Matthew Perryman Jones - Land of the Living Review

I was first introduced to Matthew Perryman Jones's music in the summer of 2012, when he gave away his CD Land of the Living on Noisetrade. I wasn't overwhelmed - it was a slow-burn kind of album, and snuck up on me all through the long drowsy summer months. It took about two years for me to understand it was the best album I'd ever heard.

I'm glad I stuck with it, because while Land of the Living doesn't easily surrender its secrets - it does have them, and they are worth pursuing. The album is book-ended by songs which allude to the crossing of the Jordan and fall of the walls of Jericho. Stones From the Riverbed is vaguely a story of baptism, one must relinquish sin and darkness and "Fall into that mystery / or it will pull you under / It's okay to say goodbye."

The Music of the Spheres - Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett was a master of the art of British comedy. What's more: he was one of the great fantasy novelists and satirists of the 20th Century. In being all these things, he is - at least in America - often unfairly overshadowed by specialists in each. He created a famous black-haired, bespectacled young wizard who goes to a school in a castle, and then a young upstart came along and stole his thunder. A successor to Monty Python and P.G. Wodehouse, a contemporary of Douglas Adams, he was a bit more serious than any of them. The breadth of his invention rivaled Dickens, but then, he wasn't Dickens. And of course, Pratchett was far too funny to be taken seriously as a satirist.

Losing My Mind - Religion, Reason, and Truth

I’m fascinated by beauty. It is my final fortification against materialism, a barrier from reducing the world to numbers. Sam Harris’s arguments are very sound—they explain things, fill in the gaps. But atheism specializes in the details and misses the sunsets and the waterfalls and Beethoven’s Ninth and Charles Dickens.

The sky’s on fire in the west tonight

 A chorus of pink, purple, blazing orange

 The air pulses with meaning and—

 I think of random particles,

 of chance and infinite typewriters,

 but no cold device could make the beauty,

 nor make me understand it.

The Children of Men - Review & Quotes

You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”

For a thousand years in your sight

are but as yesterday when it is past,

or as a watch in the night….

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.
(Psalm 90 ESV)

To those familiar with the mystery genre, P.D. James is a very prominent name. Her series, featuring poet detective Adam Dalgliesh, is among the best contributions in modern mystery. However, she has also written standalone books, among them the dystopian philosophical novel The Children of Men. After listening to clips from a 1992 interview with James on Mars Hill Audio, I decided I must investigate.

There are a lot of doomsayers out there, but one of the most compelling arguments I’ve heard is the idea that those countries with the greatest birth rates will rule the world, as described by Mark Steyn in his book America Alone. America, for instance, is scraping by at just above replacement rate, which means we'll soon have an enormous elderly population alongside a much smaller young generation - there's no chance one will counterbalance the other. It's already happening in Japan.

The Children of Men is an extreme realization of that possibility, and it's simply an amazing novel. (EDIT: Interestingly, Mark Steyn drew inspiration from the book, and is acquainted with its author.) While ultimately falling short of its potential, it touches on a huge variety of relevant themes: apathy, power, hypocrisy, hope, death, worship, love, and above all, the sanctity of life.

Never Say Die - Modernity and Morality - Part 2

Part 1

As a culture, we either avoid death or surrender to it—we are either blind optimists or self-centered pessimists. Speaking of death is often described as morbid. Speaking of it ceaselessly is either depression or being highly artistic, depending on one’s college degree. The optimists find themselves, in their last moments, scrabbling madly for a hold on life, staring at the wall in wide-eyed, hyperventilating terror. The pessimists go into a dark room and blow their brains out. What is the answer? What is the correct way to deal with death?

On one hand, there is no avoidance.

Death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.

Ecclesiastes 7:2, NIV

But…

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

1 Corinthians 15:55, KJV

Death is not there to be avoided, it’s there to be beaten—it has been beaten. Jesus took death down. Like a line-backer. This is the truest realism, not the despairing acceptance of meaninglessness. If it’s cowardice to avoid death, is it not cowardice to surrender to it? Is it not stupid to eschew all good things because of a hyped up idea that it’s sentimental? Isn’t that just intellectual dishonesty? Sure, it’s wrong to accept an idea because it makes you feel good, but isn’t it also wrong to reject an idea because it makes you feel good?

Never Say Die - Modernity and Morality - Part 1

“Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie shouldn’t age,” says my Dad, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Seeing them get old…it just doesn’t…it’s weird.”

