the Scriptures, and to the theology, music, and art Christianity has inspired. My most inward thoughts and ponderings are formed by the narratives and traditions of Christianity. I expect them to engage me on my deathbed.
"Over the years many a good soul has let me know by one means or another that this . . . tradition that is so essentially compelling to me is not, shall we say, cool. There are little jokes about being born again. There are little lectures about religion as a cheap cure for existential anxiety. Now, I do feel fairly confident that I know what religion is. . . . Nevertheless, I experience these little coercions. . . . Don't I know that J. S. Bach and Martin Luther King have been entire eclipsed by Jerry Falwell? The question has been put to me very directly: Am I not afraid to be associated with religious people? . . .
This is only one instance of a very pervasive phenomenon, a pressure toward concessions no one has the right to ask. These are concessions courage would refuse if it were once acknowledged that a minor and insidious fear is the prod that coaxes us toward conforming our lives, and even our thoughts, to norms that are effective markers of group identity. . . . These signals of inclusion and exclusion, minor as they seem, have huge consequences. . . . The example of coercion I have offered . . . has had the effect of marginalizing the liberal churches and elevating fundamentalism to the status of essential Christianity. The consequences of handing over the whole of Christianity to one momentarily influential fringe is clearly born out in the silencing of social criticism and the collapse of social reform, both traditionally championed by American mainline churches, as no one seems any longer to remember.
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