Zena Hitz

A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life by Zena Hitz is an interesting, and at times annoying, read that certainly offers some insight into how one person views the religious life.

Using her personal experience at attempting to live such a religious life but backing out before making a full commitment, as well as citing numerous sources from saints to philosophers, we are given a view that generates a lot of thought and reflection. That is the positive, and it far outweighs what made parts of the book annoying for me.

Part of "the religious life," for many, is having a sense of certainty about your religious beliefs. Not simply a "this is what I believe" but a "this is how it is and how the afterlife is." It is this latter camp Hitz falls into, which will be a positive for those readers who feel as she does about the Christian faith, and an annoyance for those such as myself who don't believe such things, and absolutely questions those who speak of their beliefs as facts. Thus, for me, Hitz is an unreliable writer. For many, she will be speaking "The Truth."

No matter where you are on the belief spectrum, there is a lot to consider here. It isn't, or at least doesn't have to be, about a specific religion or, more appealing than religions, theology. It can simply be about learning some of the ways of approaching life, whether you believe in a mystical afterlife with some deity or not.

I would recommend this to readers who like to think about how others approach the big issues in life and the world, take what fits for you, then move on. Those who subscribe to the Christian mythology will like it even more.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (more)

Summary: A defense of the love of learning for its own sake, for how it enriches our existence as human beings.

Zena Hitz grew up in a house full of books. Curiosity, lectures, exploration, family conversations. All of this prepared Zena for an academic career, with the stimulating years of graduate school followed by a faculty position. And then the let down:

"In exchange for my comfortable salary, excellent benefits, and ample control over my work schedule, I delivered preprocessed nuggets of knowledge in front of a crowd and doled out above-average grades upon their absorption. The teaching that formed the central activity of my professional life seemed nothing like the lively and collaborative pursuit of ideas that had enchanted me as a student." (p, 17).

It led to three years in a Catholic retreat center, a process of discerning a vocation. She describes a journey of asking whether the love of learning may be defended for its own sake. She examines the things that may lure one away from this, as she was in her early faculty career: the love of money, social recognition, and spectacle. She takes a deep dive into the life of learning, the experience of refuge known to every bookworm, the inwardness it cultivates, in which she holds up Mary (thought in ancient times to be a reader), who understood that “a virgin must conceive” and so was prepared for the angel’s message. She is reminded of how learning gets at the core of what it means to be human–the common human experience that binds us together. She considers the uses of of the apparent uselessness of learning. Dorothy Day is a particular exemplar, whose service, advocacy, and imprisonments were sustained by her inner life of learning and prayer.

She wrestles with elitism. Is the quest for learning simply a preserve for the elite, those with enough time and money to do so? She recalls the workers libraries and the hunger for intellectual life of many who were not college educated. What she doesn’t address are those at the lowest rungs of poverty whose time and energy are devoted to surviving. As others have argued, there must be some time of leisure to pursue thought for its own sake. Perhaps this is as good an argument as any to pursue the eradication of poverty.

In the end, she comes to a renewed embrace of the intellectual life. She concludes:

"I have argued that intellectual life properly understood cultivates a space of retreat within a human being, a place where real reflection takes place. We step back from concerns of practical benefit, personal or public. We withdraw into small rooms, literal or internal. In the space of retreat we consider fundamental questions: what human happiness consists in, the origins and nature of the universe, whether human beings are part of nature, and whether and how a truly just community is possible. From the space of retreat emerges poetry, mathematics, and distilled wisdom articulated in words or manifested silently in action" (p. 185).

She longs that universities would become places once more where this would occur. I found myself wondering, though, whether this was ever the case en masse in colleges and universities or whether some gravitated more to this life than others. And for this to occur today amid the explosion of knowledge in every discipline, would this not require either extending the undergraduate degree to six years or more of full time studies, or making graduate education even more common. And this goes against the grain of our cultural imperatives of equating education with preparation for a job, and the pressures to shorten, not lengthen this time.

It makes me wonder whether the impetus must come from somewhere else in a soulless technological world. At one point, churches were the place where learning was preserved in Europe, learning not only of scripture but Aristotle and Plato. It is hard for me to see this arising from churches of the present day and it seems, apart from the outposts like St John’s (where the author is a tutor) and a few others, mostly private institutions, where this might come from in the world of higher ed. Will our bookstores and libraries become the modern day athenaeums where those hungry for more than being instruments in our technological apparatuses seek refuge and insight? Will we find the resources to sustain these places and those who curate them. And who will teach the disciplines of careful thought? Will a title like Lost in Thought even make sense? I fear if it doesn’t we will have lost what makes us most human, what gives meaning and texture to life, that separates us from the automatons increasingly capable of learning but unable to derive any pleasure from it.… (more)

Beginning with an allusion to Dante this challenging book reminds one what the intellectual life is all about, or at least what it should be. With a narrative that is a mixture of memoir and philosophical reflection, I also found it an inspiration to read deeply and widely to inform one's thinking. While an intellectual life might seem to be less than useful, appearances as they say can be deceiving and the result of such a life might actually result in pleasures that make it more than merely worthwhile.… (more)

One of the better books I've read recently. This book examines the intellectual life of private study and contemplation. Several classic works are examined to investigate the call to study and learning, even in areas of no particular worth to the student. A nice review of how the Virgin Mary enjoyed private study and pondering life, even as she was raising Jesus. St. Augustine is also closely examined for how he was attracted to reading and study as a calling in his life.
During a section on the examination of the choices of two young women in Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan novels, she lost me a bit since I'm not familiar with this four volume set. However, she describes how one woman went for wealth and position, and another to learning.
A slow read, since every few pages I needed to stop and go over what had been said. But a worthwhile book for introverts. Recommended for school and public libraries, and also recommended for people who like to read and think, since now they can find out why they do both.… (more)