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The Intellectual Life
You may not think of yourself (or me!) as ‘an intellectual,’ but you should still read this book! Sertillanges (in The Intellectual Life) does a great job of proposing intellectual development as a) integral to a Catholic spiritual life, b) within the capacity of most every person, and c) enjoyable. He gives suggestions for life-long learning, self-discipline, balancing study with ‘real life,’ and more.
Good: Give to college students Better: Read, take notes, and give to teens Best: Read slowly with friends and older kids, add refreshments and conversation, linger.
Here’s a character in my serial novel, Elizabeth of the Epiphany, explaining it her way:
Chapter 15 – What Mara Said…
Okay, it’s my turn to give our Monthly Report, and you all know I’m not an experienced speaker,so bear with me. I thought of giving the whole thing in Spanish and making you guys feel like the dummies,but I guess the humble, Epiphany way is just to be me and let it rip. So here goes.
My assignment was to read Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life and give it to you (even though some of you have already read it) from my perspective, limitations and all. I sort of rebelled a little against getting an assignment again after blowing off college, but then, that’s what I’m here for – to develop my faculty for work and submitting to my betters in docility, so I took myself in hand and dug in. I thought it would be dry work, and that I’d need a dictionary to look up every other high-toned word, but the guy really made sense.
Later I realized he must have taken his own advice to bring out your thoughts in simplicity and clarity. I had the first half down in a couple of hours and felt he was offering me something fantastic – an adventure in being myself that I had never thought was possible! I couldn’t wait to get down to brass tacks and find out how to proceed, what to do to have this awesome life of the mind he was proposing as a possibility. I do realize that Epiphany had also made me this offer, but I just hadn’t understood it fully when I came on board.
But for an overflowing toilet, I might already be a genius, but had to tend to life in the real lane before I could get back to La Vie (as I now call it, affectionately – wishing I could read French and thinking “la vie‟ sounds so much more carefree and Parisian than “the life‟.) I only needed the dictionary for two cool new words. (Clem and CG will love these for their word collections, I hope!) Obstetric: Yeah, I know it means “about having babies‟ but he uses it like, “friendship is an obstetric art”, so I’m thinking he means friends give birth to each other, in a way – like we’re trying to do here. And then “phalanstery‟: a Fourierist community, like a monastery. That made no sense until I figured out that Fourier was a French guy with a scheme for reorganizing society into small cooperative communities, and that since Sertillanges thought “the Communion of Saints is not a phalanstery”, but a unity, he sees a big difference I need to think more about later. Anyway, I’ll move on and sort of outline his chapters now.
You can learn a lot by just reading the Table of Contents! He doesn’t seem to be trying to hide anything so you have to read the whole book to get the gist. But really, what you get by reading is a lot more than what that glance at the chapter headings can give, so it’s very much worth reading the whole book. He starts by talking about all the pleasures of the intellectual life, and making you hope you have a vocation to it. Especially since he says genius and tons of time aren’t required, you start thinking just maybe you can get in on it.
For a while there I got all derailed about it, wondering whether God would ever give me a husband and children if I got all into some heady, intellectual life. Or, whether I might get too educated to be able to be content being a wife and mother. Or, whether it made any sense to even try to develop an intellectual life since I’d already had a pretty lousy education and sort of blown my chance at it. I got myself so twisted up, I finally just said, “To hell with it, and damn the torpedoes” (got that out of your first Manifest!) and went on reading.
So, in Chapter 2, he connects purity of thought with purity of soul – which is really beautiful – and shows how your intellectual life has to balance with all your other duties and prayer and all. I was glad I just kept on reading, cause he pretty much took all that confusion and swept the cobwebs out of the old cabeza by saying that a yearning for God and for the life of the mind have the same source. So I know I’m having this, like, total “yearning for God‟ thing – sort of making up for lost time – and maybe it’s no coincidence I get kind of an invitation to the “life of the mind‟ thing at the same time! The only thing I’m not sure about is the whole “totally wanting a husband and babies‟ thing – how that works in, but I’ll just move on. I also have a question about my “intellectual substructure‟ – he mentions taking that into account, so at the very least I probably have some remedial learning to do on whatever most people actually learn in school that I didn’t. I’ll get back to it later.
