We are finished read yet again, Tuesdays with Morrie, a book about living well through the art of dying well, ars moriendi. As many times as we have reflected on whether we should replace this book and remove it from the curriculum, we just can’t quite find a book that adequately captures so many of the life lessons that a semester-long class on the mystery of suffering and death should cover. “Love each other or perish,” Morrie often quotes from the poet, W.H. Auden. And this kind of summarizes the whole message. It’s never too late to live with love for self and other, as long as you have life, but it’s recommended to get started as soon as possible.
Ok, so I do not need to summarize any more of the book here. But I do want to share a meaningful criticism of the book that I was introduced to me by a student. That student put to words something that had bothered me about this book for a while, but I could really put my finger on it. Mitch, the author, and the narrator goes from being a successful sportswriter to being an even more successful human interest writer. While he does communicate that he is transformed by Morrie’s words he rarely makes himself vulnerable in a way that shows a true change. His weakest and most human moment is abandoning his dream of being a pianist. I suppose I just want to say that I also feel that while this book captures many of the lessons for living that appropriate for the course. Mitch in the whole of his career and efforts as a human seems interested in painting himself as a hero of sorts. He does a great many good things for people and I would diminish that and I feel we should hold these people up as an example of how to be. But I think we also need to be careful when trying to celebrate the idea that we are all called to be heroes. We can easily be heroic small ways too and to be a hero we do not need to be perfect. We can be flawed and difficult.
Julian A. Elorduy, MET, MA 