What Athol Wrote...

The Worst List of All Time
Wednesday, January 19, 2011

I found something disturbing recently while looking for ways to promote The Opposite of Art. It’s a list over at GoodReads, called “The Worst Books of All Time.” In the top (bottom?) 50 titles or so, I found books like: To Kill a Mockingbird, Billy Budd, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Red Badge of Courage, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Forest Gump, Fahrenheit 451, Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Pearl. As a novelist and as a Christian, that list saddens me.

While discussing it with some fellow novelists, one said many books by Christians are poorly written. She then felt the need to qualify her statement by affirming that she thinks there are lots of well-written novels by Christians. Probably she didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and that's laudable, but it seems to me she had it right the first time.

It’s true many novels by Christians are poorly written. That's also true of many other kinds of novels. In fact it’s true of most novels of every kind, but its not a particular indictment of mediocre writers or the readers who enable them. Most people don't really care about excellence in architecture, sculpture, painting, or dance . . . or government, commerce, marriage, or anything else in life that ought to matter.

What interests me, is why. In our discussion about the “Worst Books” list, some of my author friends speculated that so many people dislike those novels because they were forced to read them in school and disliked them then. But these books truly are works of genius—most of them are, anyway—so why didn't we love them in the first place?

The answer has to do with what it means to live in a fallen world. As creatures made in the Creator's image, we were designed to use our gifts to their utmost, and to savor excellence in our neighbor's use of their gifts. It's impossible to imagine the words "good enough" being spoken in the Garden before the Fall. But we did fall, and one of the things we lost was our ability to throw ourselves into living with complete abandon. "Good is the enemy of great," as Jim Collins wrote (paraphrasing Voltaire). Thus, in settling for good enough, we have rampant mediocrity in the world.

Another thing we abandoned in the Fall was our ability to perceive the true extent of what we've lost. So when expediency and ego dilute the full potential of even our best writers and artists, the audience, being also lost, doesn't know enough to care. Therefore they applaud what little they can get, and their applause rewards mediocrity. This in turn inspires the production of more mediocrity, and the cycle builds more and more support for itself until mediocrity seems normal, or even (God forbid) good, and because that lie has become pervasive, the truth is difficult for even Christians to remember. Thus we have rampant mediocrity even in the church.

The faithful Christian's life will always include a sense of resisting mediocrity at every turn. It's a command and a duty. "Whatever you do, do it will all your heart, as if for the Lord and not for men." (Col 3:23) It's no coincidence that this command includes the same requirement for wholeheartedness as the Greatest Command of all, to "love the Lord your God with all your heart...."

How can we love the Lord with all our heart? By living every part of life with all our heart. By not settling. By always striving to improve. In other words, as with all of His commands, the Creator simply wants us to live (write, marry, work, etc.) as we were originally created to live...with complete abandonment to what we truly are, which will reveal itself in the constant exercise of excellence in all our gifts.

Don't believe the lie of "good enough." You're so much better than that. Strive for excellence in everything you do, including what you write and what you read.

Live with all your heart.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 8:51 AM 5 comments  

Labels: Other People's Novels, The Jesus Way, Writing

Weigh the Soul
Saturday, January 8, 2011

2011 marks the one hundredth anniversary of Dr. Duncan MacDougall’s experimental attempt to prove that we have souls. His results? We do, and they weigh precisely 21 grams.

Color me skeptical.

Whether or not one believes the doctor’s results, the idea of weighing one’s soul in the balance is a good thing to ponder at the start of a new year. But while Dr. MacDougall focused on the weighing, I’m more focused on the balance. Consider Psalms 139:4-6:

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. (NIV)

At first I thought this was just a run-of-the-mill Biblical a statement about God’s omniscience. Then, considering it more carefully, I realized there’s something surprising being said here about...me.

I expect an omniscient God to know everything about me, including the instincts—the deepest, inmost urges and forces—which inspire even the words I use to think. What I didn’t expect, is the Psalmist’s insistence that I cannot know myself on that instinctive level because “such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

In short: there are things about my mind that my own mind simply cannot know.

What a paradox. And what a dilemma, because if I cannot know myself on the most fundamental of levels—the pre-thought level that inspires all thought—how can I improve myself fundamentally?

