WEBVTT - Episode 19: James K. A. Smith 0:00:03.850 --> 0:00:08.230 Welcome to the habit podcast conversations with writers about writing. 0:00:08.260 --> 0:00:10.149 I'm Jonathan Rogers your host. 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.370 James K. Smith is a professor of philosophy at Calvin 0:00:28.370 --> 0:00:31.400 College in Michigan and the author of many books including 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.370 designing the kingdom. You are what you love and most 0:00:34.370 --> 0:00:37.910 recently on the road with St. Augustine. His work on St. 0:00:37.909 --> 0:00:40.310 Augustine has been exceedingly helpful to me both as a 0:00:40.310 --> 0:00:42.650 writer and as a human being as you will hear 0:00:42.650 --> 0:00:44.300 in this conversation. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:46.760 Jamie Smith thank you so much for being on the 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:49.700 habit podcast. I really appreciate you making time for us. 0:00:50.420 --> 0:00:52.040 Oh it's great to talk to you. 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.720 You know a Gustin has been such an important part 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.870 of my sort of inner world for four years and 0:00:59.870 --> 0:01:04.010 really your work on St. Augustine has been very important 0:01:04.010 --> 0:01:07.610 for me really giving me the away end to make sense. 0:01:07.610 --> 0:01:09.920 So so thank you for the work you've done in 0:01:10.580 --> 0:01:13.370 imagining the kingdom and I guess it's a desire in 0:01:13.370 --> 0:01:15.440 the kingdom that whole series and in your which you 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.650 love and and now on the road with St. Augustine 0:01:18.650 --> 0:01:21.140 which I which I have been reading I just love 0:01:21.140 --> 0:01:23.240 it I think it's going to be a really important book. 0:01:23.930 --> 0:01:27.920 Oh thanks so much. I feel like. I've been sort 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.709 of writing this book for 20 years because Augustine has 0:01:30.709 --> 0:01:35.250 been with me the whole way so yeah yeah yeah yeah. 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.720 I mean it's just his idea of you know the 0:01:39.050 --> 0:01:43.760 ordered and disordered and reordered loves. Actually it's so helpful 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.940 for thinking about all of human experience for it and 0:01:46.940 --> 0:01:48.740 it certainly has been a big part of the way 0:01:48.740 --> 0:01:50.660 I think about writing and the way I teach writing. 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.390 Fascinating you know because every at every creative writing teacher 0:01:56.390 --> 0:01:59.990 who's ever lived I think you know has said what 0:01:59.990 --> 0:02:01.900 do your characters want. You know I mean at the 0:02:01.890 --> 0:02:05.000 end you understand your character. I mean you might say 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.230 your character is his wants which by the way. That's 0:02:09.230 --> 0:02:12.410 what my character is to as a person is what 0:02:12.410 --> 0:02:16.490 I want. And and I make choices based on what 0:02:16.490 --> 0:02:19.310 I want. And then you know there are consequences and 0:02:19.310 --> 0:02:22.730 then maybe my desires change and you know that just 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.130 I think it's just so helpful in so many ways. 0:02:26.630 --> 0:02:30.200 You know for for for writers to think about. 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:31.710 I love. 0:02:32.060 --> 0:02:34.880 I love this connection you're making because. Yeah. And it 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:41.150 also explains then why writing is such a science of 0:02:41.150 --> 0:02:43.190 the soul as it were. I mean it's the art 0:02:43.190 --> 0:02:45.230 that is the science of the soul and why why 0:02:45.230 --> 0:02:50.090 it's why a novel can tell me more about myself 0:02:50.090 --> 0:02:53.660 and can tell us more about humanity than you know 0:02:53.660 --> 0:02:57.290 a newspaper article because in a way the best literature 0:02:57.350 --> 0:03:01.710 is getting at people's hungers desires and is is getting 0:03:01.710 --> 0:03:05.120 at is trying to honor the complexity of that. 0:03:05.230 --> 0:03:08.340 And I think a Gustin it's interesting. 0:03:08.340 --> 0:03:10.310 In fact I'm talking to a friend who teaches at 0:03:10.310 --> 0:03:13.730 the University of Iowa Writers Workshop Garth Greenwell and when 0:03:13.730 --> 0:03:18.980 he teaches writing he teaches Augustine's Confessions and not just 0:03:18.980 --> 0:03:24.380 for memoir but for a kind of writing that is 0:03:24.380 --> 0:03:28.610 attentive to the dynamics of desire the way in which 0:03:28.610 --> 0:03:32.450 our loves are sort of the engine that drives our 0:03:32.690 --> 0:03:33.889 being in the world. 0:03:33.889 --> 0:03:38.339 And I think you're right that Augustine is in that sense. 0:03:38.660 --> 0:03:40.400 I think one of the reasons why Dustin is still 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.630 with us is because he was so prescient in that regard. 