It was my enormous privilege last night to hear author Terry Tempest Williams speak, as our Museum of Natural History and the Nature Center where I do so much of my walking sponsored a stop on her Open Space of Democracy Tour.
The tour itself has become an emblem of her quiet battle to promote the open spaces of democracy in the form of freedom of speech and dialogue. Her invitation to speak at Florida Gulf Coast University was rescinded by the university president, who was apparently feeling the hurricane-strength winds of suppression in a Bush-governed state (and, therefore, state university system) a few weeks before the election. The resultant student and faculty protest and ensuing correspondence with Ms. Williams resulted in a new invitation to her, issued by a coalition of student groups rather than the university. The president blocked that invitation but, bowing to a further storm of protest, permitted it to be reissued, and she will speak at the University on Sunday. The details can be read in her diary and in the press releases on the foregoing website.
The irony, of course, is that she travels in order to encourage and support dialogue. While there is no question that she has a position on the issues of war and environmental protection, she is just as passionate about the need for all people to engage in conversation with one another, and it is impossible to imagine any way in which this soft-spoken and eloquent woman could offend an audience with her presence.
Her talk last night was a blend of her concerns about local, national, and international issues; readings from her new book;
and her thoughts on local conservation matters.
The most moving portion of the evening for me came when she described an interchange that she had with her senator, also a friend and a bishop in her Mormon community. He had called her in response to a speech she had given at her alma mater, the University of Utah, to express the strength of his disagreement with her positions and then, running out of time, had promised to send her a letter. The letter was four single-spaced pages. It took her several months for her to think through her response but, when she did, it was in part an invitation. She suggested that she accompany him to Iraq, where she would try to see the war through his eyes, and that he accompany her to the wildernes outside her door, under seige by the administration's plans for drilling, and try to see it through her eyes.
Her willingness to listen to others at the same time that she speaks with forceful conviction was so distinctly at odds with the tenor of the ongoing presidential campaign that it seemed as if she had arrived from another planet. I don't know when I have heard a speaker listen so intently to the questions posed to her, or respond with such care and generosity.
I've had quite a month. I am usually a great hibernator in the evenings, unwilling to climb back into my car once it has settled into the garage. But in the past few weeks I've seen and heard John Edwards, Tim O'Brien and Terry Tempest Williams. I'm thinking that I should make it a habit to get out more.
2 comments:
I have never heard of her but she sounds interesting. I think we need more like her... willing to talk and listen and consider other points of view. Too bad about the Florida situation but not surprising. I think it's wonderful that Cleveland offers so much!
<passionate about the need for all people to engage in conversation with one another>
And the Bush administration is just as passionate about preventing this... Did you read about the three teachers who were kicked out of a Bush rally in Medford, OR, for wearing t-shirts that said, "Protect Our Civil Liberties?" They were told the t-shirts were "obscene" and escorted away by the State Police. Pretty scary, eh? Lisa :-]
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