The Story About Ping

Posted June 26th, 2007 by Jen in education, religion

My children love this little book called The Story About Ping, written in 1933 by Marjorie Flack, illustrated by Kurt Weise. I read it to them at least once a week, it seems. Sometimes nightly for a season. The flow of the language when read aloud is beautiful, and I suspect that’s one of the reasons they request this book so often.

Ping was a little duck who lived with his huge family on “a boat with two wise eyes on the Yangtze River.” Fearing the spank the last duck receives upon returning to the boat each evening, Ping hides. He gets lost and has several adventures before reuniting with his family.

One of the adventures involves coming across some trained fishing birds with rings around their necks to prevent them from eating the delicious fish, and so they dutifully carry the catch to their master. The constraining rings prevent them from eating anything but small morsels. This scene evokes such sadness in me, and can be interpreted on many levels. My kids have actually never commented on this episode and they take it literally and matter-of-factly, for now. But I think I’ll have a discussion with them soon.

I’ve been thinking a lot about church issues lately, as well as education. What are the rings placed around our necks? Is it constraining to sit under one head teacher who predigests material for us? Has this “objectivist” type of learning, as Debra Murphy discusses in her article Worship as catechesis: Knowledge, desire, and Christian formation, twisted what it means to “know” something?

What if we could enjoy the whole, delicious fish, and not some pasty morsel? How marvelous that would be. What would it look like? How can we remove rings from around our necks? I honestly don’t have the answers, but I’m exploring. Murphy argues that the objectivist view of knowledge needs dismantling. No longer should knowledge be the transfer of educational content from teacher to pupil, but some kind of community experience that repairs the disconnect between what goes on, for example, in the church and what happens in the outside world.

Believe it or not, we may need to return to the Middle Ages for an answer. Jeffrey Stout, in his book Flight From Authority, traces how the Middle Age experience of strong community, intertwined with the authority of religious institutions and human inquiry, gave way to the Modern experience of a “flight” from this authority, leaving us today with what he calls “scientism” and “logical positivism,” in which any belief which cannot be certainly proven is folly, and the human conversation in the process gets removed. That’s a mouthful, folks, and I hope you follow what I’m trying to say! I’m not a scholar, but this is my understanding.

I haven’t read the full texts of these works I mentioned, but will do so in my quest to find something tangible I can do. Yes, something I can do and you can do, not just a philosophical conversation. The Story About Ping got me thinking. And thinking alone is fruitless. Will someone be willing to read with me, with an eye toward something new? I understand that a real shift in the paradigm may take centuries. It took centuries to get where we are now, after all.

6 Responses

  1. Jane June 26th, 2007 at 3:21 pm

    I am feeling a bit dull headed as I have been scrubbing bathrooms and have hit the late afternoon brain freeze portion of my day, but I do have a thought. We have the privilege of unrestrained learning and teaching from the Lord from His Word and through prayer. I do believe that we are called to gather together and worship as a body of believers. I have had bad experiences with church, but chalk them up to humaness and go elsewhere. I try to commit to reading the scripture everyday and then recording an insight and how it relates to my Christian walk. I often write at the top of my entry the verse from Psalms that says: “Open my eyes, that I might see wonderful things in Your Word.” I believe that this is fundamental in personal Christian growth.

    As for education in general, I am learning so much in homeschooling my own children in our eclectic manner!

  2. Chasing the Wind » Christian Carnival CLXXVIII June 27th, 2007 at 9:03 pm

    […] Jennifer in OR presents The Story About Ping posted at Diary of 1. […]

  3. Jen June 27th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    Jane, thanks for your thoughts, and not a bit dull headed! I totally agree, our personal responsibility and privilege before the Lord is to receive daily from His Word. And also to receive life from the fellowship with other believers. Yes and amen.

    This post is sort of rambling and abstract, I guess. I haven’t nailed down my thoughts, just a feeling of wanting something more organic and communitarian, a longing for the ancient ways of Jesus walking among the disciples, the amazing First Church, the…je ne sais quoi.

  4. Dana June 27th, 2007 at 10:47 pm

    That church exists. Jesus said that he would build His church upon this rock, and the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. What is that rock? Peter? His confession?

    Interestingly, they were literally standing at “the gates of Hell.” For that is what the region was known for.

    This is an interesting little presentation:

    http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=2065

    And now I’ve distracted myself. What are you reading? I’m always up for reading, and surely it can squeeze in between the other four books I’m reading? It sounds related, anyway.

  5. Karlie June 28th, 2007 at 7:29 am

    You wrote ” Is it constraining to sit under one head teacher who predigests material for us?” I think yeas and no. When we are babies in the Lord we need our “predigested” word, and even as we grow, it helps to have our “iron sharpened” by a good message. However, if we continue to only take what is fed to us and never start to search on our own, we become bottle-fed Christians.. that is a sad thing to be! I think the only way to remove the rings is through our own study of scripture, our own prayer, prompted by the Holy Spirit… Not our pastor. Whew, that was quite a thought provoking post! Thanks for stopping by my blog! Come by again, I liked your comments, and I am enjoying your blog. ~Karlie

  6. e-Mom June 28th, 2007 at 10:05 am

    Just passing through from today’s Christian Carnival. I vaguely remember reading The Story About Ping. (Sounds like something one might do at Technorati). I enjoy the fact that children’s books often spark deeper thoughts about life and our walk with Christ. Thanks sharing. Blessings, e-Mom

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