I listened to an audio clip on This I Believe called “God is the Father of All Men.”
This story most closely falls into the category of Description. The woman, Osceola Dawson, seems to just list her beliefs and explain some of their connections within a larger worldview. For example, she begins by expressing her deeply held belief in the Bible and Christianity. This belief, she explains, entails the idea that God is the Father and Creator of all men. From here, she goes on to deduce that people of all races are children of God, and no race has any superiority over another. This web of beliefs explains her active membership in the NAACP, and this worldview, although she doesn’t explicitly say so, seems to motivate all of her actions in life.
She says the climax of her beliefs is the belief that “God, through Christ, is the answer to the problems of the universe, and that real Christianity must stand at the foundation of every worthwhile life or nation.” Having died in 1963, Dawson was unable to use modern technology to illustrate her beliefs. This is an example of “Define” from the Designs of Meaning cards; she was limited by the medium to tell her story. Dawson also makes use of the “Feel” card. She uses pathos a lot in her story. For example, she ties her condemnation of racism to her belief in God, almost as a persuasive tool to convince the listener of the necessity of God. One other card she evokes is “Hyperlink”; Dawson quotes Scripture multiple times in her short story, bringing to mind another story and tying it to the subject at hand. It’s sort of an old form of a hyperlink to call attention to another source of information by the use of short, verbal quotations. Whenever she feels that this other source, the Bible, is of some relevance, she quotes it verbatim from memory — not only adding to the content of the discussion, but adding to the gravitas of the speaker. Her tone is always solemn and almost commanding, like a mother giving advice to her children.
The way Dawson communicates her belief is informative. The tone, the pointedness, the seriousness, the almost cautionary mood in her voice, all sum to a colorful and convincing description of her worldview. Looking forward to the first project in the class, one might want to make use of this tactic in particular: tone. The tone of her voice in the clip almost sounds like Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech. It sounds like a warning, like something you’d be foolish not to listen to. The impact of the tone is perhaps the only engaging thing about the clip; descriptions of belief tend to be boring by themselves. But when someone not only illustrates their belief in God, but also presents it as a belief we ought to have, it makes for a magnetic story. The other takeaway from this story is the connections Dawson makes between seemingly unrelated beliefs. To simply state a belief is one thing, but to deduce that belief from some more fundamental belief is another thing altogether. It sketches out the worldview in a deeper way by showing which beliefs are at the core, and which beliefs are only derivative.
Charles Golden 