In the Desert a Highway

At Mass yesterday, Father drew the familiar connection between the Old Testament injunction, repeated in the New in the Sunday Gospel, to “make straight in the desert a highway” (HST, Handle Standard Translation) and our need to prepare our own souls to receive Christ this coming Christmas.  That the Bible has a personal as well as a historical and a communal application is, of course, no news to any Christian.  But something from Father’s emphasis struck me this time: we are to make straight our lives, yes, by clearing away any impediments that stand in our souls preventing Christ’s passage; but the area we are making straight is a desert.

The soul and barren land: here is an old pairing indeed.  John goes into the wilderness, the Fathers into the desert; seed is dropped on rocky ground; the dark night of the soul; sicut cervus desiderat ad fontem aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te deum … etc., etc.  Behind all the pairs, one way or another, stands the idea of the utter poverty and nakedness of the soul before God.

A comforting idea, actually.  It’s that moment when, as you face the dinner party with mild social anxiety and the stress of too much to do, the host says, “Just bring yourself.”  Of course, you’ll haul along a bottle of wine or a batch of muffins to show your good will, but it is a comfort to know You don’t need to bring anything.

It’s alright to be a desert.  You are one, whether you know it or not.  You don’t need to bring anything—just to strip a few of the cacti away.

Learning to Create

One of the rules of good parenting seems to be to allow oneself to be interrupted.  I am not, of course, talking about permitting older children to blatantly interpose their questions and comments into the middle of adult conversations; rather, I am thinking of those moments in the day when one is in the middle of some household task—washing, weeding, folding, cleaning, cooking—and is asked to “Build somefing” or “Draw somefing.”  Sometimes it may be good for a child to learn to wait; but sometimes it is good to be a child with the child.

I recently realized, though, that while these requests are frequently vague invitations to companionship (make “somfing”), I rarely succumb to producing an offering of my own brain.  I do not, in other words, offer to draw a train, a car, or an airplane, or indeed any specific thing.  Rather, I say, “Tell me what you want, and I’ll draw it.”

I suppose the impulse was born of the tired creativity of a creative writer who needs some part of life to be mere direction-following.  It was certainly not intended to be a way of ensuring that the budding young artiste gets exactly what he or she wants.  But I realized recently that it had an unintended side effect.  Oftentimes, after hearing the magic words (“Tell me what you want, and I’ll draw it”), Young Monet will stand and contemplate for as long as a minute.  What does he want?  Then, usually, eventually he comes up with it, and it is drawn, to be further embellished with strokes from his own marker or chalk.

~~~

It struck me the other day that this is The Problem with higher education.  (I know it is as riddled with The Problems as a Swiss cheese with holes, but hear me out.)  For two years I taught Freshman composition at a moderately-sized university attended by above-average students.  My job was to teach them how to write.  Their job at the university, as far as they were concerned, was to get a diploma so they could get a job.  Usually after a day or so I had managed to convince the doubtful that learning to write was an important part of their twofold goal, so they were at least willing to try to succeed in my class.

Most of them didn’t.  I was not an exceptionally difficult instructor.  Nor am I willing to blame our materials, for though there were certain base level requirements that instructors were supposed to follow, we had a fair amount of leeway to tailor the class to our ideas of what would work.  Nothing did.  Oh, we all had splendid successes with a student here or there, and frequently small successes with the majority of our students.  But they could hardly be said, upon leaving the one-semester course, to be writers, let alone good writers.

Without a doubt, the single greatest issue was their inability to come up with stuff.  They simply had no ideas.  No matter how creative the prompt or assignment given to them, and no matter how interested they were in it, it failed to spark material of their own.  (The sole exception in my experience was a paper I gave instructing the students to write about some change in their childhood, such as moving, and explain the causes for it.  Well over a third of my students went with “moving,” and the cause was “divorce.”  Those papers could tell a sad story all of their own.)

Nor was the students’ inability to come up with ideas merely a benign problem.  All sorts of things are blamed for plagiarism: lack of time, lack of understanding of what constitutes academic dishonesty, lack of moral fiber.  In my experience—and, I think, that of most of the instructors I knew, including instructors in other subjects—the greatest cause is the student’s inability to have an idea of his own.  Lack of time may sometimes be the immediate cause, but even when that is the pressure-builder, it is usually not because the student cannot physically write the paper fast enough to turn something in, but because he cannot conceive of himself creating ideas fast enough.

