‘"Change? What do you mean "change"?’

Changes in Our Lives and in the History of Christian Belief

presented by Stephenie Rose Cooper

Poetry

We all know what to expect from traditional poetry ... lines that rhyme, symmetrical stanzas, etc.

Imagine the initial reaction when e. e. cummings first published his poetry.   Also, our World War II paradigm is such that we don't think of it as a war that had an associated anti-war movement.

So, once got used to e. e. cummings, along came this one ...

Translation 1:  Grasshopper, who, as we look up now, gathering into the leaps! a grasshopper, arriving to become, rearrangingly, a grasshopper.

Translation 2:  "Grasshopper, who, as we look, now upgathering into himself, leaps, arriving to become, rearrangingly, a grasshopper."

Another arrangment:

Madonna and Child in Art

The first image is traditional.  The other four do not shock most of us today, but think back a few years ...

So, in case you thought that nothing can shock us anymore, consider this one:

What you "get" and your paradigms

Whether or not you "get" any of the following jokes depends on your paradigms.  Things that are funny to some people are meaningless or offensive to others.  Most of us in the class thought most of these were rather funny.  "Steph's Favorites" are ones that usually only Steph's business colleagues get, because colleagues share a lot of paradigms.  Some people in the class at St. Francis appreciated them anyway.  Most all of us "got" the religious humor.

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