Archive for category Guest Blog
Stories like Fine Beer and Cheese: The Importance of Texture (Part 3)
Posted by Guest Blogger in Guest Blog, Writing on March 1, 2010
Robert Garbacz
The following is part 3 of 3 from Robert Garbacz.
[Author’s Note: This the final entry in my three-part series on the importance of a rich and multivaried “texture” in which different parts of the story resist each other, making for a far more engaging piece. In parts 1 (HERE) and 2 (HERE), I discussed Greg Mitchell’s genre-fiction “Flowers for Shelly” and Michael Snyder’s more literary “Normal People.” In this section, I turn to the issue of how--and why--readers might want to take the risk of making complicated, textured fiction.]
Okay, so now what? Sure that’s how I choose stories, but what good can it do for those of you who actually want to write stories with texture? Well, I’m not yet an expert writer, but I think I’ve found two simple principles:
1) Let ideas wait for a while, and don’t be afraid to mix them up. For me, an interesting idea will stick in my head for months, if not for years. My story in the first Diner started when I was listening to way too many 1920’s-1940’s adventure radio dramas. Somehow, a phrase came to me, “the cozy firelit tavern in the middle of the Abyss.” But it was several months before I started my story, in which I had plenty of time to fill my tavern with dead authors, throw in a generous portion of film noir flavorings, add a single-mindedly Quixotic Preacher, and a protagonist who goes along with him without really buying his program wholesale. And then, of course, there was the proofreading, where I looked for any odd, interesting spices I could throw in. But each stage required time, and a willingness to try to stick things together that common sense would keep apart.
2) Don’t be afraid to contradict yourself. In throwing a variety of flavors into the mix, you’re probably going to end up with a story that is true to the parts of life that don’t allow for easy solutions. Sometimes that will feel uncomfortable, or strange, and you’ll feel the temptation to make everything neat and clean and right. And maybe you should–for certain publishers and certain audiences. But the best–and most memorable–tales are the ones that don’t shy away from their endings, even if the end the story leads to only emphasizes the difference between how the world should be and how the world is.
I’ll close with one more example, from a piece of genre-fiction that wasn’t published in the Diner because it was written some ten thousand years too early and was too long. It is also, through a twist of fate, now considered literary fiction. The story is the Iliad and the scene is the climactic meeting between the (essentially fatherless) Greek warrior Achilles and the Trojan king Priam (whose son, Hector, was brutally killed by Achilles in a cycle of vengeance). In a shocking moment of grace, Achilles not only gives Hector’s body back for burial, but he feels a strange sympathy for the father of his dead enemy. They eventually eat together, remembering another story which beautifully mixes horrific tragedy and simple joy. As Achilles puts it in Lombardo’s translation,
Even Niobe remembered to eat
Although her twelve children were dead in her house,
Six daughters and six sturdy sons. [...]
Nine days they lay in their gore, with no one
To bury them, because Zeus had turned
The people to stone. On the tenth day
The gods buried them. But Niobe remembered
She had to eat, exhausted from weeping. [...]
Well, so should we, old sir,
Remember to eat. You can mourn your son later
When you bring him to Troy. You owe him many tears.(lines 651-3, 659-63, 669-71)
This act of compassion is not the end of the story. As the poem’s original audience well knew, Priam’s son would soon kill Achilles and Achilles’s allies will soon kill every man in Troy. The result–texture. It isn’t just a straightforward revenge-tale, or a saccharine tale of friendship among enemies. It is something more.
Homer, or whoever wrote the Iliad, chose to interrupt his tale of rage and death with a story of acceptance and commonality (or, conversely, to surround his story of acceptance and commonality with a larger story of rage and cyclical violence.) That sort of incomplete, soulful, and very-human texture is a goal well worth seeking.
***
Robert Garbacz, when in his natural habitat, can frequently be seen arguing theology, politics, and art over ale with often excessive volume, haranguing his friends repeatedly with obscure but fascinating facts about Medieval literature, or staring cloyingly into the eyes of his beloved wife Hannah. Unfortunately, his natural habitat is Oxford in the period from 1930-1950. This is a bit awkward for someone born in Tulsa in 1983, but he is studying towards his Doctoral at the University of Texas in Austin and feels this is a firm step in the proper direction. His short story, “The Salvation of Sancho,” appeared in the previous Diner anthology, inducting him into this peculiar world of horror, bloodshed, and merciless ravagement of grammatical missteps.
