A Way with Words, Part 10: Paul's Spiritual Imperative

At the risk of appearing as if I espouse a religious ideology—I am not—I conclude this 10-part series with a quote from Paul the Apostle in Romans 12:2 (New International Version, or NIV) because of its universal wisdom and truth. Two disclaimers before I start: (1) The NIV has taken great liberty in interpreting the King James Version, but then, so has the King James Version taken great liberties with the original ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek manuscripts. (2) The first disclaimer not only leads to the second disclaimer but nullifies my need for even having made the first disclaimer. It is that I look at this biblical quote purely from rhetorical and philosophical perspectives, not sectarian and doctrinal ones. 

Here is the verse in part:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

From a rhetorical vantage point, notice three strategies behind this beautiful, powerful sentence:

1. The shift from active voice (Do not conform), to passive voice (be transformed). So much for keeping voice consistent within a sentence. In fact, passive and active often work together splendidly. Examples include "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done," "She works hard and should be promoted," and "He was pardoned after the court determined the evidence was inadmissible."
2. The use of a command instead of a declaration ("We must conform"), suggestion ("You should conform"), question ("Can you conform?"), or exclamation ("Conform, brothers and sisters, conform!"). These techniques appear elsewhere in the Bible,  but not in this critical demand Paul makes of the Roman readers of this letter. He chooses the simplest way of issuing this order.
3. The choice of the word renewing, which the King James Version also uses. Paul could have written changing, correcting, modifying, revising, or the repetitive transforming. But these other words seem too prescriptive or transitory. Renewing suggests rebirth, which is a central tenet of Christianity. 

From a philosophical position, Paul's statement comes as close to a categorical imperative as one can get. If we are to continue evolving as wise human beings and involving as useful human beings, then we must adapt to our environment, our companions, our circumstances, and our experiences. Life may bring to us an unexpected fate. Our plans may go awry. These misfortunes, however, do not determine how we should respond to them, regardless of how society believes we should respond. Romans 12:2 makes this proposition abundantly clear, affirming our potential to be our own master.  

Here's a 2025 of active reading, writing, and renewal!

A Way with Words, Part 9: James Baldwin's Peculiar Reciprocity

I refer to James Baldwin for at least the fourteenth time on WORDS ON THE LINE, primarily because of the eminently quotable nature of his writing. Here is one paradoxical sentence from a letter he wrote to his agent, Robert P. Mills, dated November 20, 1961, from Turkey:

If you don't learn how to take, you soon forget how to give.

By way of background, Baldwin was explaining to Mills how grateful, and maybe undeserving, he was to have received such generosity from his hosts in Turkey. He mentioned that he had no idea how to repay such kindness, resolving that some people do not want payment, that their payment is the gift of giving.

Over time, I have learned the truth of that statement. My parents raised me as many others have been raised, to never expect or accept other people's giving without earning it. Consequently, the very thought of receiving a "handout" abhorred me. As I grew under the influence of intellectual giants like and old boss Harry Kamish, musical geniuses like Bill Evans, transformative artists like Chuck Close, extraordinary writers like Baldwin, and mostly habitual givers like my sister Elizabeth and wife Georgia, I experienced a reversal in perspective. I now understand that giving and taking in their intended spirit are virtually synonymous. I do not feel the need to explain what Baldwin meant. You would understand if you have experienced the meaning of benevolence.

A Way with Words, Part 8: Robert Frost's Surface Tension

I have returned to the poem "Birches" by Robert Frost at various stages of my life since I first discovered it in college more than fifty years ago, and each time its meaning and value deepen for me. As a college student, I was struck by the image of birches bending either by the weight of a boy swinging on them (unlikely, says Frost) or the more possible severe consequences of ice storms. A decade later, as a father, I was taken by the choice of escaping the troubled world by climbing a birch tree to its highest weight-sustaining point or returning to earth, the only place where one can find love. As my wife and I became  empty nesters, I found heartrending the concluding picture Frost paints of spending one's final moments climbing a birch toward heaven. Later, when I saw one of my grandsons atop a tree on my property, I recalled the moment in the poem when Frost considers country boys apart from companionship, which  they would be able to find in the city, entertaining themselves by creating their own games, such as climbing a birch.      

But one moment in the poem has never lost its vividness and significance throughout my adult life. Recollecting a boy climbing a birch, Frost writes:

                ... He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

The comparison Frost draws is what a scientist would call surface tension, that apparently gravity-defying position that liquid can hold slightly above their container before spilling over. We have all tried that stunt, marveling at how water refuses to drip down our glass even though it exceeds its barrier. Admittedly, I still do so as a challenge on mornings when pouring orange juice into a four-ounce glass. Returning to the lonely boy painstakingly ascending the birch, I delight in the realization that Frost breaks the common belief of youth's reckless abandon. Sure, we can see climbing a tree as reckless, but the boy does so with utmost caution and precision, inclinations we usually do not attribute to children. Even above the brim. I never tire of that moment in "Birches."   

A Way with Words, Part 7: Sharon Olds's Artistic Choice

At the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poetry Festival in Stanhope, New Jersey some 30 years ago, poet Sharon Olds responded to a question about her bringing into her poetry people from her life, such as her parents, husband, and children. She used the terms silence for omitting real people and song for referring to them in her work. She concluded, "If I have to choose between silence and song, I will choose song." 

Even if we disagree with Olds's choice, we can still appreciate her metaphor, equating the concealment of personal experience as silence and its use as song. We can also extend her statement to the political poetry Ernesto Cardenal, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, and Pablo Neruda, and to other genres, such as the education treatises of Paolo Freire and the historical criticism of Michel Foucault. Silence evokes closed societies and song open ones. What better way is there to discover how human beings deal with grief, mental illness, and brutal oppression?  

While we may stop short when it comes to showcasing our family members or friends in our writing, the writer's imperative is song. That is our existential dilemma. We need to communicate to learn, to evolve as a culture.

A Way with Words, Part 6: William Faulkner's Singulary Artistry

This 10-part series, "A Way with Words," has focused up to this point on written sentences by notable authors. But for this post, I turn to the spoken word of Nobel laureate William Faulkner from his legendary 1956 Paris Review inerview, which I strongly encourage developing writers to read. The first page alone is worth memorizing as a mantra to guide one's writing life. Here is one such quote in response to a question about the importance of a writer's individuality:

All of us failed to match our dream of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. In my opinion, if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist. That's why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won't, which is why this condition is healthy.

For this reason, writers grow more metaphysical, painters more impressionistic, and composers more abstract. They continually and dutifully try to attain the unreachable in their artform. During the creative process, the representation of their imagination matters infinitely more to them than the linguistic mindset of their reader, the visual perspective of their viewer, or the aural sensibility of their listener. This creative endeavor, claims Faulkner, is the true work of the artist.