Chapter 3 is all about solitude and simplifying your life – but in a still-caring-for-people way and not a shut-yourself-off way – balanced. Man, this sounded so great. I love being alone, but also having friends (and then the whole wanting-marriage thing), and I’m really groovin’ on this idea of sort of a zen-balance thing going on with the whole spiritual-intellectual-social life. At this point, I’m starting to believe this guy is really onto something real and possible and getting pretty excited about it. Then, I start thinking ahead to, like, how am I gonna teach this to my kids and, can I ever find a guy anywhere that gets all this, and what if I get this and no family – like a tradeoff you would think in a story was pretty sad, and then, WHOA….gotta get back to the plan here. When ya’ll say “sit at the feet of greatness‟, you don’t know how hard it can be to just sit when greatness gets moving around in your puny little brain! So where was I? Sertillanges seems to think associations like Epiphany are a pretty good way to mix it up between study and fun and all. I bet he’d love what we’re up to (and he could probably figure out what we’re up to better than I can! Sometimes I just know I’m along for a wild ride, but thanks for inviting me along, you guys!)
So, Chapter 4 – Reflect, ruminate, see, listen, attend – the sort of formula I wrote down in my notes – and train yourself not to be blind. Now at this point, I’m thinking, “Hey, I’m already doing this! I figured this out by my own uneducated self! All my life I’ve been studying people and keeping a nature journal and watching what’s going on around me and noticing what sort of comes to me from the universe. You’d be surprised how much a bartender can learn about life, and travel is a great time to chew your cud. I remember really seeing things for the first time when out of the context of my normal, familiar life. So cool! Anyway, the Big Guy seems to have read my mind sometimes. He even tells you what I tell everybody about keeping a notebook by your bed for all those thoughts and ideas and insights that come percolating in to wake you up at 2 a.m.
So, you’ve got to pray and rest and preserve your work time and use it well. “…to open up one’s being to truth, to withdraw from all else, and …to take a ticket for a different world, is true work.” Doesn’t that sound neat? He really has a way with words – I underlined
dozens of quotable quotes. Chesterton would like this one: “gag the newspapers!” I’m not sure I’m ready for that!
Okay, Chapter 5 is about what you should study. He figures it would “only‟ take 4 hours a week to get up to speed on theology after 5 or 6 years. I’m making headway on that now with the Catechism and Theology of the Body. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking so much about marriage and babies right now. Or maybe my clock’s just ticking! At some point, I guess, it’ll come to you what your special work is, but until then you have to have a good foundation of theology for anything, and that plus a foundation for all learning can come from Thomism if you get a chance to read his stuff. Apparently your special work will be a pretty wrinkled up old raisin if you don’t get into a bunch of other fields of study on the side. And here again, this guy is reading my mail. I mean, I have always wanted to learn about every little thing and I’ve never fit into a clique or a box or had any idea what one-thing-only I wanted to “be‟ when I grew up (except always wanting to be a mother). I saw other people figuring it out and specializing, but I guess just never found my niche, or my calling. I’ve suspected I wasn’t totally losing by it, but it’s good to have this “authority‟ say it
all “counts‟ toward whatever God is calling me to do.
So, whizzing through, we get to Chapter 6, about, like, your attitude. You’ve got to stop being lazy – like, get in there and really work earnestly. You’ve got to learn to concentrate (maybe you moms have an advantage over me if you’ve learned to concentrate with kids all over the place!). You’ve gotta be humble, teachable – not some know-it-all nobody can tell anything to. And I saw this, too, when I first met you faculty ladies. Hell, you were really interested in what I had learned about art and beer and life! I couldn’t believe it, but it made me feel like you really meant it when you said we could learn together how to be faculty. Thanks again for that, by the way. I was in a pretty low-self-esteem slump, and talking to
you guys was just what the doctor ordered. I want to be like you when I grow up!
