When I read this quotation attributed to Maya Angelou on the stamps I just bought, I wept with emotion. And then I thought about it a little more, and came up with a more complex response.
The contrast between an answer and a song is stark. An answer–in this context–comes from the isolated intellect, is possibly dogmatic, and is surely limited: proposing closure that discourages further inquiry.
How often have I proclaimed answers tinged with these limitations!
By contrast, think of a song. Birdsong, as experienced by humans, is liberated from biological urges that fall short of beauty.
If we reflect on these insightful implications and the charming bit of poetry, more ideas arise.
Countless people are looking for answers–answers! Life doesn’t make sense and it is intensely dissatisfying; conventional answers don’t do the trick. The urgent and agonizing demand for answers wells up in intellect, emotion, and soul; and it carries within it an assumption: there are answers to be found.
These answers are truths. They have an intellectual aspect because they are meaningful; but they also minister to our emotions and satisfy the longings of the soul. Truth reaches out to us in our unique individuality, in our particular situation, giving voice to what we need.
“Seek and you shall find” is a teaching of Jesus and a cosmic truth. But sometimes when people find answers–or the Answer–they may become dogmatic and stop growing. But truth is living. The life of truth flourishes when we wake up and look around with fresh eyes to see what facts are salient, to open up to new insights of how truth is illuminating that situation, and how we can become a partner of truth in that situation.
The great insight of these lines of poetry, in fact excerpted from Joan Walsh Anglund’s 1967 book, A Cup of Sun, is that expression of truth only rings true when it is more like a song than like a print-out from an intellect isolated from the other great dimensions of the self. The more of truth you are, the more your expression will sing in others’ hearts.
Happy singing!
(I Googled “bird song” and found this site to be more accessible than the Cornell one and educationally diverse in the variety of birds represented: http://www.math.stonybrook.edu/~tony/birds/ )
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/living/maya-angelou-stamp-wrong-quote-feat/
Profit from the error of the Post Office: here’s Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird”: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178948 plus a review of her first autobiography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings
When we listen to the song of life, we find that it is not truly harmonious; it is no truly integrated, not fully unified. There are strands that are discordant, and it is these discordant strands that provoke the question: Why? The intellect response of “why” should propel us to seek to integrate the discordant strands into the whole of life. Throughout our sojourn on earth, we have found the answer to many “whys,” and as we continue to move forward, we shall find the answers to many more “whys.” But a problem arises sometimes when we find the “why” and that is the work that is needed to integrate these strands into the song of life.
Too often the “why” is rejected because it requires us to move out of our comfort zone. We want an answer to the “why,” but we want this answer to be consistent with our preconceived ideas, biases, fears and other negative factors that prevent integration of the discordant strands into the song of life. The only solution to such a dilemma is to fall wholeheartedly in love with truth, and to follow it wherever it leads.
Dr. Perry
Thank you, Dr. Perry, for your faithfulness in accompanying me on the journey of this weblog.
May your own writing projects flourish!
Thank you for taking the time and energy for making this stimulating intellectual forum available. It has helped and continues to help me to clarify my thoughts and reasoning process.
Dr Perry
Beloved brother, thank you for your kind words. We are partners through the years on these things. I’m so busy finishing my book right now that I hardly get back to this site more than once a week.
Rodin has a small version of his major sculpture, The Burgers of Calais–which I’ve written about in this weblog. I saw this sculpture in a small version many years ago in an exhibit at the Akron Museum of Art. These burghers were volunteers to die: the English had successfully besieged their city, but the conqueror pledged to show mercy if six of them would volunteer to die on behalf of the rests of the citizens. Six leaders marched out . . . and the English were moved to mercy. None was killed. The six were immortalized as culture heroes by Rodin. The small version portrays the first noble figure stablized by the second figure: the right leg of the first one is the back leg as he is walking, and Rodin MERGES that leg with the left leg, the front leg, of his comrade immediately behind him. It is an unforgettable way to symbolize solidarity. About half-way between the knee and the ankle, their legs are one.
Long live teamwork in the great projects that contribute to a spiritual awakening in our world!
When we listen to the song of life, we find that it is not truly harmonious; it is no truly integrated, not fully unified. There are strands that are discordant, and it is these discordant strands that provoke the question: Why? The intellect response of “why” should propel us to seek to integrate the discordant strands into the whole of life. Throughout our sojourn on earth, we have found the answer to many “whys,” and as we continue to move forward, we shall find the answers to many more “whys.” But a problem arises sometimes when we find the “why” and that is the work that is needed to integrate these strands into the song of life.
Too often the “why” is rejected because it requires us to move out of our comfort zone. We want an answer to the “why,” but we want this answer to be consistent with our preconceived ideas, biases, fears and other negative factors that prevent integration of the discordant strands into the song of life. The only solution to such a dilemma is to fall wholeheartedly in love with truth, and to follow it wherever it leads.
Dr. Perry
Thank you, Dr. Perry, for your faithfulness in accompanying me on the journey of this weblog.
May your own writing projects flourish!
Thank you for taking the time and energy for making this stimulating intellectual forum available. It has helped and continues to help me to clarify my thoughts and reasoning process.
Dr Perry
Beloved brother, thank you for your kind words. We are partners through the years on these things. I’m so busy finishing my book right now that I hardly get back to this site more than once a week.
