Thanksgiving Wishes

Thanksgiving has come and gone. At this writing, it is a week past, and, in the intervening time a member of my pledge class has died in his sleep due to a genetic disorder. It reminds each of us that life is short and should be cherished. Thanksgiving is one of the holidays in which we cherish what we have and celebrate life.

Each of us has his or her own reasons for welcoming the coming of the holiday. Some of us welcome the fall quarter break that occurs before exams, a calm before the story. Others of us enjoy the preparation and consumption of food and leftovers. Still others of enjoy being with friends and family that we might not see as often as we like. Whatever our reasons, Thanksgiving is an important and much loved holiday.

Thanksgiving, as a holiday, is primarily about giving thanks. What does it mean to be thankful? There are two meaning, equally important, that constitute the act of thanksgiving.

The first is being thankful for the things you have. Every one of us reached our place in life today because of the many people who were there for us when we needed it the most. They laughed with us, cried with us, got drunk with us, and most importantly, took time out of their days to spend with us, whatever the activity or cause may have been. The happiness, joy, love, and support that we have received are what we are most thankful for on Thanksgiving. Surrounding by friends and family, we remember and celebrate all those good times, momentous occasions, beautiful moments and people that form a significant portion of our lived experiences.

But you might say: my life sucks and everything is hell. Indeed that might be so. There are many experiences, both good and bad, that compose our remembered lives. Friends have been false, loved ones have flaked out, teachers and mentors have let us down. Promises have been made and just as easily broken. We all have even experienced a sense of being lost, lacking both direction and purpose. I would be less than honest if I didn't acknowledge the bad things that happen. However, we would be less than honest if our preoccupation with the worst parts of our lives overshadowed all the quiet and oftentimes anonymous good that makes our lives possible. For every teary night, broken promise, false friend, and callous remark there have been people who have been there. Some of those people became new friends and sources of strength; others of them remained anonymous but necessary avenues of encouragement for whatever we were going through at the time. Being thankful for the good doesn't mean forgetting the bad, but rather being honest about how making it through depended on those other people.

The second is not taking anything for granted. Everything good and bad in our lives could have been otherwise. To be thankful for the good times and beautiful people is to be ever ready with a word of encouragement, a helping hand, or some portion of your time for other people who may be going through a tough time. Our smile, our time, and our resources could be the difference between misery and joy for that person. However, gratitude is not just the duties that we owe to others because of our success, it is also the way we should relate to the people closest to us. Gratitude is how we move from saying that we love or care for someone to loving or caring for that person. Gratitude is not flashy and fickle; in fact, it's just being there right when someone needs you the most. Ingratitude is just another form of contempt if we say we care about someone; grateful people recognize that their loved ones could be devoting their time and energy to others, and cherish every gift of care and love that comes their way. Until next Thanksgiving, show the people you know that you care by being there, and always be ready to be that anonymous support for someone whether you know them or not.

I would like to conclude my remarks with a toast. I dedicate this toast to all of you who have been there for me. I have not forgotten your quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, labors on my behalf; your infectious smiles and wry humor; your wits and beauty; and most importantly, the fact that when it counted the most you were there. Without your love, your dedication, and your concern, I would not have the joy that I possess today. For that, I thank you. Now you might say to yourself: wait a minute, we spent so little time together. It is true that this list is a diverse set of people. Some of you are very close friends; others of you I am rediscovering; some of you I met "late" in Dartmouth career. But those things don't matter, you were there when I needed you, I have not forgotten you, and I still care. For those of you to whom I have not spoken in sometime, I look forward to getting to know you all over again.

Hope y'all had a happy Thanksgiving holiday and break. Cheers and the best,

John Stevenson

A Daunting Task

You have set a daunting task before us both. To continue a relationship through writing is no small project, and I will attempt to take you up on that challenge. You will, ultimately, be the judge of my endeavors. However, just because you aim to make the conversation meaningful, doesn't mean you should obscure tripe and gossip. To leave it merely at that level would be to doom the discourse to the excremental; however, to exclude those snippets would deny our humanity. It is human to have ideas; with those ideas comes pet peeves, petty projects, a gossiping tongue, and the occasionally prurient interest.

