The Earliest Foundations

It is the wont of youth to live in the present and to value over highly all that is modern, new, to their inexperienced thinking different.  But nothing is good merely because it is new, and often what is old has stayed with us not because it is mere tradition but because it has been tried and found consistent with inalterable truth.  But the past also is of great value because, for better and for worse, it has formed us, it is why we are who we are today, and on it is built all that we call new.  Without the past we would be utterly adrift, living in a vacuum without purpose, value, or coherency.

In Patricia McKillip's The Bards of Bone Plain, Jonah Cle lives as an archeologist in the ancient city of Caerau, seeking and uncovering its centuries of history.  Princess Beatrice is drawn to this work, and when she explains why, they are words we would all be wise to take to heart:

I like recognizing -- I mean finding -- what's lost.  Or rather what's forgotten.  Piecing people's lives together with the little mysteries they leave for us.  I like seeing out of earlier eyes, looking at the world when it was younger, different.  Even then, that long ago, it was building the earliest foundations of my world.  It's like searching for the beginning of a story.  You keep going back and back, and the beginning keeps shifting, running ahead of you, always older than the puzzle piece you hold in your hand, always pointing beyond what you know.

The bard to whom she's speaking, himself more ancient than she knows, agrees:

That's what I feel when I come across a new ballad [. . .].  I keep listening for the older forms of it, the place where language changes, hints at something past, the point where the story points even further back.

We are historical beings, bound in our place and time, yet with the potential to transcend (at least some of) its worst faults because we can know our past and draw on its lessons and its wisdom to see our present more clearly and what we might do to try to shape a more beneficent future.  

But only if we stop and listen, reflect and understand, act with wisdom and not mere wit.

Ghost Stories by Russell Kirk

Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales by Russell Kirk

The final piece in this anthology is an essay by Kirk, “A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale.” He writes that his tales are “experiments in the moral imagination,” which will include “elements of parable and fable.” “The good ghost story,” he says, “must have for its kernel some clear premise about the character of human existence – some theological premise, if you will.” He reminds us that “all important literature has some ethical end; and the tale of the preternatural [. . .] can be an instrument for the recovery of moral order.”

One reason this is so is because the best of such stories “are underlain by a healthy concept of the character of evil” – but also by the knowledge that evil powers “do not rule the universe; by bell, book, and candle, symbolically at least, we can push them down under.” He is clear that he believes in the supernatural, that he refuses merely material, scientific explanations (or hallucination) for the glimpses of it that people sometimes have, and he also tells us that these glimpses must be fleshed out, by the imagination, to create a good tale.

The ghostly tale can be “a means for expressing truth enchantingly,” he writes, but not at the expense of exercising “didactic moralism” nor by losing real fear of real evil – the “shapes and voices half-glimpsed and half-heard are [not] symbols merely.” He takes note of the materialistic nature of his culture (born in 1918, he lived through most of the 20th century), and remarks on his hope that “as the rising generation regains the awareness that ‘nature’ is something more than more fleshly sensation, and that something may lie above human nature, and something below it – why, the divine and the diabolical [may] rise up again in serious literature.”

The tales are fascinating and well-told. Occasionally a character from one story reappears in another, and – while each story is complete in itself – it is helpful to know the earlier tale, so I recommend reading them in order. It’s hard to reveal much about them, as the element of mystery and suspense is necessary for full enjoyment. There are tales of retribution and of beneficent help from beyond the grave, of possession and attempted possession, of heroics in the face of monstrous supernatural evil, of pride and humility, set around the world in city and country, musty old mansions and ancient cathedrals.

Kirk’s tales remind me often of Charles Williams’ novels (and Kirk was familiar with these). I don’t find the stories didactic; they are simply fascinating tales, well-told. Of course, I share Kirk’s Christian worldview, which allows for the actual existence of clearly distinct good and evil – and for good to have ultimate power over evil. His narrative style is easy to read, self-effacing – his skillful craftsmanship ensures that the reader’s attention is given to the story itself. Each story shows evil as evil, and unashamedly shows us good ascendant over it. Characters have choices, and, much as in Williams’ work, the choices lead them toward heaven or hell. Choices are sometimes offered in that murky world between living and dying, past and present, too; the shadowland where time is no longer in play.

“I present [these tales] to you unabashed,” Kirk writes. “They may impart some arcane truths about good and evil: as Chesterton put it, all life is an allegory, and we can understand it only in parable.” Certainly he has succeeded in his goal, perhaps beyond his expectations, and I shall read these stories many times, gladly obeying his final injunction: “Pray for us scribbling sinners now and at the hour of our death.” God rest us all in His eternal goodness.

