On Life, Music and Blogging

"Dr. K, why not call your blog 'Coming to Terms'!"
 
We were talking about music, specifically, the difference in sentiment and attitude between Country and Soul. Both are musics of lament, I said. Both deal with hard times, disappointment, loss. But Country, I argued, is a music of resignation. It is a fatalistic lament.

I put it on the blackboard: Country -- resignation. Soul -- ?? Then I turned to the class and said, I can't think of a single word that expresses the sentiment and attitude of Soul. It accepts hard times, disappointment, loss, but not in a resigned or fatalistic way. It resists. It's about...

And as my voice trailed off, a student--I don't even know which one--said, "It's about coming to terms with things." Yes, I said, very good. And as I turned to write "coming to terms with" next to Soul, the student named John said, "Dr. K. why not call your blog 'Coming to Terms'?"

So here it is: The Rev. Dr. K's observations of life and humankind in all of our glory and pathos, heroism and hubris, capacity for humanity and proclivity to inhumanity. These observations will be both visual and verbal, for I'm a photographer as well as a writer. They will be both humanist and spiritual, both secular and religious, for I am both a teacher of communication at a university and a Deacon in the Episcopal Church.

Although I am a fierce proponent of the separation of church and state and do not proselytize while teaching at a public institution, I am also not a split personality. I can and do compartmentalize as necessary, yet a thread of continuity runs through the whole. This blog will be an opportunity for me to construct that thread of continuity more purposefully and explicitly.

I hope a few folks out there--friends, critics and not yet either--will want to come along.