young fish swimming

David Walker Foster tells the story of a couple of young fish swimming in a stream passed by an older fish going the opposite direction who says, “How’s the water, fellas?” A couple of minutes later one of the younger fish turns to his friend and asks, “What the Hell is water?” The point of this story is that sometimes we really are not aware of the environs in which we swim, in which we move, live, breathe, and find our being. One of the purposes of this course is to awaken you to the currents in which you find yourself, which you take for granted, but in which you are indeed entirely immersed. Religion in culture is much like water for fish, it is in many ways invisible until you come to something like a waterfall (a church or an obviously religious/spiritual tradition) but in reality it is everywhere. In this course we focused upon literature and films that are informed by religion and my hope is that you have been sensitized to the less than obvious influences of religious currents that flow there. Have my hopes been justified? What have you learned in that regard from this course? Briefly tell me a thing or two about your experience in this course