If you’re skeptical that this is really true; if you believe you can learn to understand your own instincts, consider this, from Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos:

Can you explain why it is that there are, at last count, sixteen schools of psychotherapy with sixteen different theories of the personality and its disorders and that patients treated in one school seem to do as well or as badly as patients treated in any other—while there is only one generally accepted theory of the cause and cure of pneumococcal pneumonia and only one generally accepted theory of the orbits of the planets and the gravitational attraction of our galaxy and the galaxy M31 in Andromeda? (Hint: if you answer that the human psyche is more complicated than the pneumococcus and the human white-cell response or the galaxies of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, keep in mind the burden of proof is on you. Or if you answer that the study of the human psyche is in its infancy, remember that this infancy has lasted 2,500 years and, unlike physics, we don’t seem to know much more about the psyche than Plato did.)

In other words: if you really believe you can understand your own instincts, then you’re going to have to explain why science has a better understanding of galaxies a billion miles away, than it has about the nature of the human psyche.

This speaks to the fundamental problem with the human condition, the thing that causes every kind of bad behavior from genocide to snarky comebacks: when a temptation to do the wrong thing comes, I may be able to manage my response, but before willpower or self-discipline has time to kick in, I still have a visceral reaction—a pre-response response if you will—that I cannot control. And I will never be able to control it.

The reason my instinct is beyond control is obvious when I think how it works in real life. Suppose someone treats me rudely. I may be able to grin and bear it. I may even—with many years of practice—be able to turn the other cheek. But my most basic response to a rude person, the thing which inspires the thoughts I’m forced to try to manage with willpower and discipline, is still just as ugly as his rudeness and I have no idea why.

This is why Jesus said, "There is only One who is good." None of us is "good" on this deepest, pre-thought level. Yet I don’t want to have those kinds of instincts. Who in his right mind would?

Imagine instead if that very first reaction before a word was even on my tongue, was to love. How would it be to encounter someone’s rudeness and instinctively think, “What a sad, unhappy person he must be. I have to find a way to help him.” There would be no need to struggle for self-control, no need for constant vigilance, for the exhausting, joyless maintenance of willpower and discipline which are always on the verge of breaking down to expose the underlying instincts I so desperately want to hide. If love was the thing that inspired words before they were upon my tongue, then I could simply do the natural thing in every situation, knowing it’s the right and healthy course of action. What freedom that would be!

So, I read that Psalm and came to this idea, and as so often happens, as soon as it occurred to me I sensed it had has been loitering in the antechamber of my brain for quite a while, waiting to come in. Because of course now that I think of it this way, I realize this disconnect between my desire to love and my base instincts is exactly what Jesus came to earth to change.

Again and again, in dozens of ways, he tried to help us understand the problem:

“...unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) NIV

“...no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3) NIV

“...whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) NIV

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus deliberately chose humanly impossible metaphors? How could I become like a little child at my age? How could I go even further back and be born a second time? How could I find my own life after losing it? Such things are beyond me. In fact, (surprise, surprise) it turns out the solution to this problem, as Jesus has proposed it, can be described in the same words used by the Psalmist to describe the problem in the first place. Both the problem and solution are “too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

This is where balance comes back in.

On one side, I can know part of the truth about my inner self, but never everything. On the other side, I can know part of the truth about God, but never everything. If pride presumes (pretends) to know it all in either case, the scales tip out of balance. But if humility prevails, and I admit my limitations in both cases, balance is achieved. In that case, by the grace made possible through Jesus, the Holy Spirit can begin to change my deepest instinct into the perfect love that God wants it to be.

I sense this happening in me. It’s far from complete. It never will be finished in this life, but it is happening, and it is wonderful, and how I long to keep what can be known, and what cannot be known, in balance so the change will continue in the coming year.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:22 AM 3 comments  

Labels: The Jesus Way

Peace On A Troubled Earth
Friday, December 24, 2010

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:8-14)

Peace is a fitting topic for the Advent season, because the angels’ Christmas announcement was, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace....” But this is often the least peaceful time of year, even for a Christian. As Christmas approaches our thoughts can turn to loved ones who are distant or departed, and that can make it difficult to find “peace on earth.” Surely God knew this would be the case, so what did His angels mean by “peace on earth,” exactly?

