I am Happy that I am Sad?
Matthew 5: 4
"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."
Got back yesterday from Minneapolis. While there, Lina and I stopped in at a Dunn Brothers Coffee. If beer and coffee were in a race for my personal favorite, where my devotion would be the sole decider on which would win the race, it would be hard to discern which liquid would take the winner's mug. Let us say, coffee would win for the am, beer would win for the pm. A race at around noon? Too close to call.
I love not just coffee but coffee shops. It is a cool place to hang out and chat. It can also be a place where thoughtful stuff like literary magazines go to find a home and perhaps interested eyes. Kind of like a nice girl trying to avoid bars by going somewhere safe, desperately side-stepping the club where she may get picked because she is lonely. She knows better and tries to act on these thoughts but her heart has hungers not easily satisfied.
Holy words are dismissed these days, images--really idolatry--rules, along with junk words. Ironic inanity is the apex of sophistication, proffered by our stand-up prophetical pundits.
At Dunn Brothers, I read an interview with Benjamin Alire Saenz, a former Catholic priest, who has found his true vocation as a writer. From what I can tell, he has a disarming talent for telling stories encompassing the human condition, particularly issues related to cultural experiences arising from the U.S. and Mexican border. Saenz said something in an interview in the magazine Rain Taxi that has woken me up from the dreary sleepiness of the every day.
"We don't live in a world that that teaches us to say "I'm sorry," a world that encourages us to be humble. For all of our "Christian" posturing, we have, as a nation, totally obliterated the Beatitudes.
I have to find a way to construct something out of all of this. Call this my aesthetic. Call this my art. Living in chaos brings nothing but insanity. I construct a narrative to give life order. I wed words and rhythms and literary strategies with my personal biography, with my Utopian vision of the world, with my knowledge of the cruelties of the streets of where I live. I am so tired of hate. And yet, I can't seem to give up on the world I live in. Finding a response to human damage and arming myself with words--that is why I write. Art arises out of need to create something beautiful or transcendent.
What I desire most is to have an honest and serious dialogue with the complicated and awesome world that I live in. I would be the first to admit that I have often failed miserably. I just don't know how to give up on the world--or on myself."
Knowing the the world and all that is in it is Fallen is the starting point. Knowing that Christ is within the suffering redeeming it, is the great hope of our faith. It is a faith sometimes seemingly on the outs and discarded, even among us who call ourselves Christians. Since we are unaware of our own poverty, we neglect the riches of Christ hidden like gold in the dirt of the rejected, the broken, the hurting. You, me, and everyone else in this world, varying in degree only in human eyes.
More, much more, to follow. I will write when I can. But, write, I must.
"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."
Got back yesterday from Minneapolis. While there, Lina and I stopped in at a Dunn Brothers Coffee. If beer and coffee were in a race for my personal favorite, where my devotion would be the sole decider on which would win the race, it would be hard to discern which liquid would take the winner's mug. Let us say, coffee would win for the am, beer would win for the pm. A race at around noon? Too close to call.
I love not just coffee but coffee shops. It is a cool place to hang out and chat. It can also be a place where thoughtful stuff like literary magazines go to find a home and perhaps interested eyes. Kind of like a nice girl trying to avoid bars by going somewhere safe, desperately side-stepping the club where she may get picked because she is lonely. She knows better and tries to act on these thoughts but her heart has hungers not easily satisfied.
Holy words are dismissed these days, images--really idolatry--rules, along with junk words. Ironic inanity is the apex of sophistication, proffered by our stand-up prophetical pundits.
At Dunn Brothers, I read an interview with Benjamin Alire Saenz, a former Catholic priest, who has found his true vocation as a writer. From what I can tell, he has a disarming talent for telling stories encompassing the human condition, particularly issues related to cultural experiences arising from the U.S. and Mexican border. Saenz said something in an interview in the magazine Rain Taxi that has woken me up from the dreary sleepiness of the every day.
"We don't live in a world that that teaches us to say "I'm sorry," a world that encourages us to be humble. For all of our "Christian" posturing, we have, as a nation, totally obliterated the Beatitudes.
I have to find a way to construct something out of all of this. Call this my aesthetic. Call this my art. Living in chaos brings nothing but insanity. I construct a narrative to give life order. I wed words and rhythms and literary strategies with my personal biography, with my Utopian vision of the world, with my knowledge of the cruelties of the streets of where I live. I am so tired of hate. And yet, I can't seem to give up on the world I live in. Finding a response to human damage and arming myself with words--that is why I write. Art arises out of need to create something beautiful or transcendent.
What I desire most is to have an honest and serious dialogue with the complicated and awesome world that I live in. I would be the first to admit that I have often failed miserably. I just don't know how to give up on the world--or on myself."
Knowing the the world and all that is in it is Fallen is the starting point. Knowing that Christ is within the suffering redeeming it, is the great hope of our faith. It is a faith sometimes seemingly on the outs and discarded, even among us who call ourselves Christians. Since we are unaware of our own poverty, we neglect the riches of Christ hidden like gold in the dirt of the rejected, the broken, the hurting. You, me, and everyone else in this world, varying in degree only in human eyes.
More, much more, to follow. I will write when I can. But, write, I must.
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