A Soldier Dreams: A Story

He remembered the light, then the roaring. A silence followed, succeeded by screams.

Then nothing.

People gathered around him, doing things, barking instructions. He tasted blood. The pain came suddenly, a blinding, screaming pain tearing him in half. He heard the screaming again. 

“Morphine! Now!” someone shouted. And he knew the screaming was his own.

He opened his eyes and saw white. And light. 

A man’s voice. “We’ve got this, Peter. Soon you’ll be dreaming.” 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

“Strange Gods” by Peter Daly and John Myslinksi

To read a novel like Strange Gods: A Novel About Faith, Murder, Sin and Redemption by Peter Daly and John Myslinski is to take a stroll through today’s headlines. It was published in 2016, but it eerily forecasts some of the stories we are seeing today about the Roman Catholic Church.

Nate Condon is an attorney in Manhattan. He’s something of a devout Catholic, in spite of the scandals that have engulfed the church and its clerical culture. The same can’t be said of his wife, Brigid, raised a Catholic but no longer a faithful one. She’s an attorney, too, and works for the Federal Reserve helping to ferret out money laundering and other illegal activities. 

Nate is a member of the Knights of Malta, and he’s asked to serve as a pallbearer at the funeral of a former U.S. attorney general at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The funeral service is led by Cardinal John Michael Manning. During the service, Manning is shot in the forehead, dying of his wound just feet from where Nate is standing. 

Manning is one of six cardinals who’ve died recently in unusual, mysterious, or violent circumstances. Nate is called by a former CIA director, also a Catholic (there’s still an old boys’ Catholic network). He’s asked to undertake an investigation for the Vatican. He accepts it, even knowing his marriage is getting rocky and his enduring faith in the Catholic Church is part of the reason. 

The trail inevitably leads to the Vatican, its powerful bureaucracy, the connections to the Mafia, and the conservative-liberal politics playing for control of the church and its future. 

Authors Daly and Myslinksi are both ordained Catholic priests. 

Peter Daly

Daly, after receiving a B.A. degree in religious studies from the University of Virginia and a J.D. degree from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., practiced law before entering the seminary. He was sent to the North American College at the Vatican and received degrees from the Gregorian University and Lateran University, both in Rome. He was ordained for the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Washington in 1986. He’s been a syndicated columnist for Catholic News Service and has written for both the Washington Post and the National Catholic Reporter.

John Myslinski

Myslinski received a B.A. degree from Boston College and became a Jesuit in the New England Province. He served as federal officer with the Capitol Police before entering seminary at Mt. St. Mary’s, where he received an M.A. in divinity degree. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Washington, severed as the “TV priest” for the District of Columbia, a chaplain in the Air Force Reserves, and a pastor at a church in Maryland. He was named a monsignor by Pope John Paul II in 2006. 

The novel was published two years before the public scandal involving Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington and the letter published by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano calling for Pope Francis to resign for allegedly setting aside sanctions placed on McCarrick by Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict, and making him a powerful advisor to Francis. McCarrick was forced to resign his cardinal position after the scandal involving McCarrick’s sexual abuse of Catholic seminarians and underaged teens became public.

Strange Gods is suspenseful and often riveting, and occasionally given to a bit of extended sermonizing (the authors are priests, after all). It argues a more liberal position in the ongoing conflict between clerical and lay debates in the church, but it does provide a vivid picture of the powerful clerical culture that so dominates the church and its archdioceses.

Top photograph: St. Peter’s Basilica interior, Vatican City, by Ellen Auer via Unsplash. Used with permission.

World War I: Mary Borden – Nurse, Novelist, Poet

In 1916, Mary Borden was 30 when she found herself managing a field hospital on the Somme River in France. Casualties were pouring in from the front; the Battle of the Somme started July 1 and would continue for months. Ultimately, more than three million men were involved, with a million casualties. On the first day of battle, the British alone suffered more than 57,000 casualties.

And there was Mary Borden and her hospital staff, watching the carnage pour through their hospital doors. She found solace in writing poetry.

An American, Borden was born in 1886 in Chicago to a man who would make a fortune from silver prospecting in the American West. While she was at Vassar, her father died, leaving her a large fortune. She began to travel, met and married a British missionary in India, and then returned to London with her husband in 1913. She discovered the women’s suffrage movement and became one of its most ardent activists.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

The Charlatan’s Boy by Jonathan Rogers

I was about 10 pages into The Charlatan’s Boy by Jonathan Rogers when I wondered whether I was reading Rogers or Mark Twain. My question was answered at the end of this comic, crazy novel in the author’s note: Rogers credits Twain as a major influence.

The novel falls within a sub-genre of literature known as “southwestern humor” that existed in the 19^thcentury and included Twain as well as authors like George Washington Harris. It’s funny, irreverent, and often downright rude. It also influenced a considerable number of writers in the 20^thand 21^stcenturies including William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and even Cormac McCarthy. A classic of southwestern humor, almost a throwback to its origins, in Donald Harington’s 1975 The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks.

The Charlatan’s Boy, published in 2010,is a tale of a con man’s travels through the large (and fictitious) island of Corenwald. If the people, towns, and villages resemble the American West of the early 19^thcentury, well, it’s likely they were meant to. The boy of the title is Grady, who serves both as a main character and the narrator. He’s been with Floyd (or “Perfessor Floyd”) for as long as he can remember, traveling from town to town with “the ugliest boy in the world” act. Grady, of course, serves as the star, and even Grady admits the title is well-deserved.

