Dr. Paul C. Schleifer retired from Southern Wesleyan University almost a year ago.

During his final semester, I typed up and sent him what I dubbed jukebox questions: interrogative quarters that were designed to get Dr. Schleifer playing some classic tunes from a career spent thinking about faith and education.

In Part Two of this career-spanning interview with Dr. Paul Schleifer, he discusses his favorite Philly athletes, the connections between sports and literature, his familial priorities, how song lyrics and poems are alike, and (of course) the relationship between faith reading and writing.

Read Part One here, then enjoy an interview that ranges from Cookie Rojas and John Donne to John Prine and C.S. Lewis.

Jonathan Sircy: Who is your fave Philly athlete? What are the similarities/differences between rooting for an athlete and being a fan of a particular author?

Paul Schleifer: The first is a really tough question. Do you mean current or all-time? I was a Cookie Rojas fan when I was a kid (played on the Phillies). Then, of course, there was Mike Schmidt, but he’s everyone’s favorite Phillie, I suppose; I modeled my batting stance after his, but I was more likely to hit a ball the opposite way. Chase Utley played the game the right way. Dr. J was always fun to watch, but so was Billy Cunningham, and Hal Greer. I was a big Randall Cunningham and Reggie White fan.

So, I guess the answer to the second question is time. I can remember the old athletes and the old books even as I am rooting for the new athletes (Rhys Hoskins, Tyrese Maxey, Jalen Hurts). But the difference is that, while I can reread my favorite books, I can’t really recapture the joy of seeing my favorite athletes play live. On October 14, 1980, I was sitting with my wife in a big pizza joint (Mr. Gatti’s) in Athens, GA, watching on several big screens, when Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson and the Phils won their first World Series since 1915. I threw my arms up in the air, yelled “YES!” and then noticed that I was the only one cheering. I can remember that, but I cannot really relive it the way I can relive reading The Lord of the Rings or Donne’s poetry or A Christmas Carol.

JS: What can fans of literature learn from sports and vice versa?

PS: Interesting question. First, I’m not sure that fans of literature and fans of sports are necessarily different groups.

One of the things I’ve learned through sports is to appreciate something that’s good even if it is not something I like. I can applaud a play by someone on the other team, like the other night, watching Caitlin Clarke beat the USC women’s team. In the same way, I can recognize that a literary work is a classic even if it is not particularly my cup of tea.

And sports, like literature, is basically stories. Sometimes the stories have happy endings, and sometimes sad endings. Sometimes the story goes the way you want it to, and sometimes not. Sometimes authors cheat and we get a deus ex machina; sometimes judges cheat and Greg Louganis wins Olympic gold despite having hit his head on the platform during one of his dives (that’s why, to me, judged sports aren’t really sports).

JS: You’re a family man. How does devotion manifest itself in your professional life?

PS: Interesting way to frame a question. I assume that you mean that family requires a certain level of devotion, and I think I have learned the truth of that more in the last year than I ever knew before.

But how does that manifest itself in my professional life? I suppose it comes down to priorities. I am devoted to following my Lord, and that means trying to understand and live out his plan for my life, and to be Jesus to the people around me, especially the people I have been put in charge of, so, specifically, my students. Then, again, in my professional life, my students. Deserve my devotion. Next, my colleagues, and I think the last few years or so at SWU have given me the opportunity to demonstrate my devotion to my colleagues. I don’t feel particularly devoted to the institution, however; institutions are abstracts; they’re not real.  

JS: Is there a significant difference between great poetry and great song lyrics? What are some representative faves of yours in each category?

PS: No. Great poetry and great song lyrics do the same thing. They are compressed language. Sometimes they tell stories. Sometimes they express emotions or ideas. Today, Addie Seate and I looked at some of the poetry of Donne. My favorite, or one of the faves, is “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” which ends with that brilliant simile:

If they be two, they are two so

   As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

   To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

   Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

   Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

   And makes me end where I begun.

In other words, my love is like a red, red compass…. That is such a cool simile.

By the same token, John Prine writes this in “That’s the Way That the World Goes Round”:

I was sitting in the bathtub

counting my toes

when the radiator broke

water all froze

I got stuck in the ice

without my clothes

naked as the eyes of a clown

I was crying ice cubes

hoping I’d croak

when the sun come through the window

the ice all broke

I stood up and laughed

thought it was a joke

that’s the way that the world goes ’round.