Russell Kirk is an icon of the conservative movement, right up there with William F. Buckley, and has written on politics, culture, and economics (he even wrote an economics text for high school which my son greatly benefited from).

Charlie Peacock, part 2

No, I didn't get lazy over break; I finished the grading and got domestic -- a bit of embroidery on a baby gift, a new hem for a favorite coat, watched a movie with the family . . . and now it seems I've a moment when I'm rested enough to think about something besides class prep and grades.

Today, snippets I especially appreciated from Charlie:

* In giving his testimony, he referred to "the relentless tenderness of Jesus" -- what a wonderful image, and one we so often don't understand (the heavenly hound, "terrible goodness").

* Several times he urged us to be "interested in what God is interested in -- which is everything."

* Ask yourself each morning, "What kind of creative person will I become today?" (And he reminded us that all people are creative; creativity is not a gift solely of the artist. The church is "God's gifted ones gathering as communities to do God's work.")

* Read the Old Testament to learn what it means to be human, to understand the glory of man and his shame -- then "bring both the glory and the shame to God and use it in creative work through Him."

* When a student asked an especially insightful question, his face lit up, he pointed to her, and said, "You have wisdom, Little Sister!"

* And I loved this: Take your creative work and offer it to God: "Look what I made, Father!"

Tomorrow, God and grading willing, what Charlie said about the tension between being Christian and being an artist in today's culture.

Charlie Peacock

This week we’ve had a star on campus – singer, songwriter, pianist, producer, author, and more. Yet you wouldn’t have known it to see him walking the campus in jeans and sneakers, and a sweatshirt to hold off the sudden cold, with a quiet word and a warm smile for anyone who greets him: self-effacing and God-honoring, humble – and yet confident in his identity as a child of the Father called to be a musician for His glory in the created world.

I’ve appreciated Charlie’s wisdom these past three days. I hope to give more specifics when grading subsides (or I give up pretending that I might get caught up), but one thing I especially appreciated is his emphasis on story. The gospel, of course, is a story, from Genesis – “I am making all things” – to Revelation – “I am making all things new.” Can you tell this story, beginning to end, he asked us – with or without reference to Scripture – to anyone? Can you apply the story to the world – all the world? because the Creator is interested in everything He has made, contemporary church life, yes, but all the rest of His world just as much.

Creativity is a spiritual labor, Charlie reminded us: submit your creative work to the Holy Spirit and tell the story to point people to the truth, to leave the world a better place than it was when you arrived. He spoke of this gospel story as the “controlling story” of the world, of our lives, and reminded us to wake each morning with thankfulness for His new mercies, then step into the story and live out our roles, wherever God has called us.

I kept thinking of the Willow Tree angel LuCindy gave me, the one holding a book, called the angel of learning. But LuCindy wrote this for me on the accompanying card: “She’s called the angel of learning, but to me she is a constant reminder [. . .] to turn loose and trust my Abba to write my story, moment by moment, in faith that He will make it more light-filled and wondrous than I ever could.”

So a bonus blessing from Charlie’s time with us – a reminder of my friend’s loving generosity and of her message through his. Blessings abound; if I can remember that the story is His, I will better see them as I walk through each day in His grace.

Created Characters

It is God's story. My story is not my own; it is contained within His larger story, and I am only one -- though a known and beloved one -- of the many characters He has created to people His story.

Writers often remark that the characters they create "take over" the work: "What is a god to do?!" Annie Dillard asks, perhaps only half facetiously. We understand this, as a rule, to mean that in creating his characters, the writer has endowed them with certain character traits (strengths and flaws), background, values, skills, knowledge, abilities, and so on, which then dictate the probable actions they will take. The writer cannot make them do anything he wants for his own convenience; they have taken on a life of their own which he no longer fully controls.

God as our Author has endowed us with certain characteristics, too -- and these include the free will to love or hate, obey or transgress, live His story or try to write our own. He chooses not to control the story as a puppet-master, but to allow His characters to choose: obedience to our created nature through obedience to His loving will, or rebellious attempts to become what we are not and can never be -- gods ourselves.

And it behooves us to keep clearly in mind that each choice holds inevitable consequences, because that is the way He has created the world He has placed us within -- nor can He make the consequences otherwise, any more than a human author, if he wishes to be trusted by the reader, may break the very rules which govern the world he himself has created.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.

Sculpting in Time

I have been reading Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky's book Sculpting in Time, thanks to the recommendation of this young man, a film communications major. It is one of those books that gives one chills by its insight and expression. For this morning, a sample:

In setting great store by the subjective view of the artist and his personal perception of the world, I am not making a plea for an arbitrary or anarchic approach. It is a question of worldview, of ideals and moral ends. Masterpieces are born of the artist's struggle to express his ethical ideals. Indeed, his concepts and his sensibilities are informed by those ideals. If he loves life, has an overwhelming need to know it, change it, try to make it better, -- in short, if he aims to cooperate in enhancing the value of life, then there is no danger in the fact that the picture of reality will have passed through a filter of his subjective concepts, through his state of mind. For his work will always be a spiritual endeavour which aspires to make man more perfect: an image of the world that captivates us by its harmony of feeling and thought, its nobility and restraint.

Happy Endings

Last week on Criminal Minds, the team searched for a missing child, finding out in the course of the search that she had been abused by her uncle. The quotation at the end was from G.K. Chesterton: "Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."

I was thinking about this yesterday morning while reflecting on why I write. Generally speaking, children's literature does have happy endings, because we know that children need to believe in hope. And I am always seeking a vision, an ideal, hope, when I write. And so I wrote:

"I am, then, seeking happy endings when I write. Not sappy, unrealistic, 'perfect' endings, but ones that are possible in a broken world which has been entered by redemptive power, ones that are possible because brokenness is not all there is. The flawed beauty we see all around us, the flawed goodness of people we meet on our way, tells us this -- so much of beauty and goodness within the brokenness, if we look for it, tells us this, tells us that the world is indeed still 'charged with the grandeur of God,' that 'there lives the dearest freshness deep down things' even in a world 'seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil.'

"I write to find and articulate gems of joy, glimpses of the ideal, prisms of hope. I only know that my world is flawed because I know there is an ideal by which to judge it. And without this ideal, if we reject the vision of an ideal, there is only despair. We must offer hope by offering the ideal we glimpse, the vision shimmering always on the edge of sight."

I have never been ashamed of happy endings, of beauty, of hope. I am grieved that so many in the past century have found it more likely that life doesn't offer these, that so many have turned from the search and offered the lies of despair in the name of realism. Because, as I also wrote:

"I read for the same reason: I read to find the ideal. Not to avoid reality, but to see that reality is not the mere observable broken world that drowns me every morning when I wake, that drowns me when I wake from a literary world that has drawn me into its beauty, when I wake from a rare immersion in the reality of God's love. Reality is not brokenness and despair; reality is redemption with all its hope in the midst of the brokenness and despair."

Our happy endings here will always be tinged with some edge of sadness. And yet -- there is an ultimate happy ending where all tears, all sorrow will be washed away forever. How, otherwise, can one find courage to live?

Fiction: A Brief Apologia

Periodically, someone challenges the reading of fiction with comments about its lack of seriousness or its lack of substance or the "fact" that it's mere escapism or whatever other reasons to dismiss it as an activity unworthy of much of a serious person's time. Books have been written on the subject, of course, but I was thinking about it last night and jotted down some thoughts that might serve as a starting point for its defense.

Fiction offers particular pictures of theories about human nature; it is "theory become flesh," as a student once put it. It is where we see these theories tested (what if x kind of person were placed in y situation with z conflicts . . . what would happen?) and can decide if they make sense.

When I read Kate Chopin's "The Storm," for example, I find myself thinking about the emptiness of her picture of adultery making people happy and making them better marriage partners. This just doesn't make sense given what I observe about human nature and what I think I know about women in particular. And so I reject her theory about human nature, marriage, and sex, while recognizing that of course some of her critiques of social norms and attitudes are still true.

When I read "A Domestic Dilemma" by Carson McCullers, on the other hand, I find myself thinking how true is her portrayal of the ambiguities of love in a marriage with an alcoholic wife, the complexity of emotions and the decision of the husband to love in spite of the crushing disappointments, how true the wife's reaction to her circumstances is for certain women. And so I accept her theory of love and marriage, of commitment in difficulties, even if I don't accept every aspect of her critique of society.

Sometimes reading theory is helpful and even necessary. But it's in story that it's made real, that we see and understand its implications and its truths, its strengths and its weaknesses, its power or its emptiness. (By "theory" here I don't mean literary criticism so much as I simply mean any serious nonfiction study of anything having to do with how we live or should live.)

Scripture is a story, and stories within a story. Of course, it contains exposition as well, but we are always seeing the theory played out in particular lives. Jesus told parables because stories about a particular man who loses a sheep or a particular woman who loses a coin made His hearers see themselves, be able to put themselves into the story and understand how they should then live (or not live). And often He did not expound the parables; He left them to work in the souls of those who were willing to learn.

Stories move us, make us want to laugh and to cry -- and to be better people. "I want to be like Aragorn" or "Oh, I don't want to become like Saruman" is far more compelling (and helpful) than "I would like to be more patient and persevering" or "I should not be greedy for power."

Stories work at the level of intuition. They can be explicit in the principles they embody, but usually they are not. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," Jesus said of the parables -- meaning a heart to hear. The subtleties are what make story dangerous, yes -- too much Chopin can convince the undiscerning reader that her errors are truth. But it's also the subtleties that carry story's great power for good. The best stories allow for the complexities and ambiguities of life in a fallen world, while still giving clear pictures of virtue and vice. And they open our hearts to mystery and wonder, beauty as well as truth. Imbibing such stories from childhood on is more likely to lead to a subconscious desire to be virtuous than if a child is merely preached at with theory.

The real substance of knowledge is in story. The theory just helps me to articulate what story makes me know and understand.

Empathy

My favorite television show (Criminal Minds) has succeeded in fascinating me again with last night’s episode, which explored the concept of empathy. The more I think about the show, the more amazed I am at the depths of what they did in this episode; it is not the norm, at least in today’s visual media, to explore any abstraction so significantly.

Last week, in a two-part episode, Reid was kidnapped and tortured before being rescued by the team. The genius of the group, he is a logic machine who relies almost entirely on his mind and struggles with emotion and relationship. During his ordeal, Hotch remarks to Gideon that he has failed in helping Reid learn to deal with the job emotionally, and he is concerned this may now be a problem. Reid’s kidnapper injects him with a psychotic drug several times, and at the end, Reid steals two vials of the drug before rejoining the team, leaving us to wonder if he will turn to drugs to stop the pain that has now been stirred up, both from his past and from the effects of the torture.

As the episode last night began, Morgan greets the new woman on the team, Emily Prentiss, and asks how her weekend was. She is reluctant to answer and Morgan casually gives her the freedom not to – at which she spills out the story of a bad date and they find a connection in their mutual enjoyment of Kurt Vonnegut’s literature. It is Morgan’s ability to allow her to speak or not, and his attentiveness and empathy when she does, that allow her to finally begin revealing herself so that she can become more than just professionally a part of the team.

The team is called in to help find a serial killer targeting black high school girls who like to sing. Their profile says that the killer is a black man, and the town mayor goes ballistic, fearful of rousing further racial hatred in a town that already thinks the killings are racially motivated. The black detective running the local investigation decides to make the profile public over the mayor’s objections, and he and Morgan (who is mixed race) go out on patrol together.

During this scene we see Morgan again practicing empathy – with the detective’s position of having to make a decision against his employer’s wishes, with the detective’s frustration that it should matter to anyone what race a profile gives, with the detective’s desire to do his job well but have dignity. Morgan shows his understanding of these frustrations and talks about accepting reality as it is and doing the job one is given the best way possible, without worrying oneself over the politics of others. It’s a clear and realistic picture of one person reaching out to another from his own experiences to help the other come to grips with his circumstances.

Reid, meanwhile, is having flashbacks when he looks at the pictures of the murdered girls lying in the leaves. (He was digging his own grave in a small cemetery in the woods when the team rescued him.) At one point, he locks himself into a men’s room and takes out the – as yet still unopened – vials of the drug, but Gideon yells for him and he returns to the investigation. He does his job, helps the team solve the case and save a girl’s life, but his fear and confusion are frequently evident.

On the plane ride home, Morgan asks Reid if he’s all right; he’s clearly concerned about him and becomes more so as Reid uncharacteristically lashes back at him. He doesn’t walk away as he started to with Prentiss earlier; he has an established relationship with Reid and knows him well enough to know that he needs to talk. Instead, he reminds Reid that anything he says will stay confidential, and presses him to speak his mind.

Reid finally tells him about the effect of the photos and says, “It’s that now I know – I mean, I really know – what they were going through, what they were thinking and feeling, right before . . .”

“It’s called empathy,” Morgan tells him gently.

“So what do I do about it?” Reid answers. “It makes me not focus; it makes me not do my job as well.”

Morgan says, “You use it. You use it to be a better profiler, and to be a better person.”

The episode ends with Reid staring at Morgan and saying, “A better person?”

I am not sure where this will go, of course, but from what I’ve seen of the characters, I think Reid is asking how he can possibly be a better person if he now has emotional responses to his work. And I hope we are in for a “course” in how to control and use emotion in conjunction with reason to be fully human. There’s great potential here – and I salute the writers of this show for their insight and talent in bringing such depth to it. And, by the way, Shemar Moore is a really good actor, as is Matthew Gray Gubler. Wow. Anyone would have to love having the talent on this show collected in one place.