On Reading The Bible

For around a month now I've been reading the Bible. I've tried in the past. Never getting much past Exodus, at times hardly through Genesis. The Bible is a difficult book to read. An anthology of short stories, epics, poems, history, cultural hieroglyphs like Leviticus. It's hardly cohesive in style; wildly, powerfully cohesive in theme. I've tried, in the past, to read the Bible from a certain vantage point. From a theological perspective. A devotional perspective. An historical perspective. This time around, it occurred to me to read it as a book, from a literary perspective if you will. Even picking up a literary approach to the Bible version(which, for the most part, I've abandoned for the convinence of my iPhone's multiple versions and ease-of-read on-the-go. I only revert to the actual book form at home).

This all seems simple and rather obvious. After all, it's the Greatest Story Ever Told. But it's not an easy read. It's an anthology and who reads anthologies of Mr. Norton all the way through? The final four books of the Torah alone can trip you up. Lure one into negligence and absolute boredom. Make one rethink or all together abandon the desire to read the Bible. But get through it. Skip parts if you have to (especially since it repeats soooooooften). And once you are through it -- into the promised land of stories-- you will never want to put it down.

This gets me to why I've become more engaged by the iPhone version. Because I can read it anywhere at anytime. I can, effectively, never put the book down. And sure, with a cup of coffee and a dark, cool spring evening, I will flip through the actual book form. But, for the most part, the bulk of my Bible reading has occured on my phone.

Anyway. I love Genesis. Parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The final four you should read because Moses is a fascinating character. Truly fascinating. I was abjectly depressed when I found out Moses couldn't get into the Promised Land -- even though I already knew he didn't. And knew why he didn't. I mean. It's just sad. Just really, really sad. Joshua is enjoyable and rewarding -- hey, we're finally here!. Judges is awesome, horrible, terrifying, morally weird but filled with stories you will never forget. Like my Dad says, it's a Western. And I love Westerns.

Ruth is my favorite book. As this funny and enjoyable Slate reviewer summarized brilliantly:

No smiting. No prophecies. No laws. No kings. No God. Just the story of one family and its two good women.... it shows Bible laws in action... Ruth is the quietest of all Bible books, a short story that manages to combine extraordinary power and extraordinary serenity.

I agree. I love Ruth. It's details. It's romance (Rebecca and Isaac is still the best though. When they look up and see each other for the first time...) Love where it is juxtaposed where it is in the Christian Bible (as opposed to the Jewish versions) because 1 Samuel starts off where Judges seemed to end. But Ruth. Ruth is just a great story. In a much greater story.

So that's where I stand. Looking forward to 2 Samuel and beyond. David is in the picture now. I have felt the coming of this man. Felt him coming in the LCD pages before.

And that's the sign of a great book.

Syntopical Syncretism

Call it the post-modern approach to reading, but I've been diligent recently in my approach to reading. I came across the former of the above terms while reading Mortimer Adler's How To Read A Book. Vaguely, it's about moving one's reading across like themes. It's a unique idea and I recommend it and the original book.

Now I've extended this in several ways. First I have tried to read books similar in writing style. This is one reason for my recent love of Catholic writers of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Barth, Bellows and Updike are also more alike in style than the themes of their novels belie.

Another way I've enacted Adler's idea is by researching the influences of authors I'm reading. Just yesterday I began to look into Umberto Eco's greatest influence, Jorge Luis Borges. He's quite a fantastical and unique and challenging writer. For O'Connor I've delved into Faulkner and read up on Hawthorne.

By doing this I've stumbled across another term: syncretism. O'Connor and Faulkner posses widely different world views. Borges and one of his more profound influences, Chesterton, differ exponentially in their respective world views. Not that I am trying to reconcile these authors but it's certainly challenging to recognize the different approach that is at once alike and different. Like seeing an object from all sides simultaneously and managing to maintain a sense of wonder about it.

Pretty sure none of this makes sense, that it's just ramblings. I'm piecing the idea slowly together. Combining it and, at times, justifying it I suppose. The bottom line is that I notice I am drawn to the syntopical syncretism in Art. From Springsteen to O'Connor, Borges to Chesterton.

Not sure if Adler had this in mind, but I have him to thank for issuing that first challenge.

Is Man A Myth?

