Floating Towards Bethlehem
By Niall Twohig
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
– William Butler Yeats
It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.
– John Steinbeck
And we’ll all float on, okay.
– Modest Mouse
Intro
The following collection grew out of a pedagogical experiment, or better, a leap of faith taken with students.
The context for this leap is my Systemic Analysis course. My goal with this course, since its inception, is to give students tools to see the monster. That monster that feeds off man’s labors and sufferings. That grows strong from man’s ignorance, fear, and hatred. That pumps poison into air and bloodstreams, that boils seas, that turns fertile land to dust and forests to fire. The monster that pushes people off their land, forces them to bend in fields, and directs some towards shiny things and others to an early grave. That monster that shatters knees, bends backs, compels men to hang others from trees. That monster that invests more in weapons roaring overhead than it does in those drowned out by its roar.
The course would help students to see that monster. It would give them tools and guidance to trace its outline and to sketch paths to free themselves from its grip.
I can wholeheartedly say I reached this goal with students. Their work has shown me this.
But, lately, something has felt amiss.
On paper, the course seems to be working fine: I deliver the teachings. The students are receptive. They produce great essays. They offer praise and good reviews.
So, what’s off? At first, I thought the problem was in the repetition. Any course taught quarter after quarter is bound to get stale.
But it’s not as simple as that.
It has to do with the monster. The monster, I realize, is stronger than I envisioned. It is capable of locking up even the most liberatory methods in its force field. Even a class intended to break its grip can be caught and strangled.
To see this, we must first understand the physics of the beast. Its force field is, as Dr. King put it, thing-oriented. In order for life to be “worth it,” the monster teaches us, some thing must be extracted from life. We must “take away” something. In the taking, we must grow bigger, better, more powerful. Otherwise, we wasted our time, energy, money.
This, I must confess, has become true of my course. What was once liberatory has become a well-oiled machine directed towards this thing called “liberation.” I lean into PowerPoints that worked previous quarters. I give students the essay structure that prior students used to produce stunning and soulful essays. By an allotted day, they reach a certain level of understanding. By another day, they know this concept. On this day, their minds will be blown. On this day, tears will be shed. By the end, they will take away x. By the end, they will be able to see y. By the end, they will be able to reveal z to their readers. And overall, they’ll walk away with the “transferable skills” that prove the class is worth it, that they have worth, that I their teacher am worthy.
It all works so well.
Except it doesn’t really.
That’s what I realized this quarter.
A course that appeared soulful was missing its soul. A course that appeared to look at life’s depths was cut off from its depths. It, too, had become chained to the utilitarian logic of the beast. A golden chain, I’ll admit. But a chain, nonetheless. And the golden chains are the hardest to break because we look good, and feel proud, wearing them.
But we made the break this summer.
We made the leap.
This leap took us outside the classroom, into a green space where we practiced sitting, breathing, walking, talking. Where we slowed our rhythm and recognized the tension in our bodies, the ways we slouch, our coarseness. We began to understand these as symptoms, not of our individual weakness, but of the deep sickness underlying a society in the monster’s grip.
This leap allowed us to find, as a student put it, sanctuary.
In this sanctuary, we escaped the monster’s grip. We found ways to breathe freely and more fully. We walked together. We shared words and silence. We learned from the heat and the bomber planes, from the cool breeze and the cicada song. Our rigidness began to ease into tenderness. The sensation of falling shifted to the sensation of floating.
The leap also took the writing in a simpler direction. Inspired by the traditions of Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh, I encouraged students to let the words flow from our practice. I found a vehicle to channel those words in the writings of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and LeRoy Chatfield who pioneered the Easy Essay. This essay is precisely what it sounds like. It is an essay that allows one to say what needs to be said in as many words as it needs to be said. It doesn’t let the word count or standardized forms get in the way of the saying. In short, it makes writing easy again, rather than the rigid and stressful process it has become.
I am humbled to see where this leap has taken us, both in our class and in our writing. When we slowed down, when we sat quietly, we touched that ineffable realm that the mystics of all time touched. Sometimes, it felt like a wilderness. Other times, it felt like we floated amongst the stars. Sometimes we saw only our mind spinning. Other times, we saw the cosmos in a fallen leaf or heard God in the bird song.
And you, my students, if you’re reading this: your writing began to take on the quality of that realm. It became sacred. It glowed with the glow of your soul. Such writing is necessary in these dark times.
Thank you for taking a leap of faith to that ineffable realm. “Ineffable” means it cannot be put into words. But words can come close. The one that comes closest is invoked by Dr. King: Love in the Greek sense of agape. I could say that such Love means understanding or redemptive good will. But Love exceeds those definitions. It’s a force that finds us in silence, that catches us when we fall, that fills our lungs when we have no more breath. It’s a buoyancy that lifts us and that transforms our actions, our being, into Love Itself.
In the final estimate, this Love is the only force that frees us from the monster’s grip. It wins every time.
Contents
Melanie, on Her Death Anniversary
There’s a Peace Sign In Your Heart
Outro
Thanks for spending time with these words.
I hope that a few resonate.
If they do, sit with them.
I hope that in sitting you find what you need to find.
Or, better, that It finds you.
And, when It does, you feel yourself floating in Love.
Perhaps there we shall meet. Again. And again. And again.