A Writer Wrestling with Unity
Posted by Ian David Philpot in Faith, Guest Blog, Writing on February 27, 2010
Brent Robison
Brent Robison joins the blog to discuss his thoughts on finding unity within his writing and spirituality.
I write fiction, but I’m not much into plots, nor pleasing resolutions. I love the capital-Q Questions — the questions without answers. I don’t need answers, but I love learning as much as my sub-genius mind can handle about everything we humans have so far come to know in our dogged pursuit of answers to the unanswerable.
That puts me squarely in the realm of the invisible, where I travel alone. I don’t self-identify as Christian. There is no “ism” I feel attached to. Yet there is a driving force in my heart and mind to explore the territory — call it “spiritual” — that every religion’s fringe-dwellers, the mystics, have resided in for millennia: the philosophical borderlands currently going by the name of Nonduality. In Christianity today, perhaps Bernadette Roberts is its leading investigator, with her contemplative teachings and “No-Self” books. In her experience, the self and God are not separate: “I and my Father are One,” one without even the concept of another.
For me, years of study fueled by parallel passions — science and metaphysics — gradually led me to glimpse a perfect interweaving of current knowledge and ancient wisdom. Quantum physics intertwined with Advaita (Sanskrit for “not two”). Spacetime as a metaphor for Oneness. Superstrings pointing to the Nameless Absolute.
Meanwhile, I played the writing game: workshops, submissions, the occasional publication in a literary journal. But mostly I labored away at writing stories: notes, sketches, little stories, bigger stories. Imaginary characters with lives and hearts and pains all their own kept jumping up and asking to be acknowledged. Inspired by literary realism, postmodern and classic, lush or minimalist, I worked at exploring psycho-spiritual states and getting something both meaningful and beautiful onto the page. Then out of all that jumble rose the challenge that got my blood pumping at a whole new rate….
If everything is One, how is that expressed in story?
Well, it’s been done, with various degrees of success, in many ways:
–exegesis of various cultural mythologies
–allegory or parable with a “moral”
–stories from the lives of famous gurus or holy men
–the conundrums of time travel (see my friend’s book The High Priest of Prickly Bog)
–fanciful alternate realities like those of Italo Calvino
–narrative thought experiments ala Jorge Luis Borges
–straight science fiction: on other planets, things behave differently
–variations on the sword and sorcery genre
–human encounters with angels or extraterrestrials
–magical realism
–etc.
Trouble is, none of these appealed to me. Or rather, they were not what I was doing as a writer. As Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) said, “Everyday life has a huge effect on people.” I wanted to write literary short stories, about us, the common folks. Our ordinary tragedies and existential crises. The mundane epiphanies that move us all incrementally forward. In other words, “real life.”
It was my invented characters themselves who offered me the key. Of their own accord they had began lurking on the edges of each other’s stories. But I wasn’t sure what that meant. Then one day as I surveyed the whole array of stories and fragments, a complex web of faint shimmering lines seemed to materialize before my inner eye. These people, like all of us, were connected by invisible threads, coincidences, ephemeral glancing touches, by which subtle influence was being exerted. Life paths changed in seemingly tiny, but possibly powerful, ways. I saw that we’re like cells in one giant body, all going about our business transporting enzymes from one place to another and effecting change on other cells, but with hardly a glimmer of awareness of our own impact.
To suggest this newfound truth seemed to me the best way I could express Unity. One friend argued, correctly, that interconnection requires separateness, so I was a little off the mark. On the other hand, ultimate oneness is ultimately inexpressible in human language. The best we can offer is suggestion, metaphor, a finger pointing at the moon. And after all, in literary fiction — just as in this thing we call “reality” — the needs, hopes, dreams, heartaches, addictions, and loves of daily life are the foreground. To see the background is another level of perception altogether.
I’m entirely a beginner on the road toward Unitive Consciousness. But that vision of all human beings interconnected by a vast intangible network of influence, invisible energy lines weaving us together, became the engine driving the finishing, assembling, and publishing of a collection of thirteen linked stories called The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility. All those bits and pieces of characters’ lives finally came together and made sense, to me. And more important, it set me and my writing on a course for the future, and for that I’m grateful.
