Not certain what I need to do this week. I’ve got five school-related appointments scheduled, not including class Tuesday, and I haven’t thought about this since yesterday’s post. It could go in two directions. First, I could take what I have and edit it more. That’s a job that could take the whole week. (That's generous.) Need to clarify quite a number of my arguments, extend others, and beef up some evidence in a few places. Still have to find a replacement for the Usery case. But I think I’ve got section one of this chapter sort-of in place.
Second, I could pitch in to one of my diarists. That’s just fun. I have John Flintoff and Strong Thomasson slated to appear here. (I know, I’ve got a serious Methodist problem.) Here’s the thing: I’m dividing each of my chapters into two parts—the historical survey, then close examinations of individual experiences. It is methodologically weird (more on that some other time), but I think that format in chapter 3 turned out real well. The diarists’ experiences matched the survey in ways that made the overall argument work. I’m not, at present, seeing how that will happen in this chapter. For the survey I’m talking about the corporate-ness of discipline and how religious beliefs of a group transgressed (heh) congregational and public boundaries. But diaries only speak for individuals and these individuals—partially on account of their ordinariness—are not conscientious voices of large groups the way, say, James H. Hammond or James Henley Thornwell were. Flintoff, as far as I can tell, never joined a temperance society and never participated in a church trial. Thomasson was huge into temperance, but he was the most individual of all my people. So when I talk about them, the direct connections between their experiences and the previous section of the chapter will not be apparent.
But all is not lost. Both of them convey rather well, I think, the voice of individuals yearning to be a part of the larger world, and leaning heavily on their religious beliefs to guide them in that world. That hinges on the idea I’m trying to explicate in the first section that individual spiritual satisfaction was nearly indistinguishable from group/social spiritual satisfaction. That’s discipline.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I think that yes, going ahead with the diarists first would be a good idea because having a bead on them will help refine the first section when I get back to it.
So this week, John Fletcher Flintoff of Caswell County. Here’s a teaser—Flintoff’s story takes place mostly in Mississippi.
Comments