Virtual Non-Reality

If asked what I think endangers America's youth today, I'd reply that virtual non-reality is the greatest danger because our youth haven't lived enough to recognize that illusion can lead to delusion and nihilism.

How do we fight virtual non-reality among our children when they would rather play video games or chat online than read a book or write a short story? Is life so harsh that they must escape this way or has this way replaced life?

Just some thoughts on a topic that concerns me and other teachers I know, especially creative writing teachers. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

A Call for Student Short Stories

Students Publish Here is calling for student short shorts that address the qualities of gentleness and patience. The stories must be between 350 and 550 words and should be edited before they are submitted. A panel of 3 published writers (also English teachers) will judge the submissions and the three top stories will be published here with the students' names and states of residence. The Deadline for emailed submissions is Feburary 15, 2008. Work may be submitted in pdf form or as a Word document.

Here are 4 recommendations:

Develop a strong main character who the reader can identify with quickly. The character can be quirky, but the problem he or she faces should be something many people can identify with or have experienced.

We want to see the characters and where they are. Use descriptors that show significant small details and/or evoke sense memories.

Start the story as close as possible to the climax. We want to start reading where the drama peaks!

Provide a satisfying resolution. We want to be smiling, laughing or crying when we finish reading the story.

Moral Courage

Alice C. Linsley

On this Veterans' Day I give thanks for the many brave Americans who have served in the United States Armed Forces. My father, a former Air Force pilot and JAG, was among them. He died 18 years ago this week. I give thanks also for those who still serve, including my son who recently returned from Iraq. I've experienced firsthand the anxiety of mothers and fathers whose sons and daughters have been in harm's way. These parents too have sacrificed and deserve to be remembered and thanked. 

For two years I taught philosophy and writing at a boys' military academy. I also wrote the curriculum for the school's Character Education and Training for Leadership. Our school's President was Colonel James P. Carruthers, a fine leader who instilled moral courage in our cadets. 

On 29 April 2005, James P. Carruthers, fourteenth President of Millersburg Military Institute, spoke to the Corps of Cadets on Moral Courage. This is an excerpt from that speech. 

"Gentleman, I have come to see that the hardest thing to do is start. If you want to be something, then start. The beauty of life is that we can start at any moment. Every moment, every day, is an opportunity to start becoming the person you can be. It is never too late to start! You must start before you can discover your true qualities. Who you are and what you have to offer this world will never be apparent until you start showing what you are made of. You may think it is okay not to do your homework or not to take an inspection seriously. You may think, 'Everybody does it, so why not me?' What you need to understand is that no one will follow you as long as you have this attitude. People aren’t laughing with you, they are laughing at you. But you can start right now with a new attitude. People follow those who have the moral courage to do the right thing. Courage will be yours in the future only if you start living a morally courageous life now. The toughest kind of courage is moral courage, the courage to stand up and do the right thing even if it means standing alone. Moral courage is something you must develop. You must work on it every day. Moral courage will make you a great leader, but only if you start. So start now!"

Old and Irrelevant

Today I was a substitute teacher at a local public school. When I passed by the library, I noticed a huge stack of books on a table outside the door with a sign that said "Free". The library was giving away books to make room for more up-to-date books. I suspect that, besides needing shelf space, the rather sour faced and politically correct new librarian has taken it upon herself to censor the students' reading.

Here are some of the books they were tossing out:

Harry Neal's The Mystery of Time. Harry Neal was a Christian, a scholar, and a former Assistant Chief of the U.S. Secret Service. This is one of the best books ever written on time and calendars. I wonder what current book was so important that it deserved to replace this classic?

Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. (I'm trying to think positively about this. Perhaps this was a duplicate copy?)

Issac Asimov On Numbers, a volume containing his best essays on infinity, the importance of zero and the story of pi. I could forgive the library staff if it had left Tobias Dantzig's Number: The Language of Science on the shelves, but no! (That volumne is now mine also.) Albert Einstein regarded Dantzig's book as "beyond doubt the most interesting book on the evolution of mathematics" that he had ever read.

They tossed out Edward P. Clancy's supurb book The Tides: Pulse of the Earth. Dr. Clancy was a well known physicist and Chairman of the Physics Department at Mount Holyoke College.

Sir Fred Hoyle's marvelous little volume On Stonehenge and Chester Starr's Early Man: Prehistory and the Civilizations of the Ancient Near East were also deemed to be no longer relevant.

I feel old and irrelevant myself after seeing that stack, but my personal library is greatly enhanced.

Wendell Berry: Be Not Ashamed!

One of my favorite poets is fellow Kentuckian, Wendell Berry. He has written over 27 books of poetry, many novels and numerous essays. His interests are many and wide. He lives on a 120 acre farm in northern Kentucky and types his letters on an old typewriter. One of those letters hangs framed in my lakeside cottage. The letter is dated February 22, 2005 and was graciously written to encourage my creative writing students at Millersburg Military Institute.

