When I was little, we used to go, some Sundays, with Granny
and Pappy to little Andrew Chapel out at the end of some long country road in
Virginia. Getting ready for church on those mornings was a spiritual event in
and of itself. I knew – still know, Granny’s floral Sunday dresses by heart and
I waited expectantly down the hall in the morning – in my own Sunday best and
my “clicky” shoes – for the beloved scent of Pappy’s cologne and Gran’s perfume
to waft out to me, letting me know it was almost time to go. I loved going to
Andrew Chapel – loved the ice cream socials, and Mrs. Henderson – Gran and
Pap’s neighbor sitting in the pew behind us – loved being Pappy’s “Granddaughters
from California,” loved the stray cats always hanging around the door, and the
gravel parking lot and the sweet, graceful peace of the cemetery out back. I
loved with all my being – and still do, that small, white holy church and the
ramp they built out front of it when Gran became wheelchair-bound. (Against all
modern odds, they didn’t even need a law to tell them that was the right thing
to do.) I loved Pastor Creech with his carroty-haired youthfulness – against
whose preaching artistry I still compare all sermons I hear. And I loved – with
an adoration that literally shaped who I am as a person, that feeling of being
tiny, little me in that great sanctuary of warmth and love and community.
There is a special luxury afforded to children which is
taken from us somewhere around high school, and I can’t be the only adult who
mourns its loss. It is the luxury of being left alone, at times, usually in
matters of seriousness and importance, even in the midst of roomfuls of other
people. Children can sit, if their parents let them – and the best kind always
do – in a room full of things-going-on, and merely be, with no expectation to add pleasant banter, or give good
advice, or jump up to clear the dishes, or know the latest news from the White
House. It is not rude for a child to sit in the midst of a conversation and
merely watch. Listen if he pleases
and daydream if he doesn’t. It is, in fact, considered good manners on some
terms. That was the luxury I indulged in on Sunday’s at Andrew Chapel, as the
grown-ups greeted and caught up and settled in, as the choir sang and the
preacher preached. Amidst all those community worshipers, I felt equally small
and (as the preaching suggested) imminently important. I was a part of them, of
“it”, and yet, at the same time, I was alone.
It is this same paradox of alone togetherness that Jason and
I stumbled upon in our adult worlds just
a couple weekends ago as we gazed into our campfire somewhere in Southern
Oregon. Across the way, through the pitch darkness, another campfire glowed and
we could see the hunched form of another camper leaning over his book beside
the fire. We knew that he could see us, too, if he looked up and glanced around
him, and we reveled, for a while, in the pleasant company he afforded. Separately,
we had sought similar things: solitude, perhaps, beauty, peace, adventure,
self-sufficiency, freedom, smallness. And we had ended up here, meditating by
our respective campfires, beneath the same magnificent expanse of stars. We did
not wish to become friends with one another because we were not seeking
friendship, just then. But we were friends nevertheless in our solitary
communion. I took comfort – looking across the way at him – in knowing that
there is another out here like me. And I marveled in how connected I felt to
him, though neither of us sought direct contact. We were gladly alone and yet,
together at last.
Robert Frost wrote a poem about communal solitude. A poem
that I read in college and which elevated Mr. Frost from his already honored
position in my mind as creator of “The Road Less Traveled” and “Swinger of
Birches” and “Mending Wall” to something more spiritual – an unmet kindred
spirit. The poem is called “A Tuft of Flowers,” an unobtrusive title at best.
