"A thing which consists of several parts, each beautiful in itself, is far more beautiful than the individual parts which, properly combined and arranged, compose the whole, even though each part, taken separately, is a thing of beauty." -- St. Augustine

"I was tired of this woeful and disheveled world, slipping slowly back into decay, as it seemed to me, with its petty but cruel wars, and all the ruin of the good and fair things there had been in my grandsires' days." -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Notion Club Papers 

Douglas Gresham on C.S. Lewis, Jesus, and Love

This is, to me, a near-perfect expression of what the Christian life should be. Perhaps it's because Mr. Gresham and I were formed in our intellectual and spiritual lives by the same man, though for me of course it was only through his books.

I note with kind amusement that, in the beginning of the interview, he says he doesn't like the term "falling in love" and disparages romantic notions; but then pay attention when he talks about meeting his wife. I understand, of course, what he's trying to say: no doubt, when he speaks of falling in love and the romantic view, he's thinking of his own story, and how his father "fell in love" with another woman and divorced his mother. And he's right, that is not real love: real love is something different (or I would say something more) than the world's notion of romantic love--it's just a matter of terminology.

He says that one of the most important things he learned from "Jack" (C.S. Lewis) is that real Christianity is shown and taught by life and example, not by preaching. And I think that's the most important thing that I've learned from him as well. As I've said before: how many more people have come to know the Love of God through Aslan and Narnia than through even the most successful preacher--say Billy Graham?

I'm very pleased to learn that the movie Shadowlands, which I otherwise dearly love, got the part wrong about his mother's death and prayer. In the movie, Jack and Douglas talk about praying to save a loved one from death, and agree, "It doesn't work." I've always been disappointed in that scene, because it is axiomatically wrong: prayer does work (though granted we're not always going to get what we want--sometimes the answer is that God's will is something different). But according to Douglas, that scene is factually wrong as well. The true story is so much more powerful and beautiful. I don't know why they changed it. My only guess is that it reflects the beliefs of the filmmaker, which can't allow for the possibility of the true version.

Here, if you like the first one, is the other half of the story: his wife, Merrie. Also beautiful, both the story and the woman. And there are a few more comments from Douglas, on his love for her, which are very touching.

Rites and Results

I had my first confession yesterday.

I had been anxious and apprehensive over this for weeks; probably not a unique experience. I'm not a terrible sinner, but still, there were some things that I was very ashamed of. As Hamlet says, "I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me." I prayed, asked the Holy Spirit to help me remember everything I needed to confess, and kept a list as things came to mind.

But it turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated. Part of it, no doubt, is that I have a good priest. But another part is that the things which I've been agonizing over, some of which I've never told any living human before, though I had confessed them to God and repented in private, just didn't sound as earth-shakingly evil as they had in my soul for all those years. In fact, as I listened to myself and looked at my list, it almost seemed trivial. Almost.

After confession, I stepped outside the church and lit my list of sins on fire, then buried the ashes on the church grounds. And I have to tell you, I feel wonderful: clean, light, and innocent. I enjoyed my reading last night more than I have in ages, like I'd recaptured that wonder and joy I had in my youth, in my early readings of Tolkien. And when I slept, my dreams were so many and so vivid that I was overwhelmed, and couldn't really remember much distinctly.

This was the second of the rites in the process of joining the Church, and both times I've felt a very real effect from them. After the Rite of Welcome, when I was received under the protection of the Church, the level of the spiritual warfare in which I've lived all my life dropped off dramatically. I don't talk a whole lot about this side of it, but the extraordinarily active spiritual life I have on the positive side has a correlation from the other side as well. I had come to accept that that was just the way it was going to be: that I would be living in a spiritual war zone for my whole life. But something has changed--like the volume has been turned way down. It's like, before, I was wandering around waging a private war, behind enemy lines; but now, I've been taken under the auspices of the U.S. Army, and have the entire might of the U.S. military on my side.