I was reminded today of a funny aside in Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. When Mr. Tumnus appears, he is cradling a book bearing the title "Is Man A Myth?". Within the context of the story -- Lucy has walked through the wardrobe and into the white world of Narnia at winter-- the aside is humorous. A dose of irony in fact. But Lewis, whose series as a whole is laced with context and subtext, is suggesting a much more salient point than a smile or slight chuckle can capture.

At stake here, in the answer to the question, is not whether or not Lucy is real. Lewis is asking us a question of much more profundity. Long a studier of Greek, he delved heavily into the literary traditions of the culture. Most notably you will see this play out in Narnia superficially, like in fauns and centaurs. Myth, in such a culture does not imply falsity, a value we readily associate with anything involving that term. "Oh, that's just a myth!" we often cry. But for the Greeks, it simply involves the idea of a story. Prometheus getting his liver pecked out doesn't remotely intend to imply fact but rather to shed a truth upon or about something (and makes for a funny diary). But I am no connoisseur of Greek literary traditions, merely a lover of stories and tales.

Wonder for a moment on the new implication of this title: Is Man A Myth? Are we, simply and profoundly, a story? Played out in time, passed on through time? How important is it that we transfer and concern ourselves with the exactitude's of our livers being eaten out, metaphorically speaking? Is it rather more important that we use our lives, our stories, to shed a truth upon or about something? That we carry on our stories against a backdrop of the greatest of stories?

Getting back to the original irony of the scene, Mr. Tumnus had the question on one hand and the answer staring him in the face. Yet he does not nod in approval of having the question answered, instead he yells "Goodness, gracious me!". In one other famous myth I remember another who had the answer staring them down, the first words spoken that time were, "Mary".

On The Death Of Sports Journalism

There's been some uproar on the Internets today about bloggers and sports journalism. Most of it unfounded. Most of it true. How bloggers distort and dumb-down sports journalism with their ridiculous accusations and opinions and at-the-same-time-lack-of-access. But that point is not for here; I am unequipped at the argument.

What remains the demarcation point for this is the "education" of those bloggers. Have they even read W.C. Heinz? Admittedly, I had not. But, being the erudite Internets searcher I am, I quickly "Googled" him and just as quickly read "Death of a Race Horse"-- apparently his seminal work. And... It. Is. Good. Very. Very. Good. No one writes like that these days -- not daily sports "journalists" anyway. Not journalists for the most part.

One can argue if this is an unfortunate occurrence. A product of our growing curiosity for facts and not the "story". When the story is the facts and the facts are the story, is there much room for notions on the weather? On the murmurs of onlookers? Probably not. But truthfully, how many of these pieces could you read? Sometimes I just want the box score, the injury report, the statement on the game. Sometimes I just want bloviated nonsense to put sports in perspective. And sometimes I want "Death of a Race Horse" to put sports in perspective.

But what I want (aside from "dog and a beer"; obligatory reference there)... what I want is good writing. And that's the issue. Good. Writing. Death of a Race Horse is that. Most of what is sports journalism and/or blogging, is not that.

The thing of it is: Sports, however bad her commentators may be or however good they may be, sports is good writing.

On Reading Faulkner

For those of you unaware, I'm back in school. Accepted to the University of Dayton to begin work on a Masters in English, emphasis in Creative Writing. Of course, it's conditional enrollment meaning I've got to get 3.0's in two upper-level English courses to be officially enrolled this fall (or whenever I should complete them). So I'm in the midst of my first class at the moment, courtesy of the Internet and Ohio University: American Literature 1918-present.

It's a post-WWI literature survey course featuring the works of John Barth, Flannery O'Connor (a personal favorite) and Saul Bellow -- to name a few. And then there's William Faulkner. Known for his work in As I Lay Dying and Absalom! Absalom! we get to sample none of that. Instead, chosen for me, was "The Hamlet". A 400+ page introduction to the Snopes family, featured in other works and later, as part of a trilogy - this being the first one. I completed it this afternoon and was thoroughly impressed.

There's no way to describe Faulkner as a writer. No way to assess his adroitness with words, punctuation and syntax. But you know it when you read it -- and you know when other readers have read him and been influenced by him (see O'Connor's body of work). While this work was no where near his best, it was quintessential Faulkner. Not his apex as a writer, but what him being a writer was all about. Just like you could point to a Monet and say, "That's clearly Monet -- but not his best". You do that with "The Hamlet". If you can get through it.

Meandering through long sentences filled with prose and romance, punctuated by short sentences of statement, The Hamlet takes some patience. And perseverance. A lack of a DaVinci Code plot surely leaves the modern reader in want. But it's a character study the whole way.