Most of us know the Hebrew word for peace is shalom, of course. In Greek, it’s eirene. In both languages of the Bible the meaning of peace is much more than a simple feeling of tranquility, or the absence of war. Theologians say the Biblical ideas of shalom and eirene can be defined as wholeness, or completeness. Also honor. Integrity. Community. Righteousness and justice, maintaining healthy relationships, living out the golden rule, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

But is all of that what the angels meant by “peace on earth”?

On that first Christmas Eve, Israel and most of the western world groaned under brutal Roman oppression. Between twenty and thirty percent of the people in Europe and around the Mediterranean were enslaved. Public entertainment involved fights to the death in coliseums. The government had people beaten, stripped naked and nailed to crosses where they were left to die of exposure, asphyxiation and dehydration. Forty years after Jesus was himself nailed to a cross, all of Jerusalem was leveled by the Romans, and the Jewish people were enslaved and scattered throughout the world. The so-called Pax Romana was nothing but peace by the sword.

So much for wholeness and completeness and integrity and honor and righteousness and community and the golden rule and loving your neighbor as yourself. So much for peace by any earthly definition, really. Jesus himself said, “In this world you will have trouble,” and he said, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”

But still, on that first Christmas Eve, the angels did say, “Peace on earth.”

It’s understandable that so many unbelievers think the angels got it wrong. But you know, words have meaning, and we really need to stop and think about the words these angels used.

Did they say the world was at peace?

No.

Did they promise the earth would be at peace?

No.

Their exact words were, “Peace on earth,” and they were angels after all, so we can assume they said exactly what they meant. When they appeared to those shepherds saying, “Peace on the earth,” they meant peace had arrived on the earth, right then, right there, and the shepherd could find peace if they wanted to, lying in a manger.

To fully understand this, we must ask, “Who and what is Jesus Christ?” People compare him to Confucius or Buddha or Muhammad, as if he was a wise teacher, a religious leader, or a holy prophet, but none of that is accurate. Consider what Jesus said about himself:

Jesus didn’t say “I know the way.” He said, “I am the way.”

Jesus didn’t say “I’ll tell you the truth.” He said, “I am the truth.”

Jesus didn’t say “I’ll teach you how to live.” He said, “I am the life.”

So when the angels appeared to the shepherds saying, “Peace on earth,” they didn’t mean Jesus had arrived to teach us about peace, or to lead us into peace. When they said, “Peace on earth,” they meant Jesus has arrived. Period. “Peace on earth” was just another way of saying, “Jesus is on earth,” because Jesus Christ is Peace.

You can find this all throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, Micah said the Messiah would be our peace (5:5). Isaiah called him the “Prince of Peace” in a scripture we hear put to glorious music every Christmas in Handel’s Messiah (9:6). And writing about Jesus in Ephesians, Paul said “He himself is our peace.” (2:14)

This means when we talk about the ideas of shalom and eirene, we’re really talking about Jesus, and that adds a whole new dimension to Jesus’ own teaching on the subject of peace. For example, in the Gospel of John, on the night of his arrest, when Jesus tells the apostles how they can have peace he doesn’t give them a philosophy to follow, or a religion to practice, or a ten step process, or any kind of a to-do list at all.

Instead, Jesus simply says “Abide in me,” or “Remain in me,” and then he says, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace” (16:33).

Jesus doesn’t offer a kind of peace, or a way to peace. Jesus Christ is peace, period. So it makes perfect sense that authentic peace is only found in Jesus. The way to be at peace is very simple. Abide in Jesus. Remain in Jesus. In Jesus you’ll have peace.

Maybe for you that doesn’t sound so simple. Maybe talk of being “in” Jesus sounds too vague and mystical for you. Fair enough. If you’re the practical kind, try thinking about it this way: you may not understand how it’s possible to be in Jesus Christ, but you do understand how a person can be in love, right? Well, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, is deeply in love with you, so the way to be at peace is to simply love him back. Be in love with Jesus, and you will be at peace.

