Continuing the search

Some seek adventure, a sort of wonder-lust as the popular term goes ( or is it wander-lust). Some seek a spiritual high, a sense of life, connection, peace. They go from one religion to another, changing to suit their needs, restlessly seeking a home, a resting place. Most, I think, seek to fill an emptiness, with things, or experiences, or points of pride, to drowned out a truth that is waiting in that silence on the mountain top or echoing Cathedral. I started seeking to fill, but now I see to seek to be empty, or rather poured out, is the way to be consoled. You become a fountain for God, a fountain for Love. You are not the water. But you cannot be a fountain unless you pour out all the water that you have. Whatever you give, more will be given to you, for the God is the water of everlasting life and you are his vessel.

This idea of blessed emptiness has been developing over a long time. It is only now that I am hearing others speak of it.

The catechism of the Catholic Church says "Seek in reading and you will find in meditating" (number 2654) in this I have been blessed. I have always been drawn to study and reflection. I have heard of those who will only believe what someone can convince them of face-to-face. I pray for these people, for few of them seek. For me books have been my pathways, my journey to sort out the troubled thoughts and feelings and begin to live in peace. One book is The Mystery of Art: Becoming an Artist in the Image of God by Jonathan Jackson.

I am here in front of one of my stuffed Billy book cases sitting Indian style, my laptop tottering on the top of a cardboard file box, typing away. Such is the life of an ambitious reader and writer in a little urban tree house of an apartment who has read (maybe) a fourth of her library and who has only posted a handful of times over the last five years on her personal blog. Over the last month or so I have been making an effort to increase my reading and consequent reflections in writing. Here are some of the results.

I can never pick up one book at a time. Reading books like a kid in candy store, I can’t help but try several at once. I have stacks of books on all surfaces, organized by relevance to what I have my mind on this week. There is a pile of art and drawing on the coffee table. On the dining table there is a stack of sewing magazines and a variety of spiritual and practical books, and on the long wall shelf a tower of Medieval literature and architecture (I am holding off on that one). Currently, there are three books that take turns accompanying me where ever I go.
There is a copy of The Paris Review Interviews Vol. I, a gift from my godfather I have been reading with relish over many months. The front is now a pasty yellow, the back is still its original taxi bright hue, and the pages are full of pencil lines and margin notes and the occasional bit of sand from our summer’s one beach trip.

The second is Beauty for Truth’s Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott. Anyone worn out by academia and it’s seemingly banal and singular goal of handing out certificates to students who have checked every class-to-take off their list, please get a copy. It is a refreshing book for those who love to learn but find some unease in voicing your dissatisfaction in modern education. This book explains why there is such an unease and dissatisfaction and gives examples of the beauty that is missing and how to look for it.

Lastly, a lucky find at my beloved Half-Price, is Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World by Claudia Roth Pierpont. Unusually, this one I am reading without any other recommendations other than that the subject is interesting and the first pages read well. This is unusual, I am rather wary of current female writers, having disliked the prose of most of them I have perused at Barnes and Nobles. I have only just finished the first chapter reviewing the life of Olive Schreiner and her major work African Farm. I have been pleasantly surprised by the fair critiques of this biographer and her balanced review of Schreiner and her influence. She wrote this of Schreiner, which I put in my commonplace book: “She knew that she suffered the ills and dissatisfaction of a “transitory condition,” her own and her society’s and she consoled herself with Browning’s “What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me.”

Somehow I feel we are in a transitory time in history, which feels at once stalled and also renewing and growing. I think of Augustine’s time like this. (Today is his feast day) Yes, he lived shortly before the fall of the Roman Empire, the archetype of all subsequent decaying of society. Is society declining now? I would say yes. Why? I think it is partly because we are denying the basic structure of human reality, that men are male and women are female, that the human race is continued by the union of a man and women which brings forth children by procreative act and rears them in a safe, nourishing and balanced environment. With the practice of contraception and abortion, the frequency of divorce, the increase of fornication and resulting abundance of bastard children, (to name a few) mankind has withered into a self-centered self-abusive voyeuristic wreck. Being a woman, I am going to do the part of laying the blame on my sisters and myself. We are part of this Self-centered shit hole of a society. Why? Well, in my reading I hope to muse on this issue and find a solution. Why are women a problem to society? How can they be a positive movement towards the renewal of human prosperity? What can one American woman do to change her world? I am going to try to find out.

This is what I drew as I listened to a friend read this article. Read it. What do you think of?