I liken it to a Sunday drive. Or those old Sunday drives people used to say they were going on when they ran into folks in the atriums and lobbies of churches. People don't go on these drives anymore. They don't trek with windows down and squint through fading suns and sunlights dancing through trees. They don't stop for ice creams and share in the colloquialisms of flea markets and little league baseball games. It's one of those things though, that when done, you're glad you've done and wished it could have been longer. But before you began, did not expect to spend as much time doing it or enjoying it like you did. And you're not really sure what it was that made you spend the hours before dusk trucking around.

Faulkner is, perhaps, the best writer I've ever read. And I know why. Like I know a Sunday drive.

On Leaving Early

Inspired by a post on a blog I've occasioned, I was reminded about a story I once wrote. Of course it involves baseball. All my stories involve baseball. Also, it's a particularly good time to write about baseball as the Red Sox are playing some outstanding baseball right now.

Remember my first ever 'live blog'? Well, if you get through it you get to the point where we attend the Red Sox game in the pouring rain (and also what humorous events happened to us at the game which were even funnier in lieu of everything that happened that horrible, no good, very bad day). One of the things I love about my wife is she gets me. Completely and, sometimes, inconceivably. Despite the rain, despite the events of the day, she did not once consider or broach the idea that we should leave the game early. And more than that -- and this is why I love her -- she did not want to leave the game early.

You don't leave a baseball game early. Especially if it's the Red Sox. Especially if it's at Fenway. It is my belief that those people, and there are many of you who choose to leave, for good or for lame reasons, a baseball game before the final out, are the same sort of people who would leave church in the middle of the altar call (Been reading Faulkner, sorry about that sentence).

The altar call is the whole point (usually, but it doesn't have to be) of the sermon and church on the whole. Staying for the final out is the whole point of going to a game. Only then is the final outcome determined. Only then is the victor the victor and the loser the loser. And that's what you go to games for. For one team to win and another to lose. Sure, things may not change between the time you leave your seat and that final out. But the whole point is that they can change and so you need to stay.

My brother and some friends once attended a Red Sox game at Fenway. It was a few years ago and it was a night game in the middle of the summer. Well, like any fan going to a game's dream, it went into extra innings. Around the 14th they made an announcement that the last train was leaving at a certain time readily approaching. That train would have taken them across the city to where they had parked. Sara, one of the friends at the game, as street savvy as she is in Boston, said she knew how to walk the two dozen city blocks so they could stay. They put it to a vote. It was unanimous. They stayed.

In the bottom of the 18th the Red Sox won it on a Shea Hillenbrand home run. And they walked back. He still tells that story.

What story can you tell if you left early.

On The Pilgrims

So I finished "The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage" by Paul Elie. In truth, it was a well-written and extremely challenging book. As I said before, the book examined the lives of four Catholic writers in the 40s and 50s. It looked at their lives, their writing, their beliefs and how they incorporated it all. It looked at their "predicament shared in common" to quote Percy.

Dorothy Day
Founder of the Catholic Worker. A poverty movement that provided homes and food for the poor. Amazingly, she herself took the same vow of poverty. Donating all of her profits from her books to the organization. Very much a peacenik she protested the wars believing it didn't jive with the commandment to "love thine enemy". She was someone who's writing I didn't care for but her actions spoke much louder.

Thomas Merton
Became a monk at age 27 and spent almost 30 years in a Kentucky Trappist monastery. Wrote "Seven Storey Mountain" which became an international best seller. It was his spiritual autobiography. I enjoyed his writing, but he was too much of a contemplative for me, a little too much of a recluse. But he was firm in what he believed and his writing reflected that.

Flannery O'Connor
Easily my favorite of them all, perhaps because she was the author I was most familiar with, perhaps because she may have actually been the best author of them all. I've already mentioned her works several times in this blog. I offer another assessment: In talking with a friend we both feel that her writing doesn't strike you right away, but "Everything in it stands for something and you only find out what it stands for after you've left the book and the events sort of explode in your mind." She's a remarkable writer.

Walker Percy
Led a very mundane sort of life, honestly. Trained as a doctor he abandoned it all to write. At first his writing reflected to much of the philosophy he had taught himself and was quite cumbersome. Then he became a writer with the Moviegoer, next on my list of books to read I think. I am intrigued by his writing, for his approach and the challenges he faced with writing mirror my own in many ways. I'm always trying to be philosophical or have my characters be philosophical. I've yet to cross the bridge he eventually did. He was an interesting writer. And I like his "holiness of the ordinary" idea. Expect a post on that soon.