There's a psychological effect too. As you know, I've been and felt alone all my life. Especially in the area of ideology, I've experienced hate, rejection, revilement, hostility, anger, and even persecution because my beliefs and opinions are not acceptable either to the politically correct faction or the more traditional, "conservative" but secular and rationalistic faction of society. But now that I'm a member of the largest organization on Earth, I feel like I've finally found a place to belong. And especially I am very pleased to learn that, within the Church, there is an entire sub-culture of people like me, old-fashioned, traditional-minded people who love classical high culture; men who grow beards and smoke pipes, and women who wear mantillas (that is, chapel veils) in church (which I find so incredibly beautiful and admirable); who read Tolkien and Chesterton, Lewis and MacDonald, and discuss religion, literature, music, philosophy, art, and culture intelligently and sensitively.

This Sunday is the next step, and my confirmation will be on Easter, which is appropriate, as I feel like I will be starting a new life.

What Happened Last Sunday

Actually, Sunday before last, now. It took me a while to know how to say this.

I don't think I've ever been more surprised in my life than when you walked in that door the other day. Seeing you there was the very last thing I expected.

For all this time, I've been stuck. Trying different directions, wishing to go back, but never making any progress. And now I finally take a real step forward; a step in which the Lord clearly led me. And There You Are.

I don't know why you're here. I came here to move forward and go on with my life. I assume that, whatever your reason for being here, you are doing the same. The Lord led me here, and He apparently led you here too. This is amazing to me, but also scary. I don't want things to go back to how they were before. Do you?

I keep thinking of that Easter Sunday when, after our first awkward misunderstanding, you came to me and gave me that sweet hug and sweeter reconciliation.

I hope you know by now that I wish you nothing but good. I hope you believe that anything I've ever done or said which was hurtful, frightening, or confusing to you was done out of my own hurt, fear, and confusion. I hope that for these things, both those that I did but shouldn't have, and those I should have but didn't, you will forgive me.

Sanctified Suffering and the Sorrowful Mysteries

One of the other things that appeals most to me in Catholic theology is the concept of sanctified suffering. This means that, through joining my own sufferings to those of Christ, I can offer them up to God as an acceptable sacrifice.

This does not mean that I earn anything from Him. Apart from Christ's sufferings, my own are no more (and probably much less) than I deserve. But He took the penalty of my sin upon Himself, and therefore my suffering is not punishment or expiation, but something else.

This contrasts with a very prominent error in the modern church, that of the prosperity gospel. There is a truth which lies behind that error--a truth about the exchange of our sin, sickness, suffering, and curse for His holiness, healing, joy, and blessing (see Isaiah 53), which joins us into His covenant to receive blessings in this life. Here is a near perfect explanation of what I mean by that, to save me some writing. The only thing I would add to that is a caution that God's true prosperity also doesn't mean only spiritual prosperity and rewards in Heaven. It can and often does include Good Things here on earth. But Good Things of a higher order; of a holier, deeper, and more beautiful nature than those pursued by the world (or by those who have a crude and materialistic view of divine prosperity). In this sense, blessing, prosperity, and happiness in this life take on a different character and meaning: one can live modestly, humbly, even frugally, and still be considered greatly prosperous. Monks and nuns, for instance, living quietly but productively in cloister are living a blessed and abundant life when considered from this viewpoint. As is a family who is not materially wealthy by worldly standards, but is living in the blessings of true conjugal and filial love, and in a well-ordered and spiritually and aesthetically meaningful life. When understood correctly, the true version of divine health and prosperity fits perfectly with the theology of sanctified suffering: it is because of the exchange at the cross that my suffering can be offered as something which I no longer owe.

Right now, during Lent, I am praying the Rosary with the Sorrowful Mysteries. I am offering up all my own tribulation, in union with Christ in those mysteries, joining my sorrows with His sorrows.

In The Agony in the Garden I offer up to God all the time I've spent in agonized, passionate, sorrowful prayer, asking for His aid and His mercy, seeking knowledge of His will and understanding of His working.

