Chapter Nine

 
    Somewhat to my surprise, my upstairs typewriter - the one with the view - has been very quiet for a number of weeks. It is now almost the end of January - to be precise the 26th - and in two months I have managed only three or so pages up here. Whenever the Muse allows me to write steadily, I think of at least two pages as a normal day's work. Sometimes I have had to settle for half-a-page, as late in 1986 when I was moved to decide that I was due to put "finis" to the first volumes of Contemplatives; and then at other times, as in the summer months of 1987, when I was getting up to twenty pages on my highest day, and for an average day ten to fourteen, I have been able to produce in great quantity - indeed, unable not to do otherwise - but ordinarily I am content with a daily quota of half-a-thousand words; and so, I think, are many writers who take their craft seriously. The slower pace is pretty much preferred by authors who hope to leave something lasting. He who rushes to appear in print will rush to be forgotten, probably more quickly than he might have expected. The images and ideas of the mind can be voluminous, the stirrings of the heart and the feelings profound and numerous, and these can make for prodigious quantities of words, yet there might be such a loss of balance as to make the whole thing of a most ephemeral interest. Volume is usually necessary for a beginner, and even for the most proficient who relies on external draughting, for there must inevitably be a terrifying amount of words to throw away, but the finished result, if anything, will err on the side of economy.
    But this preferable measure should, ordinarily, occur within the working day, and no doubt as well the proper working week, where the prudent thinker in production mode still inclines to the wisdom of a day or two off every working five or so. Writing is a satisfying business in itself, but good writing, fully truthful stuff that is going to stick around for awhile, is often exhausting labour, and the writer needs his holidays, regularily small, yet occasionally large.
    Yet I was not really looking for any rests longer than a weekend, certainly not a couple of months, so from more than one past experience of Divinely created shutdowns, I knew I was waiting for something, either a research note - occasionally these take quite a while to come upon - or a major public event significant to what the Muse had in mind for me, eventually, to consider paying attention to. As it has turned out, there have been two events during the occasion of this delay - one of them seemingly connected with a question of research - and those two public events have occurred pretty well simultaneously. John Paul II has just concluded a visit to Fidel Castro's Cuba, and the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, is being made to face into the question of alleged sex scandals. Praying for leaders, of state as well as church, is a duty for the faithful, it goes almost without saying, but praying for those in the posts of decision and example is a full-time job for a contemplative, especially for a contemplative in the seventh mansiion.
    In fact it seems that the older I get, the less I write and the more I pray. As our professions shape us, of course the writer is always chattering away internally, for habits are habits, and that inward activity is satisfying, stabilizing, in itself. Yet this is still only the writer thinking, and valuable and necessary as thinking may be, it is not the same challenge and proof of ability as getting the words down on the page; the best words, in the best order. Nor, for the writer, is it quite enough of the work he has to do in order to employ the talents given him and thus save his soul.
    Yet, in 1987, as I was storming along at my most productive rate, the Holy Spirit did remind me, via a series of locutions, that praying remained my first duty, and that writing was to be considered number three. (Spiritual direction was two.)  Then a couple of years after the book was done, He furthered his sense of my priorities by a most - to me - mysterious intimation: I was, at least from time to time, to regard myself as "never having written a novel at all". I still do not clearly understand all the reasons this was said to me. Ongoing lessons in detachment are never unwelcome to the prudent, but I suspect a reason more precisely practical, and having to do with other assignments, especially the assignment of praying for a bankrupt hierarchy; national conferences have in so many cases become the biggest enemies of Christ since - to my cultural background - the Anglican revolt of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries.
