It's Friday night, and I'm looking out over the lights and life of downtown Detroit. People are moving about, and somewhere, something like music is thumping, throbbing, thumping, and I'm writing a play. I don't know if it's a good play, and it's entirely unsolicited, unwanted, but I feel like I have to write it, so I continue to do so. And, I'm wondering if it's just the intrinsic need for aesthetic harmony and community that might drive one to do such a thing. It was common among the Medievals to say, "Even dwarves can see far if they have the good sense to stand on the shoulders of giants." Is that what I'm doing? Even if I'm not great, am I at least attempting to do something that actual great people have done time and time before in an attempt to hoist myself up just far enough to be privy to something larger and much more lovely than my mere pathetic self? Maybe.
Oscar Wilde said, "We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars." This is what my attempt at literature feels like . . . A way to see something beautiful through the mire of everyday life.
So, how do you see the stars?
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Friday morning Mass at our rural New Zealand parish usually sees a couple of classes from St Joseph's primary school attending. I am on leave this week and want to go to Mass, though the thought of a school Mass is a little off-putting.
Today, Friday the 4th of April, is perhaps more depressing than usual. We have, of course, as always, the pretty little "Jesus loves me" music played on the cheap portable CD player, but this time something new: liturgical dance. Six children about seven or eight years old walk slowly up the centre aisle vaguely waving their arms in the air.
I am embarrassed for them. They, however, show no sign of embarrassment, and when the bad music is played, the children, sixty or eighty of them, sing with obvious pleasure and enthusiasm.
That little girl over there with the full mouth and the fetching hair - what will she be in fifteen years? Will she still go to church? Will she have had four or five lovers by then? Worldly-wise, she will no doubt have taken precautions to ensure that no child will be born from these encounters.
The young boy in the pew in front of me who already has his hair artfully shaped - doubtless by his mother - in edgy fashion to show his independence of mere neatness - in fifteen years will he be striving for pre-eminence in the constant war to push more product on a world cloyed with novelty?
These gloomy thoughts - gloomy and in some cases surely unreasonable - some of these children will - please God! - grow to love Him and His Church, to bring forth many of their own kind - perhaps priests to serve His Church - these gloomy thoughts remind me of Simpson and Henderson and their ANZAC donkeys (http://donkeyrehomecentre.orconhosting.net.nz/ANZAC.html).
We are, most of us, like the fallen soldier in Moore-Jones's watercolour, in need of some Simpson or Henderson to pick us up, put us on his donkey, and carry us to a place of refreshment, from which, it may be, we may come back to the fray. I pray for all these young persons - and for me, and for you, for all of us. This is the Church Militant. These are the Christian soldiers. This is the band Christ will lead to victory.
jj
I started writing as a child, but have only written a play once, in high school (it was, somewhat predictably, about cannibalism). But I find life is always exciting as a writer, even as an unpublished scribbler.
I hope you enjoy writing that play.
Cannibalism, eh? Nice. Believe it or not, the theme of the play that I'm working on now isn't really any less shocking . . . It's a nasty little piece of work, actually . . . Very violent, quite potty mouthed, and downright snarky in places. I don't think Mr. Waugh would approve in the least, but inspiration leads where it leads, and this is, for better or for worse, what I've got to work with right now.
I forget the stars are there.. I need the moon, or someone who loves me, or a cloudy night to remind me they are there.
And I wonder who Waugh thought would disapprove of his own work. (One writes for one's self, first, doesn't one?)
Oh, come on . . . "The moon is a harsh mistress," and love is fickle. You should find the stars on your own . . . But, what do I know?
And, I suppose that I do write for myself, but I'm extremely dependent upon the people whom I observe everyday "just in real life," those who inspire me, and most especially those who drive me completely nucking futs and inspire me to bludgeon them with hot cinder blocks. So, yeah, interesting question . . .
The longer one lives, the more one may realize that everyone drives one nucking futs; certainly, playwrights could never run out of material. Ironically enough, tho', those presently uncinderblocked who inspire us non-cannibalistically are the very ones who save both life and the play--I hope always to encounter a do-gooder/dreamer even amid the absurdities/wreckage. As does God, no doubt. Bottomline, have fun. If a play is made not mostly of or for fun, love, or holiness - if it's mostly of anger and pain and doesn't give life (sorry, Papa Hemingway), there are always water balloons, which use less energy. Good luck with the play, and with the improv -- if I were closer, I'd go. Again, enjoy!
:-)
I don't know . . . What good is a person if he doesn't inspire cinder blocks on occasion? (to be more specific, cinder blocks, golf clubs, meat mallets, croquet mallets, any other mallet one might think of, daggers and various and sundry other sharp, pointy things)
On that note, cocoa-blankie bunny hugs to all, and, JustMe, I know that you would be here for the show if you could, and thank you for the kind words. They mean the world.
I presume you're busy with rehearsals--but is everything ok?
JustMe said:
"I presume you're busy with rehearsals--but is everything ok?"
And I am now slightly confused. I am indeed a musician (amateur but busy) and we are indeed busy with rehearsals - but was this directed to me?
'Everything' is surely not all right. Look at Zimbabwe, for instance! Of course, as C. S. Lewis says in 'Miracles,' 'everything - the whole show - is not something about which very much can be said.'
So ... in the very kind way JustMe meant it, yes, everything is all right!
jj
:-) JJ, you're funny. Sorry--I meant Amy. (Amy, say something!)
Indeed, tho', one could say nothing is actually alright..not in this world. Except the Eucharist, grace, and helps from Beyond. And man's love for others..and baby yawns, mallards and mourning doves. Lilacs, summer rain, and fresh coffee. And swimming. I wish I could bottle it all for Zimbabwe. That, and food and peace and education, and laughter.
That's what I hoped America was about.
JustMe - well, as my full name is there I thought you might be someone who knows me and that I play in an orchestra!
JJ, I don't know anyone by name. Only by their heart.
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