Faith, Fragments, and the Search for Foundations Kenneth Townsend
My parents begged me not to come to Millsaps. At least once a week for the entire summer leading up to my freshman year of college, one of my parents issued the standard plea. I hear them now, sitting at our kitchen table and saying, “Please son, stand firm in your faith down there with all those liberals at Millsaps; don't let 'em sway you.” Little did they know that supposed liberalism of Millsaps was exactly the thing that was drawing me to the school. From my reading “heretical” documents, to my conversing with a few people who thought differently from me, I had become restless with what I perceived as the confines of conservative Southern life. And although it would have been difficult at the time for me to articulate specifically what I was seeking, looking back I would like to think that I was simply searching for an alternative way of thinking and learning--that I was envisioning a less dogmatic approach the world, one that would allow me to put anything in question, knowing that the only ideas that can be called true are those that have passed the test of honest doubt. This is, at least, the story that part of me has wanted to tell. Before we get on with the story, however, it is important to realize that we must tread with caution. My studies at Millsaps have shown me that writing about and studying the past can be rather thorny undertakings. The past is subject to the manipulation of memory, intention, and desire in so many ways that we must be careful not to view the past with a naïve nostalgia that allows us to remember the good and to bemoan its loss, but that prevents us from remembering important details that do not tell the story we want. As I reflect on coming to college, I am consciously aware of my urge to recreate--or at least, modify--this story and make myself the
prescient hero who came to school in search of something great, became enlightened, and then left a complete person. I, reality, this simply is not the case, and if this story ends up presenting such a picture, be wary. If anything, my Millsaps education has shown me just how much I don't know, or how much I can't know. From reading the fragmented memories that constitute Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, to observing the often elusive past of Welty's writings, I have seen that our recollections of the past often have little correlation with the events they are supposed to represent, and that, because of this fact, our “knowledge” of the past always remains imperfect. Nonetheless, we are creatures who seek continuity, and to maintain sanity, our narratives require that we make connections, albeit imperfect connections, between our current experiences and memories of the past. In reflecting on my time at Millsaps, I have to say that my attempt to establish continuity between my recollections of the past and the present has been the greatest single challenge I have faced. I, however, have not always seen things through this lens. As I entered college, I thought my task was simply to move as far away from my “backward” past as possible. Upon coming to college, I cam to define myself as one struggling against his family and his Calvinistic upbringing in an existential battle of self-formation and self-definition, and I attempted to fit all my experiences into this narrative structure. Various writings over the years have conformed to this pattern. From the heroic struggle depicted in my LS reflective essay, to the Core 10 essay I wrote last year for my other major in which I bemoaned the fact that I had not always succeeded in establishing the necessary distance between my family and me, I have tried to fit my life into this heroic rebel framework. Part of me remains tempted to define myself this way (as is perhaps evident from the introductory paragraph which comes to us by way of that other Core 10 paper), but in the last year I have begun to see that this narrative framework is
no longer the most effective way for me to make sense of my experiences. Although for the sake of this assignment, a nice story with a title such as my last year’s essay “Lessons Learned” would seem to be in order, I find it increasingly difficult to make the assumption that I am a hero or that my struggle against everything that my parents taught me is either worthwhile for me or interesting for the reader. My new narrative framework is one that involves a young man coming to college, seeking to separate himself from all those things that bother him about his past, realizing that no matter how hard he tries he can never escape his past, and ending his college career by trying to find continuity between a world he has rejected but to which he is forever connected. The truth is that I can never go back to what I was before; that reality is no longer viable for me. Nonetheless, I also realize that I am what I am because of what I have been, and that to continue to make sense of the world, I have to find ways to connect my past with my present. The more I read, the more I talk to other people, and the more I visit other places, the more clearly I see that--like it or not--I am a product of my culture. This presents obvious problems for me since I see myself as being different in so many ways from those with whom I have been raised. The challenge seemed easier in the early days when I simply identified myself as the rebelling hero. This at least gave me something concrete to fight against, even if I did not know exactly to what I was reaching or for what specifically I was questing. Now, feeling a sense of connectedness with the past, even while I am consciously aware of my desire to forsake it forever, I find myself increasingly aware of my own fragmentedness. Similar to Binx Bolling, the protagonist in Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, I find myself seeking “repetitions” that will give me the sense of continuity to I seek, but unable to appreciate many of the things that once constituted what I thought at the time to be my core self, I am sometimes left feeling
