I’m curious to know Percy’s thoughts on the monastic life. His literature is filled with souls looking to find purpose in the everydayness of things, but what if someone checked out of everyday modernity in favor of the monastic?  Father Smith did this in The Thanatos Syndrome, and I wonder if Percy considered the life of a stylite the answer for those ready to commit to more than a Binx-like search.

When Tom Moore asks Father Smith why he became a priest, his response is simply “What else?” When pushed to elaborates he says that given the chance, one must choose life or death.

For centuries monastics have committed themselves to service, but once he was no longer able to serve the dying, Father Smith simply climbed to the top of a fire tower and wouldn’t come down. However, even in his seclusion he had a mission. He scanned the horizon looking for signs of trouble. When he found it, he triangulated the source and sounded an alarm. We all know that you can’t see the forest for the trees, but from Father Smith’s lofty heights he clearly saw the forest reach from hilltop to hilltop.

What I’m wondering if what happens after the search? What happens when we realize that we are pilgrims in a strange land? Should we do the best we can walking through the woods, or should we take to a tower ready to sound the alarm?

Tags: Father Smith, monastic, The Thanatos Syndrome

The Associated Press recently reported that a man in Michigan encountered an alligator in a corn field. Leaving aside the obvious opportunities for terror this provides Halloween corn maze aficionados, this event strikes me as a bad sign. Anyone who has read Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins knows to be on the lookout for vines sprouting through cracks in the concrete. Perhaps vines are nothing if alligators are now taking up residence in places like rural Michigan and cities like Chicago, Boston and New York.

Pick out your room at the nearest Howard Johnson motel. Begin to stockpile Vienna sausages, Campbell soup and Early Times whiskey. Things are getting interesting.

Tags: Love in the Ruins

The fine folks at First Things have posted an interesting article worth a quick read.

I stumbled upon this short post entitled “Will There Be Candy?” by Jim Power. This story painfully illustrates how unintentionally self-absorbed we can all be sometimes. Since it is short, I’ll post Mr. Power’s story below.

I am no expert on German literature, and “The Metamorphosis” is not exactly beach reading, but I listened closely yesterday when a grade 11 student stopped by to talk about a paper he had written on Kafka’s method of narration. This earnest scholar continually stressed that “point of view determines just about everything.”

I thought about his insight this morning during a primary grades assembly. A middle-aged couple spoke to the young boys about a triathlon fundraiser they were planning to benefit Sick Kids Hospital. They mentioned, almost in passing, that they were motivated to do this because their daughter had been diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 2.

Instantly, a hand shot into the air. “What happened to your daughter?”

The mom bit her lip and responded. “She’s no longer with us.”

Other hands shot up. “Where will I put my towel for the triathlon? And will there be candy there?”

I get it. Most of us are a bit self-absorbed, and there is a developmental piece, especially with young boys, that sometimes knocks the wind out of your sails. (Walker Percy used to refer to this as “the great suck of self.”) But to listen to a mother talk about losing her daughter, and then within a heart beat, to hear questions about towels and candy…

The mother handled herself with incredible poise. And the young boys seemed genuinely interested in helping with this great cause. But in the back of my mind, something about Kafka made me think that I was the one who had turned into a bug.

Tags: Kafka, selfishness

Why is it some people cannot live without constant affirmation and others appear oblivious? I am in the former camp. As much as I would prefer otherwise, I need a steady drip of affirmation to survive. Not a gushing stream of patronizing backslapping, but a consistent trickle of pleasing words from others saying I’m an okay guy doing good things.

I soak up these gentle affirmations from strangers and loved ones alike. In a way, I like an affirming word from a stranger most of all. I suppose this is because I am superficial enough to believe that if I seem okay to the casual observer, I can probably fake my way through many of life’s hurdles. Unfortunately, I’ve found that I often require about as much outside affirmation as does a high school drama queen. I don’t need people to fall in love with me, but I do need them to respect and admire me. I wish it wasn’t so, but then again this weakness probably fueled the creation of this website and much of my success in life.

I know this all stems from self-esteem issues. Can anything be more boring that talking about poor self-esteem? The phrase itself just drips with weakness. Those seriously afflicted with this condition are the personification of the pathetic. I’m not so naive as to believe that only the nerdy and lonely bear this burden. I’m sure the college quarterback and lead cheerleader also have self-esteem issues. Perhaps that was the very thing that pushed them to achieve tangible success. I have no idea whether we should blame nature or nurture for this affliction, but for some it is as strong as the bottle to an addict.

Achievement itself rarely helps, all it does is raise the stakes and the disease gets stronger. Some treatments that do help are the love of a dedicated spouse and the unconditional love of a child. Few things are better than the latter because not only is the love itself affirming, but the inner-strength that rises up once you know you must care for your child is incredible. However, this is no magic pill. Many parents’ self-esteem problems create a living hell of drama and even abuse for their children.