When Grady loses an ugliest boy contest, he and Floyd both realistically acknowledge that no one will want to see the world’s second most ugly boy, and Floyd has to forage for a new act and a new con. He decides upon creating a Feechie scare. 

The Feechies are a – perhaps –mythical people who live in the swamp named for them in southern Corenwald. Floyd, aided by Grady, begins a quiet rumor campaign, claiming that the Feechies have had it with “civilized people” and are about to start a war. Floyd has a gift of understanding human nature, and he knows that no right-thinking person will believe in Feechies, until they do. And his proof will be Grady, trotted out as a Feechie captured years before. The campaign works better than Floyd and Grady could hope – and then it works too well.

Jonathan Rogers

Rogers is also the author of The Wilderking Trilogy: The Bark of the Bog Owl, The Secret of the Swamp King, and The Way of the Wilderking; and three non-fiction works, The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor, Saint Patrick, and The World According to Narnia. He received his undergraduate degree from Furman University and his Ph.D. degree in 17^thcentury literature from Vanderbilt. He lives in Nashville.

The Charlatan’s Boy is a wild, funny romp of a novel, with scenes as crazy as Twain’s buffalo climbing a tree in Roughing It. But it’s also a story about relationships, people’s willingness to be duped, and a boy’s hunger for belonging. 

Top photograph by Linnaea Mallette via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The word: sanctify

After John 17:17

I considered the word:

sanctify. I considered

that it is a complex word,

deeply layered, so complex

that its simplicity is often

missed. To sanctify is:

to clean, to cleanse,

to wipe away the dirt,

erasing it. To sanctify is:

to separate, to set aside,

to partition from its context,

creating a new one. To sanctify is:

to purify, to make holy,

to establish a temple containing

truth: the word. The end

becomes the means

becomes the end.

Photograph by Emile Seguin via Unsplash. Used with permission.

A poem and a post at Literary Life

I have two features at Literary Life today.

One is a poem, "Imago Dei," that helps to introduce Literary Life's book feature in September, Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. The poem is inspired by this statement by L'Engle: "If the work comes to the artist and says, "here I am, serve me," then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve." The poem provides a little (poetic) explanation of the origin of a critical scene in my novel Dancing King. You can read "Imago Dei" here.

The second feature is post on fiction, "Finding Faulkner via Mexico and Peru." I never read William Faulkner until my mid-30s, and here I was, a born-and-raised Southerner. I discovered Faulkner after reading Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa and novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, and other Latin American writers. You can read the post at Literary Life here.

Saturday Good Reads

For many years, Terry Mattingly and the other writers at Get Religion have been writing about how the news media cover religion – the good stories, the bad stories, and the ugly stories. One particularly recent and ugly story has been the Pennsylvania grand jury report on 70 years of sexual abuse of children by priests, covered up and “issue managed” by the church hierarchy. And then came a bigger bombshell – the accusation that Pope Francis knew about the Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s activities – and not only did nothing but actively used the man in ministry. Mattingly notes in two articles that the big story is the one the media are ignoring, and you find it in the words that aren’t being said. The story is posing a major quandary for the mainstream media, because it runs so counter to the accepted media narrative. John Waters, an Irish journalist, challenges his journalistic brethren at First Things Magazine.

Should Protestants care about what’s happening with the Catholic Church? David French at the National Review says yes, and he makes a good case. (And it’s not like Protestants are strangers to the failings of church leaders.)

Michael Kruger, a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, N.C., has been posting a series on “The 10 Commandments of Progressive Christianity.” This week, he took aim at a big one – that Christianity is about being on a spiritual journey. 

Andrew Peterson deletes his Instagram account, Pamela Steiner takes a close (photographic) look at a spider, The Atlantic has a warning about marijuana addiction, and more.

Poetry

Poetry Should Propound – Joe Spring.

Life and Culture

A Blessing and Curse for the Arts – Mark Meynell at The Rabbit Room.

Life Lessons from Paul – Jeffrey Drazen at The New England Journal of Medicine.

America’s Invisible Pot Addicts – Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic.

Wrestling the Giant: Why I Deleted Instagram – Andrew Peterson at The Rabbit Room.

When He Was Still a Long Way Off – Shawn Smucker.

Unpacking Peggy McIntosh’s Knapsack – William Ray at Quillette.

Art and Photography

Barn – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

One of God’s Masterpieces – Pamela Steiner at Closed Doors, Open Windows.

Old North in the Morning Light – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

Faith

Pope Francis speaks out on Catholic world's biggest story: No biggie, saith the press and Nuclear war in Rome: Vatican's former U.S. ambassador claims Francis protected 'Uncle Ted' – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

Francis and the Journalists - John Waters at First Things Magazine.

Protestants Should Care Deeply about the Catholic Catastrophe – David French at National Review.

Is Christianity Just about Being on a Spiritual “Journey”? – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.

The New Thought Roots of the Prosperity Gospel – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

A Story about Love – Eileen Knowles at The Scenic Route.

Writing and Literature

Reading Crime and Mystery Will Change Your Life: 7 Essays about the Transformative Power of Crime Fiction – CrimeReads. 

Music

Gather – Christopher Williams at The Rabbit Room.

Death Valley 8K – The Pattiz Brothers

Painting: Blue Girl Reading, oil on canvas by Frederick C. Freiseke (1935).