Back in the ’90s, the two British actors co-starred in Jeeves and Wooster. Fry and Laurie played, respectively, the unflappable, omniscient valet, Jeeves, and his dimwitted, talkative employer, Bertrum Wilberforce Wooster. The stories are set in an idyllic pre-war atmosphere, where the greatest ill that can befall a man is ridiculous romantic dilemmas or bogus get-rich-quick schemes. Let’s be honest, it’s pure escapism—albeit escapism with lively wit, brilliant plotting, and hilarious (if somewhat one-dimensional) characters. No one ages and, of course, no one dies.

That’s why it’s so weird to see old Fry and Laurie. I had a similar reaction to seeing Anthony Valentine in a modern movie. I’d had a crush on him in the 1975 TV show Raffles…and suddenly, he was in his seventies. He's old enough to be my grandfather.

Why this violent reaction, this jerking back from reality?

The Splintered White - Magic in The Lord of the Rings

A knock-down, drag-out wizard fight which Did Not Happen In The Book

I've had several conversations over the years about magic in the use of fiction. Ever since the advent of Harry Potter, it's been a hot topic among evangelicals. Opinions tend to be on one or the other extreme. Either no magic whatsoever, or bring on the broomsticks. Over the last year or so, I've read much thoughtful commentary on the matter. The examinations include many, many different novels. But again, most of my thoughts return to magic in my favorite: The Lord of the Rings.

More than any other, this story permeated my childhood. Among the things I learned from it were humility, faith, courage, perseverance, friendship, and joy. As anyone who knows the stories will say, the magic is never more than a narrative device. One could (almost) read through the book and not remember any instance of overt magic. There's no question that the central essence is story-related - the characters, the conflict, the resolution.

For many, though, this isn't enough. I respect that. I really do. The Bible explicitly forbids dabbling in black arts, or white arts for that matter. But at the same time, I recognize that stories are a special case. They are in the realm of the imagination, which ranges far beyond reality. In some cases, the same rules do not apply. Yet, as Professor Tolkien (a devout Catholic) himself believed, we may invent any sort of creatures we wish, but to call good evil, and evil good, is a sin. Then, must we completely discard anything that mentions magic? If your conscience forbids any mention of magic whatsoever, by all means, listen to it. But mine does not, and I feel the need to defend my point of view. All the same, I like to know what sort of "magic" we're talking about.

The Lost Art of Lament - Boston, Texas, and Gosnell

The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart
 

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

How long...

How long must we sing this song?

How long, how long... 

~U2, Sunday,Bloody Sunday

We all know what it feels like to be homesick. The many months in a foreign land, the unfamiliar sounds of a different country. After the hours on the road, you drag yourself indoors, ready for the weariness and discomfort to cease, ready to embrace that unconditional lover: the couch. 

But sometimes, there are problems that have no solution. Ever had a dream in your head? Perfect and untouched, the idea for a poem, or a book, or a piece of art? But when you take up the pen, the words cannot describe it. You know exactly what you’re talking about, but everything you try feels wrong, a futile attempt to describe a greater truth. You throw language at an object, but nothing captures the essence of it. The painting is just a scrawled crayon glimpse of an uncapturable vision. Sometimes, we feel a hunger that nothing satisfies.

Margaret Thatcher - Legacy of an Amazing Woman

Margaret Thatcher died today. She, along with Ronald Reagan, led the free world through the menace of the Cold War. Despite her controversial actions, prompting the nickname: "The Iron Lady", Thatcher was a figure demanding admiration. She was tough, smart, and immensely courageous. Admittedly, like most leaders of that type, she had that Churchillian lack of humility, but let's be honest, if anybody would back up actions with words, it was Thatcher.

Though they haven't adopted her legacy in the past, the feminist movement could find no greater example of a remarkable woman than in Thatcher. She stepped into a guy's world and seriously kicked butt.

Peter Hitchens (Christopher's brother), wrote a wonderful piece on her, along with a meditation on greatness and the elevation of political figures to such heights:

I am always moved by the distance some people travel, especially in politics, though in other paths as well. Even when they are signing enormous treaties, speaking to multitudes from high platforms, celebrating smashing election victories and directing wars,  there is somewhere in their mind a small and shabby bedroom, a cat curled up by the fire, a third-hand bicycle, a clock ticking, a walk through shabby streets to an unassuming school,  a corner of a sooty garden in which they have managed to grow a few beans or potatoes, a frugal seaside holiday involving quite a lot of rain. There are also the little chores that tie us to normality, washing up, sweeping the stairs, taking out the rubbish.