***
Brent Robison emigrated west to east and is now rooted in the Catskill Mountains of New York. His fiction has appeared in a dozen literary journals and has won awards from Literal Latté, Chronogram, and the New Jersey Council on the Arts, as well as a Pushcart Prize nomination. His collection of linked short stories, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility, is available wherever books are sold. Between daddy and hubby hours, he blogs at ultimate-indivisibility.com and continues chipping away at two novels-in-progress. He is also the editor and publisher of the Hudson Valley literary annual, Prima Materia. Brent’s short story “Baptism” can be found in Relief Issue 3.2.
Challenging Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son) to a Battle to the Death!!!
Posted by Guest Blogger in Guest Blog, Life, Writing on February 23, 2010
Jason Hubbard Derr joins the blog to write about challenging another writer (who just happens to be the son of the Stephen King) to the death.
When Chris Fisher asked me to do a blog post to help promote my story – “Live Nude Girls” – in the latest issue of Relief my mind jumped to several immediate possibilities. I felt I could talk on a range of topics like:
- The writing life
- How when someone like Neil Gaiman, fantasy author extraordinaire, goes on about not believing in God and then writes stories populated by Gods and uses them as a metaphor to explore human life and the human condition I immediately being to believe that his atheism is not at all what he thinks it is.
- On the nature of being a MA graduate with an MA in theology and most of a BA in creative writing but no job what-so-ever so if you want to hire me to do some freelance writing work please contact me.
Instead I have decided to challenge author Joe Hill to a duel to the death. Mr. Hill is the author of Heart Shaped Box and the forthcoming Horns and is the son of Stephen King.
In life – as both a human being and as a writer (not all human beings are writers, it’s a much longer process for us) it is important to have a nemesis. If possible one should indicate their nemesis in writing and make several public declarations of the relationship. I should point out that having a Grown-Up-Professional nemesis relationship and, say, a Deep-Wish-For-Harm-To-Fall-On-the-Guy-Who-Made-your-Life-Torture-In-Grades-4-And-5 are much different things.
I am sure that you have already begun to ask yourself: why be the nemesis of Mr. Hill. Because he is Stephen King’s son and had publishing connections from the earliest glimmer of a desire to publish? Is it because in ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ he took what could have been a clichéd King-esq horror novel and instead – through a truly unique lead character – gave us a story that was as much about growing old and taking stock of our lives as it was about past sin? Or is it because he is doing what I want to do with life – writing comics and books (the comic I created but was not allowed to write? Apparently it’s coming out soon!)?
Yes. It’s that one!
But I won’t belabor the point – part of the fun of having a secret nemesis is that you get to keep your funhouse mirror life justifications to yourself in, say, a journal or in mad midnight ramblings.
In the end I feel Joe Hill would be a good nemesis because he seems like a nice guy – that as he ridicules your work he may actually say something nice about it. And I feel he may not agree with my weird pre-Acclaim Valiant Comic book fascination but he would get it.
So, Mr. Hill I want to do what you do: write stories of wonder that plumb the depths of humanity. And I’m a few years behind you. But I will catch up. And, oh lets say in 10 years, I want to challenge you to a Duel-to-the-Death on the top of the empire state building.
But before that – can we get a beer? Maybe poke around a used bookstore and would you autograph my copy of ‘Heart-Shaped Box’?
***
Jason Hubbard Derr is a theologian, author and independent scholar living in Vancouver, BC with his lovely new bride. Jason is a contributor to PopTheoloy.com, has been invited to submit to an academic journal and will soon see his MA thesis published. He has most of a BA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University and and all of a MA in Theology from the Vancouver School of Theology. Jason’s story “Live Nude Girls” can be found in Relief Issue 3.2.
Stories like Fine Beer and Cheese: The Importance of Texture (Part 2)
Posted by Guest Blogger in General, Guest Blog, Writing on February 22, 2010
Robert Garbacz
The following is part 2 of 3 from Robert Garbacz.
[Author’s Note: This is the second in my three-part blog series on the importance of a rich and multivaried “texture” in which different parts of the story resist each other, making for a far more engaging piece. In part 1 (HERE), I discussed Greg Mitchell’s “Flowers for Shelly,” a piece that combined zombie mayhem, humor, violence, multiple characters, and a sweet-hearted love story in order to get itself on the “must publish” list. Here, I discuss a piece from Relief that is similarly textured, though in a more literary manner. Next week, I will conclude on a practical note, showing tips for writers and examining the payoff for taking risks.]
