Introduction
The reflections about my search ‘for a very healthy center’ I am posting on this website derive from a way to address questions about ‘authority’ – i.e., when, why, how various sources (e.g., a person, an institution, a culture, an idea, a writing, an object, an experience) exercise authority in my life. I find it noteworthy that the word ‘author’ is imbedded in the word ‘authority’. The two words share a common root – i.e., L. augere (to increase, to enlarge). This reminder creates the vivid/challenging image of an authority figure/source ‘writing’/‘editing’ in my life story.
I think in terms of a spectrum with ‘authoritarian’ repression of an individual’s responsibility/liberty to write his/her life story at one end and ‘authorities’ that nurture/encourage such responsibility/liberty at the other end. I keep this range of experiences with ‘authorities’ in mind as I ponder the timeline from infancy to adulthood -- e.g., inheriting ‘authorities’ at birth, childhood criteria for assessing ‘authorities’, adolescent reaction to ‘authority’, the need thoughtfully to determine who/what is permitted (to remain) inside one’s story ‘with pen in hand’, . . . . As an educator, I am especially mindful of the transitions from elementary student to graduate student – e.g., the variations in testing/grading, the differences between a report and an essay, the maturation in footnoting, the evolution in the student-teacher relationship.
Exploring the association of ‘author/ing’ and ‘authority’ led me to begin keeping a log of the books/authors I have chosen to read since my decision two decades ago to leave my ‘home’ in academia and in the ‘religious’ sphere in order to be imbedded in the medical education/practice sphere as I search for a ‘very healthy center’. I find a person’s elective reading – i.e., reading not assigned or required – to be very revealing. The list below documents the books/authors I have chosen to read thus far during my search since the late-1980s for a way to experience/encourage spirituality and ethics that sees ‘from below’, is ‘non-religious’, and is authentically ‘with the world face to face’. The list – which I have kept alphabetically by title rather than chronologically -- includes some sources initially read prior to and then read again after the late-1980s. Otherwise, writers/ings studied thoroughly/carefully prior to the late-1980s during my graduate education and during my years as a history/theology professor – are not included. Some of the listed works have been read several times.
The reflections about my search ‘for a very healthy center’ I am posting on this website derive from a way to address questions about ‘authority’ – i.e., when, why, how various sources (e.g., a person, an institution, a culture, an idea, a writing, an object, an experience) exercise authority in my life. I find it noteworthy that the word ‘author’ is imbedded in the word ‘authority’. The two words share a common root – i.e., L. augere (to increase, to enlarge). This reminder creates the vivid/challenging image of an authority figure/source ‘writing’/‘editing’ in my life story.
I think in terms of a spectrum with ‘authoritarian’ repression of an individual’s responsibility/liberty to write his/her life story at one end and ‘authorities’ that nurture/encourage such responsibility/liberty at the other end. I keep this range of experiences with ‘authorities’ in mind as I ponder the timeline from infancy to adulthood -- e.g., inheriting ‘authorities’ at birth, childhood criteria for assessing ‘authorities’, adolescent reaction to ‘authority’, the need thoughtfully to determine who/what is permitted (to remain) inside one’s story ‘with pen in hand’, . . . . As an educator, I am especially mindful of the transitions from elementary student to graduate student – e.g., the variations in testing/grading, the differences between a report and an essay, the maturation in footnoting, the evolution in the student-teacher relationship.
Exploring the association of ‘author/ing’ and ‘authority’ led me to begin keeping a log of the books/authors I have chosen to read since my decision two decades ago to leave my ‘home’ in academia and in the ‘religious’ sphere in order to be imbedded in the medical education/practice sphere as I search for a ‘very healthy center’. I find a person’s elective reading – i.e., reading not assigned or required – to be very revealing. The list below documents the books/authors I have chosen to read thus far during my search since the late-1980s for a way to experience/encourage spirituality and ethics that sees ‘from below’, is ‘non-religious’, and is authentically ‘with the world face to face’. The list – which I have kept alphabetically by title rather than chronologically -- includes some sources initially read prior to and then read again after the late-1980s. Otherwise, writers/ings studied thoroughly/carefully prior to the late-1980s during my graduate education and during my years as a history/theology professor – are not included. Some of the listed works have been read several times.
