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Martin Clay Fowler

Goodreads Author

Born

Charlotte, NC, The United States

Member Since

July 2009

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/quozl

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When I was sixteen years old, I decided that I wanted to be a philosopher. I didn't know any living philosophers (and it's important to know one when you meet one). I met lots of people who taught philosophy, and I'm grateful for their instruction and example. I have taught philosophy myself for 30 years.

But teaching something is different than doing it. Life has to take you by surprise first. It's like the "zahir" in the story by Jorge Luis Borges - something mundane and familiar which takes over your thinking and imagining with a life and destiny of its own. For me, philosophy is not so much a job description as journey; questioning what most people take for granted. And it's being honest about what people know and understand and what t When I was sixteen years old, I decided that I wanted to be a philosopher. I didn't know any living philosophers (and it's important to know one when you meet one). I met lots of people who taught philosophy, and I'm grateful for their instruction and example. I have taught philosophy myself for 30 years.

But teaching something is different than doing it. Life has to take you by surprise first. It's like the "zahir" in the story by Jorge Luis Borges - something mundane and familiar which takes over your thinking and imagining with a life and destiny of its own. For me, philosophy is not so much a job description as journey; questioning what most people take for granted. And it's being honest about what people know and understand and what they don't.

Basically, when I think that someone should have written a philosophy book about a topic or question I care about, but I can't find such a book, I go ahead and write it. That's how I wrote "The Ethical Practice of Critical Thinking" and "You Always Belonged and You Always Will - a Philosophy of Belonging." Sometimes the lemon will make lemonade, but other times it's just a lemon. Then you call a philosopher. Here's a story about that:

Twenty-seven years ago (long before same-sex marriage was legal anywhere), my husband and I hunted a church to join in our small Texas town. The church had handed us a leaflet entitled “Belong Where You Live” which featured footprints leading to a church and made the claim that joining a local congregation made believers more effective Christians. But the pastor and deacon were quite unnerved by us sitting in their pews. They tried to return our collection plate offering and begged us to get out. In response, we sat on the curb across from the front of the church where we read the Bible each Sunday morning. The congregation began entering the church’s back door to avoid seeing us. Some wanted to welcome us, and the rest wanted to ignore us or chase us away. They thought we belonged someplace else. More accurately, they deemed that we did not belong. We neither went into the church nor left during that spring. We simply parked our butts on the curb and read the Bible.

We lived in the neighborhood, and we belonged where we lived. Teenagers understand hanging out as belonging where they live when they’ve got no adult-sanctioned place to belong. Our church on the curb expressed our spiritual intuition that we belonged. It was not a ploy to pry open the church to admit gay people.

They never welcomed us. We never alerted the media because this was no protest. It was a spiritual exercise but not a vigil. We didn’t hold candles to symbolize our solemn awareness of a cause greater than ourselves. We weren’t pouting or waiting to be invited inside. We just belonged in the sense of being openly vulnerable to whatever transformation God had in store. Belonging is presence more than loitering, but not any less than that either. We hung out in the neighborhood where we lived, just as the church’s “Belong Where You Live” booklet instructed.

Would the church’s belonging problem vanish had we scooted down the street out of sight? I don’t think so. We saw dramatic confirmation that, when people declare that others don’t belong, their own sense of belonging becomes inexplicably unhinged and jeopardized. Theologically, we believed that Christians belong to one and the same body of believers, and that it’s spiritually wrong to pretend otherwise.

So, we didn’t behave otherwise. We belonged bearing witness. You might not be convinced that God actually told us “you belong,” but we were convinced that we’d received that blessing. That made all the difference. Though we didn’t therefore feel that we mattered much, we suddenly mattered a great deal to that church. Had we not belonged, had we not received that blessing, why would that church care so much about us? If all the belonging was guarded inside that church, why did they ...more

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Martin Clay Fowler's Blog

"A Manifesto for Belonging" by Martin Fowler

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Without striving, life would not be possible. Without belonging, life would not matter.

You’ve always felt, long before you had words for it, that every life belongs in this world. Not in the next world, not in some better world, but in this world. Yet you haven’t dared to believe what you’ve felt until now. Without exception, kudzu and mosquitoes belong. All living things, locked away or runnin Read more of this blog post »

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Published on August 27, 2014 16:43 • Tags: belonging, freedom, inclusion

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Martin Clay Fowler’s books

Average rating: 3.5 · 4 ratings · 1 review · 2 distinct works

	The Ethical Practice of Critical Thinking 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2008 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	You Always Belonged and You Always Will: a Philosophy of Belonging really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Martin Clay Fowler (?)

“WARNING:

Before commencing any program of sustained physical inactivity, consult your physician. Sedentary living doubles the likelihood of stroke and coronary artery disease, making it as risky as smoking, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure. If unaccustomed to sitting for extended periods, you may experience weak muscles, low bone density, high cholesterol, hyperglycaemia, a rapid resting heart rate, mental decline, mood disorders, and obesity. Start slowly and increase inactivity gradually. If you experience drowsiness, difficulty in concentration, or craving for stimulation, discontinue inactivity immediately.:-)”
― Martin Clay Fowler, You Always Belonged and You Always Will: a Philosophy of Belonging

tags: fitness, movement, physical-therapy

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Martin’s Quotes

tags: fitness, movement, physical-therapy

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“And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore.”
― Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

tags: depression, healing

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