Note to self: MAM, that was so stupid of you to accept a 4th teaching job. Why did you not realize paperwork came along with teaching jobs? STUPID DUMB MAM! Bad Bad MAM! Never do that again, MAM!
Felling guilty (although I really have nothing to feel guilty about) made me look in my computer files for papers I wrote during my PhD coursework period. However, I really want to read the hard copies with the teachers comments on them but they are in the dreaded box and it is late (11:20pm), my feet have ice packs on them, and I do not have the energy to go lift the lid to that heavy box. So I did the next best thing. I pulled up a PhD paper from my computer to reread. I must say I cannot believe I wrote this paper in such a short amount of time. I do not recommend cramming PhD coursework into one year. Everything I did was so rushed. I'm amazed I pulled it off. And that was with working on top of studying. For those of you wondering what my interest is in, this paper will give you some insight. If I can ever get my juices flowing again (and time ends up on my side) my dissertation will explore how writing is a healing mechanism.
The following paper was one of the first papers I wrote in my program. I'm happy to say the paper received an A, which I admit was unexpected. I always expect the worst, so an A wasn't even on my radar. I considered the grade a gift. It gave me the needed confidence to continue on. :) I remember calling my closest friends and my mother squealing with relief and delight over my grade. Eveything you did in grad school seemed to have so much pressure attached to it. Unless you have gone through it, it's hard to explain.
Anyway, here is copy of the paper. I'm not even sure if this was the final version I turned in. I won't know that until I open up the box and read the hard copy. :) Rereading this one I see some punctuation errors I hope I didn't have in the final version.
Dr. Ben Rafoth
English 800
3 December 2006
Narrating My Way to Healing Truth and Meaning:
A Philosophical Approach
Thursday of this week would have been my father’s eighty-second birthday. My father died when he was fifty-six years old. Why do I still remember his birthday year after year? It’s not as though I liked him and have fond memories of him. I hated him. When I was a teenager, I got down on my knees every night and begged God, “Please make Dad die of a heart attack or something.”
When I was fifteen, my mother asked me through her sobbing, “Mary Alice, should I leave him?”
I answered, “Of course you should. He’s terrible.”
At eighteen-years old, my prayers were finally answered, just not in a way I expected. After two years of my father being legally separated from my mother, and a judge placing a restraining order on him to stay away from me, and being estranged from my four older brothers, my father decided that he couldn’t take one more day of living. He committed suicide. What he loved more than his family finally exerted its full supremacy over him. He was found in a room in the Hotel Sonesta in the city of Boston, my hometown. The room had a soft hazy early morning summer view of the Charles River. Harvard’s crew team was rowing through one of their daily morning practices on the river. The rowers had no idea that when they looked up at the hotel’s windows between rowing a stunned maid was figuring out what to do with the dead body she had just found—definitely not a good way for a maid to begin her work day. Resting by my father’s middle-aged body was a piece of paper with words scribbled in blue ink on it, a pen, a bottle of pills and a bottle of alcohol. Actually, I think the suicide note was lying on his protruding belly. I do not know what kind of alcohol was in the bottle. I wish I could find that maid and ask her. I want to know. I wonder if it was that dark Heineken that he loved more than me.
Are you thinking, “Why is Mary Alice telling me this?” Or, are you thinking, “I sure wish Mary Alice would keep her private thoughts to herself,” or maybe you are thinking, “Mary Alice needs therapy.” I do not need therapy. Not anymore. I’ve been there and done that—five years of psychiatry—from age fifteen to twenty. It helped. One thing my psychiatrist told me to do was to write. She used to tell me to write my feelings and thoughts because the act of writing would help me heal. I resisted her advice. Back then, I just could not write. I couldn’t write because when I was twelve-years old my brothers picked the lock on my diary and read it and then blabbed my secrets to my mother and father. I hated my brothers, and I hated writing. It would be a long time before I again wrote for myself.
I rediscovered personal writing in my twenties, during a time in my life when I felt safe from anyone who would steal my thoughts. At twenty-three I had a job cleaning houses. I was a Merry Maid. I hurt my back moving a piece of furniture, and bulged a disc. Needless to say, that was a not a merry day for me. While I was still recovering from that injury, a seventy-three-year-old man ran a red light and crashed his Lincoln Continental into my Chevy Cavalier’s driver’s side door spinning my car around four times, the car stopping on a curb facing the opposite direction from where I started spinning. I’m still dizzy. Occasionally I suffer brutal dizzy spells. Along with the head injury, came severe back and neck injuries. For ten years, I couldn’t do much physically. When you can’t do much physically, you think that there isn’t much of anything that you can do, but you end up finding out that there is one thing that you can do, and you do a lot of it and you do it well: you think. As the hours drag on, you think, and you think, and you think. All my thinking brought back memories of what I did best during my school years. I always did well with any subject that involved writing. This revelation made me decide to pursue writing.
