A Christian-Enough Artist?

Recently (actually, this afternoon) I found myself in a rather quick mental panic about how to be a Christian writer. Mostly I was panicking about whether I was up to the job, if I was performing well-enough on the job.

I was having a formal lunch with a group of poets, and as an orthodox believer in anything, I was in the distinct minority. None of my friends I sat with, nor any of the other poets I knew there, professed allegiance to any form of Christianity. Actually, at different times they have spoken quite candidly in opposition to what they perceive as a Christian influence in politics, science, and education. They almost all profess a form of new age or eastern religion or label themselves as simply secular and agnostic.

During the dinner, a guest speaker, who is both a scientist and a poet, spoke about the usefullness of poetry in the cause of science. She made some interesting points, but throughout her speech, I kept hearing a subtext ridiculing religious faith.

I was growing uneasy. I didn't feel uncomfortable because I was the oddball in the group. Being around different world views doesn't trouble me. However, I was growing aware of how vocal and easy it was for my friends and colleagues to express and live out their beliefs. And as I looked at myself, I was aware of my tendency to hide myself, including my faith, when I am around others. At the same time, I was also aware of my own internal struggles with my Christianity. I don't mean that I struggle so much with doubts about the tenets of Orthodoxy, but I do struggle with the flimsiness of my own confidence in those tenets. By which I mean, how much evidence is there that I really truly believe what I say I believe.

My mind started to swarm with worries. Is my poetry Christian? How do I make it Christian, if it isn't? Do I need to start mentioning Jesus or God or at least prayer or something spiritual every time I write a poem? And what about right now? What should I do? Is there something I should be doing or saying to be "Christian enough" in this situation? And really, finally, am I Christian enough?

And then in the midst of my little mental tizzy, I had a breath of peace. I believe it was from God. I realized I didn't have to do or be anything to make this all come out right. I didn't have to strive to be a Christian-enough poet or a convincing enough Christian.

As the poet speaker enjoyed the crowd's responsive tittering to the statistics about all the people who believe in a personal god, I believed. I didn't have to make God exist, in my poetry or otherwise... Rather, I remembered that God actually does exist and that Jesus actually was present, right there, powerful and alive, and I could and did invite him into that moment. I listened and loved and prayed with him. (For at least a few minutes, anyway. Then I got self-absorbed again. That's something we're working on... just wanted to stay honest!)

I believe my best (and I mean my artistically best as well as my "spiritually best") poetry comes out of that same relaxed and joyous freedom and faith. God exists. I don't have to make that true. So I don't have anything to prove in my poetry. Certainly, I don't know God as well as I want to, not as well as I am going to, not as well as I am learning to, but that doesn't change the facts. God exists. And he loves me. And I am his. All my life is a process of opening my hands and mind and heart to this reality. It's not something I have to do well enough or get right--not in my writing nor in my witnessing. It's something God is doing in me, and I am joyfully (if fitfully) cooperating with him.

Prayer the Church's Banquet

Here is an amazing poem by the English clergyman George Herbert (1593-1633).

Prayer the Church's Banquet

Prayer the Church's banquet; Angels' age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet, sounding heaven and earth ;
Engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six days' world-transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear ;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the souls blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

This poem, in sonnet form, is essentially a list. I find it provocative and daring, I don't understand it all, but it makes me almost "hungry," in my soul.

What does it mean that prayer is "reversed thunder" or an "engine against the Almighty"? I don't really know, but I like it. I believe it.

And how wonderously helpful to think of prayer as the "soul in paraphrase." How beautiful to be able to say: "God's breath in man returning to its birth."

This poem very much recalls for me a poem by contemporary poet Carol Ann Duffy. http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=236 She also uses the sonnet form to write about prayer. It's very modern in its ability to believe (by which I mean filled with angst and self), but still, I find it beautiful and full of hope. It's worth comparing these two poems.

Let these poems get into you... their cadences and images, their music and meaning. Maybe comment on your favorite phrases. And for an assignment, write your own list-poem exploring all sorts of facets of something that captivates you.

"Art as Spiritual Formation" or "What Mary Oliver Said"

I was going to title this blog "more great stuff about how the making of art parallels our journeys in spiritual formation." But that was a little long. The truth is, more and more I see that the making of art is a way becoming aware and alive to one central part of me that is being spiritually formed. (not the only part, but a very crucial one...perhaps this is our soul?)

