Combat and Classics is a series of podcasts and online seminars that explores the nature of man in conflict and cooperation through socratic dialogue and the great books. For more info visit How does speech move the human soul? How can a leader use speech inspire others to action? Lise, Jeff, and Brian tackle those questions in their discussion of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s address to the graduating class of Harvard’s divinity school in 1838.
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dmf says
October 8, 2019 at 6:40 pmit’s a fantastic sermon in that it marks the American focus on lived experience vs textual/second-hand accounts but converted almost no Christian past or present.
Alway reminds me of Wallace Stevens’ Sunday Morning:
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13261/sunday-morning