The other day, as soon as I got home, I looked up “oyster etymology.” It turns out the word “oyster” comes from the Greek “ostrakon,” meaning “a hard shell.” That’s the short version, but it was enough information for me. I previously had no idea, and I really wanted to find out.
I also wanted my kids to see me following through, after a question popped into my head. We had been chatting about oysters on the way home from school. Specifically, we had been chatting about what was making that unusual smell in the car. I admitted there was a seafood sale that I couldn’t resist, so that explained the odor. But what explained the word? I thought it must be Greek, but I wasn’t sure, so I said I would look it up. And I did.
I am a word hound and my husband is a reporter, and at our house, we always look things up. It has been a great gift to me to realize that my kids think this is totally normal, and something worth doing, when a question arises: You wonder something; you go find out. Not everybody does this! Not everybody even thinks to try!
It was a gift to me because half my kids are now legal adults, and I so often feel that I have failed so miserably in transmitting even the most basic truths to them. It’s not a reflection on them. They’re all actually doing quite well. It’s just that I feel like I’m only just now figuring out, myself, what’s most important, and it’s too late, too late, for me to pass it along.
But this is largely melancholy speaking. It’s fall, which is “everything is dying” season here, and it’s hard not to let that sense of desolation creep into everything I perceive. The truth is, nobody can teach someone everything they need to know. That’s not the nature of teaching. It’s not the nature of people. It’s not the nature of knowing. You telling people what they need to know, and them believing you, remembering it, and acting on it is not how good ideas get transmitted, most of the time.
But example is a very good teacher. It’s one thing to say to a kid, “This is the right way to do things,” but it’s quite another to simply do it, almost every single time, as if no other option were thinkable. It’s very good to tell kids what is right and just and wise; but it’s far, far better to simply do it in their presence. Something to think about. This is how we teach, whether we mean to or not: By how we live. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image: Oyster on ice from Wikimedia (Creative Commons)
I always tell my kids that Google’s tagline should be “Why wonder!”[insert copyright here] because so much information is at our fingertips now!
“ I loathe and detest the idea that there is something brave and scintillating about having a perpetually unsatisfied intellect that constantly shifts around looking for more questions without ever pausing to contemplate the answers already given. ”
“Detest” and “loathe” are very strong words, reminding us there are all kinds of forces in the universe and that these forces can not only act propellants but may serve as practical limits. Hatred can be related to the force of anger, but also to fear and disgust. The words “detest” and “loathe” surely have connotations of revulsion.
Humans have an interesting relationship to limits. We both need them and want to push against them, test them. This is true of humans of all different ages, from tiny children growing into their potential, to creaky cranky oldsters feeling certain potentials slip away. We yearn for our limits to be solid, but often (at the very same time) desire them to be a at least a bit yielding.
Twentieth century physical science tells us that most of the perceived “solidity” of certain “things” in the “world” (rocks, flesh, bones, and formica tabletops) is the result of electromagnetism (something about how electrons exchange photons with other electrons and other particles … or something) and that electrons are “actually”(?) more like vast dynamic clouds surrounding other particles that exchange quanta of different types of energy to clump together or burst apart. This kind of “answer” is probably useful in very specialized circumstances to people with the right training and equipment. Dwelling too much on “understanding” this “answer” is ok if you have the training to use it (perhaps to develop better questions), but it could be dangerous if such a preoccupation leads you to forget to look three ways before stepping into a busy intersection.
Any loathing we might feel towards someone lost in the clouds of abstruse theories is probably rather gentle compared to how we might forcefully detest it when someone appears to be unproductively (or mischievously) questioning assumptions or beliefs about our values. Still, if our values are based on our own cycles of questions and contemplations (which means we have already taken into account certain legitimate doubts) they are more likely to cohere, and perhaps even be fortified in a compassionate and resilient way by pointed (or pointless) challenges.
Loathing can even be driven by the forces of compassion when we fear for someone else misusing their potentials in ways that may only seem harmful to themselves though some suspect the forces of the human moral universe are so aligned that any injury to any of us can injure us all.
Many forces drive us to believe (or want to believe) that something like compassion is an “ultimate” force—or is one force that is at least as relevant to our flourishing as other forces and powers. There’s also something that forces us to test this belief, perhaps in the hopes of reinforcing it for ourselves and our loved ones (who are …. )