directionless. It seems that no matter how much things change, or how much I change, to make life bearable and enjoyable, I always have to be reaching back to something that is prior-something that can be considered foundational. Of course, my use of the word foundational must be understood to represent not something that is necessarily an absolute foundation, but instead something that seems foundational since it belongs to a past to which I remain only marginally connected. Feeling the need to hearken back to my foundation, I recently responded to a period of emotional unrest by experimenting with a couple of formerly effective methods of relief. Recently, as I lay awake in bed unable to sleep, watching the clock slowly edge toward the daylight hours, I had the thought that I could find the comfort that I needed by reading some passages from Scripture that once brought me reassurance. Although I have not exactly devoted myself to the regular reading of the Bible over the last few years, it was as if a light suddenly came on and I realized that great peace was awaiting me if only I retrieved my Bible from the bottom of the great stack of books beside my bed and consulted it the way I did when I was young. I recalled times when I would meditate on passages, “claim” them as we use to say, and feel the tension in my neck ease and the anxiety in my heart subside. I continued to lie in bed, hoping that I would somehow fall asleep despite my anxieties. Unsuccessful, I finally took out the Bible. Not as familiar with its pages as I once was, it took me a little longer than I had hoped to find those passages that once brought such comfort. Sadly, I began to realize that the verses I was reading were the same passages after all, but they simply no longer brought about the same solace they once did. Just a few days after my attempt to find comfort in the once effective Bible-reading approach, I attempted another Binx-like repetition. In response to the same emotional unrest referenced above, I sought solace on the basketball court. I remembered that as a child, whenever I had problems, or whenever I wanted to clear my head, I went to play basketball. But attempting this recently, it no longer
seemed to work. I reached back to something I considered foundational, this time basketball, in hopes that what I reached back for would provide the comfort I sought and the continuity I needed. Similar to feeling let down after reading the Bible verses that once comforted me, I came away from the basketball court feeling a little disappointed. I began to think about what it was about shooting baskets that had once provided such a comfort. Was it that I could get away from the real world and think about, and prepare
for, a life of NBA stardom? Was that what it was, the escape, that I found most appealing? Now, is it not so comforting because I have lost my innocence and I realize that there no longer is an escape–that I am a twenty-two year old young man who must live his life in the real world, unable to escape reality or postpone responsibility? But, then I wonder: have my memories served me well? Or, have I romanticized the benefits of my solitary basket shooting sessions? Do I seek something that never really was--that never really existed except in my distorted memories of the past? Then I think, if my quest to find continuity is dependent upon distorted memories, is my search doomed before it has started? But, these recollections of my comfortfilled basketball playing days feel so real to me, and that must count for something. After these experiences, I did experience somewhat of a let down, but I did not feel the despair that one might think. It was as if I had felt the need to reach back to something prior, but after having done so, I started to see that the process of reaching back was likely more valuable than what I was reaching back for. These processes, even if seemingly futile at times, give me a healthy way to maintain a sense of connectedness with the past, while allowing me, also, to continue to move ahead. I’m not sure if this would meet Binx Bolling’s requirements of a successful repetition, but it has helped me. More than simply going through the motions of my past, I have seen that seeking continuities of form has been a helpful way to find a sense of stability. Even when I have not been able to embrace the substance of my past devotion, I am seeing that maintaining the formal
