I myself would have wondered why.

It just seemed to help.  Getting through the usual roadblocks when you awake, awkwardly, not knowing at all what you are doing, why you are doing, and think what you need to say on paper.

The visions of the minds of the Old Testament, why not sit in on their jam session, observe how they do it, see how they saw the major issues of the day.  What did they think of?  How?  Why were they obsessed, if you will, with equipping the understanding of, with, the One God.

Why, and how, would it help the modern writer to sit in with the ways of Jesus Christ, the way he thought, put depths into words...

Is this something we resort to when things aren't going very well, seemingly, when the path you've been on seems to have not revealed its true self, its purpose, its satisfactory meeting of life's great problems...

What should I do for a career, how do I pay the rent in this town, how do I save for the future, how do I take care of mom, how do I save myself...


Waking up, you clutch the iPhone, looking for something within it.  Some kind of information.  You're not sure what.  Is there anything you need to get back to in the triage of the day?

Easy to turn the television on, with the same excuses.  What do I need to know, The Weather Channel, weather, yes, that is important.  And yet it's already bombarding you with cultural messages, brain-washing you, lulling you, overwhelming you, so that any idea you might have on your own seems rather dumb now.

On EWTN it's coming out too slow.  You're hungry, thirsty, in need of breakfast.  Dirty dishes in the sink.  Green tea, bone stock warmed up in the toaster over.

If you're a writer, well, this is it.  This is the stuff you really have.  You don't need to go off looking for fancier more interesting things.   The mind is cubism.  Capturing one thought would be enough to be art, a worthy study.

But what right would I have to think myself a connoisseur of Old Testament prophets, of the Parables...

And why does writing feel like you're sort of sneaking around.  Hiding out.  From the bedroom to the kitchen, retrieving the glass of water by the night table, a pint glass, along with retrieving your eyeglasses;  multi-tasking, things in piles first, to then be sorted or made use of or taken care of to be more properly put away later;  sometimes the objects make it first half the way, as if that too were part of a process, something the mind saw the overall purpose of, the entire process in its grasp, even as you do not consciously think of it.    Is this the way some minds work?  Is this the way my mind works...

But if if finally came down to it, after all the things you wrote, what you might have within you, in your wildest dreams as a writer, wise, why not shoot for the highest mark, the coolest groove...

Why not aim for the example of examples, the real true distillation of words with meaning.

(One thought comes, and others will follow.   The hard thing is to not get distracted.)

Even Jesus, as a writer, would say, in essence, it is not me, it is my Father's business, it is from the Father.


And so I turned to what I thought would be the real things to write about, the things that I would mull over if I were, finally, a great writer.  A Dostoevsky, a well-read Lincoln,.  Converted.  Of a different mindset than the one you had to at least be capable of mimicking in order to stay relevant and make sense to anyone...


The secular world is worn out for the writer.  It doesn't offer enough, it's not interesting enough, at least not without its better counterpart, the life of the Church.  You can come upon this realization, as I did, a bit late in life.  Well, you knew it was always there.  You became well-read in Eastern spirituality, the philosophy of the Buddha, did the yoga, meditated, but even that, where does it lead you?   The Christian myth can be taken apart and analyzed by the scientists of myth and ritual, things that go way back, in history, in the psyche, but just as a way of thinking, you had to find the Judeo-Christian tradition working for you.

Taking in the mysteries, and working with them, prayerfully, it turns out working for you better than modern therapy treatment...

There are other things to do than mastery of the sophistications of the modern world, with all its great culture, its technological offerings...  Those things take up your time, but for what?  A career, you think, yes...  But that might not hold out forever...

As a writer you have no choice, I think, being in my own situation.  It was the way, there was no other.



Sophistication, moving to a city, etc., you thought chicks would like you better...

You can read Hemingway two ways...  either as a model for sophistication, worldliness, or, the other way, as one of simplicity, of going back to simplicity...