Jelenists and Doristies
Monday, October 4, 2010 -- Week of Proper 22, Year Two
Francis of Assisi, Friar, 1126
To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 987)
Psalms 106:1-18 (morning) 106:19-48 (evening)
Hosea 14:1-9
Acts 22:30 - 23:11
Luke 6:39-49
In his appearance before the Council, Paul successfully divides the group and prevents their taking action against him. He gains the Pharisee's support against the Sadducees, using the resurrection as his wedge issue.
I've just finished rereading Donald Harington's wonderful book "The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks." Late in the book he narrates a telling piece of satire about a bitter division among the residents of Stay More. Debate erupted over the parentage of a baby born to one of a pair of identical twins. From birth the twins had been inseparable, and had lived as one entity. Eventually both married Billy Bob Ingledew and soon thereafter both appeared pregnant. One morning they went to the creek to bathe, and returned with only one baby. The town decided that one of the twins had been pregnant, and the other had either faked pregnancy with her, or had a sympathetic false pregnancy. The question arose, whose baby is it? The twins told their mother the baby was both of theirs.
The twins were named Jelena and Doris. The baby was Jelena. The town divided into two factions. "1) The Jelenists, who held that Jelena must have been the mother because she named the infant after herself, as a kind of 'Jelena Junior,' and (2) The Dorisites, who held that Doris must have been the mother because she named it for her sister, out of love." In the next five and a half pages, Harington tells how friends and families were divided into bitter, partisan camps.
The Jelenists were individualists, "holding that a person is responsible for himself, and that if one conducts one's life with due responsibility, everything will go all right... All Jelenists have a strong sense of personal identity, and, usually, a sense of personal purpose, of having something to do that needs to be done and can best be done by oneself. Jelenists may be chauvinistic, and it is true that they are more proselytizing than the Dorisites, but this is because of their belief that a strong sense of identity and purpose also requires a strong sense of conviction. It is very difficult to prove a Jelenist wrong on any question."
"Dorisites, on the other hand, are altruistic, cooperative, lenient, and so respectful of the opinions of others that they tolerate the Jelenists much more than the reverse. ...Dorisites are very good at empathy and sympathy. To a Dorisite, the most wonderful fact of existence is that there is somebody else besides oneself."
Individuals and couples were divided by the two camps. A wife tells her husband Bevis, "Dorisitism teaches us to be charitable. Why don't ye take that leftover ham to them pore Coes?" Bevis' reaction as a Jelenists: we're taught to be self-sufficient. The debate would roar -- charity vs. self-sufficiency. She couldn't prove him wrong because you can't ever prove a Jelenist wrong. When he finally took the ham to the poor Coes, Ed Herb Coe, a Dorisite, was grateful, while his wife, a self-sufficient Jelenist, refused to accept it. "Shame on ye, Bevis! A good Jelenist like you!"
My imagination can hear the Jelenists and Dorisites declaring bitterly about health care, immigration, taxes, and all of the other hot button issues that so bitterly divide us as a community. Red states and blue states.
The conflict rages in Harington's book, until all are united by tragedy, when the husband-father Billy Bob is killed in World War II. Together at the funeral they sang "Farther Along." "The Dorisites praised the Jelenists, and the latter grudgingly admitted that while they couldn't understand why anybody would want to be a Dorisite it was pretty obvious that Dorisites weren't all bad. In fact Dorisites had a lot to recommend them, and they suggested that the Jelenists and Dorisites bury the hatchet and become united. The Dorisites squealed their approval to this suggestion, and everyone embraced."
Our nation is deeply divided into parties not unlike the Jelenists and Dorisites, even though there has already been a death that invites us into reunion. "So [Christ] came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God." (Ephesians 2:17-19)
Will it take new tragedy to unite us? Or, to use Harington's resolution, couldn't Red citizens grudgingly admit that those charitable Blue citizens and their proposals aren't all bad, and couldn't Blue citizens recognize that self-sufficiency has a lot to commend itself, and all of us bury the hatchet, become united, and find ways that embrace both charity and self-sufficiency?
Francis of Assisi, Friar, 1126
To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 987)
Psalms 106:1-18 (morning) 106:19-48 (evening)
Hosea 14:1-9
Acts 22:30 - 23:11
Luke 6:39-49
In his appearance before the Council, Paul successfully divides the group and prevents their taking action against him. He gains the Pharisee's support against the Sadducees, using the resurrection as his wedge issue.