In conclusion, all these people, these writers, were Catholic. They weren't perfect people by their Church's standard either: Day had an abortion, Merton had an affair, O'Connor may have been racist. They knew quite well about grace. And so did their characters. And as Christians, they didn't make Christian art, they made good art. And I liked that about them.

On Telling A Story

So for the past two months I've been working on completing my application to grad schools. It was long, drawn out and exhaustive process, one that required me to turn out 20 - 40 pages of original material and a 10 page critical essay on a novel. This was no easy task, but one that has finally come to end save for a trip to the Post Office. And then I'm taking a week off from writing and from work -- sorry, that includes the blog.

I've found it is a very difficult thing to tell a story. The challenge for me in writing stories is tone and pace. I've found that I'm a great dialogue writer -- probably because I've been a news writer for like 8 years and put words in people's mouths. On the details, hmm...not so much.

So I've been telling a lot of stories lately -- stories you'll never read. Stories I won't publish here. But I will mention the plots:

1. A story about a man answering an ad for a new roommate. Two of the roommates are brother and sister, the later becomes an interest at first sight to the man. The third roommate is invisible -- like an invisible friend from childhood that the siblings never grew out of.

2. A conversation with God. Really, it's just a conversation between a medical student who just killed a patient and this beautiful woman over a morning's sunrise. There's a lot of dialogue here which played to my strength. I also borrow heavily from G.K. Chesterton.

3. The adventures of my grandfather. A fiction tale of me interviewing my grandfather and him telling me about his military exploits. It's based on the tales he actually has told me throughout my life. The only part, however, I submitted for the application is a write-up of me telling the story of our first meeting for the "book" I was supposedly writing. He talks a lot about the Cardinals.

Anyway, these are the stories I've decided to tell. And as far as telling a story goes, well, "if you want a man to know the truth, tell him; if you want a man to love the truth, tell him a story."

I only wish I knew who said that.

This Here's A Story

At that concert the other night I heard a very philosophical quote -- well, philosophical in the way I see things as philosophical (read: more imaginative than anything else):

If you want a man to know the truth: tell him. If you want a man to love the truth: tell him a story.

It's an interesting quote, one with more than a kernel of truth. Simple statements of fact do little to influence lives. The telling of stories is an antediluvian way to pass on truth. Sometimes we don't have time for stories and that's unfortunate: "Just the facts, ma'am". But it's stories that change how we live and how we view the world around us, whether the stories are true or not. There is something transcendent in a simple story.

So when I think of the telling of stories I think of them like I think of bed-time stories. In fact, that's one thing I'm excited about doing with my kids -- the making up and telling of stories. Stories tuck us in when we hear them, even if they're upsetting stories -- we're glad we heard them.

My uncle, when he would call us as kids, would always ask us for stories ("fish stories" he called them, ironic because he would always call from sea).

I never had one. Perhaps I've got a few now. Perhaps I don't.

A Narrative In Concert

There is something about a song that I have never been quite able to nail down. Something that has always echoed somewhere deep inside.

Tonight, I attended a concert. Two of my favorite musicians, Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken, were playing. Their role in the concert was brief, but their music, as always, was powerful. The majority of the concert revolved around another musician Andrew Peterson and a CD he made a few years back entitled Behold The Lamb.

I've been to many Christmas events. This was unlike any other. I have seen the "greatest story ever told" acted out. I have participated in more than a few of those reenactments. I have listened many Christmas' in church, and on Christmas Eve at home, to it being read aloud. I have heard many cantatas. I have participated in a few as well. But, I don't think I have ever heard it in song.

This is a difference that is clear to me, but perhaps not to you. By song, I mean to suggest a poem set to music. Cantatas are wonderful, but they are typically too stiff for me. It's not lyrical enough -- it's too musical...too polished. But the Christmas story in song....well...there's an idea.

Tonight was just that. But it wasn't just a poem. It was an epoch poem. The entire course of the Old Testament, Intertestimental Period and the "fullness of time" was represented in uninterrupted music. No talking. Just the playing of instruments and the lyrical singing of voices.

And then it hit me, why songs echo within me.

Songs have this uncanny ability to tell a story. And, frankly, there is no better story to tell in song.