Being at peace really is that easy, and that hard. It’s hard, because you can search the whole wide world and you won’t find peace on your own. It’s easy, because peace a free gift. Jesus said so himself, many times. He said, “God loved the world so much he gave his only son, so that anyone who believes in him would have eternal life.” And since Jesus Christ is peace, “God gave his only son” is just another way of saying God gave peace. It’s a gift. All you have to do—all you can do, if you want to be at peace—is accept the gift of peace.

Even Christians can forget this sometimes. Even Christians sometimes need to be reminded that you can’t be at peace by figuring things out. You can’t be at peace by being good. You can’t buy peace with money. The pastors at your church can’t give you peace, and you won’t find peace in your friends or family. And this is very important: you might be alone in life; you might be sick; you might have no money and no job, but whatever kind of problem you’re facing today, the solution to your problems will not give you lasting peace. After these problems will always come more problems, because we don’t live on a peaceful earth, so while a solution to your problems might be wonderful, what you need even more is the kind of peace that makes it possible to face your problems peacefully. You need peace with God, just like the familiar Christmas carol promises:

Hark! The herald angels sing.
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled.”

This carol stands the test of time because it get things right. “Peace on earth” is about God and sinners reconciled, not about a peaceful earth. To the world, hanging on a cross is the opposite of peace on earth, but peace between God and us is only possible because Jesus Christ became that peace by hanging on a cross in place of you and me.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” What irony! You can pay a horrible cost in blood, sweat and tears for worldly peace, but it can vanish in an instant. Or you can simply accept the peace Jesus wants to give, and it will last forever.

Jesus went on to say, “I do not give to you as the world gives.” Because Jesus Christ is peace, he gives a different kind of peace, a peace that is all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present and eternal, a peace on earth that’s anything but earthly, as we find in yet another wise old Christmas carol everybody knows,

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright
‘round yon virgin mother and child,
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.

No matter what kind of challenge, pain or suffering you face today, you can have heavenly peace on earth right here, right now. It’s a Christmas gift for everyone. Just fall in love with Jesus.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 6:50 AM 4 comments  

Labels: The Jesus Way

The Opposite of Art, first draft
Friday, October 22, 2010

Hey, remember me? I've been gone a while. On Wednesday I sent a good first draft of THE OPPOSITE OF ART off to the editor. As always, in the final months of work on a new novel it becomes impossible to even think about keeping up with this blog. Wish I could do both, but there's only so much energy in this little brain of mine. Anyway, the hard part's over now, so I'm back.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 8:45 AM 5 comments  

Labels: The Opposite of Art

Commit Literature
Saturday, July 24, 2010

When I began writing my first novel in 1993, I made a decision that still guides my work today. I would not try to write “great literature.” I would instead content myself with a simple little story, but I would write it to the best of my ability, and work hard to improve my skills to assure that what I wrote, while no masterpiece, would at least reflect well upon my Maker. I believe the most important words a Christian can apply to any kind of work are these, which were written to slaves by a man in chains:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24) NIV

So I wrote slowly and painstakingly, carefully considering every word from many different standpoints. I sought out the opinions of intelligent acquaintances, and was never too proud to make constructive changes when suggested. Then, through a series of remarkable events (which I hope to write about one day in this column) to my very great surprise that first novel was published. But what surprised me even more was a comment made about that novel by an editor at a major newspaper. He said it “verged on committing literature.”

How strange it was to hear that word, when “literature” was the very thing I told myself I would not do.

Since those days Providence has seen fit to let me finish eight more novels, with six of those in print so far, and one memoir which may outlast them all. At the risk of seeming immodest, there have been several literary awards and many not uncomplimentary reviews, all of which when taken together have tended to imply that others see in me a puzzling habit of producing “literature.” This has caused me some confusion, for not once in all the years of writing—a million words or more—have I gone back on my original decision. Never have I consciously attempted literature.

Literature was for the academy. It was dense, impenetrable, lofty and apart. I simply wanted to tell unusual stories that might entertain readers, might enchant them through the characters and images brought to mind, and might perhaps leave them with a useful thought or two. How did that amount to literature?

For help in thinking through this question I looked to that ever-faithful writer’s servant, Webster’s. It turns out “literature” might not be the stuffy snob I once suspected. It is only “writings in prose or verse; especially: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.”