The sort of texture I talked about last week isn’t just for zombie romantic comedies, or even genre fiction. Another story that blew me away was Michael Snyder’s three-page tale of grief and madness inRelief 3.1. Read it yourself if you haven’t, as soon as possible. Once you have, here’s the last paragraph in full:
“I walk now. I talk a lot too. Out loud. Mostly to myself, sometimes to God. All the good smells are gone. There are no more kind eyes either, no more Tonys or groggy nurses. I do have my photographs though. And Hailey’s blanket. I bartered away Maria’s bathrobe for a pair of Pumas that don’t fit. When I get desperate, the priest will feed me or give me a coat. He tells me to keep talking to God, to say it out loud if I have to, no matter how the normal people look at me or move to the other side of the road. He says my decrease is Jesus’s increase, which sounds like total crap to me. Still, I continue to testify about the things I have seen and heard and smelled and done.”
This doesn’t look like a zombie romantic comedy, because it isn’t. What it does look like (and is) is a combination of different sorts of expectations, meeting in unique ways to provide a textured perspective that is true to life.
One would expect certain narratives, particularly in an explicitly Christian magazine: grief slowly giving way to acceptance, an increased understanding and reliance on God. Those stories are there, like the love story element of “Flowers for Shelly.” The narrator is talking to God more, with the guidance of a priest. He’s also moving on–maybe–with his final willingness to get rid of Maria’s bathrobe.
But there’s other flavors, as well. In addition to the comforting taste of acceptance, there’s a strong flavoring of bitterness and continued, self-destructive mourning. He may have given up Maria’s bathrobe, but he keeps Hailey’s blanket and the photographs. And while the narrator may be talking to God, he’s still profoundly suspicious of the preacher’s words, which often “sound like total crap to me.” And then there’s the sheer mundanity of life; he gives up the bathrobe not in some glamorous ceremony but in a trade for shoes which didn’t fit.
Again, it is the multiplicity of voices–even if they’re all within one person’s mind–that makes the story memorable, and in this case heart-breaking. And the conclusion doesn’t get rid of the complexity of flavors; it leaves them, in a melange of tastes that remain on the palate. Like a fine (and highly alcoholic) Trappist ale, the story leaves the reader a bit disoriented and uncertain, but with a delicious aftertaste to contemplate.
***
Robert Garbacz, when in his natural habitat, can frequently be seen arguing theology, politics, and art over ale with often excessive volume, haranguing his friends repeatedly with obscure but fascinating facts about Medieval literature, or staring cloyingly into the eyes of his beloved wife Hannah. Unfortunately, his natural habitat is Oxford in the period from 1930-1950. This is a bit awkward for someone born in Tulsa in 1983, but he is studying towards his Doctoral at the University of Texas in Austin and feels this is a firm step in the proper direction. His short story, “The Salvation of Sancho,” appeared in the previous Diner anthology, inducting him into this peculiar world of horror, bloodshed, and merciless ravagement of grammatical missteps.
Susan is giving up Facebook for Lent
Posted by Guest Blogger in Faith, Guest Blog, Life, Writing on February 17, 2010
Susan Fish
Susan is giving up Facebook for Lent.
Susan’s fingers instinctively reach for the F for Facebook.
Susan wants to check in with God fifty-million times a day, instead of checking for status updates.
Susan is grateful for the friend who emails her status updates the first day.
Susan wonders what role Facebook plays in her life, what boredom it staves off and what will become of her without it.
Susan has to go on Facebook the very first day – to retrieve business information from an old message. She shields the page with her hand, ignores the new message in the inbox and finds what she needs before exiting quickly.
Susan is not exactly praying more yet, but it has been a busy day.
Susan has realized she thinks of events now in terms of how she will frame or caption them for Facebook: how will life be shaped into a status update?
Susan thinks about how Facebook is utterly self-centred. What is the motto again: connecting and helping you share with friends. Something like that. But every sentence starts with me.
Susan has more than 25 random facts to tell you about herself. She is so fascinating. To herself. And can she employ her skills (Random Fact: Susan is good with words) to make you fascinated with her too?
Susan wonders what this Facebook fast is about, anyhow. Narcissus not being allowed to look into the pool? Perhaps.
Susan wants to express her feelings, to be heard. Is FB more gratifying than prayer? If a tree falls in the forest, does God hear? And will God comment on the status of the fall?
Susan misses the juiciness of the details. And can make a rational argument that FB is better than gossip or reading tabloid stories.
Susan decided not to break her fast on Sundays. It seems arbitrary and weak to take a break.
