Learning as a Gradual Dazzle

As a kid I studied and memorized reams of poetry. Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, e.e. cummings, Robert W. Service, and more. For social capital in today’s world, my time would have been better spent had I waited a few years and filled my brain instead with details from the Marvel Comic Universe and lines from Friends and The Office. But who knew that then? At any rate, opportunities to gracefully weave a quote or a few lines of verse into a conversation, as people in old books are apt to do, are few and far between. Becoming a Christian in middle school and starting to learn Bible verses has served me better, at least in Evangelical circles.

Yet the do-it-yourself education in the liberal arts I got from memorizing poetry is still good for my own reflection and sometimes amusement. One of the Emily Dickinson poems comes back to me often. I don’t know how much I appreciated it at age 10, but its meaning is (perhaps ironically) clear now that I’ve reached middle age.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

(Here’s all the copyright info from the Poetry Foundation).

The best teaching, no matter the medium, tends to take this factor into account. It builds a case or slowly working toward a solution so readers can say for themselves, “Aha! That’s it!”