I think the disease points to its own cure. The constant need for affirmation and the root problem of poor self-esteem must be resolved outside of ourselves. Being human we attempt to seek solace in the affirmation of other humans. We hope that like an intricate jigsaw puzzle, our strengths and weaknesses will fit perfectly with converse strengths and weaknesses in others. Sometimes this helps, but a better solution is to move beyond the patchwork of human frailties and instead seek affirmation in the ultimate mystery of divine love.

Now, I will quickly say more than I know about how to seek affirmation in the love of God, but I know this is the key. I know that the complex story of creation and redemption lead us to this conclusion. I need to spend more time in thought and prayer on this, but I’m sure the only way I will feel ultimately affirmed is when I stop seeking a human solution to a spiritual problem.

Tags: affirmation, love, self-esteem

Would have been his 94th (I think) today.

By Andy Whitman.

The TV show LOST aired its series finale tonight. LOST was memorable and noteworthy. One thing that makes it especially interesting to me is the work of executive producer and writer Carlton Cuse. In a recent interview, Mr. Cuse shares that he was significantly influenced by Robert Coles at Harvard. Apparently, it was through Dr. Coles that Mr. Cuse studied the works of James Agee, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy and others. Mr. Cuse was such a Percy fan that Lancelot was featured prominently on the show more than once.

Mr. Cuse went on to say that, “much of Coles teaching was centered on the question: how does one lead a life? What matters as we make our way on our journey? Those questions and that inquiry has stuck with me.” This reminds me of what I learned were the Four Diagnostic Questions: what is a good life and what good is life; what is a good death and what good is death; what is a good love and what good is love; and what is a human being? There is no doubt that LOST explores each of these questions in detail.

In an earlier interview, Mr. Cuse and his counterpart Damon Lindelof, mentioned that the works of C.S. Lewis provided a hint at where the show was going. It has been noted elsewhere that the mythology of the island shares much in common with Lewis’ Narina, along with the now obvious connection to The Great Divorce in the “sideways” flashes. It is pretty easy to earn my respect once you list Percy and Lewis as important influences.

I am impressed that Hollywood was willing to produce a show (especially one as expensive as LOST) that explored deep subjects and did justice to the viewer’s intelligence. Yes, the story of LOST had its flaws, but it was undeniably well told, complicated, and spoke about the depths of the human condition. After now seeing the ending, I’m struck even more by the ambitious nature of the story and impressed that the storytellers were able to tell it.

Tags: Lost

I believe that the biggest sociological development of the late 20th century was not “the pill” or Vietnam, rather it was the creation of the suburb. After WWII, everything we know about 20th century culture stems from this primum movens. Suburbs placed the alienated man into pleasant wasteland. It is no secret that Percy understood this, and therefore Binx lived in Gentilly, a middle-class suburb of New Orleans, in The Moviegoer.

I am no sociologist, and certainly have not attempted to carefully study the subject, but I suspect that the creation of television allowed the suburbs to grow out like weeds across the American landscape. Before television, people needed to take advantage of common community anchors to feel connected. This could include church, the Rotary club, the corner diner, even the local theater. After Ed Sullivan, we could sit alone–in our isolated homes separated by well-manicured lawns–and achieve a pseudo-connection that approached the communal spirit once achieved through actual human interaction. We knew what others would be talking about tomorrow. What is more, it was a common experience shared by millions coast-to-coast; a community no longer bound by the confines of provincial word-of-mouth.

Without television, do you think that most Americans would be satisfied driving their long commutes to and from work if they knew the only entertainment waiting for them at home was the local newspaper, a good book or listening to the radio? I suspect that the yearning to feel connected would drive them back to the city where options abound.

Certainly rural America existed long before the suburbs, but farm communities possess a unique sense of place. Farm towns and other remote small towns exist for a purpose, and the community is tied together through the execution of that purpose (farming, fishing, a factory, etc.).

I believe that television was the single greatest game-changer of the modern era. It amplified and influenced every societal and cultural change that followed. Today’s fascination with online social media is just a branch off this tree planted in the 1950s.

Tags: alienated, community, television

I commend this short blog entry by Fr. Robert Connor on Walker Percy’s quest to name himself.

The great work of Walker Percy is his struggle to name the “I” of Walker Percy. His life-long endeavor was to name himself, which was to give himself an identity and reason to exist.

He goes on to provide an insightful view of Percy existential mission. Fr. Connor has the unique ability to write in a very Percy-like fashion. Percy’s non-fiction is complex, yet he avoids complicated words. He had a way of stringing together simple statements to explore extremely dense concepts. Any man that loved semeiotics as much as he did must have a multi-layered understanding of language.

Tags: existentialism