Creating ideas is hard.  Tell me what you want, and I’ll draw it.

…

…

…

“A mowble home.”

“A mobile home?”

“OK.”

So we draw a mobile home.

Of course, Young Monet only knows about those from books or parents anyway: it is not as if he is creating the concept of “mobile home” de novo.  But he is creating an idea in the moment of what he wants to draw right now, by searching through his memories and deciding what should be produced from this blue chalk on this patch of concrete this morning … All creativity is combining what we already know.  The magic lies in the combinations.

But to learn to make those combinations, to tap what we know so as to make something quasi de novo, is a long and difficult process.  And I can only guess that most students, at least the students I saw as college Freshman, aren’t being put through the process often enough or early enough or consistently enough.

Maybe the fault is not enough free play, and too much structured learning.  Maybe it’s helicopter parents and teachers.  Maybe it’s video games and social media.  Maybe it’s an all-of-the-above cocktail.  Regardless, the solution seems clear.

Let the kids (at least partly) figure it out.  Let them be a little bored.  Don’t abandon them to their picture-less fate, of course (not if you want them to grow up human, anyway).  But do let them figure out how to fill the somefing-hole in their brains.  If they aren’t learning how to do it at two, how on earth will they learn to do it at twenty?

Ten Rules for Writers, or, We're All a Little Mad Here

Jonathan Franzen (whom, true confession, I had never heard of before a few days ago) apparently just got himself in trouble for producing a list of ten rules for aspiring novelists.  Without having the foggiest whether Franzen’s work is any good, much less anything I’d enjoy, the furor strikes me as amusing.  One expects writers to be a bit pretentious about their writing (who, me, what? moving right along here …), and Franzen’s list is that.  One expects writers to be quirky, and his list is that too.  And as for his anti-internet rule(s) (two by my count), I suspect he is hyperbolically stating what all writers know deep in their souls to be true: that the internet is a foe of productivity, even as it is a friend of research.  This is not new information.

The truly funny thing about the resentment Franzen has sparked is that the internet is ALIVE with people offering advice on writing, and not infrequently in the “ten rules” format.  It is ubiquitous.  I don’t have time to read them all, but I suspect that between Marion Harmon, Sarah Waters, Elmore Leonard, Denis Lehane, Neil Gaiman, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, Monica Ali, Janet Fitch, various and sundry asked by the Guardian, and LifeHack, … someone has produced a list that is even more offensive than Franzen’s.

Just for fun (and maybe it will help you write better) here are two sterling prose compositors speaking from their podia (that’s on their feet, which is probably Greek for “off the cuff”), offering their take on how to produce a bestseller.

Mark Twain:
1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.
3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.
5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.
6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.
7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.
8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.
9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.
12. An author should say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple, straightforward style.

P.S.  You will notice that these are actually eighteen rules, not ten.  Despite the fact that some on the internet have deigned to abridge Mark Twain, I see no particular reason to fit so sprawling and ingenious a writer into a box.

Nietzche (source):
1. Of prime necessity is life: a style should live.
2. Style should be suited to the specific person with whom you wish to communicate. (The law of mutual relation.)
3. First, one must determine precisely “what-and-what do I wish to say and present,” before you may write. Writing must be mimicry.
4. Since the writer lacks many of the speaker’s means, he must in general have for his model a very expressive kind of presentation of necessity, the written copy will appear much paler.
5. The richness of life reveals itself through a richness of gestures. One must learn to feel everything — the length and retarding of sentences, interpunctuations, the choice of words, the pausing, the sequence of arguments — like gestures.
6. Be careful with periods! Only those people who also have long duration of breath while speaking are entitled to periods. With most people, the period is a matter of affectation.
7. Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.
8. The more abstract a truth which one wishes to teach, the more one must first entice the senses.
9. Strategy on the part of the good writer of prose consists of choosing his means for stepping close to poetry but never stepping into it.
10. It is not good manners or clever to deprive one’s reader of the most obvious objections. It is very good manners and very clever to leave it to one’s reader alone to pronounce the ultimate quintessence of our wisdom.