Susan’s grandma is sick and she wants to blurt it out once and get lots of nice notes back. Would that be so wrong?
Susan watches how she fills her Facebook hole and is not exactly proud. But I’m trying.
Susan thinks it’s funny to speak in the third person. Not the royal we. The self-reflexive she.
Susan really, really, really, really, really wants to go on Facebook. A lot. A really lot.
Susan is going to Italy tomorrow.
Susan is exploding with anticipation and she has already called everyone reasonable to call. Must. Get. Going. To. Italy. Presto.
Susan hopes she is not sending her children into therapy by leaving them on the other side of the world.
Susan is dreadfully homesick, jetlagged and culture shocked but she has never ever seen such beauty.
Susan was wooed in a garden today.
Susan is in a quiet place: no Internet, no phone, no tv.
Susan’s thoughts are clearer, way clearer.
Susan was afraid to be alone for ten days with her husband and without her kids and the props of daily life, but now she loves it.
Susan is dreaming in Italian…un poco.
Susan is dazzled by beauty.
Susan is pondering.
Susan is learning that anxiety comes more often than I would like, but it goes too, every time.
Susan feared they would have to spend the night in the car when they got lost, but they got home. Grace.
Susan’s children are doing well. More grace.
Susan thinks people are delightfully kind.
Susan learned to make pasta.
Susan does not have Stendhal Syndrome, just Art Overload.
Susan may have had the happiest time of her life.
Susan can’t wait to be home.
Susan is dizzy with fatigue. Her kids are not.
Susan needs more beauty, less noise.
Susan is scared it will recede and fade. How do you hold onto it?
Susan is sorting things out, examining the things I stuffed away, preparing to enter the fray again.
Susan feels like my garden: boggy, slightly mildewed and winter-weathered, but with fresh green shoots of hope.
Susan is editing up a beautiful storm.
Susan is sleeping naked.
Susan is glad to see the world greening up.
Susan no longer feels like there is a glass ceiling between her and God.
Susan has fancy eyelids.
Susan can now write about prayer in a visceral way.
Susan feels surprisingly regretful at the end of Lent: do I want to start narrating my life again? Unlike other addictions, this one is social. Can you go to a party and just sit in the corner? Why not stay home?
Susan circles the site like a cold pool, dipping a toe in here and there, reluctant to take the plunge.
***
Susan Fish is a writer, editor, wife, and mother of three school aged children who lives in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Her first novel Seeker of Stars was published in 2005, while her second is still looking for a home. She is always intrigued by the signs people choose to erect on their garages, fields, or lawns, and once had both a pesticide sign and a Green party sign on her front lawn at the same time. Fortunately, she saw the irony in the situation. Susan’s story “That Sign” can be found in Relief Issue 3.2.
Stories like Fine Beer and Cheese: The Importance of Texture (Part 1)
Posted by Ian David Philpot in General, Guest Blog on February 15, 2010
Robert Garbacz
The following is part 1 of 3 from Robert Garbacz.
[Author’s Note: This is part one of a three-part series discussing the importance of a rich texture in fiction. Here, I discuss the way Greg Mitchell used contrasting genres and perspectives to earn “Flowers for Shelly” a place in the second Diner. Next week, I will take a more literary turn with Michael Snyder’s “Normal People” from Relief 3.1. I will conclude on a practical note, with hints for how to create a sense of texture and a promise of the rewards of taking risks.]
One of the greatest little pleasures of living in Austin is to visit Whole Foods, sampling the cheeses, wines and beer that are available for free. There is something almost magical about the blend of flavors in a good cheese or ale; a sea of competing tastes, textures and sensations that changes as it trickles across the tongue. A good beer might start with a soft, fruity taste and then kick in later with a bitter aftertaste. A good cheese will often be uneven, with a delicious, organic texture as it slides across the tongue.
I hate processed “American cheese” and “light beer.” Sure, they’re smooth, easy to eat, and they’re focused on their goal. But they lack the complexity and texture of the good stuff. In comparison, they’re crap.
The same thing is true of short stories. Reading through a slush pile, nothing will make me sit up and take note about a story than a sense that it has a really good, complicated texture; that it goes in multiple directions at once, instead of trotting straight at its target. And while nothing will guarantee acceptance, a story with the rich, variegated texture of a Trappist ale or Irish cheese will make me perk up, and at the least make me want the story to be good enough for acceptance.