    In every country, including my own, there are some bishops and archbishops who do not go along with the whining of modern psychologisms, nor the strange ambitions of nationalists of this or that stripe; these are men who believe fully in the ancient, wise, and unchangeable essentials of Catholic Christianity, who can discern the perils of surrendering to whims, whether from so-called leaders and learned advisers, or from the rank and file. This distinction is valid, as the two do not always go mad in the same way, In our times, while the "professionals" babble on and on in "inclusive" language, the general run of parishioners wonder what all the fuss is about. A recent poll conducted in the American Church has proved this overwhelmingly, yet the addled Mandarins fail to make suitable adjustments. Likewise, the average worshiper of my experience is embarrassed by the habit of standing during the changing of the bread and the wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, yet, like true sheep, they follow the herd, Rather comfortingly, I must say, one of the few genuinely devout priests of whose acquaintance I can boast in the modern Church said to me a few years ago: "Those who know they are sinners will kneel at the time of consecration; those who do not know they are sinners will stand."
    Yet - it must be asked - how can the laity recognize themselves as sinners when their professional leaders seem so generally incapable of such beginnings of wisdom? Just recently, in a brief conversation with a bishop, I used the phrase mortal sin. Had I slapped him, he would not have reacted with more vehemence and outright denial of the point I was trying to make.
    Moreover, even more recently I hear of a parish pastor being not a little off-hand in his advice to a young couple, for some time already living together, who are finally taking marriage instruction.
    And what of the young oaf, also in a collar, who a few years ago removed from a cathedral bulletin board an article, from L'Osservatore Romano, warning against inclusive language? He was already acquiring notice from parishioners as a preacher who went on twice as long as need be, so much so that eventually his bishop had to send him for what is euphemistically called a "year's study".
    With shepherds like these, the flock, to be destroyed, has no need of wolves. Only the mercy of God, His love for His Church, and the raising up through special infusions of grace in exceptional souls can counter these kinds of folly, can at least hold their influence on the faithful at bay, can eventually overcome them. And while certain souls among the laity, with a strong and genuine faith, may be able to set a minor example, may remain a truly graceful element within the body of the Church Militant, the vanquishing of all these harmful practises is possible only to the clergy: the bishops and priests, not excluding, of course, the vigilance and legislative authority, through canon law, of the Bishop of Rome.
    History tells us there was a time when Kings could deal with stupidity and sin among bishops and clergy, and not just for the ordinary criminal offenses, but it is unlikely that we shall ever see again the likes of Stephen of Hungary, or Henry of Bavaria - although recently I seem to have seen a line-up of medieval kings who wished they had been more like these men - and so we have to wait upon those whose task it normally is.
    This is not to say that the laity cannot have a strong spiritual effect on priests and bishops, and even cardinals and popes. Despite the clamours and follies of the world, and the worldly factions of the Church - and these are more manifold than Heaven has ever wished to see these days - constant prayer and example, in the souls of the genuinely virtuous, remain the Holy Spirit's weapons of choice, and such armament is readily available to the laity as well at to clergy and religious. In these times, however, it needs to be said that only those who firmly understand the Church's ancient and unchangeable teachings on real and wholesome chastity are truly virtuous, and thus capable of influencing the hierarchy for good. It is the spirit and example of those who have compromised on questions of purity and chastity that have brought the Church to its present sad condition in so very many areas of the world. Such a huge preponderance of souls, one way or another, are in the same predicament as Saint Augustine before he gave into the voice of Christ. They live in the flesh, for all that they might think of themselves as respectable - or even devout - and withing their minds they wander in a labyrinth of unanchored concepts and endless rationalization.

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    As with all of this book so far, the pages of this chapter have taken their time, once again waiting on events. Providence insists on having, for the time being, the lion's share in my processes of inspiration and permission to carry on with the text. Providence, of course, always knows what lies ahead, while we mortals must wait patiently on her signs. And the sign, once more, as with Gone With The Wind, is American. Two mornings ago, May 5, my agents mailed a letter of inquiry to one of the best known and respected - deservedly - of American Catholic theologians, Jesuit Father Avery Dulles.