To begin with, Frost weaves the word “whetstone” into the poem, a thrilling
event that for me is delightful in both sound and spelling. But he proves (for
the billionth time) his true artistry in imagery in the 12th stanza, with a
simple set of lines that thrills me to the core each time my eyes see it
chanted out on the page. In the poem, a man working in the fields contemplates
his solitude and alienation from the man who mowed the field before him – and
indeed from all other men – until a butterfly leads his eye to a tuft of
flowers by the brook: “A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared / Beside
a reedy brook the scythe had bared…” The speaker finds that, though the man
before him was not seeking to make
his acquaintance, they are acquainted, and connected, nonetheless by their
mutual love of the flowers, the grass, the wild. The second to last stanza
speaks, I am convinced, not only to my soul, but also to other souls, around
other campfires, beneath others stars: “And [I] dreaming, as it were, held
brotherly speech / With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.” *
In secondary education you hear, from the moment you step in
the door of your first class in your credential year (no, before that, even,
when you read the interview questions and personal statement prompts) about the
importance of group interaction. Team building, communication strategies,
cooperative learning are (currently) the signs of a globalized, contemporary
classroom. And the “sage on the stage” should be dead and buried. There is no
doubt that group work has a place in the classroom. And there is no doubt that
some students learn better in an interactive, moving, pulsing, collaborative
environment. But I can’t help but think, miserably, forlornly, sometimes, “What
of us?” What of us small, unpopular, revelers in solitary togetherness? Where
have our dearly beloved learning environments disappeared to?
There was a lecture hall at Cal State Long Beach, PH1, that
I adored. When you entered the room through the door at the back, you stood at
the top of the stadium stairs and looked down on the chairs and lecture stage.
The side walls were old brick, not well-kept, fancy, austere brick, just plain,
old brick that did its job steadily, reliably, trustworthily, day in and day
out. There were lights, but the room was always mildly dim, maybe on account of
the oft-used screen projector. It was cool and comfortable and anonymous. There
you’d sit, watching some sampling of the intellectual world unfolded by the lecturer
before you. There was no cold-calling, no “think, pair, sharing,” just you
alone among all those other learners, soaking it all in, or wasting time, or
writing a novel as the case may be. It was communal learning, but it was
solitary, autonomous learning as well. And it was beautiful.
I once got a B in a class whose essays I scored high As on
because the professor said I didn’t participate enough. (This class was not in
PH1.) Despite what I found to be fascinating content, I felt no urge to
contribute to the blather I heard sometimes in class discussions, nor to
compete with the brilliant insights at other times. I was learning through
solitary communion. Chewing on my
thoughts as I grazed on the thoughts of others (Cows, on a side note, are
masterful creatures at solitary communion). The professor wished for me to
learn in social communion. (Perhaps if I had given him the cow analogy he would
have been more forgiving). It was a difference of opinion – of purpose – and I
accepted the B as earned. But I’ve often thought about how marvelous that same
class would have been if the talkers had been left to talk and the listeners to
listen. The world needs all types, after all. Students are not, like children,
granted internal reverie. There is a misconception among some that if we are
quiet, we must also be thoughtless. These some are not the type who would feel solidarity
with Mr. Frost’s farmer.
I go to church sometimes because I like to be among
like-minded people. When I touch the wooden pews and look around at the
communing worshipers – and smile at them as though we are not strangers,
because, after all, we are not – and feel the music move through me from my
toes to my beating heart, I feel more social than perhaps any other time in my
life. Alonely contemplating the day’s message along with all those other contemplators,
I feel the kinship that we share while still holding onto myself, just as I am,
without social graces or expectations. And my soul finds peace and joy in
knowing that I am alone with others also alone. Together. I know there are some
churchgoers who would argue that I am missing an important part of church by
avoiding complete integration. That the reason we commune in church is so that
we may commune with one another. But
I think that just as there is a place for group interaction and a place for
complete solitude, so is there a mysterious and profound relevance in the
social aloneness I seek in church.
There are answers in communal solitude that, I suspect,
could change the world, improve our schools, dethrone corruption, feed small
nations. Though paradoxical, I don’t think it is contradictory to believe that
like-minded people can work together in their solitude to make great changes.
We have seen, in our history, non-violent non-compliance move mountains. It
would be folly, I think, to not give similar credit to the spirit of autonomous
community and to believe that it might not be able to accomplish a great deal.
-R.E.A.
*The Tuft of Flowers
By Robert Frost
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,
As all must be,' I said within my heart,
Whether they work together or apart.'
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
Whether they work together or apart.'