Mr. Berry advocates and practices sustainable farming and is a critic of American technological arrogance. He has written, "The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism that ended on that day. This optimism rested on the proposition that we were living in a 'new world order' and a 'new economy' that would 'grow' on and on, bringing a prosperity of which every new increment would be 'unprecedented' ". (Thoughts in the Presence of Fear)

What follows is a haunting poem that gave me courage as an Episcopal priest who refused to comply with the heretical teachings of that "church".

Do Not Be Ashamed
By Wendell Berry

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.

Pastor Ed Reflects on My Pearl Dreams

Pastor Ed Pacht wrote to me yesterday. He said, "Your account of that series of dreams moved me very deeply, and, as I think I'd mentioned, began the formation of a poem in me. Today the poem finally came to completion. It's always a bit chancy to write something reflecting someone else's thinking, but the description of your dreams was powerful, and it had to come.

The last line, BTW, doesn't reflect anything you actually said, but just jumped out as the only place it could lead. That is where every true mystical experience ends, isn't it? Suddenly, the lights come on."

Here is Ed's poem reflecting on my 3 pearl dreams posted here: http://teachgoodwriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/three-related-dreams.html


Alice's Dreams

What I want I have,
a striving in my soul fulfilled,
an aching hunger deep within,
a hunger that has long possessed me
has been satisfied at last, and I ...

step forth enwrapped in glory,
and am led in triumph to the place,
that seat on high that I have sought,
and there was there no place for me,
and, standing out of place I raised my voice,
and sang a wordless, tuneless pilgrim song,
a song the saints and angels joined, until,
until the words began to flow,
the solemn, peace-filled, drawing words I sang,
the words the angels could not join,
the words I could not cease to raise on high,
and I ...

turned and saw upon the path behind me,
a pearl, a precious pearl, a pearl without a price,
a crystal of the loving tears of God,
a jewel with a secret name upon it,
a secret name that named my soul,
and as I sang the words upon that stone,
I bent in awe before it marveling,
thinking not upon the glad procession now behind me,
but upon the prize that I now saw,
and I bent to seize it, rising with my eyes now turning
from the thing that I had thought important,
to the path the precious pearl had shown me,
and I walked the way that I was facing,
toward the distant city gates,
and the lights came on.


I find this poem interesting, not only in the what it captures, but also in how it differs from my dream. Ed pictures me bending to take hold of the pearl. In my dream I had to stand on my toes and reach up to take hold of it. He pictures the pearl behind me when in my dream it was to my right. (There is equally important symbolism for me in both views.) Ed says, "That wasn't conscious, but it was where the creative process led. The way in which your dream spoke to my psyche seems to have caused me to see something other than the words written."

I came to Orthodoxy through Chrismation and that was the beginning of my spiritual illumination. To get to Orthodoxy I had to leave the order of Priests in the Episcopal Church.

Houses, Gates and Doors

Alice C. Linsley

Houses are both comforting and eerie. When it is our own house it feels like home, but when the house is not familiar, we feel like strangers. Or when the house empty or furnished but abandoned, there is a strangeness that brings unease.

A closed door stirs contrary emotions. The adventurous soul wants to open the door to see what is on the other side. For some people doors are better left shut, passed by, or ignored.

A door is a solid partition. It encloses and hides. Some gates conceal while others seem to invite us to visit.

Houses, doors and gates are good images for poetic reflection, and over the years some of my writing students have produced vocative lines related to these commonplace objects. Here are a few of the more memorable lines:

J. Leaver (Grade 11)

Wall hangings depict the history of the house
Where distant smells hold fast.
Framed portraits depict unfailing youth
Where timbers rot and floor boards creak.

Salim Fauras (Grade 9)

When thinking of home
I miss my everyday people,
The sweet saffron of Casablanca
And the freshness of Geneva.


Mason O’Connor (Grade 10)

Doors close if not opened early.
Keys disappear if not found in time.
Life is timed. Gates and doors shut.


Martiese Morone (Grade 12)

Do I Really Want to Know?

Is it someone I know?
I stand petrified, silent
wondering what's behind the closed door.
Is it dark?

I stand petrified, silent
Is someone there?
Is it dark?
I raise my hand to knock.

Is someone there?
Do I really want to know?
I raise my hand to knock.
Slowly I put down my hand.

Do I really want to know?
I raise my hand quickly before I lose my nerve.
Slowly I lower my hand.
Knock. Knock.

I raise it quickly before I lose my nerve.
Silence answers.
Knock. Knock.
No sign of life.

Silence answers.
Then hearing a deep voice,
a sign of life,
familiarity drives away my fear.

Then hearing a deep voice,
I take a freeing breath.
Familiarity drives away my fear.
Sighing, I put down my hand.

I take a freeing breath.
It is someone I know.
Sighing, I put down my hand.
I really want to know.