Interviews

The following is an excerpt from an interview conducted by Delonda Anderson, Chief Editor of Appalachia Bare, on November 8, 2021.

Read the entire interview at https://www.appalachiabare.com/edward-francisco-and-the-ever-changing-sky/.

AB: You mentioned The Ever Changing Sky took over 10 years to write. Given that you’re a contemplative, deep thinker, what was the initial motivation for writing it?

ED: My initial impulse was simply to meditate on the psalms in some way that they magnified or clarified events that were occurring in my life. I tried to see my events, my occurrences, whether they were with my family or friends or with my vocation in the light of something larger, and the psalms provided me with that lens for doing so.

I really began out of impulse a recognition that every moment of my life was important and that it was incumbent on me to be keenly aware, to bring mindfulness to every perception, observation, thought that I was having. And obviously I was trying to see the relationship between my present with the present of an earlier age, the ancient Israelites, who were a people despised, a people who were exiled, who were forced into remoteness, and at the same time were commanded to have hope and faith and obedience. Obedience was a very important part of the Jewish covenant with God. Their god promised that he will bless them so long as they observe the covenant, so I was trying to figure out what kind of covenantal relationship I had with various aspects of my life, my life as a husband, as a father, as a teacher, all of the obligations I sought to fulfill in middle age.

 

AB: Do you have a favorite meditation of your own?

ED: The meditation on the bob white quail. Now, I love that one. I do. I think because it rose in my mind at least to the level of poetry. It was poetic. And I think it’s interesting that for years I taught Shakespeare and became acutely attuned to the rhythms and the music of Elizabethan English, of the King James Bible and its ultimate expression. And for me that particular meditation (I certainly didn’t intend for it to be.) sounds to me like the psalmist language translated in the King James Bible.

AB: That – honestly that meditation resonated with me too because I used to hear the bob white . . . But you recognize it when you hear it.

ED: Oh, you do, don’t you? And even as a child, it comforted me to hear it because there was something soporific about it. It lulled me to sleep. There was some presence out there that was alive but mysteriously hidden, that made it alright for me to sleep, not to indulge night terrors and fears of the dark . . .

 

AB: What do you hope readers will take away from The Ever Changing Sky?

ED: I want the book to align with their journey toward authenticity, to ask the ultimate question, to not be afraid to ask those questions, in the light of the questions I’ve asked. It’s not a book of how-to devotions, as I’ve indicated today. I want it to resonate with people on a human and spiritual and existential level. It’s not for people who don’t want to be aware. I just want to be able to contribute to people’s trek toward awareness. I have no more ambitions for the book than that. I certainly didn’t write it – I wasn’t trying to imitate anybody. I wasn’t trying to imitate Augustine’s Confessions, or Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain, although I certainly have read those texts and I’ve been influenced by everything I’ve ever read, and everything I’ve experienced, and everything I’ve taught.

One of the premier experiences and challenges for me was a course I taught at Pellissippi in the special topics program of that time called “Christology: Images of Jesus.” And I sought to seek Jesus out in as many manifestations as I could for the people in that class, and for them to do the same. Now, I ran into trouble because the fundamentalists met at my office to cajole me and to chastise me. One actually told me, “I’m not naïve. I’ve been to UT.” To which I replied, “Neither am I. I taught at UT for ten years before I came here.” You know, he came to give me a hard time, but I remembered saying, “It’s obvious to me I have nothing to teach you. So let us part on good terms. I will send you on your way with all blessings.” And I thought he was going to step into his jaw. And he said, “You don’t want me to stay?” I said, “Oh, no, I don’t want you to stay. You don’t want to stay. Why would I want you to stay?”

At that time, we had more wiggle room to offer courses that were unconventional. I also taught a course called “The South in Literature and Film,” and used the anthology that Linda and Robert and I had edited for Prentiss Hall. The curriculum, of course, has become too cookie-cutter now. I couldn’t offer a course in Christology, if I were still teaching, if I wanted to.

I was a little worried today about the reading because I thought, “Okay, I’ve got some young people in here,” and I’m making no apologies about being a Christian Apologist. But they were fine with it, they really were. And I kept my eye on them. And that was one of the reasons why I said “You don’t have to be a purporting Christian to have Christ consciousness.” If I gave them a way to embrace their own inherent spirituality without forcing it on them, then I was successful.