For a bonus, here’s a digest of a Rex Stout interview in which he explains the difference between himself and Dostoyevsky (which, as an admirer of both, I found fascinating).

I can’t really top that, and maybe I shouldn’t try, but reading Franzen’s list did make me think about my top rules.  And maybe that’s the good thing about the proliferation of pseudo-advice on the internet: it has the potential to produce some self-examination that may lead to the development of best practices.

Now excuse me while I go wash my mouth out of contemporary jargon.  Here, without further ado, is The Girl Who Is Saturday’s Ten Rules for Writers, which comes with no guarantees whatsoever attached.

1. When you sit down to write, set a double timer to ring once in three minutes, and once in thirty-three.  The first bell ensures that you actually start writing, and the second that you have written a good deal before you stop.
2. Spend your good ideas; do not hoard them.  The best way to have more good ideas is to let the ones you have get out and play.
3. Outline down to the scene.  Be pleased rather than chagrinned when your scene turns out to have a good deal more occurring in it than your outline let on.
4. Read what you enjoy, and then forget about it.  Your subconscious will remember the bits worth stealing.
5. Write what makes you happy, whether that’s “what will sell,” or “what I like to read,” or “what I think is important and worthy.”  Writing is hard enough without making yourself miserable with the produce.
6. Don’t be afraid to sound pretentious.  Make sure to ask truthful and wise people if you actually do sound pretentious.
7. Give all your characters arcs.
8. Don’t forget the trail mix.
9. Keep it to one swig every half page.
10. Unless you’re drinking cocoa, in which case the sky is the limit.

And finally, because I don’t like boxes either, but also lastly, because I’m not Mark Twain …

11. Pick up the phone when it cries and the baby when it rings.  Real people are always more important (and you’ll write better for acting on that fact).

A Lesson for Homilists

Every now and then—any parent with children will testify—the state of family affairs at Mass becomes so—familial—that very little of the homily hits home.  Still, there are usually tidbits here and there that make it through, and hopefully provide fodder for meditation later in the day or even during the rest of the week.

Pity, O Priest, the condition of the parent who (in between snatches of crying and sushing and darting in and out of the vestibule in attempts to cordon off the offending infants from the larger congregation) obtained from your homily the following edifying theological and spiritual insights:

1.     You grew up at this parish.

2.     You belong to [order redacted].

3.     You were nervous about your first assignment.

4.     Your superiors assigned you to Ohio rather than to Latin America.

5.     Decades later, you are happy to be visiting your home parish.

6.     It’s interesting—they were getting rid of Latin when you entered seminary, and now they’re doing the Novus Ordo in Latin.  Interesting.  Huh.

7.     Your stole, based upon the colors contained in it, could make shift for any liturgical season and was probably borrowed from a community theater production of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.*

*Technically not a part of the homily, but noticeably present during its delivery nonetheless.

In sum, if there was something substantive, these parents didn’t catch it.

And the moral of the story, good priests everywhere, is …

The Faults of the Tongue Are Innumerable

"The faults of the tongue are innumerable, and it is noteworthy that even in people who are otherwise quite virtuous one often finds an uncharitable tongue.  There is a wide field here for the practice of virtue and the quest of holiness.  So much so that the Holy Ghost tells us by the pen of St. James: If any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man.  Let us remember that every word we utter or every insinuation we make to the detriment of our neighbor is an injury done to Christ.  There are occasions when one must speak unpleasant truths about one's neighbor--for example, in a law court, or to avoid greater evil--but normally, we are not allowed to speak evil of him, even when what we say is true.  The Christian man does his best to hide the faults of others, and will not listen to detraction.  If detraction is wrong, calumny is still worse.  And even quite good people do not seem to realize the responsibility they have for every single word they say about anyone else.  Our neighbor's honor and good name, his professional reputation and his personal character, should be as safe in our mouth as in our Lord's.  And it must be remembered that this is true even though we know that his private behavior doe snot justify his public reputation.  There are, however, circumstances in which we may have to give someone a charitable warning.  But all tale-bearing and mischief-making, all imprudent revelations of another's secret, all sowing of discord or exciting of suspicion are quite wrong, and are altogether incompatible with a true life in Christ.  Not only do we separate ourselves form Him in the doing of these injuries, but we widen the breach inasmuch as these injuries are done to Him.  We make public the very sins of which He has taken the shame upon Himself."