Well. That didn’t sound so bad. In fact, this was a fair description of what I expected to read in every novel worth my time. It’s what one should expect from any gifted novelist who does his best to write “with all his heart, as if working for the Lord.” Indeed, now that I think about it, this is what every novel in the Christian Fiction genre ought to be: “excellence of form or expression, and ideas of permanent or universal interest.” For what is the alternative? Mediocrity of form and expression? Unimportant and uninteresting ideas? As an inheritor of the greatest story ever told, what kind of Christian storyteller would I be if I was satisfied with that?

Since I am indeed a Christian truly serious about the faith, I have finally decided to accept this fact: whether I try to write a Transcendent Masterpiece or simply keep on trying to amuse, my underlying goal must be to “commit literature” as it is defined above. If that is not my goal, if I am satisfied with less, then I am not writing for the Lord with all my heart, and in that case I would do best to stop writing altogether and seek some other kind of work.

In exactly the same way, whether you are a home schooling mother, a scientist, an assembly line worker or a lawyer, if you are a Christian you are called to work with all your heart as if working for the Lord. No job is too mundane for that calling; no task is too trivial. Those words were first meant for slaves, remember, written to them by a man in prison. I cannot help being a writer; this gift was given without asking if I might prefer another. Similarly, a slave by definition cannot choose his work, but in following St. Paul’s admonition he can most certainly redeem it. Perhaps life has assigned you only ditches to be dug, but in the way you dig them you decide if you are making literature or pulp. Every task, from the most denigrated to the most celebrated, becomes a form of praise and worship if it’s done with all your heart as if for the Lord. That choice is always yours.

Praise the Lord with excellence in whatever work you do, and prepare to be surprised when others call it something more than you dreamed possible.



The original version of this post was was first published on July 15, 2010 at Novel Journey.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 7:28 AM 1 comments  

Labels: The Jesus Way, Writing

On Beauty III
Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Do you know what beauty is? For fifteen years now I've been trying to create it in my novels, and although the finished product never seems to measure up to what I had in mind, I think it's important to keep working toward it consciously and passionately. Not everyone agrees. In this post I wrote about the strange fact that many novelists rarely think of beauty as a goal in their work. In this one I discussed the reason why a Christian of all people ought to do exactly that, which brings me to the point: when you’re in hot pursuit of a thing, it’s important to understand exactly what that thing is.

So what is beauty, anyway?

It’s a difficult question to answer. Everyone has an opinion on how to define beauty, and our opinions vary widely. Like love or the taste of water, it seems beauty is the kind of thing one can’t quite explain. Webster’s defines it as “the quality attributed to whatever pleases or satisfies the senses or mind,” but notice this describes beauty in terms of its effect and not in terms of what it is. One simply knows beauty when one senses it, and as is often the case with intangibles, this means when we ask, “What is beauty?” it may be simpler to explain what beauty isn't. So I've compiled a little list of what beauty is not. Here goes:

"Beautiful” is not a synonym for “pretty.”

This fact is embedded in the language. While “beautiful” comes from the root noun “beauty,” there is no root noun for “pretty.” On the contrary, “pretty,” an adjective, is the root of “prettiness,” a noun. This means we can describe a thing as pretty, but pretty in itself is not a thing to be described. On the other hand, beauty requires no object. Beauty is a thing itself, and it is not necessarily pretty.

Nature offers countless examples of the difference. The perfect contours of a great white shark are easily an aesthetic match for any sculptor's masterpiece, and it moves with an effortless grace that any prima ballerina would envy. Surely “beauty” is not too strong a word to define such complete balance of form and function, but who would call that awesome predator “pretty”? Not all beautiful things are pretty, therefore the two are not the same.

Beauty is not relative to anything.

Certainly we are conditioned by our cultures to prefer one form of beauty over another in some cases. Many Japanese men think geishas are beautiful. With respect, I prefer less makeup. But that kind of disagreement exists only when we compare what we ourselves create. Everyone on earth agrees sunsets are beautiful. That fact means cultural distinctions are irrelevant when it comes to beauty found nature. Natural beauty—primal beauty—is an absolute which transcends nation, race, gender, religion, age, social mores and language. It is not relative to anything.