THE ARTICLE

We Have an Artist's Life

Here are some thoughts on another movie. I don't remember seeing it before, but I have known of it for some time, being always interested in an old movie and a true story. Lust for Life, the 1956, Movie story of the life and passion of the painter Vincent Van Gogh, starring Kirk Douglas. Van Gogh is perhaps the most recognizable artist from his work. I remember being by a copy of his Starry Night, when a boy came up to me pointed, and asked, "That's Starry Night by Van Gogh, isn't it?". I gave him a glad yes, and he smiled back and walked on. At that moment I was very glad the schools were teaching art history enough for that boy to know at least one painter's name. Perhaps, what is not well known of Van Gogh, is that he was the son of a minister and wanted himself to be a evangelist of the Word. The movie depicts a man too full of his passions and longings to be woven into the more common patterns of society. In his work he sought to give something beautiful and significant to mankind. He had no success with his paintings during his lifetime which gave him assurance of his skill and vision, yet evidence of his spirit and perseverance is exhibited around the world and is enjoyed not simply by the world of art, but by the community's of the common man. I saw Starry night at my museum, a small thing compared to the large posters sold everywhere, yet it was as lively and vivid and alive as ever. I have also seen other landscapes of his and sketches,in real life and in reproduced in those big coffee table books. You can tell he had to work for that style which is so recognizable. From those big books I've read that it was many years before he developed his own style, in between were years of constant practice, and hundreds of sketches and paintings. As my art teacher as Glassel impressed upon us: we should draw a hundred drawings a day, by always observing, working to grasp the distance and bulk and consistency of the things we see. As in all great things, art is a habit to be mastered, the skill with a pencil or a pen, use of them and your eyes over and over again, till every form is ingrained in the motion of your hand. In psychology 101, we students learned that muscle memory is the last part of our memory to go, that is why a person with Alzheimer's can still tie their shoes and knit, even if everything else once familiar has slipped away from them. I believe there is also something medicinal in physical habits. Hobbies and pastimes as simple as knowing how to work and use a camera or picking out a becoming ensemble to wear each day can enrich and enliven ones life considerably even if that life is basic and repetitive or even uncertain and used to mishap. Van Gogh was a lonely man, he wanted companionship which is the highest form of friendly flattery and perhaps the most basic sign of love. The continual process of painting I believe was a comfort to him, and a pain,.. as lonely occupations can be. We might be in a work place, a home, a society full of people but if no one recognizes a person, a person with a soul and a voice, even if spoken in color stroke by stroke, then I think we are all alone. See the person next to you. In your next crowded and free moment take a breath and open your ears your heart, and your mind.

I am sitting here on the floor watching “A Little Romance”. I hardly recognized Sir. Laurence Oliver in the part of the old man, but he is as endearing and as charming as ever. The story is simple, boy meets girl, and the two runaway on a trip to Venice, Italy, with the help of a friend, an old man. Though familiar enough the plot doesn’t have to be any captivating; it is the characters, the boy and girl who keep me watching. Like any Fairytale like story it is not really the ending but the truth of the characters that win a place in our memory. She prefers philosophy books to watching her mother faun over the skills of a young director as he works on a scene. The boy is smart, he is a movie go-er, he also reads books that are not assigned in school. You know these are kindred spirits. At first meeting they trust each other, they talk of how improbable such a meeting is, how they thought there soul-mate could have been in another time or another part of the world, they know, as odd and intelligent as they are, they are lucky to have found one another. Of course, I can’t help but get a little teary-eyed, because this is my fairy tale. I have always felt myself to be the Mary Bennet, the Hermione Granger, the Diane Chambers, the girl who shoots for the stars and talks about everything, and knows she’s the one whose a little outside the loop. A lot of girls must relate to that, I think. The character appears in stories over and over again Anyway, A Little Romance is a movie to watch on a sentimental afternoon, or a rainy day off of work.

Another Year

For every Winter there's a Spring-

Oh, that's the beauty of the thing!

For ev'ry midnight there's a morn,

For ev'ry loss a hope is born,

For ev'ry sultry day the dew,

For ev'ry old year there's a new!


Yes, buds for all the leaves that fall-

That is the beauty of it all.

New dreams for all the dreams that die,

For ev'ry night a dawning sky-

For ev'ry heartache, failure, fear,

Another chance, another year!

-Douglas Malloch

spontaneous curiosity

Man is not all mind, is God?