Introduction
Paul Rogat Loeb

Community Comments

From Sara Brant, Book Club Guide

Thanks for joining the Graduate School's book club and for looking to community to enhance your experience. Above all, I encourage you to post your thoughts to the community. I mean my responses to pieces to be only provoking in the sense of something to react to -- you may take a very different read on particular pieces than I do; that's one of the beauties of book club membership. It gives us all a chance to have our own response as well as something to provoke deeper thinking or reading of the primary text.

So, in discussion of Rogat Loeb's introduction, I was impressed with the way it set out a framework for reading the text that follow. I feel like his framework was at once personal (a capsule of his own ponderances) and professional (a meaningful reflection on some of the great thinkers/writers of our time). Some other specific thoughts:

-I love this quote by Milosz on page 10, that goes, "There are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor earth." I like the way it ties together a bundle of positive sentiment. What did you think?

-Starting with Tutu dancing makes for a powerful visual, and I feel like Loeb does it deftly. Not too much description, more an overview that still leaves us with a portrait in the mind's eye of a man who could have many deep creases of worry on him who instead knows "how to have a good time." I felt like this was Loeb's way of showing his readers what he admires and why.

-Loeb doesn't seem to take for granted that attitude of fear, the place fear naturally should hold in our society. Or does he?

-At the end, Loeb says "we are all called to participate." Do you agree that we are? Did you feel called to participate by his introduction? If so, how and in what ways?

Feel free to post questions if you have them. And by all means, come back often to see what others have to say.

Sincerely yours, Sara Brant

Janet Range, '87 Social Worker

I enjoyed Loeb's introduction. It helped me feel more hopeful about making some kind of difference or having some impact on the world, even being so insignificant in the scheme of things. I particularly feel overwhelmed lately by the war and politics.

I was watching a 7 year old nephew play soccer today. This was their last game of the season, and they were undefeated... until today. They lost 8 to 2. The coach was nearly hysterical, yelling at the players. His son, one of the players on the team, was so upset he was crying and almost hyperventilating. My nephew's parents kept saying what a wonderful coach the guy has been, and how today's behavior was so unlike him.

I thought to myself, the real test of character is adversity, failure and difficulty. The true test of this man's coaching abilities are when his team is losing. When his team was easily winning every game, it was simple for him to be encouraging, happy, supportive... the perfect coach that parents and players adored. But when faced with losing, he fell apart and became almost unrecognizable.

I thought about Loeb's comments about people like Tutu, who have faced incredible adversity and challenge, and have shone through it, maintaining... no, more than that... DEVELOPING their humanity through it. So perhaps our experiences of failure, losing, difficulty are our true opportunities. Let's take advantage of them.

Questions?

e-mail: gsealum@lclark.edu
phone: 503-768-6049