{"id":2061,"date":"2016-11-02T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T04:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:47:32","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:47:32","slug":"and-for-a-moment-i-understood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/11\/02\/and-for-a-moment-i-understood\/","title":{"rendered":"and for a moment I understood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In describing what happens when we read literature, health humanities scholar Rita Charon uses the metaphor of a <em>clearing<\/em>. A story or poem, she proffers, provides a space we and others can enter, in which \u201cany one in any place has the chance to make contact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A poem can be shared between all of us in a way an individual conversation cannot. And so, when we read together and share\u00a0our attention to the form and meaning of the poetry or sacred text before us, we gather\u00a0in the space our attention creates. In this clearing we have the chance to make contact with one another. We have the opportunity, Marie Howe suggests in her poem \u201cThe Map,\u201d to understand:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Map<\/p>\n<p>The failure of love might account for most of the suffering in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The girl was going over her global studies homework<br \/>\nin the air where she drew the map with her finger<\/p>\n<p>touching the Gobi desert,<br \/>\nthe Plateau of Tiber in front of her,<\/p>\n<p>and looking through her transparent map backwards<br \/>\nI did suddenly see,<br \/>\nhow her left is my right, and for a moment I understood.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2016\/11\/Marie-Howe.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2062\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2016\/11\/Marie-Howe.jpg\" alt=\"marie-howe\" width=\"186\" height=\"227\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Marie Howe<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Rosemary Weatherston, Ph.D.<br \/>\nAssociate Professor of English<br \/>\nDirector, Women&#8217;s &amp; Gender Studies Program<br \/>\nDirector, Dudley Randall Center for Print Culture<br \/>\n313.993.1083<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In describing what happens when we read literature, health humanities scholar Rita Charon uses the metaphor of a clearing. A story or poem, she proffers, provides a space we and others can enter, in which \u201cany one in any place &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/11\/02\/and-for-a-moment-i-understood\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2064,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions\/2064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}