Text II The Art of Acknowledgement Jean Houston

Text II The Art of Acknowledgement Jean Houston Lead-in Questions

Have you ever experienced any predicament in life? What is the force that drives you to come through difficulties and makes you confident toward the future? Or if you think you lack such force or strength, where do you think such force can derive from?

Main idea In a vivid story, the writer tells us how she had been so confident, arrogant and even rude a student, how she became poorly-spirited after several disastrous events, and how she regained the self-confidence and self-respect with the help of a teacher. Through this story, the writer tries to illustrate that the greatest of human potentials is the potential of each one of us to empower and acknowledge the other, and that our greatest genius may be the ability to prime the healing and evolutionary circuits of one another. Notes

1. About the author and the text Jean Houston, Ph.D. (1937-) has been a leading figure in the cross-cultural study of New Thought spirituality and ritual processes. A prolific author of books, her PBS Special A Passion for

the Possible has been widely viewed.

2. off-Broadway (Paragraph 1) Off Broadway theater is an umbrella term for a defined set of plays, musicals or revues performed in New York City. Originally referring to the location of a venue and its productions on a street intersecting Broadway in Manhattan's Theatre District, the hub of the theater industry in the United States, the term later became defined by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers as a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 99 and 500, or a specific production that appears in such a venue. Off Broadway shows, performers, and creative staff are eligible for nomination for the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Outer Circle Critics Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Obie Award (presented since 1956 by The Village Voice), and the Lucille Lortel Award (created in 1985 by the League of Off Broadway Theatres & Producers).

3. on the top of the heap (Paragraph 1) above everybody else

4. Job (Paragraph 5) Job is a gentile man in the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible, as well as a prophet in Islam.

In brief, the book begins with an introduction to Job's character — he is described as a blessed man who lives righteously. Satan, however, challenges Job's integrity, arguing that Job serves God simply because of the \removes that protection, allowing Satan to take his wealth, his children, and his physical health. Job remains loyal throughout, and does not curse God. The main portion of the text consists of the discourse of Job and his three friends concerning why Job was so punished, after which God steps in to answer Job and his friends. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning and he lived 140 years (Job 42:10, 17). 5. St. Paul and Nietzsche (Paragraph 6) Saint Paul, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul or Paul of Tarsus was a Hellenistic Jew, who called himself the \to the Gentiles\and was, together with Saint Peter and James the Just, the most notable of early Christian missionaries. His efforts to accept gentile converts and to define the Torah as superseded by Christ were successful and “decisive.” Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and

classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science. Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism.

6. Hegel (Paragraph 7) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher, and one of the creators of German idealism. Hegel developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or \account in an integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, and psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy.

7. Sorbonne (Paragraph 7) The name Sorbonne (La Sorbonne) is commonly used to refer to the historic University of Paris in Paris, France or one of its successor institutions.

8. Teilhard de Chardin (Paragraph 20) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who was trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of Peking Man. Teilhard's primary book, The Phenomenon of Man, set forth a

sweeping account of the unfolding of the cosmos. 9. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Paragraph 20) Mother Teresa (1910-1997) was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun with Indian citizenship who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Additional Notes

1. I was in a state of galloping chutzpah. (Paragraph 2) I had such strong self-confidence that I was rash and rude without feeling ashamed of myself. Chutzpah is a noun (inf.) meaning shameless audacity, cheek.

2. … when hubris rises, nemesis falls (Paragraph 3) … when one is arrogantly offensive, heavenly punishment befalls him. Nemesis is related to the Greek word meaning “to give what is due”. Nemesis is now often used as a term to describe one's worst enemy, normally someone or something that is the exact opposite of oneself but is also somehow similar.

3. … cracked the ice of my self-noughting … (Paragraph

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