Saturday, August 28, 2010
Duke Ellington and Teaching
At the funeral of Duke Ellington, in 1974, his long-time friend, Stanley Dance, said this of the Duke: "He brought out qualities in his musicians they did not always know they possessed. He had the knack of making good musicians sound great, and great musicians sound the greatest." It strikes me with force that this is precisely what a good teacher should do for his or her students.
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Hello Dr. and Brother in The Lord,
I have a postmodern doxological thought
for you. It is a pomo-jazz riff on your post.
Lately I have been thinking about
Jesus and deCONSTRUCTION. Yes, I
de-emphasize the "de" in "deconstruction"
and emphasize the "construction" in
"deconstruction." This is done to
make one aware that "construction"
comes FROM ("De" meaning from, of)
"deconstruction." Ultimately, as
Benjamin, Walter says, one tears
down in order to create. Or, as I see,
one constructs from what is deconstructed.
This preface out of the way, I have
to wonder about the very name "Jesus."
For if we deCONSTRUCT the name of Jesus
we see the word "Je" emerges from it.
"Je" is often a word for "I" in French.
This gives us a reason to be Christocentric.
Jesus is, first and foremost, about Him, God.
(Or "I" or "Je" as He might say.) His very
name begins with "I" and the "sus" follows.
It should be noted that "sus" contains "us"
and hence, we, "us", ought to follow Him, "I".
This establishes the I-Us relationship
in a manner akin to Buber's I-Thou relationship.
But the "us" is more useful to us. Thou
can refer to "you" whereas "us" means
a group. HIS group. The I-Group.
This is relates to your post that says,
"He brought out qualities in his musicians they did not always know they possessed."
Isn't that the essence of an I-Us relation?
That we do not know what we posses, or that we posses it,
until the "I", the initiator, reveals it to "us?"
Dr., I think this may be the beginning
of a "Doxological deCONSTRUCTION" movement.
This may help one overcome the difficulties
in apologetics and evangelizing to post-moderns.
Blessings,
Psalm 12:2
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