A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

Since, I'm already on record, at least on Facebook, as one who does not make New Year's resolutions, I go on record now with a change of mind. Thanks to Tim Chesterton, for inspiring me to start a list of books read in 2015. Why haven't I done this before now? I hope I remember to keep the list current.

I have now finished rereading Marilynne Robinson’s Home for the third time. Late last year, I’d read Robinson’s newest novel, Lila, which includes a number of the same characters as her two previous works of fiction, so I wanted to check back with my friends. All three of her 21st century novels, the two mentioned above and Gilead, are masterworks, or so I believe. If there is a finer writer of fiction in this century, I don’t know who it would be.

I was only a few chapters into Lila when I knew I would read the book again. There is so much to savor in Robinson's exquisite writing, that it's impossible to fully appreciate her work in one reading...or two or three, for that matter. Jack Boughton, as portrayed in Home, is one of the great tragic characters in 21st century fiction, and Glory, Jack's sister, and their father, the Reverend Robert Boughton, follow close behind, not quite so tragic as Jack, though all too human and real and weighted with sadness. In testament to Robinson, all her principal characters come alive to me and seem like people I know.

Robinson's books are beautiful, but I would not say they are happy books....more like life with ups and downs...and more downs. I come away sad, but not without hope, and lifted out of present depressing realities. As a Facebook friend said, her writing always allows for the possibility of redemption for her characters.  The depth of Robinson's religious sensibility is quite evident in her writing, but she never preaches.  Even now, on the third time around for Home, I find myself going back to reread certain shining passages. I'll reread Gilead next, and then back again to Lila.  Note that all Robinson's titles are a single word.

I could probably make a list for 2014 without too much difficulty, but maybe it's better to make a new start.

R.I.P. ANDREW GREELEY

Fr. Andrew Greeley, an eminent sociologist of religion who also happened to be probably the best-selling priest-novelist of all time andthe Catholic church's most prominent in-house critic, died Wednesday inChicago. He was 85.

Over the course of a career that generated a staggering 72 nonfiction books and 66 novels, Greeley became the voice of the liberal American Catholicism of his generation -- critical, but deeply loyal. Greeley could be too Catholic for both some on the secular left and the most embittered of the church's dissidents, as well as too outspokenly liberal for the Catholic establishment, but he was always a compelling and commercially successful player on the American stage.

I read several of Greeley's racy novels, starting with The Cardinal Sins, his first best seller.  Greeley insists the mildly erotic passages in his fiction sprang from his imagination, for he asserts that he never broke his vow of celibacy.  I believe him.

"At the most basic level, people learn from the novels that sex is good," Greeley said. "Then they get the notion that sexual love is a sacrament of God's love, that sexual love tells us something about God. They also understand that God's love tells us something about sex."

The idea that sex is good, a gift from God, which many Roman Catholics had already discovered without the help of the celibate authorities in the church, was affirmed publicly for the first time by a prominent member of the RC clergy for many - um - practicing Roman Catholics, whose consciences had been disturbed generation after generation by the intrusions of Roman Catholic clergy into their bedrooms.

Not everyone in the church approved of Greeley's fiction.

The National Catholic Register, for example, opined that Greeley had "the dirtiest mind ever ordained."

Oh, I doubt that very much.  Whoever wrote the words in the article, ordained or not, probably had a dirtier mind than Greeley, because he had to have read a lot of dirt to know that Greeley's mind was the dirtiest.

The progressive Catholic values of the 1960s informed Greeley's approach, both to secular politics and to the church. Over the years, he supported ordaining married men and women as priests, attacked what he saw as the inflated power of the Vatican, and railed against what he termed the "original sin" of clerical culture: envy. He was no less a lefty in secular terms; his last nonfiction book was titled A Stupid, Unjust and Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007.

"The progressive values of the 1960s" were right and true.  That the RCC backed away from the values was a sad mistake.

From time to time, I read and enjoyed Greeley's columns in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Andrew.  Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.  Amen.

"THE PROMISE" - CHAIM POTOK

Whoever recommended that I read The Promise by Chaim Potok, thank you. Once I began reading the novel, I could hardly put it down.   A major theme in the story is the age-old conflict between fundamentalists, who read the Talmud literally, and those who engage in critical reading of the sacred texts - a conflict which continues throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity until the present day.   The people who adhere strictly to a literal reading of the sacred texts, Jewish and Christian, do so in the face of contradictory passages that appear impossible to reconcile.   Other passages in the text don't really make sense unless one assumes the possibility of a mistake in copying a manuscript and explores different wording that make the passage understandable.

The story unfolds through the voice of the narrator, Reuven Malter, an Orthodox Jew, who is very much a part of the narrative.  The principal characters - Reuven's father, David, a well-known teacher in a Jewish school, Danny Saunders, Reuven's good friend, a Hasidic Jew who chooses to study psychology rather than follow in the footsteps of his father and become a rabbi, Michael Gordon, a troubled adolescent, and Reuven's nemisis, his Talmud teacher, Jacob Kalman, a survivor of the Nazi death camps - are well drawn and believable and come to life in the course of the novel.  The fine writing throughout drew me into the story made me care about what happens to the characters.