Years later in my professional writing master’s program, I found my pen—and my niche—resting in creative non-fiction narrative. I also discovered a liking for Composition and Rhetoric, and a desire to teach writing. Hopefully, my current participation in a Composition Ph.D program will allow me to share my love of writing with others. I want students to love writing the way I do, although I know many probably will not, and that’s OK. If they can just learn to breathe, smell and taste the sweetness and bitterness of each word they write and read I will be content. I want them to know that in that sweetness and bitterness lies freedom—and that sweet liberty can be found in the process of writing—and it can result in the writer and/or the reader experiencing healing.
Writing heals. Writing is a long sought-after curative. Like an old witch doctor’s remedy brewing ever so slowly over a fire awaiting its recipient’s ailment, the making of the cure is a process. Sometimes that process is slow in the making or sometimes speedy. Either way, it’s a progression. The process of writing and healing is the same: a progression. Treading through these progressions, I discover who I am and the reasons why things happen as they do. Sometimes I discover these things slowly, sometimes quickly. Writing about my father has helped me understand him and has brought me to a transcendental place of peace and forgiveness. I no longer hate my father. Writing about him has allowed me to find truth and meaning in his life and to see how his truth and meaning relates to mine. Finding truth and meaning through my writing makes me feel like a philosopher who is pondering the deepest, most difficult questions that one can ask of one’s reality. Just as philosophers search for truth and meaning, so do writers. Writers are the truth seekers and truth bearers of society. They present their findings to their audience, not with the intent to push their own truth on their audience, but in the hopes that the audience will find their own individual truth and meaning in the writer’s words. While this truth searching has the potential to bring healing, it can also lead to frustration. But as my psychiatrist said, you need to travel through the place of suffering before you can get to the place of peace.
Truth and meaning: what huge concepts to wrap my brain around—it takes more than using just my brain to understand them. It takes using my whole body, my whole mind, my whole heart and my whole soul to even attempt to fully comprehend these concepts. And I probably never will fully comprehend them. I am led to acknowledge that my truth is my truth only, no one else’s. Even if my best friend has my same set of beliefs and values we know and experience them uniquely. There is no single definition of the concepts of truth and meaning; however, there is conformity as to how truth is presented. According to Thomas A. Schwandt, “There is general agreement that what is true or what carries truth are statements, propositions, beliefs, and assertions, but how the truth of same is established is widely debated” (259). With that said, let us now consider the concept of meaning. Meaning is closely related to truth and just as complex. Who is to say what has meaning and what that meaning is? Interpretivists believe “that the meaning of action is fixed, finished, and complete and thus, in principle, determinable or discoverable by the inquirer” (Schwandt 155). My story above about my father will mean certain things to me and different things to each reader (the inquirer) depending upon each reader’s life experiences. I know the truths behind my writings; however, I want the reader to discover his or her own truths as his or her own, not mine. I am just a guide opening a tunnel of thought that the reader needs to travel through alone.
Scholars will most likely never agree on a single definition for truth and meaning. But in the same way that unity is found in deciding where truth is presented, there is also agreement on the questions that are proposed in an effort to reach a definition: What is truth? How is truth identified? Is truth absolute, relative, objective, or subjective? What is the meaning of truth? These are all questions asked by philosophers. Thinking of how I need to employ the wholes of my body, mind, heart and soul in attempting to grasp an understanding of truth and meaning reminds me of what I was taught in my childhood religion classes at St. Teresa of Avila school. My Baltimore Catechism taught me that my purpose on earth is to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven, and I am to do that with all my body, mind, heart and soul. I remember my little grade school mind being mesmerized by the thought that my mind was capable of reaching outside my familiar surroundings into the mysterious unknown (heaven) in a search for great mystical truths. To think that I could get closer to the Divine by just thinking amazed me. I did much of my thinking while looking outside my classroom’s long windows at the tall trees that touched the sky that led to the place where the Divine was said to live: heaven. There just had to be something divine beyond those lovely puffy clouds that looked like giant cotton balls. I remember imagining myself sitting on one of those clouds questioning God. Just as I did looking out those windows in my religion classes, I believe every person regardless of their faith (or lack of faith) searches for truth and meaning looking out their own window. Whether you believe in God or not, the natural law leads us down a road of self-discovery. Natural law claims that all law is derived from nature and/or a supreme being, depending upon the person’s belief system. I consider the act of writing a spiritual experience, which leads writers and readers to discovering what their relationship is to the natural law.
