Listening Is an Act of Love

"Poverty is not just a matter of lacking financial resources; it can also simply mean being cut off from cultural power. To be poor is to be unable to 'make something of the world.'"

From Andy Crouch's Culture Making (p43)

            Culture Making projects for Professor Bradshaw’s class on Cultural Engagement can take just about any form. He asks that we stick to the parameters laid out by Crouch in his book:

1.      What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?

2.      What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world should be?

3.      What does this cultural artifact make possible?

4.      What does this cultural artifact make impossible (or at least very difficult)?

5.      What forms of culture are created in response to this artifact? 

You could ask these questions of any object or event. Neighborhood block parties or even something as simple as an omelet assume things about the world and make certain things possible. I’ve chosen to ask these questions about a series of blog posts generated by interviews of people whom I encounter daily. My inspiration is a book entitled Listening is an Act of Love and is filled with the transcripts of interviews conducted through the American Story Corps Project. The premise is simple: take someone into a recording booth for an hour. Interview them about anything- a profound loss, their experience in the Civil Rights Movement, a brush with a natural disaster, or the regular events of their daily life. They receive a copy of the interview and second one is cataloged in the Library of Congress to preserve narratives about the lives of Americans today.

What does this book make possible? At the very least you learn a bit more about the life experience of someone whom you’ll never meet. At the very most these stories are profound expressions of human dignity. It’s often difficult to appreciate the depth of the dozens of people walking along side us everyday; there’s not enough space in a grocery store check-out line or the corner office of a financial advisor to let a life’s story unfurl. This book reminds me of the privilege it is to be human; we are each filled to the brim with stories, desires, dreams, and disappointments. We are all making something of the world, but some people’s ‘makings’ are more easily herd and seen than others. What the book (and this blog, hopefully) seeks to make possible is a place for those ‘makings’ of the world to be shared.