               ~~Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, ch. 16.

Every Single Thing that Happens

"From this point of view every single thing that happens to us carries in some way the mark of the choice of God.  Logically we must extend that even to our sins, inasmuch as God chooses a universe in which He permits it to happen that certain sins are committed.  It is true, the will responsible for this particular sin is this particular created will which decides to sin, and thereby offends God and incurs the guilt of sin.  Nevertheless, if it afterwards identify itself with God's will by repentance and by accepting the divinely willed consequences of its sin, it can apply to itself St. Paul's principle, To them that love God, all things work together for good."
               ~~Boylan, This Tremendous Lover.

... and No One Is Troubled

Once again, this comes from Boylan’s spiritual masterpiece:

“... The series of calls upon one’s time from members of the family, from visitors, and from the hundred and one other sources of interference with one’s plans, is almost endless.  We may have to draw a line somewhere if we wish to keep up regular practices such as prayer and reading.  Still, we should be on our guard against feeling that time devoted to family functions and to family fun is wasted.  There is a proper measure in everything; and each has a right to his own private life for some part of the day.  But those who live with their family need have no scruple in spending much of their time in sharing the life of the family.

“If they maintain a healthy interior life, they can find Christ in their family and be united to Him, even in family fun. To make a fourth at family bridge, to help to entertain some guests, to take a walk with one’s parents and one’s children—all such things can be more meritorious and more pleasing to God than private prayer or even, say, a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. A saint should be a very easy person to live with. Unfortunately, those who try to be saints are often quite the opposite. Might we refer them to the example of St. Jane Frances de Chantal? While she was still living in the world, St. Francis de Sales became her director. The result of his influence may be gathered from the comment of one of her servants: ‘The first director that Madame had made her pray three times a day, and we were all put out; but the Monsignor of Geneva (St. Francis de Sales) makes her pray all day long and no one is troubled.’”

Boylan goes on to recommend de Sales’s Introduction to the Devout Life, urging the reader to ignore the bits that are dated (advice which I cannot forbear repeating to any prospective reader of Boylan!).  The basic principle, in any case, at work in both de Sales and Boylan seems to be the same as that found in the Gospels: by their fruits you shall know them.  A good spiritual life will show itself in a person’s interactions with those with whom they spend the most time—and conversely, those who hope to maintain even ordinary charity (if that is not an oxymoron!) with those around them need to have a good spiritual life (whatever that means—on that, de Sales of course has much good concrete advice, and Boylan as well).

Little Lenten Sacrifices

For some people Lent is pretty hardcore.  I have at least two friends who are Eastern Catholics—that is, they belong to the churches in union with Rome, but have their own liturgy and customs, including the custom of eliminating all meat and dairy from their diets during Lent. I distinctly remember watching one of these friends at a restaurant a few years back. We had all gone out after a choir event and, while the music had been appropriately Lenten, it’s fair to say that the meals being ordered were on the celebratory, wow-I’m-glad-we-pulled-that-off side. Some time after the rest of us had finished making up our minds and were chatting away, this friend was scrutinizing the menu. Ultimately he ordered a salad, asking the waitress to hold the crumbled bacon, the cheese, and dairy-based dressing. I can’t recall, but I’m hoping there were a few nuts or seeds in there somewhere.

Read the rest at the Register.

SQT 2-2-18 – On the Other Hand

"Seven QuickTakes" is hosted at "This Ain't the Lyceum."

1.     Number One Son now has not handed me weights during my workout, tried to feed me peas for lunch, and beat my breast during the penitential rite at Mass.  Nothing like an oldest child to keep his parents in line!  On the other hand, he flipped out when a latecomer to Mass did a full prostration next to our pew.  Apparently too much devotion is upsetting to the toddler mind?

2.     Fun money fact: If you have an IRA, you cannot transfer it to anyone else as long as you are alive.  No, not even your spouse.  No, not even if you’re unemployed.  No, not even if the account fees are slowly draining away your tiny balance so that it will be halfway evaporated by the time you can withdraw at age 59.  On the other hand, you can withdraw early and avoid the tax penalties if one of a few choice situations applies in your case.

