Weeds in the Garden of Moral Life

When I returned, about a week and half ago, from my summer travels, a restorative period of reconnecting face to face with friends and family, it was no surprise to find the little garden I'd cleared and planted with herbs, strawberries, and peppers , now covered over with weeds, invaded and seemingly conquered at every available inch of dirt.  After all, I basically abandoned the planted plot not only to the elements of sun, rain, wind, but also to encroachments by other plants seeded within the soil, imperfectly rooted out previously, or straying past the border of bricks.  Given the garden's diminutive scale, thoroughly weeding it anew was thankfully just a matter of an afternoon's effort -- but careful, attentive work, for the weeds had been allowed to grow, as is their wont, not only over, not only within, but intertwined with the other plants.

Culling crabgrass, bugle-weed, and other invasive species out from patches of strawberry, thyme, or rosemary, demands a gardener's eye, discerning patterns of leaf, stalk, and shoot from each other, and hands that follow, gently, teasingly until the moment for pulling, separating out the good from the bad, the desirable from that which desires to choke and supplant it.  As the hours passed, more and more soil cleared of green, except for the plants originally intended for those spots, similitudes between gardening, the husbandry of soil and seed, and the processes of moral life, practice, development suggested themselves to me, tangibly, tactilely, experimentally, as much as in concept and language.  Gardening -- like related activities of landclearing and trailblazing, berry-picking and foraging, finding and transplanting plants -- can easily turn into merely utilitarian, practical activity, but it also just as much admits room, and conduces to a readiness, for contemplation.

Attention Literacy for Today's Students?

A serious suggestion floated last month near to the end of a Chronicle of Higher Education piece, Class Resentment -- managing to mix together both senses of that qualifier, the actual classroom and its dynamics, and the economic stratification -- shocked me at first, then got me to thinking.  To the indeed-needed cultural literacy, religious literacy, and information literacy (all of which I'm strongly for), it's being proposed that what our college and university students now need us educators to start inculcating "attention literacy."

The author, Laurie Essig, recounts her experience and reasons for ire arising during an incident in a colleague's class:

I was struck by three things. One, he was giving a brilliant lecture. Really beautifully prepared, interesting stories, using images, props, writing on the board, and inviting student participation. Two, about one-third of his students couldn’t be bothered to notice.  And three, it makes me really, really angry to see a talented teacher treated like background noise.