Teacher Trek Day 8: Love and Self-hood

Today is the first “real” day of school for seniors. Day one was more of a meet and greet than a day of school, and day two was the senior outing: whitewater rafting.

So today we play for keeps.

We are studying how authors create compelling characters in order to get readers to invest in important ideas.  When readers become emotionally attached to a character, the reader/viewer/listener significantly lowers his/her threshold of resistance to the character’s argument.

Today I asked students to agree or disagree with this value statement: “Love is not a substitute for selfhood; indeed, selfhood is love’s precondition” (Barbara C. Ewell). Oxford dictionary defines selfhood in this case as individuality or individual identity. So then the question becomes whether individuality is a precondition for love.

We read Kate Chopin’s three-page “The Story of an Hour,” in which Louise finds out that her husband has died in a train wreck (spoiler alert). She responds predictably for a few moments of measured grief before excusing herself to her bedroom. Alone, she exults, “Free, free, free” and rejoices that hubby Brently will never again exert his will on her. Louise sounds remarkably contemporary for a character sketched out 125 years ago.

After a respite from which she is begged to open the door, Louise descends the stairs like a “Goddess of Victory” to meet the gathered mourners. To her amazement, the front door opens and Brently enters the house. The report of his death was completely erroneous.

When Louise sees her husband, she has a heart attack and falls dead. Ironically, when the doctor arrives, he says that Louise died of heart disease – of joy that kills. What a reminder that the source of a person’s “joy” is often misconstrued.

Back to the point: would Louise have asserted selfhood as love’s precondition? More importantly, does the Bible support selfhood as a precondition to love? Haven’t we nearly biblicized the mantra “You can’t love other people if you can’t love yourself”?

I loved Miss M’s response in class today: “Our self is of no value until we allow Christ to clean us up.” As my professor, Parker Maxey, used to say, “You are not completely wrong.”

 Paul offers this thesis in Philippians 2:

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

I have to believe Ewell had it backwards: one finds true love in the loss, rather than the assertion, of selfhood.