 
How do these great ones cope with this contrast with what they really are, and what we have elevated them into being? They may have wanted to be great, and striven for it all their lives. But when they finally caught the enormous Atlantic roller of celebrity, and it lifted them unmistakably far above everyone else, were they dismayed to see their own past lives , and everyone in them, suddenly become so small and far away, and irrecoverable?

Read the rest here.

Longish

The Book Thief and the Power of Words

 
My mom taught me to read when I was four. Since then, I’ve had words shoveled into my head by culture, literature, and dozens of other sources. Words are my comfort, words are my song, words are my liberation. The very base of society rests on reading, on communication through little chicken scratches on thin sheets made from trees. Words are essential to our society—regardless of the fact that 14 percent of the U.S.’s population is illiterate.*

Several of my bookish friends have mentioned Markus Zusak’s book, The Book Thief—a bookish book which I booked from the library to bookishly read. There’s no doubt it’s a book that must be grappled with, but gives few answers for the many questions it raises.

The Ideas

 

Set in World War II, Liesel Meminger’s world is very bleak. Words become her way out. The first book Liesel steals becomes her link with the past, and as time goes on, the books she reads provide a way of staying sane in the insanity. Indeed, this theme is so strong as to verge on preachy. Several characters are saved by books (and an accordion), in various manners. The Fuhrer invites followers, “beckoning them with his finest, ugliest words, handpicked from his forests….Words were fed into them. Time disappeared and they now knew everything they needed to know. They were hypnotized.”

The Triumph of Despair

Suicide’s Note

The calm,

Cool face of the river,

Asked me for a kiss.

-Langston Hughes

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

-Edwin Arlington Robinson

This morning, in my poetry textbook, I read Suicide’s Note, by Langston Hughes. Unlike the longer, more elaborate poetry that I had been reading, this struck me as being extremely informal and, well, slightly silly. But after a few seconds, I realized that this was much more subtle than that. The image, brief as it is, paints a very full picture – and that’s a difficult thing to do with as little space as was allowed. A still, glassy, black pool of water, beckoning, enfolding the poet in a cold and deadly embrace. He sinks into the water, only to realize that the siren’s call has become his death.

Contrast Suicide’s Note with the poem, Richard Cory. Immediately, one hears the difference in tone and meter, which add a very different feeling to the story. With Richard Cory, there is a pattern of four-line paragraphs, with the a-b-a-b rhyming scheme. The imagery is light-hearted, the character or Cory puts one in mind of a Lord Peter Wimsey figure, immaculately mannered, charming—the social ideal. Cory is idolized by the poet(s); he couldn’t possibly make a faux pas, perfect wife, perfect family, butter wouldn’t melt – etc. Wouldn’t you want to be Richard Cory?

You know the type.

He has everything you’d ever want – charisma, wealth, manners, popularity. He’s that CEO who everybody likes, despite. People scrimp and save, longing to be their idol.

“And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.”

 

And that is what makes the poem’s end so effective: idols are always flawed. No man is perfect, appearances are deceiving. The poet is brilliant to keep the tone light-hearted and jaunty…right up until the fatal moment. That’s what suicide is like in real life – not melodramatic and mythic like Suicide’s Note, but quick, brutal and catastrophic. It is the triumph of despair and loneliness.

This is why so many people are devastated with the fall of pastors, actors, philanthropists and other “good” public figures, who had gained their trust. As Ravi Zacharias says, why should we be surprised when those we consider “holy” fall? Being a pastor does not change the desperate depravity of the human heart. Everyone, even and especially they, are subject to temptations and despair.

The current tagline of my novel, Raven’s Death, sums it up: “Judge not by sight. Secrets remain hidden because they are not clearly seen.” Well, it needs some work, but it’s supposed to be a maxim in my fantasy land, Mordreal, and I was trying to make it sound…proverby.

But here's the flipside: martyrdom. Suicide is much different than martyrdom. Many people have asked Christians why we condemn one and glorify the other. That is because there is a fundamental difference in the motives. Hear it from he who always says it best:

About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker: he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end. In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe.

-G.K. Chesterton

Suicide is the triumph of despair, abandoning and not "so loving" the world. Tolkien demonstrates this in many ways in The Lord of the Rings:

“Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death,” answered Gandalf. “And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death . . . Come! We are needed. There is much that you can do.”

-Return of the King

I just discovered an article that follows the Chesterton-Tolkien connection even further; it's great. Check it out here.

There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo,
Longish
Neo-Mayberry, Middle of Nowhere, America