Ltr. to Dan Mckanan

“A good fruit of the day's philosophy would be some analysis of the various applications of the infinite soul to aesthetics, to metaphysics, to ethics, to physics, and so show… the present movement in the American mind.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal, 6/13/1838 Daniel McKanan Senior Lecturer in Divinity Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, USA Dear Daniel, I’m glad to pick up our thread with respect to the review you were invited to write, alongside that of Bob Richardson and other kindred spirits, for Claire’s extra-ordinary testament, “And The Night Is Spangled With Fresh Stars: A Story of Eternal Love” The testament takes up Emerson’s recognition that our disciplines today, without that primary faculty of intuition, become but tuitions — in service, indeed, to the dictates of the “bottom-line,” the “Almighty Dollar.” More I believe is asked of us, if we, humanity, are to have a future worth envisioning for our children, grandchildren, and the generations to come: All Our Relations. I address you, Daniel, as the Harvard Divinity School, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity. A formidable title, emblazoned in the Crimson heavens themselves! Through you and through this testament I address, no less, the Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, The Unitarian-Universalist Association, American Religion and Academia “to boot” — on behalf not only of Henry David Thoreau, the subject of this testament, but of his neighbor and kindred spirit, Ralph Waldo Emerson — on behalf of Concord, Massachusetts itself. ~ ~ ~ !1 By way of introduction, and as a backdrop to this letter, I write, Daniel, as a native son of Concord/Musketaquid, the home of Waban and the spirited “Praying Indians,” America’s first non-native, inland community, and the crucible of our American Revolution, from whence was fired the “shot heard ‘round the world.” I write thereto as the founder and director of The Center for American Studies at Concord, an “uncommon school” in the words of Henry David Thoreau. The lesser known Concordian, Thomas Whitney Surette, who played the organ at Emerson’s funeral, took up the torch of this “uncommon school” and, kindling the holy flame of the heart, transformed what had been a literary and philosophical impulse into a musical impulse. Beginning in 1915 and continuing for 23 years “the music of the spheres” resounded through “The Concord Summer School of Music — for those with ears to hear. Of this musically inspired 20th incarnation of Concord’s “village university,” Surette noted: “This is not a normal school." The chief purpose of this school,” Thomas Whitney went on to say, “is to develop the individuality of teachers [and students] by bringing them in contact with great music, poetry etc., by dealing as clearly as possible with the principle underlying all teaching, and particularly the teaching of music, and to stimulate and help the teacher [and student] to work out his or her own way of teaching. Teaching is an art, not a science. To impose a rigid system on the teaching of any art is to destroy the art and the teacher. Quoting Robert Hutchins, the President of the University of Chicago and the inspiration behind its “Great Books Program,” Surette goes on; the perspective he offers is nothing more/less than — can one say? — common sense? “The purpose of higher education is to unsettle the lives of young men and women. Try to get a realization of the significance of the life we ourselves must attain to – not just to see objects and events. William Blake says that our five senses may shut us out from the world. It is not by looking that we see things, but by seeing. We must use our inner eye… Try to get a realization of yourself in relation to the world by seeing not only the object but the significance of it. To do this you must have imagination [in-sight] and originality. Interpret the world for yourself. Cultivate a seeing eye, a hearing ear – !2 and be aware. Think for yourself, never through anyone else, be yourself, yet keep within the laws of life.” [emphasis added]. The laws… of life, old friend, not of death. Surette, as well as Emerson and Thoreau before him, are speaking, one and all, not so much of our feted “critical thinking” but rather, in the Concord spirit, of an empathetic thinking — a thinking that recognizes, and duly acknowledges, the sources from whence it draws. Speaking to this little recognized fact of life, our modern lives, Henry David Thoreau stated, “How can I understand the rock unless I can soften toward it.” These words are from the same man who had written in his journal on April 11, 1852: “I ask to be melted. You can only ask of the metals that they be tender to the fire that melts them. To nought else can they be tender.” I speak, Daniel, of Emerson’s, Thoreau’s, Surette’s and — can one say? — of our “calling” to lend whatever hands we are able toward contributing to “the healing of the intellect.” At long last; while we still can. I trust you are familiar with Einstein’s words on this very account: “We must never relax our efforts to arouse in the people of the world, and especially in their governments, an awareness of the unprecedented disaster, which they are absolutely certain to bring on themselves, unless there is a fundamental change in their attitude toward one another as well as in their concept of the future. The splitting of the atom has changed everything, save our mode of thinking and thus we drift toward an unparalleled catastrophe... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” In the Concord Spirit, I take up the torch in this Passion-Tide from those Concordians noted, as well as from those who went before them, Concord’s Minutemen (including Joseph Hosmer and Daniel Bliss) and its original settlers, led by Peter Bulkeley and Simon Willard. This offering would speak, old friend, friends, to the rebirth, the renaissance of thinking and, thus, of culture and, thus, of civilization itself. I speak of a living thinking, borne on the wings of compassion, com-passion, a suffering-with “every thing to which we turn our thoughts, the creation itself, which we have reduced (in our brains/“computers,” Ex Machina) to a THING that “moaneth and travaileth waiting upon man.” !3 “I, Eye, Aye!” Emerson responded in turn. These seven letters, comprising 3 words — each word the same in sound, intonation — summed up the life philosophy of “The Sage of Concord.” When, that is, we come to ourself, our-self, our Self (I), we behold (Eye). And when we behold, are we not filled with wonder (Aye)! Can one say? “I have met few men who have a genius for Christianity,” stated Thoreau, affirmed Emerson. They went on to note words that can be scarcely uttered in our day and age when, ironically, critically thinking itself abounds/rebounds. “It is wonderful, wonderful, the unceasing demand that Christendom makes on you that you speak from a moral point of view. Though you be a babe, the cry is, Repent, repent…” And yet, if these kindred spirits could utter such a “heresy” in their day (Dec. 20, 1851), when, in the words of Harpers Magazine, “the genius of materialism is getting so strong a hold everywhere…” if these Concord authors could give voice to such a “unceasing demand,” are we not called to allow such words to resound in our time? The Harper’s quote goes on: “It is interesting to find that the Concord School reasserts with breadth and penetration the supremacy of mind…” [Mind not brain; indeed, are we destroying the former while we are developing the latter?] The “Dean” of the Concord School of Philosophy spoke to the source of just such “breadth and penetration” in his 1879 inaugural words for “The Concord School,” as reported by a editor from Boston Journal. “Mr. Alcott, whose 10 lectures are to be on ‘Christian Theism’ then began in earnest the work of the summer by asking, ‘What is expressed by each one of us, so far as we can explore our consciousness, when we say, ‘I, myself’?” Can we, friend, friends explore our consciousness with such earnestness? I commend to you, Daniel, the following “offering” that takes up Emerson’s “Divinity School” and “American Scholar” addresses, for which Henry David himself served as an inspiration? Indeed, do those who trace the letters of the words back to their in-forming Spirit doubt that the sources from whence Henry David and Ralph Waldo draw are one and the same? !4 May this offering, and the words that follow, kindle the reverberations of Concord’s celebrated “shot heard ‘round the world”… while, as Yeats envisions, we still can. The Second Coming Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

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