I just read something Mary Oliver wrote along those lines. For those of you who aren't acquainted with Oliver--check her out! Oliver is a contemporary poet who is an Anglican (or Episcopalian) who writes beautifully and accessibly both about nature and about Christ. The Christian element is most especially obvious in her recent book, Thirst.

I have been reading one of her books about how to write poetry, A Poetry Handbook. And at the very end she mentions two "cherished" quotes about art making. The first by the French novelist, Flaubert. He says, "Talent is long patience, and originality an effort of will and of intense observation."

Oliver then comments: "What a hopeful statement! For who needs to be shy of any of these? No one! How patient are you, and what is the steel of your will, and how well do you look and see the things of this world? If your honest answers are shabby, you can change them.... What Flaubert is talking about are skills, after all..."

My response to what she says and to Flaubert's quote is to say, Yes. Talent is a small thing. And not worth my attention, since it is completely outside of my control. The parallel to our spiritual journeys, that I see, is that for any good change to occur in any part of my life, I am completely dependent on the grace of God coming to me. And I can do nothing to control this. But, I can do something. I can learn skills of "Patience" and "intense observation".

As Oliver says, "When people ask me if I do not take pleasere in poems I have written, I am astonished. What I think of all the time is how to have more patience, and a wilder will--how to see better, and write better."

A Wilder Will. What a remarkable thing to say... to dwell on... to pray for.


Oliver's second cherished quote is from the poet Emerson, who said: The poem is a confession of faith.

Oliver then says,

"Which is to say, the poem is not an exercise. It is not "wordplay." Whatever skill or beauty it has, it contains something beyond language devices, and has a purpose other than itself. And it is a part of the sensibility of the writer. ....."

In the quote below Oliver talks about the importance of nourishing that "sensibility..." which I would call the "soul." Obviously this nuturing is crucial for every soul, not only those who would be poets. Her counsel is good and beautiful. I give it to you as a blessing:

"Althetes take care of their bodies. Writers must similarily take care of the sensibility that houses the possiblity of poems. There is nourishment in books, other art, history, philosophies-- in holiness and in mirth. It is in honest hands-on labor also... And it is in the green world--among people, and animals, and trees for that matter, if one genuinely cares about trees. A mind that is lively and inquiring, compassionate, curious, angry, full of music, full of feeling, is a mind full of possible poetry. Poetry is a life-cherishing force. And it requires a vision--a faith, to use an old-fashioned term.

"Yes, indeed. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry."

A Walk to Clear

Take a walk.

I've read this piece of advice for writers from many different experts, and I can attest that, at least in my experience, it is wonderfully sound counsel.

Again and again I find that when I am stuck or scared or bored or all three in my writing, or in my life in general, the very best thing I can do is walk, alone and without haste or great intention. I don't have any idea why it works. But it does. Somehow. It seems to make space, beyond my tight efforts. Often even when I'm walking an idea comes for how to solve a problem in the poem, or suddenly I know what I really wanted to say, or I am aware of an image that comes from deeper than my thoughts and is truer, too.

The wonderful poet Robert Frost took a lot of walks, and that is immediately obvious in his poetry. Here are some links to some of those poems.

http://www.ketzle.com/frost/#frostlinks

If you are an artist, (and you are), let this be my Christmas gift to you... permission, even urging, to take a walk. Meandering and solitary, restful and awake... I believe then this will be the seedlings for your gift to the rest of us.

Oh, and here's an assignment, for those who may have that secret wish (Valerie). Take the walk and then write a poem or mini-essay based on your observations and meditations.

Frost has obviously provided us with many extraordinary examples of this practice, but here's mine (one I wrote for the writer's group almost two years ago).

-After the Long Rain-

The air was threaded with fog
and the blades and the leaves lined
with drops solemn as pewter.
The river was slate-colored and moving
fast and high and in so many swirling currents
that it looked like skeins of cord,
all knotted and pulling, flung between the gray-green banks.
And above the water, just above the surface,
were the swallows--with their arrowed wings and streaming tails.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them,
all along the rivers’ bends and turns.
They were swooping, in and out, out and in,
darting, reeling, spinning between and among each other,
as if they were a thousand bright-black shuttles,
weaving a silver cloth
of light and air and water
on the loom of this new day.

Marvin's Room

I can almost be sure that anyone reading this blog will already know about Imprint Theater Company's current production of Marvin's Room, by Scott McPherson, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to encourage us all to attend a performance and allow our hearts and souls to be met and stirred.