In my limited study of composition and rhetoric, I am drawn to classical philosophers such as Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, who connected their ideas to the Divine, and to Plato and his student Aristotle, who searched for transcendental truth through reality and reason. Augustine claims that we are sent here by someone greater than we are and that we are on a continuous search to know who sent us, and Aquinas claimed that natural law is attributable to divine providence. Aristotle believed in a balance between reality/science and transcendentalism while Plato believed there is a spiritual world beyond what we find on earth. Studying the works of these classical philosophers can lead readers to spiritual awakenings. Their words can reach into and revive the depths of a reader’s soul, which makes sense since supposedly the soul is where the Divine deposits its seed. A well-written piece of writing has the potential to water that seed and make it grow. Plato believed that “We can recognize it [transcendental truth] because we somehow ‘knew’ it before our birth, when our souls were with the Divine” (Bizzell & Herzberg 55). Writing can take the writer and the reader of that writing on a hallowed journey with each reader finding a completely different set of truths and meanings from the same piece of writing. I submit that the writers of today are philosophers, and like the classical philosophers of old we modern day philosophers also struggle with the concepts of truth and meaning. If classical philosophers wrestled with the ideas of truth and meaning, why should I be surprised that a neophyte philosopher such as myself has trouble defining and understanding these concepts? While writers and philosophers have differing views of truth and meaning, I am surprised, yet comforted, by the similarities I find among the methods used by philosophers and writers as they attempt to find an understanding of truth and meaning. Examining this surprise can only aid me in my future role as a teacher of writing’s healing abilities.
Like many philosophers (and writers), Aristotle was concerned with reaching transcendent truth. Aristotle “treats rhetoric as legitimately appealing to the whole person, not just to the ‘rational being’ alone” (Bizzell & Herzberg 146). The whole person consists of both physical and spiritual properties. Transcendental truth is the pursuit of a relationship with the Divine, a feeling that you are one with your creator. This feeling can last for a fleeting moment or for hours. The patron saint of my grammar school, St. Teresa of Avila, experienced this feeling and described it in her famous biography, The Interior Castle. After reading many of her writings, including her biography, I consider Teresa of Avila to be a great truth-seeker, as does the Catholic Church. Pope Paul VI named her the first female “Doctor of the Church.” This title is bestowed upon those whose writings have immensely influenced church theology. She reportedly had mystical experiences. When I was nineteen, on a trip to Italy, I was in the Cornaro Chapel in Rome, and I saw Teresa’s relationship to the Divine captured in the famous statue, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, by Bernini. After researching Aquinas for this essay, I was struck by the Thomist views I have encountered reading Teresa’s writings. When I came across the following piece of writing in my research, I was pleased that my inclination to view Teresa as Thomist was substantiated:
St. Teresa's position among writers on mystical theology is unique. In all her writings on this subject she deals with her personal experiences, which a deep insight and analytical gifts enabled her to explain clearly. The Thomistic substratum may be traced to the influence of her confessors and directors, many of whom belonged to the Dominican Order. ("St. Teresa of Avila")
Thomas Aquinas was a medieval Dominican. As any good narrative writer does, Teresa personally wrote about her experience with detailed simplicity and emotion:
Beside me on the left appeared an angel in bodily form . . . He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest ranks of angels, who seem to be all on fire . . . In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul content with anything but God. This is not a physical but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it -- even a considerable share. ("Art and Architecture of Venice Cornaro Chapel")
Teresa of Avila was a simple and straightforward woman. Her book, The Way of Perfection, is described this way: “Although it is a work of sublime mystical beauty, its outstanding hallmark is its simplicity which instructs, exhorts, and inspires all those who are seeking a more perfect way of life” ("Catholic Information Center on the Web"). Aristotle would most likely approve. He recommended that simplicity was needed at times in order to reach an audience. In his Rhetoric Aristotle states, “It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences -- makes them, as the poets tell us, ‘charm the crowd's ears more finely’” (Aristotle’s Rhetoric). Teresa of Avila was a seeker of truth and meaning—the same as Aristotle, Plato, Augustine and Aquinas were, and like them, Teresa always desired to teach and keep the higher good of her audience in mind. She did this with passion and feeling while maintaining an artistic style to her writing.
Aristotle considered rhetoric an art, and he felt that good rhetoric is not only persuasive but also ethical and reasonable. Aristotle thought that all public speeches are made up of a balance of three rhetorical proofs: ethos (ethical), pathos (emotional), and logos (logical) (Bizzell 145). Ethos relates to character. According to J. Michael Halloran, “The speaker (or writer) must understand ethos in order to create in his audience a strong and favorable impression of his own character” (60). Pathos appeals to the emotions of the audience. Such an appeal attempts to create any number of emotions, including fear, sadness, contentment, joy and pride. Pathos does not concern the veracity of the argument, only its appeal (“Rhetorica”). Logos is appealing to your audience based on logic or reason, but it is “more than a simple argument based on logic, logos refer to thought plus action” ("Logos Press Thoughts Plus Action"). Let us apply these concepts to the art of writing. And yes, I did refer to writing as an art. As Aristotle considered rhetoric an art, I consider writing an art form. Good writers should consider the same principles Aristotle used as a rhetorician when writing. Writers should want to appeal simply to the emotions (pathos) of their audiences, and by choosing values or emotions that the writer relates to personally the writer will gain credibility (ethos) with the audience, and by using logical aruguments (logos) to persuade readers, the writers’ words will result in the readers believing what they read.
