[Oe List ...] What Happens If You Give the God Lecture Today?

[Marilyn Crocker]

Randy,

 

I hate to admit my utterly warped naiveté at the time I first took RSI, but I was one of those who raised my hand when asked, “Who identified with Miss Miller?”  Of course my maiden name was Miller J -- but my personal conceptual framework needed big time adjustment!  (Marilyn Oyler’s maiden name was also Miller, but I’ll bet she was the wiser in responding to that question!)

 

Last evening I read  Guterson’s “controversial commencement speech with great interest, as I have enjoyed several of his novels.  Although the first many pages (and minutes of the speech) certainly set forth  the final reality of contingency and limits, in his last “long, German paragraph,” I sense glimmers of both the Christ (to die is to live; pick up your bed and walk) and Holy Spirit ( mindful, conscious, decisional choice) dimensions.

 

Just wondering, Gordon, in what ways did this speech become “controversial,” and for whom?

 

Marilyn

 

From: oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of rcwmbw at yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2013 7:40 AM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Cc: Order Ecumenical Community; Colleague Dialogue
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] What Happens If You Give the God Lecture Today?

 

Speaking of RS-1, Julie Harris, Miss Miller in Requiem for a Heavyweight, died yesterday at age 87. Long may she be remembered as the symbol of everything we detested about the perversions of "social work."  I've long thought that her character could have been the inspiration for much of the work of John McKnight, author of The Careless Society, founder of the Asset Based Community Development Institute and friend of ICA. 

Randy

Sent from my iPad


On Aug 24, 2013, at 3:04 AM, Gordon Harper <gharper1 at mindspring.com> wrote:

Well --

In this case, the poor soul here in Seattle who tried it (no, twas not I) got roundly booed and some people in his sizable audience tried hard to shut him down before he was through it.

I'd heard about David Guterson's experience delivering the commencement address this year at his former Seattle high school.   Only recently, however, did a friend send me a copy of it to read myself.  (You may recognize Guterson's name as the author of the novel, Snow Falling on Cedars.)  I found his talk so deliciously outrageous as a graduation speech that I have to share it. 

Those who were most outraged and expressed it so vocally were in the parents and family members section; it seems the graduates were at least polite and attentive during it.  Its ending is weak (IMHO), and of course there was no following Christ lecture the next morning.  Still, if one ever wanted a current rendering of our Friday night event, this might come close --

Gordon

<Guterson Commencement Speech.doc>

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