Performances are November 2nd, 3rd, 4th and November 9th, 10th, 11th and November 16th and 18th at Oak Hills Church.

There's also a wonderful opportunity on the Saturday night performances to stay afterwards for a discussion time with the cast and artistic director.

Here's a link to Imprint's website for ticket and show information.
http://www.imprinttheatre.org/

C.S. Lewis Book Club

Almost immediately after posting about C.S. Lewis' novel, Till We Have Faces, I learned of a new book club centered around the writings of Lewis.

The group, led by Erik and Selena Grendahl, will meet in the Library at Oak Hills Church at 11 AM every other Sunday, beginning Sept. 30. I'm quite certain attending Oak Hills is not a requisite for participating.

Although I can't attend the meetings, this sounds like a great opportunity for stimulating reading, thought and conversation of the best and most delightful variety.

Till We Have Faces

I recently reread C.S. Lewis' novel, Till We Have Faces. This has long been my favorite Lewis-work (and that is truly saying something). Every time I read it I'm struck by the incredible skill and insight he had to have to draw the main character of this novel and tell her story. This time, I was more aware than ever of how this story is the story of a spiritual formation.

I'm going to talk about the novel's plot and characters below... so, if you are the type who believes a story is spoiled if you know what happens, don't read on!

The novel is a retelling of the classic Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. (Which if I understand anything...is the story of the God of Love and the Human Soul.......)

In the myth, Psyche (one of three sisters) is a girl so beautiful and lovely that the goddess Venus is jealous of her. For this reason, her father is forced to sacrifice her on a mountain. There Venus' son, Cupid, takes her as his bride, and keeps her in a secret castle. They live in total bliss, with only one strange caveat--she is forbidden to look upon his face. In the myth, the two sisters come to visit Pscyhe, and they become so jealous of her castle and her life that they convince her she really must see her husband's face. So, foolishly, Psyche lights a lamp the next night. The ravishing beauty of her lover is revealed, but a drop of lamp oil awakes him, and Psyche is forced into a long and perilous exile.

C.S. Lewis retells this story from the point of view of the oldest sister, an ugly but earnest girl named Orual. His greatest departure from the original is to make Psyche's castle invisible to Orual, which changes the entire story. For now Orual's dilemma and the choices she makes become much more ambivalent and fraught, and much more like our own dilemmas and choices.
And her story sounds very much like our own stories.

The book is her telling of her own story. The first two thirds are her first version, and in it she rails against the misery and the lovelessness and loneliness she has felt after the loss of her beloved sister, Psyche. She shakes her fist at the gods and argues her case against them. But in the second version, her story changes. She says she must write this second book because "I know so much more than I did about the woman who wrote it."

Let this be a warning to anyone who sets to write honestly:

"What began the change was the very writing itself. Let no one lightly set about such a work. Memory, once waked, will play the tyrant. I found I must set down...passions and thoughts of my own which I had clean forgotten. The past which I wrote down was not the past that I thought I had (all these years) been remembering.".....

Throughout this second version, she comes to terms with who she really is and what has truly motivated her choices and created her life. The awareness, the consciousness is incredibly painful (especially for any honest reader). As I read it, I feel like I'm walking through the story of my own spiritual formation, although I haven't gotten that far in understanding and faith.

For one example, she comes to such a profound understanding about the demanding, soul-sucking possessivenes that she had called love... I can imagine this is what it would be like for me to truly lose some of my own strongest attachments. She says:

"when the craving went [for a certain man she had been obsessed with] nearly all that I called myself went with it. It was as if my whole soul had been one tooth and now that tooth was drawn. I was a gap."

There are many other incredible passages in the book. I was floored again and again, and my dream is to have a discussion group on this book someday. But the absolute best lines for me are the ones from which the title is taken.

All her adult life, the ugly Orual has been veiled. This has protected her and given her a kind of mysterious strength, for others' fear her and cannot know her. She also veils and walls off her true self. She veils herself in her work and busy-ness. But everything changes when she finally makes her complaint to the gods and actually hears what she's been saying all her life.

She says hearing her own complaint was all the answer she needed from the gods. "To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean."

"When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"

This is an incredible question. One I could ponder and pray over for a long time. But the wonderful news is that Orual and Psyche's stories end (like our own stories shall) with something far better than sheer justice and truth.

I hope some of you will read it for yourselves. And I'd love to know if and how Orual's story resonates with you.