Well, we‟re almost to the end, so stay with me here. In Chapter 7, the basic thing is read little and well. Just like we’re always talking about, reading is totally the key to education, which you might as well say is the same thing as the intellectual life. So, we read to get formed; to learn how to work and how to love what is good; to get what we need for a particular task; to get insights and inspiration, and to relax. We’ve got to build bridges between ideas in our minds, and have the freedom to spend time. So here I thought, “Hey, I’m a bookworm, so really I’ve already begun the intellectual life in a way” and that felt good because getting over the hump and getting started is such a pain, but just going-on-but-getting-better-at-it is not such a big deal.
In case you were thinking you’ve got to remember every blessed thing you ever read, just forget it, because Sertillanges thinks you can compensate for a crummy memory by making connections between things and really getting them with your whole being, and with all their associations. It sounds kind of funny, but you connect the dots, engrave what you want to remember on the brain by repeating it, reflect back on it (sort of bringing the whole picture of it and the connections and all back up on the screen), and then yank the chain. Really, I‟m not just yanking your chain here! He says that – pull on the chain and the whole thing will come. Which reminds me why, maybe, I was so bad at memorizing separate little factoids in school and paying attention while they were drilled in. I was trying to make these big, connected pictures and there never was time and they were always interrupting my thoughts with the next thing and the next before I got a full screen ready to file away….does anybody teach teachers about the intellectual life? I mean, damn (sorry), what a bunch of time I wasted, and most of it feeling pretty estupida! And I remember this creepy little gringa that used to look at the notes I made and sniff her little pasty nose and roll her beady little blue eyes and say, “Look how much more I wrote down. You must be really stupid.” But hey, chica, my man here says you guys who write down every word are the real fools and those of us intellectuals who really listen and get it first are not back asswards after all, heh, heh! Wish I could cram my copy of La Vie down…woops, sorry…got distracted there.
Where was I? Oh, Chapter 8. Next he’s talkin’ about I’ve-gotta-write to do this intellectual life thing up right, and I’m like,whoa, Sertillanges, I don’t have any plans to be a writer, but then I’m like, whoa Maravilla, you just signed on to be an Epiphany faculty member and they’re always saying that means you’re gonna write about what you learn. So then I’m like, what did they do, design this university from this guy’s book, or what? No wonder they’ve got me reading this thing and making me give this talk and all! So then I’m really digging into Chapter 8 to get this guy on what it means to pull it out on paper, or in a talk, (which, really, I did write up, but I am just adding in my own stuff here so you’ll know how it hit me). And the main thing he says is to persevere through interruptions (of which I sure had plenty, with the toilet and the extra laundry, and the neighbor coming over to borrow flour, and my mom calling to go on about when are you gonna find a husband and make us some grandbabies, and all) and weariness (which is me, trying to study this stuff after a late shift at Luigi’s) and discouragement (which I am only feeling about the are you ever going to get married thing and not about the intellectual life thing). But anyway: persevere – you have a responsibility to respond to what you read and to finish what you start. (Here I thought about the unfinished dress I’ve been trying to sew, and it isn’t intellectual, but he made me feel pretty guilty about it anyway!)
For Chapter 9, I want to use the author’s words, because I copied some quotes I really like about how important it is to be like a whole person and not just an egghead. We’ve got to have life, rest, look at the world, be human (just like Maria keeps saying!).
It is certainly true that intellectuality contributes to the sovereignty of man; but it is not enough. Besides morality, which includes the life of religion, various broad aspects of the human condition must be considered.
We have spoken of life in society, of practical activities; let us add communion with nature, care of one’s home, the arts, friendly and formal gatherings, a little poetry, the practice of speaking, intelligent sport, public demonstrations.
Refuse to be a brain detached from its body, and a human being who has cut out his soul. Do not make a monomania of work.
So, really, that’s it, except I don’t want you to think my quick sketch of the book is enough. I guess if I really am on the faculty, I could suggest we make this required reading for all incoming students. {This motion was passed unanimously in a spontaneous vote.}
So, that’s what Mara said. If you’re interested in what Luigi heard, check out Chapter 15 at OurElizabeth.org!
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