That one line, “naked as the eyes of a clown,” just makes my mind spin. What does it mean? There are so many possibilities. Yes, there is generally more depth—intellectual, spiritual, emotional—in great poetry than there is in great song lyrics, but it’s a difference of degree, not of kind.

So, instead of favorite poems or lyrics, let me give you favorite writers: Shakespeare, Richard Lovelace, Donne, Herbert, Pope, Keats, Eliot, Langston Hughes, and then Dylan, James Taylor, John Prine, Todd Snider, Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Goodman, Kate Bush, and then some of the old hymn writers, whose name I can’t remember off the top of my head. So I’ll admit that I am much more moved by some of the old hymns than I am by contemporary praise songs.

Of course, it’s harder to talk about the song lyrics because they really depend upon the music, which the poetry doesn’t have to worry about.  Then again, some of my favorite 17^th century poems were actually song lyrics.

JS: What are some examples of books you think you’re expected to like that you don’t or that you might be expected to dislike that you dig? Have you ever shocked yourself in your like/dislike for a work of literature?

PS: I have never made it past page 90 of Joyce’s Ulysses, and I haven’t gotten even that far with Finnegan’s Wake. I came to The Catcher in the Rye kind of late, when I was in grad school, and I hated it—couldn’t finish it—wanted to smack Holden Caulfield upside the head. While I’m a fan of Gothic fiction, I never could get into the Brontë sisters.

On the other hand, while I wouldn’t consider myself a romance reader, I love Jane Austen. And I read some non-fiction—I’m a fan of Steven Pinker. One of my favorite books is Death from a Distance and the Birth of a Humane Universe: Human Evolution, Behavior, History, and Your Future by Paul M. Bingham and Joanne Souza, which is not exactly standard English-professor fare.

I can’t really say that I have “shocked” myself with a like or dislike.

JS: How does your faith display itself differently/similarly when you’re reading fiction vs. writing fiction?

PS: I really don’t know how to answer this question. The key word here is “display,” and I don’t think of myself as ever displaying my faith. One summer between years in college, I was staying in the Poconos. This guy in Scranton was trying to create his own dinner-theater business, and he was building the stage, and he was looking for help, so I volunteered. After a few days of working with him, he asked me, “Are you a Christian?” I said yes. Then he said, “I thought so. You hit your thumb with the hammer and didn’t even cuss.” Is that my faith on display? Maybe, but I wasn’t thinking of it in that way.

I believe that God teaches us through stories. Cain and Abel; Noah; Jonah; the Book of Susannah; Jesus’s parables. When I select a work of fiction to read, however, I’m not selecting it upon the basis of, “What will God teach me in this work?” I read based on my genre interests: speculative fiction and detective fiction, mostly. But then, sometimes, I see things in a work that reminds me that God is using Isaac Asimov or JK Rowling or Raymond Chandler or some hardly known author to teach me something, or to reinforce something.

In my writing, the same is sort of true, except that God is always with me when I’m creating that story. It’s not that I write “Christian fiction.” I would be surprised if The Missing Teacher was featured in the Crossway Bookstore in Easley. But I bring to a story everything in my background—my childhood, my experiences, the people in my life, the books that I’ve read—everything, and that, obviously, includes my faith. In fact, all of those other things—experiences, people, education—are informed by my faith. It’s like that C. S. Lewis quote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

We don’t think about displaying things that are intrinsic to our nature. My humanity is not on display. Oh, there are things we do and things we become that we may display—kids, grandkids, accomplishments. But my faith is not an accomplishment. It’s a gift freely given by God. When you’re a kid, you show off the presents you got at Christmas or a birthday to your friends—look at this new bike Santa brought me. But most grownups don’t do that, except perhaps on television.

Then, I guess, is the question, “Is my faith evident in what I write?” It depends upon who is reading it, I suppose. It’s evident to me, but I’m not using my fiction to proselytize, so it might not be evident to someone else. Jesus tells us the story of the Good Samaritan not to proselytize but to show us what a good neighbor is.

Yeah, this question was really tough. I’m going to leave the response above, but feel free to not use it at all.