Dear Folks,
When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
Dan Christian has been teaching English for 41 years, 37 of those at Gilman School, right around the corner from Redeemer. He grew up in the Midwest, graduated from Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, and earned a Masters in Theology in Baltimore along the way. When he’s not coaching basketball, or grading papers, or reading great books with 9th graders, he’s in the midst of a conversation in his office that never really stops, with students and colleagues and friends and texts. He’s one of those teachers who always seems to have time for your questions, and who suggests that your insight has provided a bit of clarity that has eluded him until now. The classic texts are the bones, he might say, but it’s his students who give them flesh and life enough to make their classes together matter.
Each Fall that magic happens in a senior elective on Dante’s Divine Comedy, which brings to Gilman young men and women from several schools. “This year is our 35th class in a row,” Dan writes. But “Dante’s story is the real teacher. I just grade the papers on his behalf.” His students are “fellow pilgrims,” who approach the Comedy with courage and “serious joy.” (John Ciardi) This January on three Sundays after the 10:00 service, Redeemer brings this opportunity to you: January 8, 15, and 22, 11:30-12:15 in the South transept.
Have you read Dante since high school or college? Did you actually read him then(!), or did you mostly get bogged down in references to Florentine politics or Biblical allusions or the anxiety of writing a paper about a really long poem? No worries. Dan’s thesis is that not only can anyone tackle Dante’s text, but that the story can meaningfully read each one of us.
Here are the opening lines, translated by poet John Ciardi:
Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. How shall I say
what wood that was! I never saw so drear,
so rank, so arduous a wilderness!
Its very memory gives a shape to fear.
Death could scarce be more bitter than that place!
But since it came to good, I will recount
all that I found revealed there by God’s grace.
Dan’s presentation will include the poem, music, and student responses over the years. Please join us and invite anyone you think has been waiting for Dante (or Dan) to appear.
Love, David