    The idea of contacting Father Dulles was not new. Well over a decade ago, at a point by which Rome, through novel chapters and my letters to the Holy Father had heard much of our fictional bishop, the Most Reverend Meinred Schwartz, Ordinary of the fictional diocese of Sterling, Father Avery had come out swinging so hard against the bishops of his own nation that one could easily think that the mighty Babe Ruth had returned to the Bronx. (In that New York borough stands Yankee Stadium as well as Dulles' Fordham University.) And a certain novelist and his advisers could easily think that the learned Jesuit had been advised about Schwartz and was kindly tipping off episcopal palaces throughout his native land.
    Father Dulles was saying that throughout the United States, where could be found a bishop with a genuine understanding of liturgy, theology, or spiritual direction? Our spirits leapt, mightily, and we even wondered if we might be hearing from him in the not too distant future. There were matters we cared about intensely and prayed over constantly, and the fictional Meinred Schwartz had been summoned to a most intense case of spiritual direction even before he arrived in his new diocese! By grace as well as nature we have been optimists about eventually finding a home for the novel, in a publisher, and like-minded souls with learning and an influential circle are automatically a possible doorway.
    Yet at the time we were much of a mind to believe that only the Vatican had the spiritual intelligence to oversee such a project. Either on my own, or after 1982, with my agents, a fair assortment of publishing interests had been approached without success, as I had known that I would have to start testing the waters long before the boat was built and ready for sailing. Canadian, British American, Irish; old friends. total strangers; French, Italian, Pakistani, Spanish by proxy; academic, commercial, small and hardly known in the publishing world or as huge and profiled as could be imagined; publishing houses which dealt with fiction, or publishing houses specifically theological; radio, film, and television interests, magazines, daily newspapers; priests, bishops, cardinals, religious, even the Pope; actors, directors, producers, editors, and of course, fellow writers: all of these functioning as alternatives whenever it seemed that we would not be able to think of Rome as a publisher, or simply seemed to be following an alternative inspiration.
    Genuine mysticism, of course, especially at the fully mature levels, is a rare thing, and the average literary man, artist, or critic is not really prepared to deal with it, nor is the average theologian or philosopher, no matter how experienced, learned, or published himself. Nor could I feel ignored as a writer generally, and go off in a fit of sulking. My lesser excursions with the Muse had received a very fair degree of attention, on a least one occasion, more than my agents were comfortable with. Some poetry, a play adaptation, a few songs, one of which was the theme for a radio drama broadcast on the national network. Moreover, this piece of composition, more than any other lyric I had written, was the one which prompted me to be in wondering about the day when I turned to creating an opera.

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    And yesterday, as Providence and the Muse would have it, my beloved, who originally sang The Bluebell for the radio broadcast, performed the song at the annual gathering of an informal association of museum and gallery personnel. This year's meeting was held in Riondel, the little town beside the Bluebell mine, on the east shore of Kootenay Lake and the lyrics were rendered, a capella, after a tour of the mine area. I was not present, following the usual habits of a hermit, but my wife had to admit that there was not a dry eye in the house. Furthermore, she did not mention the Margaret Mitchell project, for fear that if the audience knew I was considering an opera they would insist on a local concept.
    And I must admit that twenty-five years ago I was quite willing to try an opera on the Bluebell theme - it was, after all, a tragedy, a murder provoked by greed, claim-jumping, and frustration. Interestingly enough, one of the protagonists, the convicted murderer was an American. My neighbours, for better or worse, seem always to be a part of my inspirations.
    For many reasons, this is only natural. On my father's side, my ancestors were American, until after the Revolution, when a Charles MacCarthy Lamb emigrated from Pennsylvania to Upper Canada. Nearly a century later the family tree returned to the States, with a young offspring in Montana, marrying a Maggie Cavanaugh in Great Falls in 1889. I think I have mentioned this earlier, in connection with Gone With The Wind and its attendant discoveries, but it comes around again as something to think about in connection with Father Dulles and my one trip to New York City, naturally a Mecca or Jerusalem or Rome for any young soul who finds himself with the vocation of a writer.
    But in my case, there was also a supernatural element, because it was while I was in New York that I had a rather profound religious experience, fundamentally the third experience of the weeks following my last day in classrooms ordinarily dedicated to the study of the liberal arts.