Augustine prescribed similar proofs. Augustine believed that rhetoric should be capable of “pleasing, teaching, and persuading or moving to action” (Bizzell & Herzberg 382). I am in good company with my deeply-held belief that writing is healing: “Augustine suggests that our worldly journey to blessedness should be a cleansing or healing process. God ‘cures’ our impurities with the ‘medicine’ of his word. Augustine says that God is to Christ as our thoughts are to our words” (Bizzell & Herzberg 383). Augustine also cautions not to rely too much on logic and not to deceive your audience:
One may, unfortunately, have one without the other, and it is better to have truth than logic. Similarly, says Augustine, to study rhetoric or the “rules of eloquence” is to point out how God has made human nature amenable to persuasion. ‘Men did not themselves institute the fact that an expression of charity conciliates an audience,’ says Augustine. But one should take care not to use these rules to persuade people to falsehood. (Bizzell & Herzberg 384)
Aquinas also believed that truth is crucial, but that it has to be combined with reason. Steven Kreis stated in a lecture that, “As Aquinas himself put it: ‘whatever is known is known in the manner in which man can know it’” (Kreis). When writers think in the manner that Aquinas did their thoughts turn into more meaningful words on paper. The old writer’s adage “write what you know” makes sense when you absorb what Aquinas said. The Stanford Encyclopedia’s entry on Aquinas proposes what makes a good philosopher:
The proper philosopher may be thought to be someone — perhaps merely some mind — without antecedents or history who first comes to consciousness posing a philosophical question the answer to which is pursued without prejudice. But of course no human being and thus no philosopher is pure reason, mind alone, without previous history as he embarks on the task of philosophizing ("Saint Thomas Aquinas").
This can also be a definition of what makes a proper writer. Writers come to their work with the same baggage (antecedents) as philosophers do. In Writing As A Way Of Healing author Louise DeSalvo states:
In Creativity as Repair, Andrew Brink has observed that the impulse to create usually comes from some early damage to the self. Doubt, pain, trauma, insecurity, uncertainty—these feelings are the fuel that drive the creative process. This wound or loss initiates a life’s work of healing, ‘of trying to make right what early went wrong.’ Writing, then, uses language to repair psychic wounds. (33-35)
I started this essay with a story about my father. Along the way, I described how writing about him has enabled me to connect his truth to my truth. I sat at table with the wise Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Teresa of Avila. My time with them was enlightening. I saw how each was connected to the other. Plato mentored Aristotle, both Augustine and Aquinas respected Plato and Aristotle; Aquinas simply referred to Aristotle as “The Philosopher,” (Kreis) and Teresa of Avila was Thomist in her views. As they were connected to each other, I am connected to my father. Two quotes from Aristotle come to mind: “To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.” Moreover, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” My father was an artist. I am an artist. He used a paintbrush. I use a pen. He did not see the light. I do. He did not heal. I did. I just wish that his paintbrush healed him the way my pen has healed me.
Works Cited
"Art and Architecture of Venice Cornaro Chapel." 1997. 30 Nov. 2006
Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg. The Rhetorical Tradition. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’S P, 1990.
"Book II Chapter 22." Aristotle's Rhetoric. 2004. 1 Dec. 2006
"Catholic Information Center on the Web." 2006. Catholic First. 29 Nov. 2006
Desalvo, Louise. Writing as a Way of Healing; How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives. Boston: Beacon P, 1999.
Halloran, Michael S. "Aristotle's Concept of Ethos or If Not His Somebody Elses." Rhetoric Review 1 (1982). JSTOR. 1 Dec. 2006.
Kreis, Steven. "Lecture 28 Aquinas and Dante." Lectures on Ancient and Medieval History. 2006. The History Guide. 29 Nov. 2006
"Logos Press Thoughts Plus Action." Logos Press. 29 Nov. 2006
"Rhetorica." The Rhetorica Network. 1 Dec. 2006
"Saint Thomas Aquinas." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 9 Jan. 2005. 1 Dec. 2006
Schwandt, Thomas A. Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry Second Edition. 2nd ed. California: Sage Publications, 2001.
"St. Teresa of Avila." New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia 2003. 1 Dec. 2006
Until next blog,
Peace, MAM
.jpg)
Good luck with your box! It's not easy to write on such personal subjects with objectivity and candor. Thank you for your courage and generosity in sharing your reflections about your father. May he rest in peace.
ReplyDeleteThank you , Cathy! :)
ReplyDelete