3.     Dr. Seuss now lives in the drawer that we never open where the good silverware lives.  (Don’t ask me why we have good silverware; we haven’t used it yet because our ordinary silverware is pretty dang nice, and because I haven’t gotten around to ever washing the good silverware, ever, in three years of marriage.  #firstworldproblems)  It’s not that I am morally opposed to Dr. Seuss.  Nor am I actually opposed to anyone else reading Dr. Seuss while I’m around.  I’m just opposed to reading it myself.  I have no problems reading “I Am a Bunny” 2,347,891 times in an afternoon, but there’s just something about “Fox in Socks” that makes me want to curl up and die after the third repetition.  Part of it is probably the shortness of the lines and the similarity of the rhymes (see what I did there?), since ordinary Mother Goose is no problem for me.  Part of my repulsion, no doubt, is due to the ugly pictures.  (Really.  If they don’t corrode your soul on some level, maybe you ought to see a spiritual body mechanic about the damage that’s already been done.)  Whatever the reason, I’m not pretending it’s logically defensible.  As the Italian Mama says about her cooking, “You must feeeeeeeeel the love, Gino!  You no feeeeeeel it, you no coooook it.”

4.     On the other hand … It occurs to me that some people may feel that I am selfishly depriving my son of one of his chief joys in life, namelich, hearing Mama read “Fox in Socks” very fast with perfect diction and (depending on how insane she’s turned today) either the Boris and Natasha accent or the Julia Child voice.  Sorry, folks; I feel no guilt.  Here’s the thing about toddler desires: they’re pretty malleable, as long as you keep things out of sight.  Sometimes even if you don’t keep things out of sight.  A sixty-second snapshot of Number One Son’s brain this morning (expressed in whines, grunts, running, pointing, and the occasional “Pwee! pwee pwee pwee!”): I want … milk!  What?  No!!  I want … outside!!!!  Daddy, read book!!!! Mama, read book!  I like my stacking bowls.  Ice?!!!!  Is that my milk?!!! Outside?!!!!! OUTSIDE FOOLISH PARENTS!!!!!!!!  Oh, we’re going upstairs now??  OK.  Great!  My favorite place.

 *                    *                     *

Don’t feel too bad for him.  He’s just a little bipolar, like all toddlers.  And believe me, as long as he doesn’t know Dr. Seuss is in the drawer, he—and Mama—will be juuuuust fine.

5.     A little more fallout news from Hawaii: https://xkcd.com/1946/  (For those not familiar with XKCD, language and content warning—this installment is clean, but on the other hand there are plenty of others that are not.)

6.     It’s very sweet when all your high-energy sick child wants to do is lie in a blanket on your lap and babble at you.

7.     On the other hand, when said child tries to express his affection and gratitude by giving you open-mouthed kisses on the mouth …

"A Man Grimacing Grotesquely"

Source

Bonus take: Another place to find old free images!

Seven Quick Takes, 1-19-2018

"Seven Quick Takes" is hosted at "This Ain't the Lyceum."

1.     If you are one of the three people who has been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed that recent posts include a “Source” link under the picture captions.  This is because, after a conversation with a family member who happens to be a lawyer, I began to question my hitherto somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards pictures, and towards classical (by which I mean “painted probably in Europe between 1000 and 1900 A.D.”) artwork in particular.  Apparently (contrary to Wikipedia’s blithe assurances) just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s legally showing up in your web searches.  Fortunately for me, the Met recently decided to declare much of its collection public domain.  To view, go here, scroll down for the options on the left, under “Show Only” make sure to select “Public Domain Artworks,” and proceed to enjoy legal use of images of everything from Greek pottery to Dutch masters to random bits of armor—just make sure that you source the images back to the Met.

2.     I have discovered the (a?) secret to not going over budget: Don’t buy anything until after you’ve run out.  No, seriously.  You don’t need plastic wrap.  Or cooking spray.  Or a new rug for the bottom of the stairs down which your toddler is threatening to tumble.  Cavemen didn’t have plastic wrap, and they survived just fine.  OK, but seriously, there probably are alternatives in your house to almost anything that you might happen to run out of.  And if you run out of it first, you might discover that some of these alternatives are actually cheaper than you thought, and work just as well … Even if you decide to go back to your precious canisters of Pam, however, the trick of not buying until you run out should enable you to make it to the end of the month without crossing the red line when you’ve already maxed out your “household goods” column.