structure of my past allegiances can provide the necessary sense of connection with my past. Let me explain. As hinted at above, through much of my early life, I was passionately devoted to the religious faith of my family. I followed their passionate examples with sincerity and dedication of my own; however, my parents’ passionate adherence to their religious principles started to turn me off as I gradually began to reject the content upon which their (and formerly our) dedication was based. I discounted their passion as zealotry and considered it something to be avoided at all costs. I could not have admitted it a year ago, but this abandonment left a sense of void in my life. Not only did I no longer have something concrete and absolute to believe in, but the frameworks through which I had interpreted many of my early experiences and the processes that had guided many of my early actions seemed no longer to fulfill their function. In my haste to distance myself from my past and to avoid what I had viewed as the fanaticism of my family, I, at first, attempted to avoid becoming too passionate about any of my activities. I sought a moderation that often ended up being characterized by its blandness more than anything else. Last summer, however, before these recent recognitions of my need to reach back to the foundational, I became encouraged to see that I need not live this way. I began to see that I could find some continuity between my former and present selves by reappropriating and redirecting the passion of my rearing. My time at Millsaps started to show me that even if I could not accept the religious faith that had once evoked a deep sense of passion, I could at least find comfort and make a positive difference by using old processes in new ways. What this has meant for my life is that I have redirected my passion toward service. Through work on campus with groups such as the Campus Ministry Team, to efforts off campus with organizations like Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Mississippi, I have begun to see that living a life guided by passion is
essential--regardless of what it is we are involved in. A voiding the kind of zealotry that subjugates or oppresses people who are different from we are should indeed be avoided, but this does not mean that I have to discard the vehicle of passion in my haste to distance myself from the fanaticism of my past. Without passion, our actions all too often are devoid of a genuine
sense of meaning, and without a clear sense of meaning, we often fail to be sufficiently motivated to pursue our goals with diligence. It is important to point out that I do not use the word “meaning” to represent some grand telos to which all of humankind should direct its attention. Instead, I refer to those sometimes little things in life that give our efforts a sense of purpose and our actions a hint of value. Recognizing the way in which I am forever connected with my past, I have recently begun to reappropriate the language of my heritage in exciting new ways. The truth is I am a product of a religious family and a religious culture, and no matter how much I have tried at times to get away from these realities, they are forever a part of me. Instead of allowing the language to lose its force and become unintelligible in an inevitably changing world, I have begun to use religious language to appeal to the moral senses of people in my state and community and, in doing so, to argue for progressive public policy agendas. By growing up in Mississippi, I have seen that many people relate to the world primarily through a moral lens of interpretation. Whether it’s making a decision on where to go to church or whom to vote for in an election, people frequently consult their moral compasses to see how to proceed. This is the reality of our state, and I no longer feel the need to fight this fact. I have even come to see that it can be a helpful way of viewing the world. Nevertheless, I do feel that we must be able to use a prophetic voice that adopts the language of morality, but uses it to speak to people in new ways. No longer can we allow political conservatives to hold a monopoly on religiosity and morality. No longer can we allow abortion to be the only moral issue that attracts an audience. We have to be able to appeal to the moral dimensions of problems such as inadequate access to health care and inferior educational arrangements. We have to be able to say that it is a sin–yes, a sin–for is to allow twenty-one million children in our country to be deprived of access to basic health care,
while other segments of our country experience such prosperity. In closing, I should recognize that the conviction and resolve of these later paragraphs perhaps seems incongruous with a vision of the world characterized by fragmented memories and shifting frameworks I that I presented earlier in the essay. But, in a lot of ways, the heart of my current struggle is embodied in this inconsistency. As much as I am aware of the limitations of my past, I am forever subject to its rules of procedure. For instance, as much as I am aware of the ultimately relative nature of truth, my past requires that I find things to which I can be passionately devoted and then treat them as if they were absolutes. Even if I am able to deconstruct both my own dedication and the object upon which that devotion is based, I, nonetheless, am compelled to find meaning amidst the fragments. In embracing these constraints, I hope to find a balance between a past that is no longer fully viable, but to which I remain forever linked. My quest for continuity continues.
