The Democratic Contention

The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analagous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analagous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly.

-G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Be With You

And when my body lies in the ruins
Of the lies that nearly ruined me
Will You pick up the pieces
That were pure and true
And breathe Your life into them
And set them free

And when You blast this cosmos
To kingdom come
When those jagged-edged mountains
I love are gone
When the sky is crossed with the tears
Of a thousand falling suns
As they crash into the sea
Can I be with you
Can I be with you

-Rich Mullins

A Song of Paradise

SING a song of Paradise
Far above the skies—
Four-and-twenty Elders
And Monsters full of eyes!
Heaven’s gates are opened,
They all begin to sing,
Playing ball with golden crowns
Round about the King.

The King is in His counting-house,
Counting His elect,
The Queen comes from her chamber
Royally bedecked
With chrysoprase and amethyst
And jacinth without price…
Now is not this a pretty song
To sing of Paradise?

-Dorothy Sayers

To State the Obvious

Taking as divine inspiration, as a flash of originality, something that is obvious reveals a certain freshness of spirit, an enthusiasm for life and its unpredictability, a love of ideas--small as they may be. I will always remember my first meeting with that great man Erving Goffman, whom I admired and loved for the genius and penetration with which he could identify infinitesimal aspects of behavior that had previously eluded everyone else. We were sitting at an outdoor cafe when, looking at the street after a while, he said, "You know something? I believe there are too many automobiles in circulation in our cities." Maybe he had never thought this before because he had had far more important things to think about; he had just had a sudden epiphany and still had the mental freshness to express it...

-Umberto Eco, How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays

Be Thou My Vision

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, and I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High king of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High king of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.

Two's Company...

Lamb says somewhere that if, of three friends (A, B, and C), A should die, then B loses not only A but "A's part in C," while C loses not only A but "A's part in B." In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his faces. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald's reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him "to myself" now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth...

-C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Not Entirely Beautful

Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful

-W. B. Yeats, "A Prayer for My Daughter" (Quoted by Buechner in Telling Secrets)

Il Faut Souffrir Pour Etre Belle

To be born as blonde and blue-eyed and beautiful as [my mother] was can be as much of a handicap in its way as to be born with a cleft palate because if you are beautiful enough you don't really have to make people love you and want to be near you. You don't have to be particularly kind or unselfish or generous or compassionate because people will flock around you anyway simply for the sake of your beaux yeux.

-Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Raisins

They used to be fat and juicy and now they're twisted. They had their lives stolen. Well, they taste sweet, but really they're just humiliated grapes. I can't say I am a big supporter of the raisin council.

-Benny & Joon

What Susan Said

Two lonely-eyed boys in a pick-up truck
And they're drivin' through the rain and the heat
And their skin's so sweaty they both get stuck
To the old black vinyl seats
And it's Abbott and Costello meet Paul and Silas
It's the two of us together and we're puttin' on the mileage

And we both feel lost
But I remember what Susan said
How love is found in the things we've given up
More than in the things that we have kept
And ain't it funny what people say
And ain't it funny what people write
And ain't it funny how it hits you so hard
In the middle of the night
And if your home is just another place where you're a stranger
And far away is just somewhere you've never been
I hope that you'll remember, I was your friend

Two full grown men in a huddle of kids
And they're trying to help them to believe
What is too good to be real
But is more real than the air they breathe
And it's Wally and the Beaver, David and Jonathan
It's the Love of Jesus puttin' on flesh and bone

(Repeat chorus)

-Rich Mullins

Hebrews 11:13-14

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

Strangers and Aliens

We weren't born yesterday. We are from Missouri.

But we are also from somewhere else. We are from Oz, from Looking-Glass Land, from Narnia, and from Middle Earth. If with part of ourselves we are men and women of the world and share the sad unbeliefs of the world, with a deeper part still, the part where our best dreams come from, it is as if we were indeed born yesterday, or almost yesterday, because we are also all of us children still...

-Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale

What is it you do, Mr. Dowd?

Well Harvey and I sit in the bars, and have a drink or two, play the juke box. And soon the faces of all the other people, they turn toward mine and they smile. And they’re saying, “We don’t know your name, mister, but you’re a very nice fella.”

Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We’ve entered as strangers. Soon we have friends. And they come over and they sit with us, and they drink with us, and they talk to us. They tell about the big, terrible things they’ve done, and the wonderful things they’ll do. Their hopes, and their regrets, their loves, and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar.

And then, I introduce them to Harvey. And he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed.

The same people seldom come back. But that’s envy my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us. That’s too bad, isn’t it.

-Mary Chase, Harvey

My Friends

My friends ain't the way I wish they were, they are just the way they are.

-Rich Mullins, "Brother's Keeper"

Christian Community

The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams...Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

The Game of Questions

R: We could play at questions.
G: What good would that do?
R: Practice!
G: Statement! One—love.
R: Cheating!
G: How?
R: I hadn’t started yet.
G: Statement. Two—love.
R: Are you counting that?
G: What?
R: Are you counting that?
G: Foul! No repetitions. Three—love. First game to…
R: I’m not going to play if you’re going to be like that.
G: Whose serve?
R: Hah?
G: Foul! No grunts. Love—one.
R: Whose go?
G: Why?
R: Why not?
G: What for?
R: Foul! No synonyms. One—all.
G: What in God’s name is going on?
R: Foul! No rhetoric. Two—one.
G: What does it all add up to?
R: Can’t you guess?
G: Were you addressing me?
R: Is there anyone else?
G: Who?
R: How would I know?
G: Why do you ask?
R: Are you serious?
G: Was that rhetoric?
R: No.
G: Statement! Two—all. Game point.
R: What’s the matter with you today?
G: When?
R: What?
G: Are you deaf?
R: Am I dead?
G: Yes or no?
R: Is there a choice?
G: Is there a God?
R: Foul! No non sequiturs, three—two, one game all.
G (seriously): What’s your name?
R: What’s yours?
G: I asked you first.
R: Statement. One—love.
G: What’s your name when you’re at home?
R: What’s yours?
G: When I’m at home?
R: Is it different at home?
G: What home?
R: Haven’t you got one?
G: Why do you ask?
R: What are you driving at?
G (with emphasis): What’s your name?!
R: Repetition. Two—love. Match point to me.
G (seizing him violently): WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
R: Rhetoric! Game and match!

-Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Making Friends

I already know an awful lot of people, and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else.

-Regina Lampert (played by Audrey Hepburn) in Charade

Good Manners

Curtsy while you're thinking what to say, it saves time.

-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Incarnational Art

The Manicheans separated spirit and matter. To them all material things were evil. They sought pure spirit and tried to approach the infinite directly without any mediation of matter. This is also pretty much the modern spirit, and for the sensibility infected with it, fiction is hard if not impossible to write because fiction is so very much an incarnational art.

One of the most common and saddest spectacles is that of a person of really fine sensibility and acute psychological perception trying to write fiction by using these qualities alone. This type of writer will put down one intensely emotional or keenly perceptive sentence after the other, and the result will be complete dullness. The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you.

-Flannery O'Connor, "The Nature and Aim of Fiction"

Freaks

Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological. That is a large statement, and it is dangerous to make it, for almost anything you say about Southern belief can be denied in the next breath with equal propriety. But approaching the subject from the standpoint of the writer, I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn't convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God. Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. They cast strange shadows, particularly in our literature. In any case, it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.

-Flannery O'Connor, "The Grotesque in Southern Fiction"