In The Scourging at the Pillar I offer my broken heart: the grief, sorrow, sadness, depression, disappointment, and hopelessness.

In The Crowning with Thorns I offer Him my mental torments: all the negative thoughts, confusion, uncertainty, the despair, stress, anxiety, and doubt.

In The Carrying of the Cross I offer up the burden that I have borne; one that I willingly took up because I heard Him calling me to do so. I have stumbled more than once, as Christ stumbled under the weight of the cross. But I have borne it to the ends of my strength.

In The Crucifixion I offer all the rejection, isolation, loneliness, and shame I have lived in for so long. It has been a kind of death.

“The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.”

-- G.K. Chesterton

Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott

More Thoughts on Catholicism

There is a thing which I've been discovering...well, all my life, really; but at an exponentially accelerating rate and to an awe-inspiring depth and breadth over the last decade or so. That thing is God's Created Order in the universe.

I think it started in earnest with my discovery of the works of Tolkien, at around age 12. Tolkien's secondary world reflects with captivating beauty and majesty the true created order, and is fascinating in the same way that an exquisitely executed miniature is, like a scale model of a countryside, or a ceiling painted with the stars. The reduced scale of it allows us to grasp it, to own it, in a way shutting out the overwhelming vastness and incomprehensibility of the original. This is what C.S. Lewis expressed in his anecdote of the awakening of the Inconsolable Longing when his brother made a crude landscape of the hills near their house in the lid of a tin.

As I've grown and learned, I've discovered increasingly that this order, and the truth and beauty in that order, is the thing for which my soul most deeply longs. This is what draws me so profoundly not only to Middle-Earth and Narnia, but to Bach and Handel, Biber and Buxtehude; why I adore both Raphael and the pre-Raphaelites and loathe Picasso and Pollack. Why I'm fascinated by Mediaeval culture, history, and literature. Why my ideal life would be that of a rural gentleman on a farm-manor like in one of Austen's or Hardy's stories. It's why I love femininity and hate feminism; why I love marriage and hate adultery. And it's why I'm drawn to catholicism--because that is where that order, as it can be comprehended from our mortal vantage point, is most fully explored and expressed.

Catholicism is obviously imperfect. Very imperfect. But so is everything else. The difference is that catholicism is at least in intent and ideal far less imperfect than most everything else in the world as it now is. In execution it is quite a bit further from perfection than its ideal, but that is not an argument against it; it is a reason to do it better. Whereas the more perfectly you do modernism, the worse a thing you become. And Protestantism, though not wholly without merit, is a flawed and very limited vessel, which will not hold the vastness and complexity of the truth. Meaning proper Protestantism, not so much the Anglo-Catholicism which I've practised up until now. You can't fit God in a box made of human reason. Protestantism, and any philosophy based on rationalism, is rigid, and will break if forced too far out of its original parameters. Catholicism--and by that I mean catholicism in all its forms, not only Roman, but Orthodox, Eastern, Anglican, whatever--embraces not only order and complexity, but mystery, and that is the thing which gives it its great capacity to hold truth. Mystery makes it flexible and expandable, so that however much of God and His Order is revealed, the container expands and reshapes itself to fit it.

**edit: I initially wrote "post-Raphaelites" when I meant "pre-Raphaelites". Don't know why: I know better.

Direction

Several weeks ago, just after this, I decided to become Roman Catholic.

Decided is probably the wrong word. What happened is that I awoke one morning with the idea and the intention fully-formed in my mind. I have learned when this happens to go with it, because I am being Directed. I also knew, upon that waking, what parish I was going to go to, which mass I would be attending, and which priest I would talk to about being confirmed.

I had considered, years ago, becoming Catholic, and had even begun catechism, meeting with a French priest named Fr. Dupré (no relation), and attending the Tridentine, or traditional Latin, mass in Phoenix where I was living at the time. But I ended up taking another turn and becoming confirmed as an Anglican instead. I had put a lot of thought and prayer into it back then. But it wasn't something I had really thought about or seriously considered in a long time. I hadn't been considering going back to any church at all for the last several years, except for the thing I mentioned a couple of months ago. That having failed, I had decided not to pursue any further avenues. But upon waking that morning, after the...what to call it? healing? deliverance? epiphany? breakthrough? whatever it was, of a few weeks ago, it just felt like time to move forward.