3.     I am sure this does not apply to all children and all ages, but if you are a new mom of a non-walker, let me promise you: some things do get a easier when they learn how to walk.  Yes, they’ll get into everything.  Yes, they’ll want to climb your couches, chairs, bookshelves, piano, and any other platforms more than .5 square feet broad and three inches high (“platform” being defined loosely, of course, to include such objects as Christmas trees and bags of fruit).  Yes, they’ll whine for those just-out-of-reach items until you drill it into them that they can’t have everything they see (and drill it into yourself that sometimes substitution or removal of the desired object is prudent).  But don’t children whine for and destroy things before they walk too?  And once they can walk, they can play sooooo much more easily—and hence happily.  On the whole, a worthwhile tradeoff, n’est pas?

4.     In world news, Hawaii’s random false nuclear warning last week was not the first such incident.  (In fact, there are several stories of nuclear near-misses, as you’ll find if you google for more information about the 1960 Thule event.)

5.     Meanwhile, the other kind of nuclear power—the power plant kind—is losing in California, winning in Minnesota, and providing interesting environmental benefits, even if you ask sincerely concerned environmentalists.

6.     Alright, alright, since we walked down this road, we’ll go all the way: Yes Prime Minister - Bernard Woolley on defence capabilities.

7.     And for a lighter sort of button game, which might perhaps be useful at your January Christmas parties … Remember that line in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, “Button, button, who’s got the button?”

8.     Finally, a bonus take, in the form of a reminder that if cavemen don’t need buttons, neither do you.  Unless, of course, you’re still under budget for the month.

Boredom and the First Fifteen Minutes

This November has taught me a lot about productivity—not that this blog has much to show for it; the productivity has manifested elsewhere.  Among other things, I have been reminded yet again that deadlines and (still more) competition are excellent ways to make myself write more and better than I otherwise would.  And writing, like workouts and daily prayer, is beginning to share more and more of the characteristics of a habit: one of those things that grows easier with frequency, with the ease fading as the exercise of the habit lapses.

Source

Most of all, however, I have gained a greater appreciation for the fact that writing is one of those activities that are difficult for the first five, ten, or even fifteen minutes.  It is unlike movie watching or eating good food—activities that appeal immediately to the appetites, require little effort, and are almost universally described by human beings as “fun.”  Many people, indeed, would express outright disbelief that the word “fun” could possibly apply to so laborious a pastime.

And writing isn’t fun, in the sense that watching a movie is fun.  Perhaps “rewarding” would be a better word; but that too is inadequate.  There is a writer’s high, just as there is a runner’s high and a musician’s: a place you reach when the words come fluently and without difficulty, and the end product is none the worse for all that.  And nothing is more “fun” than reaching that state of “work.”  The effortless activities that we usually call fun cannot even compare.  We become sated and stuffed; we feel we have over-somethinged when we conclude them, and turn in disgust away from the screen or the plate, disgruntled by the thought of how much time we have wasted.  There are no such regrets, and no such feeling of overindulgence, from scaling a peak with writing or making music or exercise.  But of course, to be the sort of runner or writer or pianist who finds this wonderful and perilous place, once needs to be pretty good already: one needs to have achieved a state of fluency, rather than mere competency.

Source

I don’t mean that one needs to be playing late Beethoven sonatas

or writing War and Peace to enjoy this high.  One may achieve it

with Clementi and Nancy Drew fan fics.  But even in that case,

one needs to be fluent with the idioms concerned:

fluent in the twists and turns of Clementi and Carolyn Keene.

Even once one has achieved fluency in a certain idiom, however, there is still a dragon at the gate.  There are still the first five, or ten, or fifteen minutes.  The fifteen minutes, when the most fascinating project, if it requires but the slightest bit of effort, is dull.  The fifteen minutes when the internet, the couch, and even the dishes have more appeal.  The fifteen minutes when the only word for the thing you love is boring.

Children, it seems, don’t have this problem.  Because they are just discovering the world around them, they are endlessly fascinated by it.