But enough about foods, before I get hungry. Let’s look at our first story, and the way it uses contrasting thoughts and “flavors” to make something better than the sum of its parts. (Minor spoilers, it should be noted, are a given.)
“Flowers for Shelly,” from the second Diner, started with the solid, earthy basis of a good character drama. The narrator is obviously in love with his wife, and wants nothing more than to stay in bed with her all day. His responsible wife wants him to get up and go to work. The scene is cute, a bit saccharine, but already somewhat textured thanks to the narrator’s self-deprecating wit. The wit is understated, but at least engaging:
“Work sucks. It’s 9:30 a.m. and I want to go home, lie in bed, and wait for Shelly to return with less pressures. And, preferably, less clothes.”
So far, it’s more textured than processed cheese, but not much. Maybe Kraft mild cheddar, with a slight kick of humor and marital tension.
Then the narrator’s friend and co-worker gets slaughtered by zombie-police and the story takes on a different tone:
“Suddenly, I feel a cold sensation around my ankle and see a bloody hand reaching out from underneath the car. Pulling. Yanking. Moans rise up like phantoms from the depths of hell and I look into the still teary eyes of Kevin as he lures me in. At first, I think he’s somehow survived, but then it hits me. He’s dead, too.”
All of a sudden, this story is beginning to feel more like the sort of solid, hand-crafted cheese that is worth shipping over oceans. What are the dead doing coming to life? How will our hero survive? And what the hell does this have to do with his decision to give flowers to his wife Shelly? It’s interesting, uneven, and because I have such dissonant tones I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I like it.
Nor is the combination of two genres all that Greg Mitchell does in his story. In addition to the gruesome descriptions of zombie mayhem, we have the narrator’s often incoherent thoughts, his gun-nut friends’ insane euphoria at the fact that they’re actually shooting zombies, a thoroughgoing sense of humor, and a mad quest to give pretty flowers to the beautiful Shelly. I’m not much into zombie stories, but Mitchell’s ability to pile on a hundred different flavors and cram them into a small space made this a fun romp through death and mayhem that I won’t soon forget.
The moral: even with straight-forward, zombie killing genre fiction, odd combinations and unexpected, off-kilter happenings are key.
***
Robert Garbacz, when in his natural habitat, can frequently be seen arguing theology, politics, and art over ale with often excessive volume, haranguing his friends repeatedly with obscure but fascinating facts about Medieval literature, or staring cloyingly into the eyes of his beloved wife Hannah. Unfortunately, his natural habitat is Oxford in the period from 1930-1950. This is a bit awkward for someone born in Tulsa in 1983, but he is studying towards his Doctoral at the University of Texas in Austin and feels this is a firm step in the proper direction. His short story, “The Salvation of Sancho,” appeared in the previous Diner anthology, inducting him into this peculiar world of horror, bloodshed, and merciless ravagement of grammatical missteps.
Pilgrim’s Ingress: The Fiction of Faith
Posted by Ian David Philpot in Guest Blog on February 12, 2010
Michael Dean Clark
I was instant messaging with a student of mine from a few years back and he asked me about a book I’m working on. When I described the main character – a guy named Diego who wants to destroy himself but can’t because the people he meets keep waylaying his problems with their own – my former student said, “Wow, that book sounds like me.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think he’d say the same thing about the vast majority of Christian fiction.
In its earliest form, Christian fiction was allegorical. Novels like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress were built on the biblical model of the parable. The style persisted, finding a more modern version in Charles M. Sheldon’s 1896 sermon-as-novel, In His Steps. These stories, and the many like them, were merely vehicles for the lesson behind them – conduct instruction wrapped in a transparent story.
Sometime later, in general terms and by my estimation the mid-1980s, the pilgrim’s progress became the pilgrim’s egress (which, coincidentally, was an alternate title for Peter Kreeft’s 1996 book The Journey). This happened in a Christian culture increasingly alarmed by the idea that their beliefs were no longer valued and their stories followed. They are embodiments of the desire to flee from culture, reach the safety of the conversion moment, and escape into the light. And there it ends. In conjunction, the Christian fiction market grew as people looked for “safe” stories of belief and publishers increasingly focused on providing such middle-of-the-road fare. At this point, I don’t believe Flannery O’Connor’s classic Wise Blood would get out of the slush pile at most Christian houses given how “unsafe” a novel about a man’s desire to found the Church of God Without Christ would be considered.
