Still on the Ratzlaff, we must consider the above questions, since Ratzlaff's book, in the manner of memoirs going all the way back to Augustine, at least, notates a transformation in matters of the spirit, for which that question is a crude point of entry.
I'm going to put this question to my students today by inviting them to respond to it in journal entries (which no one sees) and maybe even by secret ballot. I suppose I'll invite students to respond verbally, although I'm not yet sure if I want to encourage simple statements of position, one way or the other.
My point is to approximate, somehow, the process Ratzlaff covers in Backwater Mystic Blues--an exploration of what he believes and how he believes it. We've seen how bitterly dismissive he is about fundamentalist dogma of any kind, especially the kind he was raised into. We've noted his radical changes of career--mennonite preacher, Ed Psych teacher and counsellor, writer--as he moves, decade by decade, into his own mystic territory (accompanied, from time to time, by an array of mystics from various traditions, and other figures as diverse as Carl Jung and Sandra Dee). All the while he's trying to save what's worth saving from religion and psychology, and he's trying to lay down some lovely prose about it all.
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