Comments on: Table for Two: An Interview with John Clayton http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-an-interview-with-john-clayton/ Raise a glass to the lost arts of reading, writing, and drinking. Sun, 19 May 2013 16:00:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1 By: Bill http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-an-interview-with-john-clayton/comment-page-1/#comment-14566 Bill Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:32:18 +0000 http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/?p=2631#comment-14566 Thanks, Richard. John has such a warm vision. How to harness it in the battle against greed? I wish I could just call Mitzvah Man! Thanks, Richard. John has such a warm vision. How to harness it in the battle against greed? I wish I could just call Mitzvah Man!

]]> By: Maureen Stanton http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-an-interview-with-john-clayton/comment-page-1/#comment-14421 Maureen Stanton Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:04:12 +0000 http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/?p=2631#comment-14421 I'd be honored. BTW, Nancy Sferra was supposed to bring you a signed copy when you went up north, but she forgot it! (We've known each other since my Nature Conservancy days in Michigan, and she lives up the street for me in Maine.) I'll put a copy in the mail to you. Mo I’d be honored. BTW, Nancy Sferra was supposed to bring you a signed copy when you went up north, but she forgot it! (We’ve known each other since my Nature Conservancy days in Michigan, and she lives up the street for me in Maine.) I’ll put a copy in the mail to you. Mo

]]> By: Richard Gilbert http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-an-interview-with-john-clayton/comment-page-1/#comment-14387 Richard Gilbert Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:47:05 +0000 http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/?p=2631#comment-14387 Thanks, Bill. What a great feature and a wonderful interview to start it with. And it's all in scene!!!! I love Mr. Clayton's quest—same as mine, but he says it better. I especially love: "There’s the unreal world given us by the media, by our culture, by every culture. Then there’s God’s world. I’m not talking about a transcendent being but the core of our true lives—you and your daughter Elysia pulling vegetables from the ground.” And: "We pretend to live at the surface of things while our real life is in dreams or a longing for the sacred that’s really true underneath things.” Some may take this as merely mystical—and while safe, a watery substitute for the religion and received image of God that they wholly reject. But really we don't yet have the vocabulary and understanding to talk about this, to share it, and to realize that he really is talking about God. What we've had, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is metaphors for this human effort at holiness. People have such a bleak view of their own species. Understandable, given our mistakes and lapses, yet so limited when you consider evolutionary time, how far we've come and how far we can and must go. Meantime, we too cheaply ignore our endless quest to soar, shared across the globe. And few question from whence our most human, and greatest, impulses and desires arose. Certain events and documents and behaviors are of evolutionary significance. But what to call that unique inner force that has driven us through the ages? Thanks, Bill. What a great feature and a wonderful interview to start it with. And it’s all in scene!!!!

I love Mr. Clayton’s quest—same as mine, but he says it better. I especially love:

“There’s the unreal world given us by the media, by our culture, by every culture. Then there’s God’s world. I’m not talking about a transcendent being but the core of our true lives—you and your daughter Elysia pulling vegetables from the ground.”

And:

“We pretend to live at the surface of things while our real life is in dreams or a longing for the sacred that’s really true underneath things.”

Some may take this as merely mystical—and while safe, a watery substitute for the religion and received image of God that they wholly reject. But really we don’t yet have the vocabulary and understanding to talk about this, to share it, and to realize that he really is talking about God. What we’ve had, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is metaphors for this human effort at holiness.

People have such a bleak view of their own species. Understandable, given our mistakes and lapses, yet so limited when you consider evolutionary time, how far we’ve come and how far we can and must go. Meantime, we too cheaply ignore our endless quest to soar, shared across the globe. And few question from whence our most human, and greatest, impulses and desires arose. Certain events and documents and behaviors are of evolutionary significance. But what to call that unique inner force that has driven us through the ages?

]]> By: Bill http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-an-interview-with-john-clayton/comment-page-1/#comment-14351 Bill Wed, 28 Sep 2011 03:49:01 +0000 http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/?p=2631#comment-14351 And congratulations to you Mo, on your new book, <em>Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: Seeking History and Hidden Gems in Flea-Market America</em>. Would love to interview you sometime soon! And congratulations to you Mo, on your new book, Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: Seeking History and Hidden Gems in Flea-Market America. Would love to interview you sometime soon!

]]> By: Maureen Stanton http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-an-interview-with-john-clayton/comment-page-1/#comment-14318 Maureen Stanton Tue, 27 Sep 2011 05:51:23 +0000 http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/?p=2631#comment-14318 Congratulations on another great book, John Clayton. I met you at UMass around 1982 in your creative writing class (you had the house with the swing), and everyone in the class was a little in love with you. We chatted briefly at OSU when you won the Sandstone (I finally made it to graduate school a decade a half later). I still have my typed onion-skin stories with your comments in pencil. A long over thank you for being an inspiring teacher and writer. Congratulations on another great book, John Clayton. I met you at UMass around 1982 in your creative writing class (you had the house with the swing), and everyone in the class was a little in love with you. We chatted briefly at OSU when you won the Sandstone (I finally made it to graduate school a decade a half later). I still have my typed onion-skin stories with your comments in pencil. A long over thank you for being an inspiring teacher and writer.

]]> By: John J. Clayton http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-an-interview-with-john-clayton/comment-page-1/#comment-14303 John J. Clayton Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:58:46 +0000 http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/?p=2631#comment-14303 Wonderful! Just so you know that I'm anything but a superhero. Shazam, m'fucka. Loved the interview and the experience of doing it. Hope to see you soon. John Wonderful! Just so you know that I’m anything but a superhero. Shazam, m’fucka. Loved the interview and the experience of doing it. Hope to see you soon.

John

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