Source

Or are they?  I can certainly remember plenty of late mornings and afternoons growing up when I felt bored.  I’ve seen one-year-olds, having exhausted what Mrs. Elton would call their “resources,” wandering about rooms and whining plaintively in search of something to entertain them.  No, the wonder with children is not that they don’t get bored.  The only wonder is that the things that catch their interest are mostly simpler than those that tantalize adults.

If anything, children are more in danger of being bored than adults are.  When you live in a state of wonder which is partly due to incomprehension, it is easy to grow used to being entertained by things that catch the eye.  Instant gratification oftentimes works, and with the simplest of objects; and so instant gratification becomes the rule, the constant desideratum.  Once a thing’s been handled a minute, dropped, licked, and stuffed into the available containers, it’s aged.  It’s become boring, and the incipient toddler is bored.  He hasn’t yet learned—nor could he comprehend an explanation—that with a little effort the boring block could become interesting again: could become part of a tower, a wall, a path, even (heaven help us) a projectile.  In other words, he hasn’t learned to play.  He needs an adult or an older child to teach him how to get past the first fifteen minutes (or, given the length of his attention span, the first two) to find that place where imagination and joy take over.

The terribly sad thing about modern life, of course, is that most adults have never learned not to be toddlers, or else have regressed to the toddler state.  (If you doubt me, consider briefly America’s two great addictions, one manifested in obesity and the other in private, usually solitary, vices.  The plate and the screen.)  We could blame the fact that schools don’t let children play, speak of “the hurried child,” suggest more Tiger Parenting, find fault with Baby Boomers or Millennials, and of course declare that Apple is to blame.

I don’t think any of those explanations are necessarily false, but they are negative—being mere diagnoses of the disease by which we reached our present state—rather than constructive.  The only real constructive solution, I think, begins with a personal dedication licking those first fifteen minutes in the interest of something worthwhile.  In other words, it would behoove each of us to learn again to play.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and see about those Thanksgiving leftovers, and maybe hit up a Black Friday sale or ten.

Source

Francis de Sales on How the Love of God Is Manifest in Conformity and Stability

These are a few highlights from the past week’s reading.

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The great S. Thomas is of opinion that it is not expedient to consult and deliberate much concerning an inclination to enter a good and well-regulated religious Order; for the religious life being counselled by our Saviour in the Gospel, what need is there of many consultations? It is sufficient to make one good one, with a few persons who are thoroughly prudent and capable in such an affair, and who can assist us to make a speedy and solid resolution; but as soon as we have once deliberated and resolved, whether in this matter or in any other that appertains to God's service, we must be constant and immovable, not permitting ourselves to be shaken by any appearances of a greater good: for very often, says the glorious S. Bernard, the devil deludes us, and to draw us from the effecting of one good he proposes unto us some other good, that seems better; and after we have started this, he, in order to divert us from effecting it, presents a third, ready to let us make plenty of beginnings if only we do not make an end. We should not even go from one Order to another without very weighty motives, says S. Thomas, following the Abbot Nestorius cited by Cassian. I borrow from the great S. Anselm (writing to Lanzo) a beautiful similitude. As a plant often transplanted can never take root, nor, consequently, come to perfection and return the expected fruit; so the soul that transplants her heart from design to design cannot do well, nor come to the true growth of her perfection, since perfection does not consist in beginnings but in accomplishments. The sacred living creatures of Ezechiel went whither the impulse of the spirit was to go, and they turned not when they went, and every one of them went straight forward: we are to go whither the inspiration moves us, not turning about, nor returning back, but tending thither, whither God has turned our face, without changing our gaze. He that is in a good way, let him step out and get on. It happens sometimes that we forsake the good to seek the better, and that having forsaken the one we find not the other: better is the possession of a small treasure found, than the expectation of a greater which is to find. The inspiration which moves us to quit a real good which we enjoy in order to gain a better in the future, is to be suspected. A young Portuguese, called Francis Bassus, was admirable, not only in divine eloquence but also in the practice of virtue, under the discipline of the Blessed (S.) Philip Neri in the Congregation of the Oratory at Rome. Now he persuaded himself that he was inspired to leave this holy society, to place himself in an Order, strictly so called, and at last he resolved to do so. But the B. Philip, assisting at his reception into the Order of S. Dominic, wept bitterly; whereupon being asked by Francis Marie Tauruse, afterwards Archbishop of Siena and Cardinal, why he shed tears: I deplore, said he, the loss of so many virtues. And in fact this young man, who was so excellently good and devout in the Congregation, after he became a religious was so inconstant and fickle, that agitated with various desires of novelties and changes, he gave afterwards great and grievous scandal. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book VIII, Ch.XI)