Beauty is not always comfortable.

Consider forest fires and lightning. Think of the summit of Mount Everest. Are they not beautiful in their own ways? Yet aren’t they also terrifying? Remember the great white shark again, or a black widow or a lion. Some beauty makes us so uncomfortable we feel the need to set ourselves apart from it. And our desire for distance from some kinds of beauty isn’t only due to danger. We were created to care for the garden. To work it. To organize it and arrange it. This explains the impulse many of us feel to make some kind of change in nature. We trim hedges. We separate flowerbeds from lawns. But what of those who take that impulse further? Who set fire to forests simply to destroy them, hunt for animals they do not eat, and fence off land they do not use? Beauty sometimes makes us sense our smallness. It reminds us we are not in control. It whispers “You are only mortal, and none of this is really yours.” Beauty is not always comfortable.

Beauty is not halfhearted.

Sometimes I fail to write beautiful words because of a momentary lack of enthusiasm, a distracted mind, or a prideful hidden agenda, but there is no pretension, no confusion, no uncertainty and no shortage of exuberance in anything of beauty found in nature. Every beautiful insentient thing from the smallest one-celled organism or slightest grain of sand to the greatest sequoia or the highest mountain is completely and sincerely what it is. Indeed, it is only when this is not true—when the purity of nature is polluted—that we call it ugly.

Similarly, no crow ever wished it was an eagle. No leopard ever wished it was a lion. Everything of beauty with a consciousness is absolutely determined to be completely what it is, everything that is, except sometimes for man.

Even man is the exception that proves the rule, for who could rightly call a man “beautiful” while he is pretentiously pretending to be something he is not? Such a man may still be lovable (it's best to love him anyway, for we are him from time to time) but it is not possible to think of him as beautiful. Beauty is not halfhearted.

Beauty is not slipshod or substandard.

As long as it lives, a mighty oak will always grow leaves in the spring. It never forgets. It never grows leaves partway, or poorly. It never makes the mistake of growing toads or daffodils, nor does it grow leaves on its roots or over in the next county. Mighty oaks are beautiful in part because they can be relied upon to do what oaks do perfectly, each and every time they do it. In the same way, doves are beautiful in part because they always sing their mournful song without missing a note. Ocean surf is beautiful in part because waves always come, one after the other, on and on with never one that fails to do its duty and surrender to the beach. All beauty in creation must fulfill the promise of itself completely. Beauty is not slipshod or substandard.

Undoubtedly there are many other things which beauty is not, but I have only time and space enough to mention one thing more:

Beauty does not exist for our entertainment.

Just as the Rocky Mountains were not raised up for snow skiing, and the Bible was not written to help readers avoid boredom, beauty may fascinate or even hold us spellbound, but that is not its purpose.

Entertainment can be pretty. It can be funny. It can be tragic. But if a moment comes when we suddenly realize a pretty painting, a funny movie, or a tragic novel has somehow become beautiful before our very eyes, we mean it has become something more than merely entertaining.

Entertainment is always inward focused. Its sole purpose is wrapped up in us, but beauty exists either with us or without us, and often, sadly, in spite of us. Think of the violent and profligate life of Caravaggio, or the egomaniacal Frank Lloyd Wright. Think of their beautiful paintings and architecture. The fact that base and selfish men can produce beauty proves that beauty is true, transcendent and sublime in and of itself, and not dependent on us whatsoever. Beauty is not about our entertainment.

But what does it mean to say beauty is true, transcendent and sublime? I could write a book to explain and add no further understanding to that statement. In the end, there's only one thing I can say in the affirmative about beauty without fear of contradiction:

Beauty is mysterious.

And it is because of this quality of mystery that beauty is most easily defined by looking elsewhere, at the negative. The loss of mystery becomes the loss of beauty.

Practically speaking, this means the best chance of finding beauty in one's work is to concentrate on avoiding all the things that it is not. To create a work of beauty, I cannot write merely pretty words, or comfortable words, or entertaining words. I cannot slavishly conform to culture. I cannot tolerate mediocre craftsmanship, and I cannot write halfheartedly.