This reminds me of a common description of the difference between the Victorian novel (which I would liken to a great deal of mainstream Christian fiction) and the Modern novel. The Victorian narrative ends with the wedding, a symbol of the achievement of the highest aims of that set of cultural norms. The Modern novel begins with the wedding because “reality” only happens when people move beyond the ceremony to the (often ugly) work that comes when you live (or fail to live) a life together. In a sense, the majority of mainstream Christian fiction sells short the day-to-day reality of living out beliefs in a sinful world by building most of its narratives around the conversion moment and failing to address the very real struggles of those who believe (which I would say is everyone).
The fiction of faith should instead be the pilgrim’s ingress, a daring genre considerably more focused on Christians in culture than believers escaping it. It should present pictures of faith in the ugliness, doubt, and circumstances of life outside the walls of assumed belief. Instead, we’ve raised those walls even higher to keep that same ugliness, doubt and circumstance out.
In essence, Christian literature needs an emergent movement just like the mainstream evangelical church needed (and still needs). Otherwise, how will nonbelievers see themselves inside Christian art? And more importantly, how will Christian artists and readers remember that their art should emulate their Savior – by addressing those who need the gospel most in a form that meets them where they are?
***
Michael Dean Clark is an author of fiction and nonfiction and is in the final stages of earning a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin. His work is set primarily in his hometown of San Diego and has been known to include pimps in diapers, heroin-addicted pastors who suffer from OCD, and possibly the chupacabra.
Worshiping Nature, Exorcisms, and a Retort… of sorts.
Posted by Ian David Philpot in Guest Blog on February 11, 2010
Clare Gajkowski-Zajicek
Clare Gajkowski-Zajicek responds to Travis Griffith’s post “Avatar: What’s the Big Deal?“
May I begin by saying that I have never seen Avatar nor heard about the Vatican’s remarks on the film before reading Travis Griffith’s blog post. Though I agree with Travis’ overall theme of love and embracing those of other faiths, races, religions, etc., let’s not hate on the Vatican, just to hate on the Vatican, shall we? What if they have… dare I say… their reasons?
Since people are so eager to talk about their spirituality these days, let’s talk about the spiritual realm on this Earth. There are believed to be two parts to this realm, the supernatural and preternatural. The supernatural is manifested by visible acts and the preternatural is manifested by unseen acts and forces. Miracles can fall under both categories. Evil, however, also falls under both.
“Not to believe in evil is not to be armed against it. To disbelieve is to be disarmed. If your will does not accept the existence of evil, you are rendered incapable of resisting evil. Those with no capacity of resistance become prime targets for Possession.” –Malachi Martin
When was the last time you heard about an exorcism? Do you think they don’t occur? Do you believe that people are just mentally ill and it’s just another crazy old Catholic ritual? (That argument never really made sense; the possessed has to go through a thorough examination and agree to the exorcism. It cannot be forced upon them.)
Dr. Malachi Martin is one of the hundreds of priests who have witnessed an exorcism- but he also wrote one of the most profound books on the issue: Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans. He followed and studied other priests who had performed exorcisms, finding them years later as broken and hollow shells of human beings from the stress of the ritual. Most of the occurrences had themes or similarities – the subjects who became possessed were obsessed with the Earth and its elements, “the mystery of nature,” they were cynical of religion, or they attempted to “transcend” this Earthy realm. In one way or another they opened themselves up to the supernatural and the preternatural. In their particular cases, evil snuck in.
During my years at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I finished my major early and studied Comparative Literature with a Franciscan priest. It was around this time I read Malachi Martin’s book, after randomly picking it up at a used bookstore. I mentioned this book to the Franciscan, and he became extremely somber. He told me to be careful, and that he himself had performed three exorcisms in his lifetime. (It took him months to actually explain these events, and when I heard them I understood why. This is also a man who has probably never told a lie in his life.)
“Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other and us to the Earth.” – James Cameron
An excerpt from Malachi Martin’s book, the case of a young priest being possessed in 1964:
His yielding [control] at Mass had immediate and far-reaching effects. In baptizing infants, he changed the Latin words, which were unintelligible to the parents and bystanders. When he was supposed to say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” he said, “I baptize you in the name of the Sky, the Earth, and Water.” In Confession, he stopped saying “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”; instead, he said, “I confirm you in your natural wishes, in the name of Sky, Earth, and Water.”
My first point is: I don’t think the Vatican was only worried about the worship of nature and neo-paganism in Avatar- they’re worried about what those practices can lead to.