Rodin has a small version of his major sculpture, The Burgers of Calais–which I’ve written about in this weblog. I saw this sculpture in a small version many years ago in an exhibit at the Akron Museum of Art. These burghers were volunteers to die: the English had successfully besieged their city, but the conqueror pledged to show mercy if six of them would volunteer to die on behalf of the rests of the citizens. Six leaders marched out . . . and the English were moved to mercy. None was killed. The six were immortalized as culture heroes by Rodin. The small version portrays the first noble figure stablized by the second figure: the right leg of the first one is the back leg as he is walking, and Rodin MERGES that leg with the left leg, the front leg, of his comrade immediately behind him. It is an unforgettable way to symbolize solidarity. About half-way between the knee and the ankle, their legs are one.
Long live teamwork in the great projects that contribute to a spiritual awakening in our world!
Jeff, I’m sure you’re familiar with the philosopher Charles Hartshorne, but did you know that he was also a leading expert on bird song? He wrote a wonderful book on the subject, “Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song” that remains a classic in the field.
A quote from the final chapter:
“I have tried to show that aesthetic ideas can be useful in ethology or comparative psychology. Harmonious, intense (sufficiently varied, not too regular) experience is what animals, including human beings, like when they have it and miss when they do not. Not to see this is to overlook much in one’s view of life, including subhuman life of all kinds. Aesthetic blindness is more than a superficial defect. It makes all our science less illuminating than it might be. The scorn of some of our youths for science is not unrelated to this deficiency. It also prevents us from understanding ethical problems properly. For the will to consider the good of others as equally important with our own good is empty if we do not understand what either our good or their good really is. Basically what are good are good experiences, harmonious and intense… It is a stupendous fact about nature that the territorial disputes of thousands of species are something like artistic contests–song duels. The struggle is mainly musical (counter-singing), and not pugilistic. If only human beings could do so well.”
I’m singing like a bird, Carl, to read your words. I had expected upon your departure into the wilderness to be out of touch for longer. I’m very happy to have any word. Ecology is popular these days, but ecological heroes are few, and you and your wife are two of them.
Thanks for this interesting quote from Hartshorne. I have two memories of him. He came to Northwestern University during my years as a grad student, and he gave a series of five lectures each of which made an argument for the existence of God simply by giving reasons on one issue after another that theistic position was more likely, more plausible, than the alternative. It is said that arguments for the existence of God never persuade anyone, but his reasoning persuaded me.
Years later at an American Philosophical Association meeting we sat next to each other at breakfast. He was so thronged by fans that had no chance to say anything. But I carried his dishes for him back to where they would be washed, and we enjoyed the most delightful moment of mutual appreciation. He was an excellent thinker and an illuminated soul–and, I’m sure, still is.
I’m excited to learn that your connection to Hartshorne has such a personal element. An excellent thinker and an illumined soul indeed. I only become more impressed with him over time. Even though our understanding of the natural history, physiology, and acoustics of bird song continues to advance in technical terms, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another century before anyone tackles the subject with the depth of existential insight that he did.
The bears have dispersed for a while now that the salmon have spread out from the river, and I’m home for a break. I’ll be returning to work shortly, once the salmon have spawned out and have begun to make their slow, terminal drift downriver. The bears will return to feast until hibernation on the dying salmon in the river. Some of them will put on more than 300 lbs. from the time they left the den in the spring until they return in late fall. Survival of the fattest.
Jeff, I’m sure you’re familiar with the philosopher Charles Hartshorne, but did you know that he was also a leading expert on bird song? He wrote a wonderful book on the subject, “Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song” that remains a classic in the field.
A quote from the final chapter:
“I have tried to show that aesthetic ideas can be useful in ethology or comparative psychology. Harmonious, intense (sufficiently varied, not too regular) experience is what animals, including human beings, like when they have it and miss when they do not. Not to see this is to overlook much in one’s view of life, including subhuman life of all kinds. Aesthetic blindness is more than a superficial defect. It makes all our science less illuminating than it might be. The scorn of some of our youths for science is not unrelated to this deficiency. It also prevents us from understanding ethical problems properly. For the will to consider the good of others as equally important with our own good is empty if we do not understand what either our good or their good really is. Basically what are good are good experiences, harmonious and intense… It is a stupendous fact about nature that the territorial disputes of thousands of species are something like artistic contests–song duels. The struggle is mainly musical (counter-singing), and not pugilistic. If only human beings could do so well.”
I’m singing like a bird, Carl, to read your words. I had expected upon your departure into the wilderness to be out of touch for longer. I’m very happy to have any word. Ecology is popular these days, but ecological heroes are few, and you and your wife are two of them.
Thanks for this interesting quote from Hartshorne. I have two memories of him. He came to Northwestern University during my years as a grad student, and he gave a series of five lectures each of which made an argument for the existence of God simply by giving reasons on one issue after another that theistic position was more likely, more plausible, than the alternative. It is said that arguments for the existence of God never persuade anyone, but his reasoning persuaded me.
Years later at an American Philosophical Association meeting we sat next to each other at breakfast. He was so thronged by fans that had no chance to say anything. But I carried his dishes for him back to where they would be washed, and we enjoyed the most delightful moment of mutual appreciation. He was an excellent thinker and an illuminated soul–and, I’m sure, still is.
I’m excited to learn that your connection to Hartshorne has such a personal element. An excellent thinker and an illumined soul indeed. I only become more impressed with him over time. Even though our understanding of the natural history, physiology, and acoustics of bird song continues to advance in technical terms, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another century before anyone tackles the subject with the depth of existential insight that he did.
The bears have dispersed for a while now that the salmon have spread out from the river, and I’m home for a break. I’ll be returning to work shortly, once the salmon have spawned out and have begun to make their slow, terminal drift downriver. The bears will return to feast until hibernation on the dying salmon in the river. Some of them will put on more than 300 lbs. from the time they left the den in the spring until they return in late fall. Survival of the fattest.