What is Chicago like for me?

For now, Chicago is primarily a bifurcated existence. The city is both my anonymous escape when the details of life crowd out other joys, and, the lived experience of being trained to be an academic. My social life cuts across both of those spheres--the alienating urban experience and training for a job--whereas my social life is primarily located outside the network of people with whom and from whom I take classes. This is product, mostly, of a second "freshman fall" experience. Building a viable social life fall term which transcends one's apartment building is a difficult project at best. My social life includes good, but not close friends in the city, and a range of people contactable through phone and blitz. I have even rediscovered old friends from middle and high school. My city friendships will cement with more time and familiarity.

My intellectual life has blossomed. At times, it felt as if I were atrophying at Dartmouth. Due to professors being off, or classes being offered at inconvenient times, there seemed to be a limit to what I could learn if I wanted to produce new knowledge. In the 9 weeks of classes here, I have learned much more about everything, including stuff I didn't even know existed. I've learned from political scientists, lawyers, anthropologists, and sociologists. I've dined with public policy students, social workers, musicians, poets, and philosophers. It has been amazing.

The anonymity of graduate school removed my undergraduate delightful dilemma of being known; my reputation does not proceed me here (yet) thereby giving me time to pursue the many activities which had been crowded out by my social life at Dartmouth. I can, and oftentimes do, go to the gym and run 3.1 miles per day. I have returned to blogging, a subject I will detail in a moment, and, more importantly, I have found to time to think and to read about the puzzles, questions, and ideas that motivated my coming to the University of Chicago. It has been lovely.

You'll notice, then, what has been missing from the list: a church life. I have not been able to return, completely, to the institution of the church. Why not? Because the coreligionists within the churches with whom I generally doctrinally agree have the most reactionary and conservative political beliefs.

Since I sincerely believe that Bible is, among other things, the basis for a theology and philosophy of liberation, the situation of being in a conservative community is stifling. A philosophy and theology of liberation aims to use the reality of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ to change facts on the ground and prepare souls for the afterlife. Preparation for the afterlife, however, does not suggest that we should ignore the lived experiences of the shame, suffering, and poverty of the most vulnerable and the least well off; quite the contrary, we should care for the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed. The church has seen fit to do the opposite. "When I was naked" He lamented "you did not clothe Me." Our relationships with God are garments in our hands; shall we not clothe our brethren and sistren?

The Christian mind, then, is not only called to think--"always be ready to give a defense of your faith"-- but also to act. I imagine myself as a Christian thinker because I take, as fundamental to all my social science inquiry, that "the poor you shall have with always." I gesture a bit toward a philosophy of liberation in part I. I end that piece more darkly that I would today, but it was an accurate reflection of my thinking at the time.

Christianity is beautiful because it is simple. The lived experiences of Jesus Christ, his death on a Cross, and his Resurrection, righted the relationship we didn't have with God. Now, having been restored through an act of faith, we are empowered to call others to this restoration and to right the wrongs of this world. Belief is not politics simply. Belief is a way of life, a lived experienced in which the knowledge and thoughts of one's inner soul motivate, inform, and shape the actions of the labor of one's body and the work of one's hands. The importance of Christianity to the world I begin to think about here.

But that was about my aversion to Christian communities generally. As for Chicago Christian life, I believe I might like the University Chapel congregation or the Lutheran church--if I would only let myself attend more often and learn to trust again.

You should start a blog. You needn't tell anyone about, and thus no one would read it. But you should actively write sometime every weekday. I've been doing that on the Observer since mid-October. It's been very good for my brain to think through a problem everyday. I was directly inspired to return to blogging, however, by a comment you made, half-jokingly, on the "John Stevenson Cult of Personality" message board. Though the me of today and the me of the archives might sound like different people. If I can't convince to blog--or even if I do--consider leaving comments on the existing posts at the Observer as way to begin thinking publicly. It's not hubris or confidence; it is, rather, the beginning of conversation which might inspire others.

Please, feel free to send me papers, future emails, thoughts, concerns, and feelings. I look forward to hearing from you.

John Stevenson

I shall post, from time to time, correspondences with friends here as a record. Feel free to browse.