“As long as beliefs are based on love, who’s to say who gets to claim the correct one?” –Travis Griffith
My second point is: let’s be careful what we worship. I agree we need to embrace everyone, of every faith, with love. But it’s a fine line when worshiping the Earth- we need to see the danger in this. Jesus came to this world to build the Kingdom of God. Since that was impossible here, why worship such a place?
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Clare Gajkowski-Zajicek is a graphic designer and videographer who graduated from UW-Milwaukee with a degree in Communication. She currently resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband and pet snapping turtle, Roger. She spends most of her time watching movies and eating starchy foods. (Mostly potatoes.) Clare’s poem “Church Fathers” can be found in Relief Issue 3.2.
The Psalms as Poetry
Posted by Ian David Philpot in General, Guest Blog, Writing on February 4, 2010
Heather Cadenhead
Heather Cadenhead unravels Psalm 77 and looks closely for the all of the great poetic bits within it. She also examines her own personal poetry for the same “beautiful truth” she has found in the psalmists verses.
The first time I heard someone refer to the Psalms as a book of poetry, I was considerably moved. As a creative writer living under the grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the idea of God speaking to me through a book of poems was an altogether beautiful notion. I imagine that it’s the same sort of feeling that Johan Huibers, a Dutch contractor, got when he was able to recreate Noah’s ark using the exact measurements given in the Old Testament. There is a sense of wonder in meshing God’s perfect truth with the things we most love to make with our hands, whether that is something functional like an ark or aesthetic like a poem.
As of late, I’ve loved the poetry in Psalm 77 because it seamlessly weaves together three elements of poetry that I believe to be crucial to any completed work of verse.
- It uses metaphor skillfully: “The waters saw You, O God; / The waters saw You, they were afraid; / The depths also trembled” (Psalm 77:16, NKJV). Water, as an inhuman thing, cannot feel the human emotion of fear; however, water is at the mercy of God’s hand. Knowledge of God’s mercy over us creates a fear of the Lord, making the line “The waters saw You, they were afraid” an appropriate and beautiful metaphor.
- It uses beautiful imagery and shows a strong command of language: “Your way was in the sea, / Your path in the great waters, / And Your footsteps were not known” (Psalm 77:19, NKJV). The sea imagery here is not only lovely, but succinct: the Psalmist’s verse isn’t wordy and he doesn’t use unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. In fact, the only adjective in this verse is the word “great” to describe “waters.” The phrase “great waters” serves as a synonym for “sea” here. So, the adjective isn’t meant to be flowery. It’s a necessary description.
- It conveys truth in a chilling way: “Your path was in the great waters, / And Your footsteps were not known” (Psalm 77:19b, NKJV). I discussed this verse in the last point, while talking about imagery, but it also conveys a bone-rattling truth: God can perform the greatest of miracles without even being seen. If He chooses, He may roam the sea without leaving a single footprint. It’s an entirely chilling and beautiful truth conveyed skillfully in the Psalmist’s verse.
As a Christian writer, my goal should be to write beautiful truth. By beautiful, I don’t mean to imply that our poems should read like textual versions of Thomas Kinkade paintings. Far from it. I mean that we should write poems that sound good; we ought to choose strong words (not necessarily concrete words over abstract words, but concrete words to convey abstract ideas). A well-written poem is, to me, a beautiful poem. It isn’t related to the content. Psalm 77, in fact, has a few bleak moments: “Has His mercy ceased forever? / Has His promise failed forevermore?” (Psalm 77:8, NKJV). It has moments that stop you dead in your tracks: “I remembered God, and was troubled; / I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed” (Psalm 77:3, NKJV).
By truth, I mean that our poems as Christians should convey what is true, what is real. In Psalm 77, I find two truths: one is the truth of man’s frailty (“My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; / My soul refused to be comforted” [Psalm 77:2b, NKJV]); the other is the truth of God’s sovereign grace (“Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; / Who is so great a God as our God?” [Psalm 77:13, NKJV]).
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Heather Cadenhead’s poems “Embalming” and “Bone Collection” were published in Relief Issue 3.2. Her work has been featured in Illuminations, Arbor Vitae, The Ampersand Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and other publications. She recently won the Editor’s Prize for an upcoming issue of New Plains Review. Heather lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with her husband, Tyson, and their dog, Arthur. She is the senior editor of The Basilica Review.
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