The book was written in 1969, and I wonder whether the Freudian-influenced extreme type of treatment of the very ill young Michael would be used today.  If the experiment suggested by Danny and undertaken with the approval and supervision of Michael's psychiatrist as a last resort, does not work, the two believe the young man will very likely be institutionalized for the rest of his life.  Of course, today many more drugs are available to treat mental illness than back then, so perhaps this sort of treatment would no longer be acceptable.

Religious fundamentalists seem to paint themselves into a corner without a way out, except by pretzel-like reasoning that makes no more sense to me than the original contradictions or mistakes.  I understand that the texts are sacred to them, as they are to me, but humans were created with the ability to reason, and why would God expect us not to use the gifts?  With certain Jews and Christians, it seems that to allow that passages in the Bible may not be literally true or that the Scriptures may contain mistakes in transcription would result in the collapse of their entire faith edifice.

Abraham Gordon, father of the mentally ill Michael, a Jewish scholar, who no longer believes in a personal God, but who continues to observe the rituals of the Orthodox tradition:

"Of course, that's the problem,"he said to me once.  "How can we teach others to regard the tradition critically and with love?  I grew up loving it, and then learned to look at it critically.  That's everyone's problem today.  How to love and respect what you are being taught to dissect." 

One great benefit from reading the book is that I came away with the reminder that no one is "other" and that no matter how deep and broad the disagreements, our opponents are human, like us, and deserving of respect because of our common humanity and, if we are people of faith, because we are all of us God's creation and beloved of God.  In that sense, the novel was life-giving in a way that was completely unexpected.  I heartily recommend the book.

Notes On A Lovely Book

Glory had often reflected on the fact that Boughtons looked very much like one another. Hope was the acknowledged beauty of the family, which is to say the Boughton nose and the Boughton brow were less pronounced in her case. All the rest of them male and female, were, their mother said, handsome. They all passed from cherubic infancy to unremarkable childhood to gangling youth to that adult state of Boughtonhood their mother soothed or praised with talk of character and distinction, Hope being the one exception. So adolescence was a matter of watching unremarkable features drift off axis very slightly, of watching the nose knuckle just a little and the jaw go just a little bit out of square. So Glory's face had transformed itself in its inevitable turn. She remembered her alarm.

From Home, a novel, by Marilynne Robinson. When I began to read the book, I anticipated a pleasurable experience, because I'd read Gilead, by Robinson, a beautifully written story, with characters so alive that they become people whom you care about in the course of reading the book and even afterward. Characters in Gilead reappear in Home. On Bishop Alan's Blog, he and I discussed Gilead in his comments, and he said, "I thought Gilead was one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read — clear simple and profound..." I agree, and I'd say the same about Home. The girls in the family are named Glory, Hope, Faith, and Grace. If I remember correctly, the Reverend Boughton considered Charity for one of the girls, but his wife drew the line.

Home is the story of two siblings, of eight, who return to the family home in a small town in Iowa, where their father, a retired minister, who is old and ill, still lives. One, Glory, goes to help her father after a period of adversity in her own life, and her brother, Jack, returns out of desperation. It's a story of faith, of father, daughter, and son, with all the accompanying missteps, doubts, and hesitations. Biblical references and quotes abound, but not in a beat-you-over-the-head manner. They appear naturally, in the course of conversations, en passant. Many of the references are permeated with irony as Jack, the black sheep of the family, speaks them.

About Glory:

For her, church was an airy white room with tall windows looking out on God's good world, with God's good sunlight pouring in through those windows and falling across the pulpit where her father stood, straight and strong, parsing the broken heart of humankind and praising the loving heart of Christ. That was church.

The church could be a description of my church, except that the sunlight does not fall across the pulpit.

A conversation between Glory and Jack:

"...You're worried about seeing Ames tonight at dinner."
"Yes, well, it seems I've done as much as one man could do to make the experience embarrassing."
"Nonsense. Really. If he did see you on the street, what of it?"
"Good point, Glory. Perspective. Just what is called for here. Would he have noticed my discomfort with myself from that distance? Well, so what? A law-abiding citizen has a perfect right to feel wretched on a public sidewalk, on a Sabbath morning. Even to pause as he does so. Near a church, too. There's poetry in it, of a sort."

The father is a giant of a man, shrunken by age and illness, but still a force in the lives of his children. Jack, the black sheep of the family, is one of the most endearing and heartbreaking fictional characters that I've come across in quite a while. He lingers with me and, I suspect, he will continue with me for a long time.

There's no way that I can do justice to the book with my words. I was moved to tears more than once by the story but also by the beauty of the prose. I'd go back to read the lovely words again, and I'd weep. I urge you to read it and see for yourself. And then, if you haven't read Gilead, go read it, too. I get no commission from sales.

UPDATE: Listen to or read about the NPR interview with Marilynne Robinson.