Several years before I retired from my career as a full-time teacher, there was a highly successful television series entitled Northern Exposure(NE). The series aired from 1990 to 1995, but its popularity persisted many years after cancellation, well into the first decade of my retirement, 1999 to 2009, as dedicated fans continued to enjoy reruns and recorded episodes on VHS or on DVD. Among the thousands of continuing NE fans, many often referred to the program to interpret, endure, and celebrate their everyday experience—as people do with some of the many forms, narratives and images in the print and electronic media.
The program text and its interpreted themes became for many an essential part of their personal, their biographical, narratives. Some of these fans came to understand NE as a narrative for the exploration of their own spiritual questions and spiritual discourse assisting them, in the process, to interpret their experience. NE represented a confluence of popular culture, audience practice, and contemporary patterns of religiosity in the quest for meaning.-Ron Price with thanks to John Mihelich and Jennifer Gatzke, “Spiritual Quest and Popular Culture: Reflexive Spirituality in the Text of Northern Exposure,” The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 15, Spring, 2007.
I learned, Joel, over the decades to be(1)
consistently exhilarated and delighted by
the play of intelligence and its psychological
nuances. You are still so very young, Joel.
Sometimes I had to call truce to life’s drama
with its wonderful ten-course banquet for
there was the fatigue as faith strained feebly
against the unbelieving night and there was
the melancholy, Joel, a sadness so ancient as
to have no name and trivializing as it did my
pitiable trophies & my minor virtues garnered
in so many old-sweet but often bitter times.(2)
My imperfections, Joel, are not so epically
egregious as to embarrass the seraphim who,
I am inclined to think, ruefully yawn at their
mention and my shame will not topple cities
or arrest the sun’s climb. Learning is so often
a very slow business, Joel. You gave starved
imaginations: magic, myth, ritual, philosophy,
religious wisdom, folklore, fantasy, and living
sparks from the moral dialectics of diverse
characters as masses discovered their own
meaningful autobiographical experiences.
What more could you want to give, Joel?
(1)The writers of this series thought of the five-year sojourn of Joel Flieshman, the young doctor from New York, in Cicely Alaska in terms of Joseph Campbell's myth of a hero's journey into a strange and magical land. By surmounting great challenges, this legendary hero wins new powers to take back home at the end of his adventure. I, too, had my pioneering adventures and hero’s journey as a Baha’i after nearly 60 years of association with this new world Faith.
We can foresee, so argue some of the series’ analysts, that Joel’s moral and spiritual education will be unlike any in our own lives, and by living through his education vicariously with him, we might both liberate and discipline our own hearts. If this guy can grow, perhaps we can too.
(2) Roger White, “Lines from a Battlefield,” Another Song Another Season, George Ronald, 1979, p.111.---Ron Price 4 July 2010
The program text and its interpreted themes became for many an essential part of their personal, their biographical, narratives. Some of these fans came to understand NE as a narrative for the exploration of their own spiritual questions and spiritual discourse assisting them, in the process, to interpret their experience. NE represented a confluence of popular culture, audience practice, and contemporary patterns of religiosity in the quest for meaning.-Ron Price with thanks to John Mihelich and Jennifer Gatzke, “Spiritual Quest and Popular Culture: Reflexive Spirituality in the Text of Northern Exposure,” The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 15, Spring, 2007.
I learned, Joel, over the decades to be(1)
consistently exhilarated and delighted by
the play of intelligence and its psychological
nuances. You are still so very young, Joel.
Sometimes I had to call truce to life’s drama
with its wonderful ten-course banquet for
there was the fatigue as faith strained feebly
against the unbelieving night and there was
the melancholy, Joel, a sadness so ancient as
to have no name and trivializing as it did my
pitiable trophies & my minor virtues garnered
in so many old-sweet but often bitter times.(2)
My imperfections, Joel, are not so epically
egregious as to embarrass the seraphim who,
I am inclined to think, ruefully yawn at their
mention and my shame will not topple cities
or arrest the sun’s climb. Learning is so often
a very slow business, Joel. You gave starved
imaginations: magic, myth, ritual, philosophy,
religious wisdom, folklore, fantasy, and living
sparks from the moral dialectics of diverse
characters as masses discovered their own
meaningful autobiographical experiences.
What more could you want to give, Joel?
(1)The writers of this series thought of the five-year sojourn of Joel Flieshman, the young doctor from New York, in Cicely Alaska in terms of Joseph Campbell's myth of a hero's journey into a strange and magical land. By surmounting great challenges, this legendary hero wins new powers to take back home at the end of his adventure. I, too, had my pioneering adventures and hero’s journey as a Baha’i after nearly 60 years of association with this new world Faith.
We can foresee, so argue some of the series’ analysts, that Joel’s moral and spiritual education will be unlike any in our own lives, and by living through his education vicariously with him, we might both liberate and discipline our own hearts. If this guy can grow, perhaps we can too.
(2) Roger White, “Lines from a Battlefield,” Another Song Another Season, George Ronald, 1979, p.111.---Ron Price 4 July 2010
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married for 48 years, a teacher for 32, a student for 18, a writer and editor for 16, and a Baha'i for 56(in 2015)
married for 48 years, a teacher for 32, a student for 18, a writer and editor for 16, and a Baha'i for 56(in 2015)
Last edited by RonPrice; 07-03-10 at 11:00 PM.
Reason: to add some words