ruah arts group

He writes page turners to sell his “theology”. It’s not a big surprise to faithful and well-formed Christians–and in particular, Catholic Christians–but it seems to be news to the millions who read and love him into theological and historical delusion.

Read NY Times Op-Ed Columnist Ross Douthat here. He opens up the cancerous body of work and operates from head to toe, noting that Brown isn’t just your run of the mill anti-Catholic bigot, but an avant garde DIY hater of organized religion in general:

“Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah — sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.

But the success of this message — which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators — can’t be separated from its dishonesty.”

That’s right folks. Douthat’s calling him a liar. In the NY Times. Sweet.

As a side note, I went to this Theology on Tap last week that, contrary to its description, was a thorough treatment of the book and movie, “Angels and Demons,” along with a fantastic overview of the Church’s teaching on art and film. Dr. Daniel VanSlyke, Associate Professor of Church History at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, was great, if not an eensy weensy bit long-winded. I’ll post the audio when I get it.

Would you think me a bit mad if I told you God spoke to me through color?

Most of the few people who I’ve told about God’s pigmental locutions do, in fact, think I’m a bit mad. But just as we don’t choose God because He chooses us (John 15), we don’t choose the medium through which he communicates Himself; He chooses the medium. For many the medium is lively and electifying: locutions, ecstasies, visions, dreams and direct encounters with the divine. For others the medium is hidden, mundane, in the “still, small voice” of prayer. Many hear and feel nothing. Such was the case of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta for over fifty years. She felt absolute nothingness for decades, but in that emptiness received everything.

Without divulging too much of my soul I can say that I’m often in the middle of that spectrum in my relationship with the Most Holy Trinity. However, at some points in my life, He’s appeared most sensationally to my soul. I use that word deliberately, for He uses my extreme sensitivity–to light, sound, words, music and even color–to communicate to me. It at times has been quite subtle, but at other times quite visceral and striking.

Perhaps in another blog entry, I’ll delve into my sensory interior drama with greater detail (it is kind of a long story). But for right now I will say that while the devil has access to our exterior senses and some of our interior senses, God has access as well. We must train ourselves in prayer and thought to be attentive to the still, small voice of God, whatever flourishing form it takes.

Color Notes for the Road:
*In the midst of my color journey years ago on a pilgrimage, I heard of the book “Astonishing Splashes of Colour” by Clare Morall. While the premise of the main character–having synaesthesia, a condition where one’s senses are crossed (hearing colors, smelling sounds, etc.)–is very interesting, in the end it was just a postmodern piece, colour without form or soul.
*An electronic palette for Colorphiles. I love this. This is linked to a recent blog entry on Color Etymologies.
* Color Matters, another Color web site.

Lookie what book I received from Amazon last week! I can’t wait to read it–after I finish the substantial “Cry of Stone.”

The Island of the World 

a new novel by Michael D. O’Brien

The Island of the World is the story of a child born in 1933 into the turbulent world of the Balkans and tracing his life into the third millennium. The central character is Josip Lasta, the son of an impoverished school teacher in a remote village high in the mountains of the Bosnian interior. As the novel begins, World War II is underway and the entire region of Yugoslavia is torn by conflicting factions: German and Italian occupying armies, and the rebel forces that resist them — the fascist Ustashe, Serb nationalist Chetniks, and Communist Partisans. As events gather momentum, hell breaks loose, and the young and the innocent are caught in the path of great evils. Their only remaining strength is their religious faith and their families.
For more than a century, the confused and highly inflammatory history of former Yugoslavia has been the subject of numerous books, many of them rife with revisionist history and propaganda. The peoples of the Balkans live on the border of three worlds: the Islamic, the Orthodox Slavic East, and Catholic Europe, and as such they stand in the path of major world conflicts that are not only geo-political but fundamentally spiritual. This novel cuts to the core question: how does a person retain his identity, indeed his humanity, in absolutely dehumanizing situations?
In the life of the central character, the author demonstrates that this will demand suffering and sacrifice, heroism and even holiness. When he is twelve years old, his entire world is destroyed, and so begins a lifelong Odyssey to find again the faith which the blows of evil have shattered. The plot takes the reader through Josip’s youth, his young manhood, life under the Communist regime, hope and loss and unexpected blessings, the growth of his creative powers as a poet, and the ultimate test of his life. Ultimately this novel is about the crucifixion of a soul — and resurrection.
*

“You will not want to put this book down until you finish it, and you will continue to live in it even after you close its covers. This story will change you. It will make you a wiser, better person. Is there any greater, rarer success we can hope for in a mere book than that?”
— Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Boston College. Author, The Philosophy of Tolkien

“It is difficult to know where to turn for noble enough analogies in speaking of this book. Michael O’Brien has achieved both a seriousness and a delicacy, that is not to be taken lightly. I wonder whether we are going to find Mr. O’Brien’s name taking its place along with those of Mauriac and Bernanos before too long?”
— Thomas Howard, author, Dove Descending: A Journey into T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets