but this is my calling, jesus

Cartoonist steals the stage at Southern Baptist Convention Convention...His web site is here...and more of his cartoons are available here.

I doubt the cartoon was meant to be as funny as it is to me...or as funny as it probably is to anyone at NW.

(The image says 'Unregistered' because I used some shareware to convert it into jpeg to get it into picasa to get it onto blogspot...)

Categories: Northwestern

Looks like a great radio interview with Paul Elie about his recent book The Life You Save May Be Your Own...a biography of O'Connor, Percy, Merton and Dorothy Day.

Haven't listened to it...read half of the biography...but both are recommended.

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

If you haven't heard yet, Shelby Foote died yesterday...good friend of Walker Percy, knew O'Connor... (looks like a certain professor on campus...guess who)

open book reflection
Mark Bertrand's reflection
Omaha World-Herald story

"Truth, Goodness and Beauty are abstractions and abstractions lead to thinness and allegory whereas in good fiction and drama you need to go through the concrete situation to some experience of mystery." -Flannery O'Connor (HOB 520)

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

In a rare burst of concentration, I burned through Habit of Being and finished it. A bit overwhelmed--and I need to read it all again. Flannery O'Connor wrote in one of her letters that in the future if anyone wanted to understand her work they would have to read everything she wrote. I haven't read it all (just everything that's been published)...but I'm beginning to understand.

Lots of questions and troubling new thoughts that I will have to work through this year...

Categories: Flannery O'Connor, Personal

stuck in the double bind--consciousness, nothingness

I try to keep my posts focused on ideas...but some of my friends say they like when I get more personal in my posts. So here's a more personal post...which is really about ideas:

For about a year now I have been haunted by a paragraph from an essay by Jonathan Franzen entitled "Caught," in which he recounts from his childhood setting pranks to gain the attention of his principal, Mr. Knight. He talks about the desire for his attention and his growing self-consciousness in adolescence. Here's the paragraph:

The double bind, the problem of consciousness mixed with nothingness, never goes away. You never stop waiting for the real story to start, because the only real story, in the end, is that you die. Along the way, however, Mr. Knight keeps reappearing: Mr. Knight as God, Mr. Knight as history, Mr. Knight as government or fate or nature. And the game of art, which begins as a bid for Mr. Knight's attention, eventually invites you to pursue it for its own sake, with a seriousness that redeems and is redeemed by its fundamental uselessness.

These are two main forces in my daily life: self-consciousness and nothingness. I am constantly aware of my life, my Self, all my emotions and thoughts...I see myself and self-analyze myself all the time. I often wish I could live without my brain--and sometimes imagine that heaven will be some kind of empty stupor, floating down a creek like driftwood. I envy people who never contemplate their lives or the meanings of them.

For on the other end is nothingness--the analysis ends in nothingness (perhaps this makes me a product of a deconstructionist haze...or of too much existentialism). I am doing this now, but I could be doing that just as well. I could follow any number of paths--but all of them seem to end in nothing. At college we are attempting to find some meaning derived from our faculties--an attempt to feel 'fulfilled.' And sometimes I can build up that illusion and hold it (Mr. Knight appears)--though at the end I always feel the nothingness again. From dust to dust. And there seems nothing substantially different between writing a poem or sacking groceries or running Vacation Bible School. All values drop to zero. All narrative is a construction. Life is real and valuable--but the value is relative, and next to death, all values drop to zero.

Perhaps what really bothers me (as I think now) is not that there is no meaning--but that what does have meaning is so contingent, so dependent. I can't screw myself to some ontological Rock on which I can secure all my values. Meaning comes through these tangled lines of community, relationships, emotions--the physicality of my brain, genes and environment. Living is not sailing high above the waves, but reaching for the closest driftwood around you and holding on for dear life. And, yes, the path is inefficent and contingent and can barely hold its own metaphysically...but that doesn't mean it's nothing--

Categories: Commentary, Personal

william boling: photographs from o'connor country

An exhibit is currently open in Buford, Georgia by photographer William Boling. All the following is press release info (bold mine):

One of the elements that one may pass unnoticed in O’Connor’s work is a consideration of the donnée, which, translated from French, means “the given.” The donnée is the basic raw materials – a location, an experience, an idea – with which the artist begins to craft her work. A consideration of the artist’s donnée foregrounds the artist’s process: how the artist soaks up the world around her and transforms it into something uniquely her own.

To focus on O’Connor’s use of the donnée is to discover an artist whose eye had a powerful, telescopic focus on the incongruity, the confusion, and the mystery of day-to-day life. Many things that may have seemed banal or taken as a given in O’Connor’s world were transformed by her prose, and her work forces us not only to take a second glace at these things, but also to examine and question our beliefs and our existence.

Inspired by O’Connor’s writing, artist William Boling has used to camera to seek out and rediscover O’Connor’s donnée by photographing locations around Millidgeville, Georgia, a small Southern town that served as O’Connor’s home for many years. As O’Connor walked down these sidewalks, passed by these shop windows, or crossed the thresholds of these doors, she may have noticed the odd, often mysterious elements of these locations and transformed them in her fiction. Capturing these evocative images in his own eye, William Boling’s artwork serves a dual purpose: to celebrate the life and literature of Flannery O’Connor and to foreground his own process as a reader and an artist, working his way through the world and transforming it as he goes.

Categories: Art, Flannery O'Connor

censorship or ownership?

In Middletown, Conneticut three pairs of nude male bronze sculptures were put up near a seniors center. Shortly after senior citizens came out and put beach towels over them.

Is this censorship? The common folk might cheer for someone doin' sumtin. The elite might scoff at the gesture, seeing it is as the dying remains of some Puritan prudery. The artist is probably frustrated.

But isn't the towel considered part of the sculpture now? Whatever the artist intented at first, the meaning has changed--or perhaps is improved if the towels were colorful! Unwittingly, the community has welcomed the artwork into itself--by engaging the work they have accepted it and made it their own.

They stole it for themselves...we can steal art by reframing, recontextualizing it.

Categories: Art, Place

bono has duende

If you had Martin, you'll find this article a hoot: U2's Dance With Duende. Quote:

At their worst, U2 comes off with bombastic pretension. At their best, they achieve what very few artists in any genre can: they create work with a sustained intensity that transforms the particular into the universal. U2 has that rare ability to communicate what the late Spanish writer, Frederico Garcia Lorca called 'duende'; that "mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains."

...Searching for the duende in the music of U2 may seem like the ultimate form of sycophancy or pretension, but as Miles Davis once so elegantly riffed, so what? No other band from the past two decades has so consistently given listeners reason to believe in the transcendental power of rock 'n' roll.

(found via U2 sermons)

Via open book's post on the film Au Hasard Balthazar, the Museum of Modern Art is screening a film series on "The Invisible God"...check out the list, a very wide variety of films that deal with the concept of a hidden God.

An article on the the cordel poets of Brazil who travel around selling little booklets of poems, traditionally as news sources and commentary to rural and backwater villages.

At the grocery store there are racks by every register with little self-help booklets like "Lose Weight in 30 Days" and "Minute Motivations for Busy Moms." They are about a dollar each and sit right next to the fashion mags. I wonder if little books of poetry would sell in these locations--everyone loves a little book to read when they have a couple of minutes to spare. If the poems were humorous, satirical, and accessible someone just might lay down a buck for them.

Also, related to thinking about how to get poetry in common life, 1930s whispering campaigns, in which actors were paid to ride subways or walk up and down stairways and talk about a new product. Of course, these were used for propaganda and marketing purposes...is it wrong to pay someone to read your poetry out loud on a street corner all day? Or recite it over lunch at a local restaurant? Slipping poems into shopping bags? Isn't it delightfully seditious?

Categories: Poetry

A reflection on living with lupus (with references to Flannery O'Connor).

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor sez:

People are always asking me if I am a Catholic writer and I am afraid that I sometimes say no and sometimes say yes, depending on who the visitor is. Actually, the question seems so remote from what I am doing when I am doing it, that it doesn't bother me at all. (Habit 353)

We don't have a Catholic literature in the sense that we have a group of writers gathered around a central motivating proposition, or a leader, but we do have something in that there are a very respectable number of good poets who are Catholics...who are sitting in their own places writing good poetry...This is not a movement or a school; but literature is produced by people writing. There are no literary geniuses in this bunch but those are given by the Lord now and again and can't be had by improving the culture or anything. (Habit 355)

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

a dream comes true when it becomes a dream

...so if the purpose of art is to re-engage us with our everyday lives (as John Cage thinks), helping us to see our perceptions as new and wonderous, what then of escapist art? My first inclination is to say that any art that is escapist--that attempts to create an alternative world or block off normal life (from romance paperbacks to art galleries)--is a perversion of art...it drives us away from reality instead of toward it--which is always idolatry (yes, the narrow kind).

But how do I reconcile this with language--poetry, narrative, imagination--which appear to always construct a different world than the one of raw experience. This spring in a performance piece I attempted to reach this pure form of wonder that invites people to engage their lives rather than escape them.

On the other hand, I have had powerful cathartic experiences reading novels, essays, poems, seeing plays, films, listening to music. Should my theory eliminate all these experiences as perversions? Also, my opponent might argue, based on previous things I've said--"Aren't the constructed worlds real/true, too? Aren't you judging someone else's experiences as false?"

I've thought about this...and I think art is a dream, a construction of everyday experiences but not in fact those experiences. The dream is real--but as a dream. And we always need to understand it as a dream.

After our theatre department performed Brecht's Life of Galileo, I've been thinking about his concept of alienation effects--the practice of disrupting the audience's cathartic experience to remind them that they are an audience watching actors. Although Brecht was doing this for more deeply political reasons, I wonder if this is a helpful concept. Instead of attempting to lose the outside world in our art, let it bleed in a little...to remind people that the dream is true but true as a dream.

How can I let reality bleed into my work?

From Reality rises the Dream but the Dream rots if it is cut from its source...therefore, the Dream must reconnect us to the Reality from where it came. This a primitive understanding--the dream world is the real world is the dream world...

Categories: Aesthetics

the kingdom of god has been advancing by force...

A nice little reflection piece on Flannery O'Connor on the 40th Anniversary of her last collection of stories published, Everything That Rises Must Converge. Russel Shaw ends his article:

O'Connor and Percy have had no successors so far, and none is currently in sight. Literature is the product of a culture as well as individual genius, and the collapse of the American Catholic subculture that set in around the time of Flannery O'Connor's death appears to have been inimical to literature as well as to faith.

Does it surprise you that a tightly-knit subculture is beneficial toward creating great novelists? Why, then, is this not true for Christian evangelicals? It has to do with the Catholic tradition. Based on my narrow experience, Catholics have an entrenched sense that the Church will never die--it moves like a unstoppable locomotive to the end of time. The Church is, in fact, Christ in time. FOC writes:

This comes from a different conception of the Church than yours. For us the Church is the body of Christ, Christ continuing in time, and as such a divine institution. (Habit 337)

American Protestants, however, have a faith that has taken root in the culture and, therefore, when then culture shakes the churches shake with it. When our churches are empty or our children rebel, the Church itself is disappearing--and this is a cause for great fear. FOC writes:

Crisis means something different of course for the Catholic than for the Protestant. For them it is the dissolution of their churches; for us it is losing the world. (Habit 306)

For the Catholic, if no one shows up the Church still moves on. For the Protestant, if no one shows up, there is no Church at all. The primary unit of spiritual life for the Catholic is the Church; for the Protestant, an individual believer. (If someone knows better than me, I hope you'll correct me here.) From this understanding Flannery O'Connor engaged her times forcefully--but she was never afraid. She faced modernity as she faced lupus--with a dogged resolve and a smirk.

Categories: Flannery O'Connor, Theology

continuity: before we forgot to love our books

So...I've been thinking about continuity lately. In stories continuity is about things being in their proper places; when you get to the end, the brown-haired hero is not suddenly a black-haired hero. Settings need a sense of continuity--you certainly can't have important places or landmarks appearing and disappearing at will! Continuity of character may be the most important of all; a character that spontaneously freaks out without apparent reason casts suspicion on the narrator.

What, then, about the continuity of our lives? If you've moved at all, had a family shake-up or a death...there are always attempts to make continuity of our lives, to give reasons why the brown hair has turned black. I know for college students the shift is severe and always there appears a vast rift between our experiences on campus and the ones we had growing up. Am I the same person I was before? After college will there be anything left of the shy, lanky, buzz-cut seven-year-old of my past? Who is my community? Where is my place?

Thus, I started thinking about my childhood and I started a no-hold-barred list of books I read pre-high school. The list is embarassing, but I would love to hear what books you all read as children! Most of all, I was struck by how closely tied my books were to people and places--it actually helped to think of where I read books first and the titles soon followed. Here's the highlights:

Early books generally covered three major themes: frogs, knights and Australia--always good library picks.

- The Book of Pigericks - This was my first introduction to limericks...which I loved...I don't know why.

- The Jolly Postman - My dad would read this to me at bedtime and he made funny voices.

- Pecos Bill - This book was boldly illustrated and came with a tape of Robin Williams reading it.

- Hardy Boys - I just loved the words "Chet" and "jalopy"...I could've read those two words all day. Good ol' Chet's jalopy.

- The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White - This book mesermized me. I read this many, many times. Also, include: Stuart Little.

- Noodles, Nitwits and Numbskulls - Bizarre book passed down from my mom with weird riddles and jokes. There was also a book of secret codes I wish I still had.

- James and the Giant Peach - Did you hear about the new Roald Dahl museum in England?

- A Wrinkle In Time - My 5th grade teacher read this to our class...it freaked me out.

Nearing Junior High:

- A Star Wars novels phase - Why, oh, why, Ryan?

- Mere Christianity - Lewis is like the 'gateway drug' for Christian apologetics.

- Frank Peretti's Cooper Kids series (Christian Indiana Jones-esque adventure)...my favorite was Tombs of Anak. Also This Present Darkness.

- The Singer Trilogy - A mythological retelling of the Gospel story in poetry. Its rhymes still ring through my mind. You probably haven't heard of this--but you should have.

- A Stephen Lawhead phase - beginning with the Empyrion series (SF), then the Albion trilogy (Fantasy), Dream Thief (SF). Particularly memorable was when I stayed up all night reading The Endless Knot,...it was the very first book I cried over. Everyone should experience crying over a novel at least once in their lifetime. I never cry over novels anymore...what's been lost?

Categories: Commentary, Personal

"blue frames" installation update

Spent the afternoon in the fabric store; the project is literally becoming more tangible...it's exciting.

Going into it I wanted to use 100% linen so it would capture the light more like fabric stained glass. Unfortunately if I want that from the fabric store I went to it will cost 407 for the fabric plus shipping (special order) plus tax for a total of: $461.20. (Greg gave me a budget of $50.)

The cheaper option is to do cotton, grand total: $181.54. The cotton would be a severe compromise--it simply doesn't seem to have the light openness which the space requires. It will already be tight fitting everything in.

Solution? What keeps going through my head are these tea towels my great-grandmother used to cross-stitch on. I do not know what they are made of, but they are the exact material I am imagining. I doubt I would be able to find these in blue or gray...and I highly doubt I will find 20 ft.-long tea towels. (If you have some PLEASE contact me.)

Current question of the hour: Should I dye and sow together countless tea towels? Will this compromise the vision or enhance it? Will the 'handmade' quality humanize the project?

Categories: Projects

you are already real

After reading McLaren's letter and many bits along the way, I read this review...and I get angry not at this review, but the repeated appeal for a more 'authentic faith' or a more 'honest Christianity'. No!

Everyone is authentic. Everyone is real. Everyone is honest.

There is no inauthencity. There are no fake people. There is no fake Christian. No narrow-minded, creationist, Republican conservative fundamentalist (whatever else you want to put in as scapegoat of the hour) is fake or unreal--they are all really feeling, breathing, living, dying real persons. It's all real! They are not faking anything. Dismissing a person's beliefs as 'inauthentic' is diabolical. Claiming certain experiences as 'real' and others as 'unreal' is simply pride (as are attempts at being more authentic...which is nonsense).

Saying "Jesus loves you" doesn't make you fake...being certain or believing in absolutes doesn't make you inauthentic. Even the most sentimental, sappiest Jesus-poems--call them poor form, call them bad art, but they are absolutely true, real, authentic, honest. Even the sentimental is true.

And singing about pain or weakness doesn't make an honest song...and talking about 'issues' doesn't make you real. And speaking about 'social justice' doesn't make you a more 'true' Christian against the 'fake' ones.

This world is real...and everything in it...we do not live in a gnostic world with degrees of real/unreal, authentic/inauthentic...the revelation of God says "This is the world...and everything you see is real--it is no illusion, it is no contruction..."

Everything, everything, everything is authentic! Everthing is real! Everything is honest! Everything is true!

see also...post: the filthy lie of the bubble

Categories: Commentary

Found another cool blog today, Clarity's Place, with a good post on Flannery O'Connor's view that redemption comes through matter. She quotes O'Connor:

"Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction."

O'Connor's genius is her ability to set her art above her faith (avoiding sentimentality) while she sets her faith over her art (as her theology becomes her aesthetic sense).

Thanks, Sharon!

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

keeping it local: a couple thoughts on Mortensen's "Unauthorized Postscript"

(You can find the "Unauthorized Postscript to an Open Letter to songwriters" here.)

Mortensen writes a practical postscript to McLaren's letter, arguing for more depth, complexity and ingenuity in worship music.

Mortensen draws two models for art-making, one, the "masspopcult" model--which is created by marketing and ends in sales, and, two, the community model--which grows locally and ends with feedback to the artist. It would be great if artists could connect with their communities and create little pockets of 'artistic localism'. Unfortunately, as clearly seen in Nebraska, when a musician or band becomes highly skilled or gathers a following, they are lured away (from their fan base, by the way) to other states and cities to make new albums and redefine their image. It is not a matter of support for local artists (if the music's good, the people will show up)--we need to figure out how to keep artists from leaving their communities. We need to find out how to make the artist's creativity dependent upon her community.

The post-postscript is highly ironic:

"Many are noticing that contemporary praise music seems increasingly lifeless and artificial."

Didn't we start contemporary praise music because it was more authentic and heart-felt than music previous? Isn't the mass-market worship of today the deeply-sincere (and cutting edge) faith of yesterday? Perhaps then, the hymns of yesteryear were emotionally charged for their audience. If all this is the case, then we understand that 'authenticity' is not inherent to any form of music. "Honest" music is a very weak goal--we cried honest tears with "Friends are friends forever"...now we mock it as sappy sentimentalism.

Categories: Commentary, Theology

attempting to be generous: a look at McLaren's "Open Letter"

(McLaren's "Open Letter to songwriters" can be found here in PDF.)

McLaren is the most delicate writer I have ever read. Here is one example:

"Please, please, don't hear this as criticism, but as a suggestion--a gentle but heartfelt request--for change. Let me make this specific: Too many of our lyrics are embarassingly personalistic, about Jesus and me."

That's the specific part. In another portion he says that a Martian would judge our churches as self-centered and emotionally-disturbed--but then twice says that he doesn't think that's completely true.

This letter is full of suggestions (count the "may I suggest"'s) and critiques in the form of questions and pleas against anyone thinking he's critiquing anything. With that spirit in mind, let's look at this in outline:

First, McLaren offers five "Biblical themes we would do well to explore in our lyrics":

1) Escatology. He argues that we need to dive into the prophets and prophecy of Scripture to regain a new vision of the world and God's redemptive kingdom. He says that people need a hope and "a good vision of the future." So true, but along with our gentle, peaceful, hopeful future we must also recapture the escatological judgment of God--both OT and NT--if we wish to remain 'Biblical.' I think that sounds like a great idea (honestly). Would McLaren support a return to that?

2) Mission. Songs need to capture our sense of mission as the Kingdom of God, helping the poor and restoring the world around us. He says we ought to go back to the Bible for our understanding on this. Keep that in mind.

3) Return to Historic Christianity (Purtians, Celtic, Thomas a'Kempis). This is one of the Biblical themes we need to recapture, McLaren writes. McLaren knows that this is not a Biblical theme--without a stretch--so it must be an error. (Note that the 20th Century does not count as 'historic Christianity'--modern Christianity is ahistorical.)

4) More songs about God. We need more songs that focus on God instead of us. Mc Laren says, "We have lacked a good creation theology in the modern era." It seems like the entire Reformed 'worldview' movement is about 'creation theology' if nothing else. Perhaps he means something else?

5) Songs of Lament. We need more sad songs in our churches and ones that capture the full range of human emotion, McLaren says. He gives the Psalms as an example: "The honesty is disturbing, and the songs of lament don't always end with a happy Hallmark-Card-Precious-Moments cliche to try and fix the pain." True. But the overwhelming number of Psalms do end with a reaffirmation of the victory and salvation of God. (The enemy has the arrow at my throat--but the Lord will be my right hand!) Perhaps it's not a cliche hallmark ending...but it's an orthodox one.

Then McLaren transitions: "While I'm at it, may I offer a few stylistic observations and requests--again, not trying to be critical, but trying to be helpful..." He offers six suggestions/questions:

A) Eliminate the King James english in our new lyrics, "even if we choose to retain it in our old." This is McLaren's boldest moment. But for someone who puts so much emphasis on recapturing historical Christianity, this seems out of place. McLaren would like us to return to the ancient prayers of the mystics, the medieval theologians, even the Puritans...but not the translation the Puritans used.

B) Avoid "gratuitous Biblical language." It is hard to understand McLaren here because he says that Biblical language is good to use, but that we should not use it if we don't need to. I suppose everyone can agree with this. But this point seems to (like the point above) run contrary to McLaren's letter up to this point. Go to the Bible, he says, for your eschatological vision, your sense of mission toward the poor and your lament songs...but try not to use those images and the language you find unless absolutely necessary. In the spirit of I Corinthians 14, limit the application of Scripture in your worship songs, says McLaren. (I am not making fun...this is what he says.)

C) Be careful how we use jihad and holy war. Since I've never seen a reference to jihad or holy war in any worship song, I assume he saying we need to tone down the militaristic language of our worship. In truth, this is the most Biblical we get in our worship...if we want to get Biblical, but I do agree with McLaren that we could all use a little humility. Nevertheless, we ought to keep our understanding of God's political power--that God is the biggest political force in the world. It is the story of Israel and the story of the Apostles.

D) More rhythmic variety. McLaren gets a little demanding.

E) Read more Scripture and historic Christian literature and liturgy during worship time. I am in complete support of more 'spoken word'...and we absolutely need to read more Scripture in less traditional churches. But, McLaren either wants more Biblical language or he doesn't.

F) Lyricists should read more good poetry and good prose. Yes. And this is a good lead into the "Unauthorized Postscript" which I will post on later.

In conclusion, I agree with McLaren--because McLaren wrote a letter for people to agree on. Everyone wants more music about God, and wouldn't mind some more Scripture and rhythmic variety. Unfortunately, with honest respect for McLaren, this letter has no substance.

Perhaps McLaren did not intend for this to be analyzed, just to be a friendly shout-out to creative folk, but after telling us he's travelled all over the country, written some books, and is a musician himself, this is disappointing. I was very excited to read McLaren's thoughts, but he is too nice to let us know what they are.

Categories: Commentary, Theology

sources of devotion (poem)

lighted white candle:
burns
and alone
vigilants shuffle
behind and back again

little secret light
warm palms cradle
I am tickled by the liquid wax
pooling for me

funny special light
just my own—gift
to myself
like a cigarette:
smarting

long after
I put it out
my own heavy breathing
curls…

I notice as

someone leans in
presses her or his
lit wick to mine
holding as long as it takes

a hand holds my shoulder
for balance—for whom?
the hand is firm
a physician hand
should I cough?

it takes:

if I smoke
or burn—I burn
from the stranger


Categories: Poetry

Brian McLaren, one of the leaders of the emergent church movement, has posted this "Open Letter to Songwriters" and John Mortensen's "Unauthorized Postscript" that is more practical advice for McLaren's ideas.

I shall have something to say about this in the near future...I am struggling through the 'niceness' to figure out what they are saying. Is McLaren saying anything? It seems suspiciously fluffy to me.

Church displays its gratitude by creating a leafy urban refuge (OW-H reg req). Quote:

Holy Family Catholic Church is turning a quarter-block at 17th and Izard Streets into a lush garden in an area north of downtown Omaha that had been sorely lacking green space.

Curvy, mulched paths cut promising shapes, a white bench sits under an arched trellis, and lamb's ear, rosebushes, orange day lilies and Wichita blue juniper add color and softness.
Other features are coming, including a stained-glass fish pond, natural wildflowers and a children's alphabet garden with 26 different plant varieties.

A grassy berm, flanked by a leafy catalpa and silver maple, will become a staging area for outdoor concerts.

"My goal is to create something of lasting beauty," said Roger Flannery, a retired Union Pacific worker and longtime parishioner who is leading the garden project. "It's to say to the community, 'Thank you for all you've done.'"

I didn't say anything about the guy's name...

Categories: Place, Theology

Ever have those days when you think, yeah, I need to just shut up...to everyone, about everything. Not for any particular reason, just a general feeling that you've over-extended yourself somehow. That's today (for me).

Categories: Personal

searching for the new idiot (and i don't mean myshkin)

O'Connor understood herself as writing for a distinctly secular, areligious audience--the kind of modern, logical positivism of the mid-20th Century:

My audience are the people who think God is dead. (Habit of Being, 92)

...they are all ordered to a new vision. Part of the difficulty of all this is that you write for an audience who doesn't know what grace is and don't recognize it when they see it. (Habit of Being, 275)

Many of OC's characters are intellectual-types [The Violent Bear It Away], nihilists ["A Good Man Is Hard To Find"] and pompous modern poet-philosophers ["The Enduring Chill"] who are beat up by the Holy Spirit against their will. (She also covers self-righteous religious folks, too.)

So much more can be said about that, but the question is this: Who is the contemporary equivalent of O'Connor's audience? We are living in an America completely different (opposite) than that of the 1950s. Religion, values and spirituality/mysticism are at the fore of entertainment, news, politics, scientific research, academia, business...on and on. (I am usually skeptical about claims that '9/11 changed everything'...but that mixed with the rise of the conservative movement around 2000, I'm growing to believe, has done just that.)

To go from 'God is dead'...'religion will be out by the end of the century' to this--place...

Thoughts? Language as become so politicized in my lifetime...every word is loaded today, every idea is blown-up to socio-political scale. Perhaps we need to discover how to depoliticize art, depoliticize our faith--not go soft or weak but deflate the tension that tells us everything depends on this vote/election/ruling/war/committee/cause. (Perhaps creating conceptual art that is deliberately trying not to make a statement--to not prophesy, to not speak--silent artists.)

Perhaps we can rediscover the belief in the universal Church that will continue into the future long after America dissipates or Europe burns away...the true church, the Spirit of God, moves beneath the radar of civilization, rather, moves above it--hovering over the deep.

And the belief in resurrection, too, tells us, "This is not the end. This is not the ultimate reality. Human history is not the final word"...

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

this is the age for the short story if there ever was one

faith*in*fiction has been multi-posting an interview with author and professor Greg Garrett. (He has a great little 'writer's page' online.) When asked about short stories today:

The downside, of course, is that very few people read short stories and few houses publish them as books, so for most [writers] they’re a step that doesn’t have much permanence...Unless there’s a marketing hook—youth, exotic good looks, a distinct cultural take—few publishers are even interested these days.

I do think that short stories are worth writing for themselves. A good short story can rock your world even more intensely than a good novel because it happens to you all at once, like a movie.

I've never understood--and perhaps someone knows why--short stories are not more popular. In a time where people have shorter amounts of time to spend, why are people not putting down novels and picking up short stories? Perhaps some very popular books are somewhat short (Tuesday with Morrie, The Lovely Bones) and perhaps this adds to the appeal. I know that when I recommend books to people, most will never get around to it. But if it only takes them a few afternoons or a dedicated weekend, most will take the time for anything.

It seems like books of collected stories then--especially around a certain theme or locale or even the same character--would be very popular. But, if fact, they aren't. Has the 'short story' genre been deliberately literized by graduate programs out of mainstream, much like poetry was/is?

Categories: Commentary

o'connor would be proud!

A band named Roughly Enforcing Nostalgia has a song called "Wise Blood"--which is the entire novel in summary and reminds me of Huston's film version of the book. Best of all it's available on MP3.

It's just horrendous enough that I think O'Connor would've loved it.

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

a rousing pep talk for christian artists: relax

The always lucid and profound Rev. Taylor writes a great post today: "How Can My Art Become More Christian?"

I think Taylor has the right idea when his answer is a Well. Art begins with seeing...and Christian art begins with seeing things through the glasses of the Gospel. We need a new imagination. (This is, it appears, what the Kingdom of Heaven is, too--a new imagination, new ears, new eyes.)

If we take the assumption that the deeper someone is dipped in Christian juice, the more Christian their art will come out to be, then who should potentially be making the most Christian art of all? People who grew up in Christian bubbles! Yay for kids who were drilled with Bible verses and went to church every Sunday their whole blinking childhood!

I suppose all I know is my own story...but I think I've found this to be true: If you want to make Christian art, you will--whether you try to or not. Images, phrases, characters, plots, metaphors from the Bible are like embeded into my psyche as if someone screwed them in there with a power drill. I never have to force it...I usually am holding it back...which I think it probably truer case for most Christian artists--it isn't too little Christian, it's not being able to stop it.

In my very short, limited and humble experience of creating stuff, I have worried myself sick over how to integrate my faith into my creating. O'Connor says, "You do what you can." My advice to all Christian artists: RELAX.

Categories: Art, Commentary, Theology

Why do I find this page so hilarious? (the image file is named 'satan'...but I thought it was supposed to be OC...! Well, it fits...she once claimed, "My sense of the devil is strong.")

Quote:

Remember, as a Christian, O'connor believed sinners need only repent and they would be forgiven by the Creator in the next life. In her stories she was "the creator" and she gave her characters a chance to repent. (Remember that in the 80's, a man attempted to assassinate the Pope. The Pope later went to the assassin's jail cell and forgave him as that was the "Christian" thing to do. )

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

"And more than ever now it seems that the kingdom of heaven has to be taken by violence, or not at all. You have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you." - FOC

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

What's this? A blog dedicated to Flannery O'Connor? "If Flannery Had A Blog..." Does not seem to be updated often.

Categories: Flannery O'Connor

jesus is great

Christianity Today interviews Brian Flemming, director and professing 'atheist Christian', about his new documentary, "The God Who Wasn't There" which attempts to prove that Jesus was a historical person. (Props to CT.)

When asked why he is an 'atheist Christian' he responds:

Jesus is in many ways still a great character... But the Jesus that I hold in my mind as the Jesus who taught me my moral values in many ways, I don't want to lose that. I like Jesus. When I see a picture of Jesus that doesn't make me feel bad, it makes me feel good. But I'm a Christian in that I love Jesus.

Including the deeply insightful "when I see a Jesus that doesn't make me feel bad, it makes me feel good," Flemming sounds exactly like me and my Christian friends. I really think Jesus is great and I really like the one who I grew up with me...and when I find a Jesus like me, it feels good. I love the Jesus I create for myself and I love talking about Jesus a lot more than knowing him.

As for his rule of philosophical thumb, Flemming writes:

I'm an atheist because I only believe those things that can be demonstrated and proved. I don't believe that faith is a good thing at all.

Later he revises that:

I will admit that it is not a matter of absolute certainty that Jesus didn't exist. I just think it's overwhelmingly probable, when examining the evidence, that Jesus didn't exist.

Well, this isn't 'poke holes in the nearest atheist' time...but it's at least disappointing that he's an atheist because he only believes what can be demonstrated and proved, but that Jesus' non-existence cannot be demonstrated or proved. How wide exactly is the distance between 'overwhelmingly probable' and 'demonstrated'?

Flemming's next project is The Beast, "a feature film about a Christian high school student whose archaeologist father gives her evidence that proves Jesus never existed." (*propaganda alert*)

Categories: Commentary, Theology

Preaching is Art post via Adrian Warnock (originally posted by Sycamore):

Good preaching is accomplished when a man speaks the word of God. Great preaching occurs when a man takes the scripture and sculpts with it, paints it, divides it properly and lays it in front of the people along with his own life.

Blue Goldfish responded with an update regarding my post:

Flannery O' Connor and C.S. Lewis are two of my favorite Christian artists. I think I will add Kicking the Gourd to my my blog roll. Or is it already there? Anyway, it should be.

Thanks, Blue Goldfish! I will add you, too.

Christian Artists: For Love or Influence?

Blue Goldfish has a post titled, "Christians in the Arts? What Christians in the Arts?" (That link hasn't been working for me...so try this link here.) The author of this blog wants to know where the Christian artists are who should be shaking up the culture? His post ends:

Are there individuals and artistic groups deserving of our blog links and drive across town the next time we want to experience good art? How can we improve the Christian college and Christian church culture to more fully support Christian artists in theater, music, visual arts and new media? What else can we do to address this in-balance and shortage?

While I am all for supporting Christians in arts, yes, so very much, I am leery about programs that attempt to support the arts because it will lead to more influence. Often support for Christian arts occurs when some new wave of pop culture comes along that takes the 'national consciousness' for a few weeks. And all the evangelicals whine, "Where's the Christian Harry Potter? Where's the Christian Star Wars? Where's the Christian MTV, x, y, z? We need to refine our marketing plans to harness that influence for ourselves!"

Enter the lowly Christian artist who makes homemade movies for fun in her small town, or the kid who loves to write skits for his neighborhood friends, or the teenager taking ballet at the local gym. Why do Christian artists and performers do art? Because it's fun! Because it's exhilirating and inspiring and moves our spirits--not because it gives them influence or power or because it will change the culture or promote their philosophy.

Recently I read an essay by C.S. Lewis titled "Lilies that Fester," in which he says that when culture is actually happening, no one talks about it. At the barn dance, reading a book during a lunch break, the musician playing his sax on the sidewalk...the dancers, the readers, the musicians...they aren't thinking "now, I am doing culture"...they are simply enjoying themselves. And the only good reason to do or appreciate art (Lewis argues) is because it is enjoyable--not because it leads to becoming cultured (or to political, ideological, marketing ends--that's called propaganda...O'Connor calls it pornography).

Culture--real, good, wholesome, honest culture--occurs organically out of community, not in marketing sessions and institutional meetings. Culture happens when people aren't thinking about culture, but are just having fun. Art is play--and to try and construct a 'Christian art agenda' is like devising a purpose statement for the playground.

Categories: Art, Commentary, Theology

"seed" (poem)

with the hope for recovery
the salvage of missing weeks
drawn back together as if with nets
collected and drained—and spread on the table
as one might dry out a wet book

when wet
all my words run through
me with nothing to counter them
and their reactions together
the world as seen from a swing

bend me on the birthing stone
deliver me, o lord
when all that comes from me
is wet—and with blood

what will we do with our palms now?
they are for beating—for the rain
they evolved from a desire to contain
but what now with them chapped hands

stand alone and ready like a grand antenna
(he said) like a radio receiver—and believe

bury me with seeds
in my hands: tied shut with handkerchiefs
perhaps some word of water comes
late in season
like sarah

Categories: Poetry

follow your bliss (even if it's not?)

Guilt

The projects are all going fine, but I am gripped by guilt--I am not doing enough. I am not producing enough, I'm not working hard enough, I'm not disciplined enough. I waste too much time listening to the radio or watching C-SPAN or eating microwavables, when I could be writing more poems or drawing more or finishing art pieces. Voices annoy me constantly: Failure. Weak-willed. Uncreative. Slacker. Worthless. (need more?)

Love

I love doing all these things; I love making art and losing my self-consciousness in activity. I love reading good poems, essays, stories. I love going to art galleries, or watching films, or just examining the way buildings are put together. I love art. I have trouble sleeping every single night just because of my imagination. How many nights have I rolled out of bed at three in the morning just to type out a few lines or sketch an image for a future date? It runs through me like blood--it is my blood. I grew up with pencils, construction paper, cardboard and scissors--I've been writing since I knew how and I love words, the sounds, the meanings, the textures and flavors of them in my mouth. It escapes out my senses into the world like the frays on your sleeves. It appears out of nowhere like lint in the pocket. I will never not be this way.

Guilt

Voices continue: You are uncreative. You're derivative. You don't have what it takes. Your ideas suck. You're too self-conscious. You're trying to force something that isn't even there...

Resolution?

Bradbury says we should simply do what we love. He loved stories, so he kept writing them and, voila, writing superstar. He makes it sound so easy: Just do what you love. A writing workshop instructor: Follow your bliss. C.S. Lewis says the only good reason to read or write is because you enjoy it. O'Connor says really the same thing in more terse words: "I write because I'm good at it."

At times like right now, I do not love to write or make things or anything. I hate them, I would rather be lazy. They do not excite me, they do not thrill me. Am I trying to force a love that isn't there? If I don't love it, should I just not try and make it happen? Am I trying to attain some made-up role, when it fact I don't really enjoy it at all--and am thus doomed?

Is today the day for a long walk or a baseball game? Or is this day I escape 'amateur/hobbist' status and become a true artist? Or am I creating an existential 'Either/Or' dilemma that actually does not exist? Certainly this is not my originial problem--the situation is universal for perhaps all people. (What happens when you get a job 'doing what you love'...but this Tuesday you hate doing what you love?)

How do you, reader, get over/get through/ignore/undo this guilt?

Categories: Art, Poetry

Artists create sculptures for Qwest Center (OW-H reg req)

Categories: Art, Place

intuition: don't trust and do

One lesson I learned this past year with Martin in poetry is how to cultivate an awareness of one's intuitions. By intuition here I do not mean some inherent, unlearned knowing, but the kind of 'poetic sense,' 'artistic sense' that is much closer to the rationality of everyday emotion--the unconscious reasoning that seems to rise from our senses and is developed through experiences with art. Two rules:

1. Distrust your intuitions. If you think you're getting it right, completely change course. If people love your poems, throw them away. If you write short lines, write long ones. If you write short poems, never write less than two pages (even when it hurts really, really bad). If you find yourself repeating certain words or phrases, make a rule to refuse those words when they rise up in your mind. Make an arbitary rule that will make it impossible for you to write the way you normally do. In short, "If if it feels bad, do it." This is how one escapes habit--by demanding change of yourself, you will find new worlds of writing, thinking and seeing. Of course, once you break out, new intuitions will form. Do not trust these, either.

2. Trust your intuitions. There is a lot of reasoning that goes on in our brains without our consciousness. Reasons often seem to rise up from the depths, words will feel right though we simply can't explain it in argument (and if we do, we really know we're just making it all up). Your 'poetic sense' is the summation of all the poems (and all words, sounds and voices) you've ever heard, read or written--even one's you've forgotten. Out of this rises words and rhythms and images that are valuable and often loaded or complex with meaning--although the process of how we received them is a mystery. Let this flow from you, especially on the first draft, and ignore the adults in your head. If it feels good, write it. (There is no other reason to write unless it feels good to you.) If you do this you open up the great store of your mind--and by cultivating this habit you learn how to open it wider and wider.

I suppose a good metaphor is that of learning how to drive. If you were like me (if not, this is really embarassing), the very first time you drove a car you had trouble feeling how much gas to give or not give--the car jerked fast and then slowed to a crawl, jerked forward again, then hard on the brakes, etc., etc.. After a while you learned (through repetition and experience--not through argument) how to hold a car at 55 miles per hour (or faster!). Consider 55 the 'sweet spot' of creativity and your intuition the gas pedal. When you first begin you will find yourself shooting over and under 55, passing by it briefly on your way up and down. But after a while you learn how to hold there steady. But if you think about it closely, holding at 55 is really a hundred tiny unconscious decisions to let up and push down. Watch yourself next time you do it. So it is with intution, when you practice pushing for it and against it you will learn (by rote skill) how to draw near and often to the 'sweet spot' of your art.

Categories: Art, Poetry

the king is mad!
saul on the hill
under the tamarisk tree
cracks the ephod--gurgling
seeking divination
and the boy
with the lilac music
the king wants his music again

...

Currently thinking of: the repetition of rectangles, John Berryman, how to frame silence then speak into it...

I passed a sign on the road going out, in bold red letters, "NEED MUD." I imagine a tall thin blind man crooked like a broken folding chair, smoking a dead cigar, sign reads: NEED MUD.

Categories: Personal, Poetry

bemis artist in residence: claudia alvarez

This evening I attended the monthly ArtTalk at the Bemis Center. First time to the Bemis and the atmosphere was more refined than HotShops--wine and beer served, everyone dressed in bright colors or stark black, lots of hugs and kisses. The gallery was incredible--I hope to visit there just for the artwork sometime.

The first presenter was artist Claudia Alvarez. She showed slides of her work and talked about her interest in repair. She often makes ceramics, breaks them, and puts them back together again. She showed one painting she did of a young girl being sown back together. She said that she often draws something, erases it, draws it again, erases it, and so on until all the revisions and erasing becomes one.

She also does these white plaster child sculptures, often looking upward, without arms. She talked about regaining the vision of a child in order to see the world again--the loss of innocence and the return to it. Currently she's a resident artist at the Bemis, working on sculpting children on swings.

Wonderful things to reflect upon...A friend of mine took a broken mannequin and painted it and wrapped and wrote poetry all over it. It was at turns disturbing (it's nose was deeply cracked open) and at the same time very beautiful. There was something redemptive about the work, about taking something that was discarded or damaged and making it into art--giving it a different kind of life, a new life with a wholly new purpose.

Categories: Art, Place

bless this blog

A post from Shrine of the Holy Whapping. Quote:

"Lord, we just, we just thank you for this food and we, we ask you to bless it and to bless our fellowship here today..."

The most obvious fact which presents itself when Baptists or Free-Churchers insist on "spontaneous" (as opposed to memorized) prayer is that their "spontaneous" prayers are always the freakin' same, except that not everyone can take part and it comes out choppy.

Yes, the irony. All our spontaneous prayers come out "always the freakin' same." There is even a more complicated social situation to navigate. People like it when you make it original, but not too original or you are showing off. And then there are the pastors who constantly slip into addressing the congregation while they pray--or pitch special events like some kind of 'product placement.' Andrew goes on to ask:

Is there any good theological reason that they see a huge difference between blessing food before you use it as opposed to, say, a car or a church before you use it? Or do they just not realize what they're doing when they bless food, that they are blessing physical objects as such?

I suppose it's really just a little oral tradition that's been passed on for a long time. We bless food and say "bless you," though I'm not sure we mean something clearly defined. Last year I went to St. George's Episcopal on Saint Francis' Day and the vicar blessed all the animals, including a stray cat some students brought from the college. I had never been to anything like this before, and I can't say exactly how it felt...but it did feel like something was happening when we told that little cat, the forgotten and malnourished cat, that he was under God's care and affection.

I don't see anything keeping us from doing more blessing--I suppose it's the question of blessing inanimate or impersonal objects that's the rub. Since we don't think that physical objects (primarily the elements) don't carry 'spirit stuff' (at least not traditionally) we probably are less likely to give them blessings or to imagine them being endowed with spiritual goodness. At the same time, many people I know talk about demonic forces inhabiting a space and so 'clearing the area' has often been attempted.

I believe I can ask God to bless things--since my human orders are to benevolently watch over the created order and because I know that God loves all things, especially (it seems) things that refuse to love him back. Any thoughts?

Categories: Commentary, Theology

From Lewis' The Great Divorce:

"Hush," he said sternly. "Do not blaspheme. Hell is a state of mind--ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind--is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakable remains."

"a good source for Christian news"

If you haven't been to LarkNews, then you have to visit...it's just been updated for the new month. My fav headline: Church growth conference helps pastors feel like miserable failures. You also have to check out the t-shirt store, with great shirts that read:

"Heard you got into that Christian college. Bummer."

"Jesus loves you! Then again, he loves everybody."

and my favorite: "You'd make a great missionary. Except you wouldn't."

LarkNews is akin to The Onion or The Door Magazine, although it often pushes the Christian satire envelope. I think my favorite story that they've done was in April 2003:

Wal-Mart rejects 'racy' worship CD

ANAHEIM — The latest Vineyard Music worship CD, "Intimacy, vol. 2," has raced to the top of the Christian sales charts, but Wal-Mart is refusing to stock the album without slapping on a parental warning sticker. The ground-breaking — some say risqué — album includes edgy worship songs such as "My Lover, My God," "Touch Me All Over," "Naked Before You," "I'll Do Anything You Want," "Deeper" and "You Make Me Hot with Desire."

"We've had concerns about previous Vineyard CD's, but this time they went overboard in their suggestive imagery depicting the church's love affair with Christ," said a Wal-Mart spokesman. "It would be irresponsible to sell this to 13-year-old kids."

A Vineyard Music Group (VMG) spokesman defended the album. "We felt this was the next logical step in furthering people's intimacy with the Lord, as the title implies," said Sam Haverley, director of VMG public relations. "People aren't content with yesterday's level of closeness. They want something more. We feel this album gives them that."

if you want to know Ms. O'Connor, read this

This article, by Image journal's Gregory Wolfe, is the finest summary of Flannery O'Connor's work and life that I've found. I cannot recommend this enough. If you want to learn something today, read this piece...it is lucid and profound--it sends convulsions through my chest. (Copy it to your hard drive.) I wish I could post the full text here, but I will have to make do with some highlights:

Wolfe begins by asking the question, "Is creativity a virtue?" He's argues that in history artistic genius seems to run amok regardless of the other virtues and often seems to fall on the most unsavory of characters. He then explains the Thomistic account from Jacques Maritain that O'Connor made foundational for her thinking on art: Moral virtue is about doing--doing better, doing well, becoming in your own person virtuous. Art, however, is about making--making the thing better, making it well, with the focus on excellence of the thing made.

In this focus on the external excellence of one's work there is a necessity of sacrifice, emptying one's self. Quote:

The Christian poet T. S. Eliot put it this way in his famous essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”: “The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.” And the paradox is that in that displacement of personality, the true self is free to make itself known.

Wolfe then goes on to give a very brief but clear biography of O'Connor and her growing Thomistic vision of art. He also gives the example of Dorothy Sayers. Quote:

The artist makes things out of love, she says, but this does not imply some sort of jealous possession or domination over the work. Rather, the “artist never desires to subdue her work to herself but always to subdue herself to her work. The more genuinely creative she is, the more she will want her work to develop in accordance with its own nature, and to stand independent of herself.”

Wolfe argues that while creativity may not be a virtue, it becomes "an invitation to virtue" when met with moral sense. O'Connor attacked intellectualism that believed skepticism could keep one above faith, revelation and God. Her characters are proud, but are soon arrested by God. Wolfe writes:

O’Connor’s tales are parables of human pride confronted by the shock of divine grace — the violence in her stories is caused not by God but by the stubbornness of our human attempt to live as autonomous agents...In the moment of violence that often concludes her stories, God’s judgment and His mercy are one and the same. That is why her stories are open-ended: We don’t know whether or not the protagonists will choose the virtuous path. Which throws the question back at us, her readers: What would we do?

This article works on many levels and covers so much material so elegantly (in such brief space) that I must recommend it again.

Categories: Flannery O'Connor