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Now one of the best marks of the goodness of all inspirations in general, and particularly of extraordinary ones, is the peace and tranquillity of the heart that receives them: for though indeed the Holy Ghost is violent, yet his violence is gentle, sweet and peaceful. He comes as a mighty wind, and as a heavenly thunder, but he does not overthrow the Apostles, he troubles them not; the fear which they had in hearing the sound was of no continuance, but was immediately followed by a sweet assurance. That is why this fire sits upon each of them, taking and causing a sacred repose; and as our Saviour is called a peaceful or pacific Solomon, so is his spouse called Sulamitess, calm and daughter of peace: and the voice, that is, the inspiration, of the bridegroom does not in any sort disquiet or trouble her, but draws her so sweetly that he makes her soul deliciously melt and, as it were, flow out into him: My soul, says she, melted when my beloved spoke: and though she be warlike and martial, yet is she withal so peaceable, that amidst armies and battles she maintains the concord of an unequalled melody. What shalt thou see, saith she, in the Sulamitess but the choirs of armies? Her armies are choirs, that is, harmonies of singers; and her choirs are armies, because the weapons of the Church and of the devout soul, are only prayers, hymns, canticles and psalms. Thus it is that those servants of God who had the highest and sublimest inspirations were the most mild and peaceable men in the world, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob: Moses is styled the meekest of men; David is lauded for his mildness. On the contrary, the evil spirit is turbulent, rough, disturbing; and those who follow infernal suggestions, taking them to be heavenly inspirations, are as a rule easily known, because they are unquiet, headstrong, haughty, ready to undertake or meddle with all affairs, men who under the cloak of zeal turn everything upside down, censure every one, chide every one, find fault with everything; they are persons who will not be directed, will not give in to any one, will bear nothing, but gratify the passions of self-love under the name of jealousy for God's honour.  (Treatise on the Love of God, Book VIII, Ch. XII)

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I speak of a noble, real, productive and solid humility, which makes us supple to correction,
pliable and prompt to obedience. While the incomparable Simeon Stylites was yet a novice at
Teleda, he made himself indocile to the advice of his superiors, who wished to hinder him from practising so many strange austerities, which he did with an inordinate cruelty to himself; so that at length he was on this account turned out of the monastery, as being too little capable of the mortification of the heart, and too much addicted to that of the body. But having entered into himself and become more devout, and more prudent in the spiritual life, he behaved quite differently, as he showed in the following action. When the hermits who were dispersed through the deserts near Antioch knew the extraordinary life which he led upon the pillar, in which he seemed to be either an earthly angel or a heavenly man, they despatched a messenger whom they ordered to speak thus to him from them: Why dost thou, Simeon, leaving the highway trodden by so many great and holy predecessors, follow another, unknown of men, and so different from all that has been seen or heard to this day? Simeon, quit this pillar, and come amongst other men to live, after the manner of life and way of serving God used by the good Fathers who have gone before us. In case Simeon, yielding to their advice and giving in to their will, should show himself ready to descend, they had charged 360 the deputy to leave him free to persevere in the manner of life he had begun, because by his obedience, said those good Fathers, it could well be known that he had undertaken this kind of life by the divine inspiration: but in case he should resist, and, despising their exhortations, follow his own will, it would be necessary to withdraw him thence by violence, and force him to forsake his pillar. The deputy then, being come to the pillar, had no sooner delivered his message, than the great Simeon, without delay, without reservation, without any reply, began to descend with an obedience and humility worthy of his rare sanctity. Which when the deputy saw: stay, said he, O Simeon! remain there, persevere with constancy, take courage, pursue thy enterprise valiantly; thy abiding upon this pillar is from God. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book VIII, Ch. XIII)

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Manuscript Illumination with Saint Dominic Saving the Church

of Saint John Lateran in an Initial A, from a Gradual