I've just finished rereading Donald Harington's wonderful book "The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks." Late in the book he narrates a telling piece of satire about a bitter division among the residents of Stay More. Debate erupted over the parentage of a baby born to one of a pair of identical twins. From birth the twins had been inseparable, and had lived as one entity. Eventually both married Billy Bob Ingledew and soon thereafter both appeared pregnant. One morning they went to the creek to bathe, and returned with only one baby. The town decided that one of the twins had been pregnant, and the other had either faked pregnancy with her, or had a sympathetic false pregnancy. The question arose, whose baby is it? The twins told their mother the baby was both of theirs.
The twins were named Jelena and Doris. The baby was Jelena. The town divided into two factions. "1) The Jelenists, who held that Jelena must have been the mother because she named the infant after herself, as a kind of 'Jelena Junior,' and (2) The Dorisites, who held that Doris must have been the mother because she named it for her sister, out of love." In the next five and a half pages, Harington tells how friends and families were divided into bitter, partisan camps.
The Jelenists were individualists, "holding that a person is responsible for himself, and that if one conducts one's life with due responsibility, everything will go all right... All Jelenists have a strong sense of personal identity, and, usually, a sense of personal purpose, of having something to do that needs to be done and can best be done by oneself. Jelenists may be chauvinistic, and it is true that they are more proselytizing than the Dorisites, but this is because of their belief that a strong sense of identity and purpose also requires a strong sense of conviction. It is very difficult to prove a Jelenist wrong on any question."
"Dorisites, on the other hand, are altruistic, cooperative, lenient, and so respectful of the opinions of others that they tolerate the Jelenists much more than the reverse. ...Dorisites are very good at empathy and sympathy. To a Dorisite, the most wonderful fact of existence is that there is somebody else besides oneself."
Individuals and couples were divided by the two camps. A wife tells her husband Bevis, "Dorisitism teaches us to be charitable. Why don't ye take that leftover ham to them pore Coes?" Bevis' reaction as a Jelenists: we're taught to be self-sufficient. The debate would roar -- charity vs. self-sufficiency. She couldn't prove him wrong because you can't ever prove a Jelenist wrong. When he finally took the ham to the poor Coes, Ed Herb Coe, a Dorisite, was grateful, while his wife, a self-sufficient Jelenist, refused to accept it. "Shame on ye, Bevis! A good Jelenist like you!"
My imagination can hear the Jelenists and Dorisites declaring bitterly about health care, immigration, taxes, and all of the other hot button issues that so bitterly divide us as a community. Red states and blue states.
The conflict rages in Harington's book, until all are united by tragedy, when the husband-father Billy Bob is killed in World War II. Together at the funeral they sang "Farther Along." "The Dorisites praised the Jelenists, and the latter grudgingly admitted that while they couldn't understand why anybody would want to be a Dorisite it was pretty obvious that Dorisites weren't all bad. In fact Dorisites had a lot to recommend them, and they suggested that the Jelenists and Dorisites bury the hatchet and become united. The Dorisites squealed their approval to this suggestion, and everyone embraced."
Our nation is deeply divided into parties not unlike the Jelenists and Dorisites, even though there has already been a death that invites us into reunion. "So [Christ] came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God." (Ephesians 2:17-19)
Will it take new tragedy to unite us? Or, to use Harington's resolution, couldn't Red citizens grudgingly admit that those charitable Blue citizens and their proposals aren't all bad, and couldn't Blue citizens recognize that self-sufficiency has a lot to commend itself, and all of us bury the hatchet, become united, and find ways that embrace both charity and self-sufficiency?
Lowell
__________________
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posted by Lowell @ 8:16 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Lowell, thanks so much for sharing the story of the Jelenists and the Dorisites. It has profound relevance for our individual lives and for our country and world right now. It breaks my heart to see how polarized we have become, and how difficult it is to dialogue with people who don't want to dialogue because they already have the truth.
I remember how September 11th brought people together in prayer and sorrow, and I hoped that it would be a new awakening for humanity, but instead we in the U.S. got into a retribution mindset.
It is now my hope that climate change will be what brings our current day Jelenists and Dorisites together, because we all share a commitment to being stewards of this delicate planet we live on.
Thanks for the comment Judi,
Your heartbreak for today's polarization mirrors the conclusion of Don Harington's chapter about Doris and Jelene.
Don had a genius for seeing through us. Your comment “it breaks my heart” reminds me – after the funeral, Jelene and Doris jumped together from the suicide rock in Stay More, and the doctor put on their death certificates for cause of death: “Broken Hearts.”
Lowell
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