Re: *Sum, ergo sentio, ergo loqui, ergo cogito* (I am, therefore I feel/speak...

[Bct...@aol.com]

Dear Willis and everyone in this Open Forum,

 

I scanned two of Willis's Thinksheets from his book, Flow of Flesh, Reach of Spirit, and posted them in the files section at the bottom of the CC's Google Group page:

http://groups.google.com/group/Confessing-Christ

 

One of the Thinksheets is the one Willis wanted to share with our group, and he has written a commentary on it in his posting, which is attached below.  This is the Thinksheet, "Sacrament in the common life," which is on pp. 140-141 in his book.  I am sending this note to help continue the dialogue, and I will write back with my comments later on.  I read his posting and the Thinksheet, and I suspect we can have some wonderful dialogue about this, from many different perspectives, including my favorite Trinitarian perspective!

 

The other Thinksheet is one I read last night that I wanted to share with those of you who have not already seen it. It's entitled "Inscape:  Thinksheets as inner conversations," and is on pp. 113-116 in his book. 

 

I love the way Willis ends this Thinksheet, because it reminds me about how I feel about having the opportunity to participate with all of you in this Open Forum. 

 

And I suspect this will resonate with you as well. 

 

"So what conversing and muttering do you do to keep from going crazy; and to enrich life for yourself and others?" 

    --- Willis Elliott

 

Jane

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

In a message dated 6/30/2009 10:40:32 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, elli...@charter.net writes:

Thanks, Jane.

 

Yes, there is a Thinksheet in (FLOW OF FLESH, REACH OF SPIRIT) I'd like responses to.  It's a poem in which I "define" a religious word ("sacrament") feeling-first instead of head-first.  In fact, it has no "head" at all.  /  Monday, I'm giving a lecture titled simply, "Language."  Maybe I'll start it by reading pp140-141.

1

Enlightenment victims, we need a bypass to get to the heart from the head.  Why?  Because we are in our heads.  Why?  Because school put us there.  Why?  Because the inventor of the computer said that's where we should be: essentially, in our essence, our being, we are thinkers who cook percepts of concretions into concepts of abstractions: I am because I think ("sum, ergo cogito") & my thinking is the evidence of my being [human] ("cogito, ergo sum" - Descartes [the first "modern" philosopher, d.1650]).

2

I've written the "Subject" (above) in Latin in the vein, & in reversal, of Descartes' most famous line.  Translation: Because I'm alive, I can feel/sense/perceive.  Because I can fee/sense/perceive as a human being, I can speak.  And because I can speak, I can think.  /  It is not true that love or a smile is the shortest distance between two hearts (though the entertainment world has capitalized on this sentiment).  In 1980, after a lecture, I was handed (by the poet) a book of poems titled "A Poem Is the Shortest Distance Between Two Hearts."  (Her name will come to me soon after I post this email to you.)

We are the language animal, & without language we have no human mind or even heart.

3

I'm overwhelmed with metaphors of what I mean, but must get to my daily walk with Loree.  I'll close with two brief stories on secularism's captivity of consciousness in the mind versus the heart. 

3.1

American poet W.S.Mervin went to college & lost the religion of his Presbyterian-parson father.  When Bill Moyers (6.26.09) asked him why he gave up Christianity, he smiled & said "The Apostles Creed."  He was wrong.

3.2

Billy Graham began his response to me (at the '66 NCC Triennium) thus: "Unlike Dr. Elliott, I am no scholar.  I didn't even get to go to seminary."  Why no seminary?  Fear.  The fear that he would lose his religion - specifically, his evangelistic passion.  He was right.

4

Well, one more story.  Someone please remind me who said, "Cursed be the man who handles holy things without feeling."  In training readers for public worship in our Cape Cod church, I would have him/her read the lection(s) for the upcoming Sunday with the public-address system on.  Then I would read it, & ask for comments on the differences.  Always, I'd get this comment: "You were slower."  Thoughts are rabbits, feelings are turtles.  If the reader feels nothing, the Scripture has been abused.  If the congregation feels nothing during the reading, the congregation has been abused & taught that Scripture-reading is not an important part of worship.  Human life is primarily feeling (*sentio*), secondarily talking (*loqui"), only tertiarily thinking (*cogito*).

 

Grace and peace--

Willis