An Email from a Student

I received the following email about 2/3-3/4 into last semester. I still haven't figured out if the sender was serious or not. He never came back to class.

Hey mrs. Hardy so this is kinda a weird email. with the snow falls tonight reaching a foot i doubt ill be in class tomorow, i drive a sports car and it is actually going to be moved down to atlanta next week, since i will b e moving there in about 4 weeks. but the point is that it cant drive in this snow. i know this isnt a big worry for you but with me having a few accidents last year in the snow im too scared to drive in it. and since im moving sooner than usual my parents wont buy me the SUV i want for some reason. With me already having taken 131 im full aware of the expectations for essay four and since i will pass this semester i was wondering if i can mail you a hard copy and email you a copy. This would allow me to not have to come to class again unless the weather permitted. I guess this is me hoping my request is persuasive enough for you to grant me such a prvielage. I do appretiate alot that you have taught me this year and as english teahcers go you have been one of my favs. Hope to get an aswer from you soon. sorry for the inconveniece and weather permitting ill be in class tommorow. ill just see how bad the roads are early tomorrow. thanks for your time

Together

"Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood [or sisterhood]. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured."

From "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," delivered by Martin Luther King at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968.

Why We Do Theraphy

...There, paying dearly for fifty minutes, the client gropes for a sense of coherence and mattering. The therapist listens, not so much explaining as simply fostering the possiblity of resonance. She allows the long pauses and silences--a bold subversion of societyal expectations--because only where silence in possible can the vertical engagement take place.
(from Sven Birkets in The Gutenber Elegies)

But if you desire to see into your own depths and interpret them more adequately, then you will have to talk to somebody who has seen those depths before and helped others interpret them more adequately. In this intersubject dialogue with a therapeutic helper, you will hold hands and walk the path of moe adequate interpretations...and the more clearly you can interpret and articulate this depth, the less baffling you will become to yourself, the clearer you will become to yourself, the more transparent you will be.
(from Ken Wilber in A Brief History of Everything)

War

There's no such thing as a "just" war anymore, if there ever was. You can't defend bombing children and innocent people. It isn't right to teach people how to torture and kill each other. Wars never end, really. The Crusades aren't quite over yet. Our Civil War certainly isn't over yet. I don't think we can afford this kind of behavior anymore.

From an interview with Wendell Berry in the July 2008 issue of The Sun.

Yes

Language...has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.

Paul Tillich