Sunday, July 16, 2023
We Have Questions: Can We Talk about Desire?
An inquiry into sensuality, spirituality, and some other stuff
Speaker: Michael DeWilde, a core Guest Teacher at C3, is the director of the Koeze Business Ethics Initiative in the Seidman College of Business, as well as a full professor in the Management Department at GVSU. He holds an MTS from Harvard University and did his undergraduate work at William James College (GVSU) in Michigan.
Musicians: Sonja de Wilde is a rising junior at Forest Hills Northern High School with an interest in marine biology and writing. She has written over 200 songs, a very select few of which she actually likes. Jess Willyard is a guitar singer-songwriter who has played music in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area since the early 90’s in Metal, Reggae, Folk, and Rock bands. He also studied with Tibetan Buddhist master Gelek Rinpoche for over 20 years. Charlotte DeWilde will enter ninth grade this year. She loves to sing, travel, write poetry, and play basketball, though not necessarily in that order.
Music: Sonja de Wilde Group
Gathering Host: Rod Van Abbema
Music: Sonja de Wilde Group
Meditation: Charity McMaster
Moment of Silence
Reading/Teaching: Michael DeWilde “Desire is the kind of thing that eats you and leaves you starving.”
― Nayyirah Waheed
“Eros is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.”
“According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.”
― Plato, The Symposium
“Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.”
― Sigmund Freud
“It has made me better loving you… it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can’t think of anything better. It’s just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it’s a delightful story.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Music: Sonja de Wilde Group
Gathering Host: Rod Van Abbema
Music: Sonja de Wilde Group
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