Friday Links, May 21, 2021
+ Writing without apologetics
+ Poetry as the appetizer for the Wedding Feast (Hopkins’ “As kingfishers catch fire” for example)
+ Catholic poetry by the non-Catholic Emperor Kangxi
+ Fabric designed by artist Daniel Mitsui
Fanaticism & Art: You Can't Influence a Culture You're Hiding From
Rhonda Ortiz, Dappled Things Webmaster, writer, and Chrism Press co-founder, recommends the above-linked article by Steve Skojec at The Skojec File.
Skojec, former writer for One Peter Five, quotes Eric Hofer, the atheist "longshoreman philosopher" (of all pundits to quote), about the dangers of fanaticism. “The true believer,” Hoffer wrote, is “the man of fanatical faith who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause.” If this is a condemnation, I and many other believing Catholics I know are guilty as charged. What does holding "fanatical faith" mean but that you have a sure belief that there is only One Truth? And that truth is the one that you are willing to die for?
It seems to me Skojec sees in Hofer's description of "true believers" a just condemnation of his own former way of writing and that of other writers like him who don't feel they are doing their jobs as Catholics if they are not moralizing. "The story could never be just a story. The characters couldn’t live the lives a character of that sort would naturally live. I had to shoehorn them into molds that made them moral examples for the benefit of my audience." No Catholic writer I know of thinks that way. Haven’t we all read Flannery O'Connor, who tells us the duty of the Catholic fiction writer is to be true to the craft, and we have no business shoehorning pat morals into our fictions?
Katy Carl, DT Editor in Chief, sees Shofer's essay differently, "He (and any other believer close to despondency over our plight, anyone who feels that simply telling stories might be a waste of precious, God-given time) absolutely needs Joshua Hren's new book: How To Read (And Write) Like A Catholic.
"Other than that, all I can tell him (and would, if the comments weren't subscriber-only) is that if God calls you to tell stories, you tell them: and to tell stories you have to get over yourself: alas that's hard but it's true, the storyteller must simply reject all self-pity and self-indulgence and get poor sorry Brother Ass out of the way of what God wants told. For as Skojec recognizes here, what people believe about the world, about the Good, about experience, is profoundly a function of the stories they tell themselves and the stories they allow themselves to be told by others. Yes, belief needs the clarity of the intellect, but without charity—genuine, palpable, ardent charity—that clarity is mere outline, without color. I wasted years being a Tarwater about this —"you caint just say NO, you got to do NO"—and in the end it was no use: it's like fire in your bones, if you are called. If not, fine: find what you are called to: good luck and God bless you. But this reads to me like the yearnings of a budding fictionist who's experiencing a blend of admiratio, helpless wonder in the face of a grand pursuit, and sloth, the sadness of soul over the difficulty of attaining the desired end. Naturally, I could be projecting what I've been through myself. But anyone reading this who feels any degree of what Skojec is describing or what I've posited about its roots: please, please read Joshua's book: the small-v vocation you save may be your own."
CHRIST AT THE CENTER: GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS’ “AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE"
Katy Carl recommends this "Word on Fire" article by Dr. Holly Ordway on how poetry can "lead with beauty"— to whet people’s spiritual appetite for the great wedding feast, the banquet of the Lord. For her example, she annotates the great Hopkin's poem "As kingfishers catch fire."
The Chinese emperor’s Catholic poetry
Emperor Kangxi (康熙帝) (4 May 1654 – 20 December 1722), the longest-reigning emperor in the history of China, was also a learned scholar who composed Catholic poetry—although he never converted. The above link takes you to some examples of his work.
Kangxi gave the Jesuits a house inside the Forbidden City – which was exclusive to the imperial family and its retinue – as well as land on which to build a church.
When the church was completed, the Emperor wrote an inscription for the lintel in his own hand:
To the true Principal of all things. He is infinitely good and is infinitely just, He illumines, He supports, He regulates all things with supreme authority and with a sovereign justice. He has no beginning and no end. It is He who rules and is the true master."
Fabric by Daniel Mitsui
Katy Carl writes, "A little visual delight for your Friday: this makes me wish I were a sewing-type person. The names are such fun, too—'battle mammoths,' 'parliament of fowls,' 'temperamental green men . . .'"