So I obeyed the prompting, and met with the priest. I made a list of all the books I've read which I thought would be relevant to Catholic catechism (which ended up comprising four pages), and we discussed my theology, my spirituality, my prayer life, my mysticism, etc. He had me meet with the director of religious education, also, and they both decided I did not need any further catechism or instruction, and asked when I wanted to be confirmed. I said Easter, because I would like the Lenten season for preparation and penitence, and so we scheduled it. The first official rite of the process, the Rite of Welcome, was last Sunday.

Why Catholic, you may ask. So far most of the Protestant friends and acquaintances I've told have immediately launched into a litany of their reasons why God and I are wrong about this. In which I am supremely uninterested.

The simple answer is, 'Because God led me to.' That prompting I had has been further confirmed by prayer and by signs.

The more complex answer is that I have already been catholic for a long time, just not Catholic. This is not, for me, a conversion; it is an expansion. I had a dream some time back, in which I was at a church altar rail, being served Eucharist by three priests: one Anglican (representing Protestants), one Catholic, and one Orthodox. I see, and have long seen, myself as being in full fellowship with all orthodox, biblical, trinitarian Christians, whether Anglican, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Mennonite, Adventist, Indian Mar Thoma, Ethiopian Tewahedo, non-denominational, inter-denominational, trans-denominational, or whatever. If you truly believe in and follow the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, take scripture seriously, and try to follow Christ's teachings, you are my brother or sister. Some churches have requirements in order to be received into full communion with them, meaning being able to partake of the sacraments and the full life of the church. I am submitting to that, so that I can worship and fellowship fully with Roman Catholics. I would actually like to be confirmed in an Orthodox church too, at some point, so that I can commune with them as well. And I am not becoming not-Anglican in order to become Catholic: I will now be both.

My theology hasn't changed and isn't changing, nor is my prayer life and private spirituality. Except that I will be adding frequent confession and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which I see as a very good thing. I already pray the Hail Mary three times a day, and have done for years, ever since the Lord spoke to me during a time of prayer, and said that if I would take His mother as my mother, He would use her to heal my relationship with women, which had been troubled since I was a small child. I accepted, and He has kept that promise.

Like I said, I'm already catholic, so there's no real change here for me. The main thing is to have somewhere to start going to church again. It is time. Also, it is time to have a pastor and spiritual director in my life again, something that I did not have even when attending my old church. I loved our priests there, and I loved the teaching and preaching. But there was a total lack of pastoral care in that church, which I was definitely not the only one to feel and note. Also, my very active spiritual and mystical life was not well-received there, as there was prejudice against such things in favor of mainline Protestant rationalism (they had all come from Episcopalian, Methodist, and Presbyterian backgrounds). Whereas this priest to whom I was directed is a mystic himself, and said to me that he believes all Christians are called to be mystics, which I believe also. He is from Africa, where there is a much more active spirituality than in the West; I find, the further I go into my spiritual life, the more I have in common in many ways with people from places like Africa and India and the less with typical Americans and Europeans. This is the first time I've had a spiritual father figure in my life since before moving to Virginia, almost ten years ago now.

One of the signs I alluded to above was that, Sunday before last, the first time I attended mass since leaving the old church, I was kneeling in prayer during the liturgy, and out of nowhere I saw how to write the story about which I had been blocked for a very long time. I went home later and it just started flowing. Also, taking this positive and tangible step out and forward has helped me to shake off that inertia which had been keeping me bound with my fitness, and I am finally moving forward there as well.

So, to sum up, I feel very positive about this move, and I am fully confident that this is the direction the Lord would have me take in this season of my life.

"I will promise you this: Your favorite story, whatever it might be, was written for One Reader."

 -- Victor Levin