Beauty is a mystery, so a novelist (or any kind of artist) in pursuit of beauty must never look for it directly. If we do that, we will find beauty has escaped us, much as soap bubbles pop when they are touched and flowers wilt when they are plucked. No one can define the mystery of beauty, but everybody knows it when they sense it. Indeed, beauty is a mystery so powerful it’s blinding. It’s like looking at the sun. I must gaze off to the side, to a place where beauty is not, if I hope to glimpse it as it is, for as the Source of all beauty once famously said, “You may see my glory, but no one may see my face and live.”

The original version of this essay was was first published on June 17, 2010 at Novel Journey.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 1:38 PM 5 comments  

Labels: Beauty, The Jesus Way, Writing

On Beauty II
Wednesday, June 23, 2010

It was a bad week. My last living aunt had passed away. Her name was Liz, and she was a hoot. If you’re old enough to remember Phyllis Diller or Carol Channing you’ll have a general idea of how much fun she was. I’ll miss her so. Then the next day I had lunch with a friend whose wife had just filed for divorce. My friend has a drinking problem, and his wife decided she couldn’t take it anymore. After lunch I spent time with another hurting friend whose only child was down to one last hope—an experimental therapy—to beat his cancer.

Meanwhile, I had to write 1,000 good words that day, and do it again the next day, and every other day until September if I was going to meet the deadline on my next novel.

The word count wasn’t the real problem. I’ve been at this writing game a long time. I’ve written amidst the distractions of airports, coffee shops and shopping malls. Even with all of this emotional turmoil I could probably still deliver 5,000 or even 10,000 readable words a day. But good words . . . aye, to quote the Bard, there’s the rub.

It’s tempting to lose focus and begin to wonder why I bother. In a world like this, excellence in the arts can seem like such a trivial pursuit. Indeed, never mind excellence, the reason art matters at all is sometimes questioned. With grief, loneliness, addiction, pain and fear all around us, what’s the point of literature? Why paint? Why sculpt? Why dance, or act, or sing? Why not devote oneself to something practical instead?

Near the end of the book of Job, after that unfortunate man has lost his children, his fortune and his health, after he has suffered the interminable counsel of well-meaning friends who insist he somehow brought disaster on himself, after he has come perilously close to blasphemy while demanding an accounting from his creator, after all of that, Job finally encounters God. Strangely, when God appears it is not with explanations. Job learns nothing of the reason for his suffering. He gets no answer to Rabbi Kushner’s famous question, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ Even so, in the end Job is satisfied. God appears, and Job says, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” God appears, and his appearing is enough for Job.
.
My friend Brad, a professor at a well-known college of fine art, tells me it’s been fashionable for many years in the art community to question the existence of beauty. Not to question beauty’s definition or value, understand, but to question its very existence. One person finds Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon lovely, while another person thinks it’s ugly. In the world of art theory this divergence of opinion has sometimes been taken to mean beauty is nothing but a social construct.

It is an old idea. It is the lament of Ecclesiastes. Everything is meaningless under the sun. Yet not everything, for Job saw God and that was enough.

Once I suffered from severe depression. Like Job I cursed the day of my birth. I was saved from the temptation of suicide by snowcapped mountains, golden birches, and the sparkling Milky Way. I was saved by reflections of God’s beauty.

I don’t mean to say God is beautiful. No mere adjective applies to him. St. John tells us “God is love.” God is beautiful in exactly the same way. Like love, beauty is God’s essence. Beauty does not describe God; it is the fact of God. It is his glory, his weight, the very thing the prophet Moses begged to see on Sinai.

The gospels tell a story of a woman who poured very expensive perfume on Jesus. His disciples were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor."

And what was Jesus’ reply?

"Why are you bothering this woman?” he asked. “She has done a beautiful thing . . .”

Beauty exists because God exists. To reveal beauty is to reveal God. Therefore, if our art is beautiful, if we struggle to write good words instead of merely readable ones, then sometimes, just for an instant, God appears and God’s appearing is enough. In a world of grief, loneliness, addiction, pain and fear, no act of man could be more practical than that.

The original version of this essay was first published May 20, 2010 at Novel Journey

Posted byAthol Dickson at 6:54 AM 8 comments  

Labels: Beauty, The Jesus Way, Writing