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.930 And so it's at once was very very intimate. You 0:03:47.930 --> 0:03:49.970 know you can peer into a soul and yet it 0:03:49.970 --> 0:03:55.010 also helps you to understand others. So yeah no I'm 0:03:55.010 --> 0:03:58.400 encouraged to hear that that's helpful in teaching writing too. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:03:59.910 That's very cool. Yeah. 0:04:00.140 --> 0:04:01.880 Maybe we should back up. I mean I've kind of 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.430 launched in as if everybody listening knows what we're talking 0:04:04.430 --> 0:04:07.120 about as far as ordered and disordered lives and sure 0:04:07.130 --> 0:04:11.250 could you could you sort of give us a quick summary. 0:04:11.300 --> 0:04:11.560 Yeah. 0:04:11.620 --> 0:04:16.430 So I think probably the aspect of Dustin but most 0:04:16.430 --> 0:04:19.660 captivated me and I'm trained as a philosopher so that 0:04:19.730 --> 0:04:22.640 slightly skews maybe the way I came to Gustin. But 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.180 what struck me was first and foremost that he's he 0:04:26.180 --> 0:04:28.580 looks at who we are as human beings and he 0:04:28.580 --> 0:04:32.450 sees the seat and center of the human person is 0:04:32.450 --> 0:04:35.630 located in the heart by which he doesn't mean just 0:04:35.630 --> 0:04:39.380 this mushy emotionalism. He just means that the the the 0:04:39.380 --> 0:04:41.420 engine room of our loves. 0:04:41.420 --> 0:04:45.140 And so what really defines me and what motivates me 0:04:45.140 --> 0:04:47.839 and moves me and what kind of governs my my 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:53.600 being is what I love. But so everybody to be 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.669 human is to love. You can't not love hated Gus. 0:04:56.950 --> 0:04:59.510 That first paragraph in the confessions where he says you 0:04:59.510 --> 0:05:03.080 have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:07.159 until they rest in you. So every creature by virtue 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.010 of being made in God's image is longing for something 0:05:10.010 --> 0:05:12.690 is looking for something is chasing after something and that 0:05:12.830 --> 0:05:14.650 that's really on the register of love. 0:05:14.900 --> 0:05:17.270 But then a Gustin says that doesn't mean that we 0:05:17.270 --> 0:05:19.970 all love the same things. Nor does it mean that 0:05:19.970 --> 0:05:23.539 we love what we ought. Right. There's a kind of 0:05:23.540 --> 0:05:27.609 design claim here that humanity is made to love and 0:05:27.610 --> 0:05:31.510 it's ultimately made to love the one who made them 0:05:31.510 --> 0:05:36.010 to love God who who welcomes them. The effect of 0:05:36.010 --> 0:05:40.600 sin and brokenness and and tragedy in our lives is 0:05:40.990 --> 0:05:43.750 not that we stop loving something it's that we now 0:05:43.990 --> 0:05:48.140 our love gets disordered it gets misdirected it's it's aimed. 0:05:48.190 --> 0:05:51.219 The aim is crooked and bent and now we're chasing 0:05:52.060 --> 0:05:58.000 created things instead of the Create tour hoping those created 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.180 things could satisfy an infinite hunger. 0:06:01.180 --> 0:06:03.250 So now now we're looking for love in all the 0:06:03.250 --> 0:06:08.020 wrong places where we're we're chasing after facets of the 0:06:08.020 --> 0:06:11.799 creation glomming onto them grasping them as if they could 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.770 be everything to us. And when we do that they 0:06:14.770 --> 0:06:17.560 sort of slip through our fingers they become nothing and 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.940 we're still hungry. So that's our art. We can't not love. 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:23.839 But our loves can be disordered. 0:06:24.370 --> 0:06:29.440 And really redemption redemption is finding the right target for 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.169 our love. You know remembering what we were who we 0:06:32.170 --> 0:06:32.849 were made for. 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.950 Yeah. It seems like every story you read is that 0:06:35.950 --> 0:06:39.280 story right. It's it's people getting into one kind of 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.300 trouble or another because of some disordered love and sometimes 0:06:43.390 --> 0:06:46.330 usually it's their own sometimes it's somebody else's that causes 0:06:46.660 --> 0:06:50.529 heartache for them. And then in the end that resolution 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:56.820 is some sort of correction. 0:06:56.820 --> 0:06:59.060 Yes yes of their lives. 0:06:59.460 --> 0:07:02.350 And it's a correction on the right. It's a correction 0:07:03.430 --> 0:07:06.669 or it's a restoration. It's a healing on the order 0:07:06.670 --> 0:07:10.000 of their loves. And it's not just you know what 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.310 they believe about the world or what they think about 0:07:12.310 --> 0:07:16.270 the world. Right it's it's it's it's it's cooking along 0:07:16.270 --> 0:07:18.670 under the radar of all those kinds of things in 0:07:18.670 --> 0:07:21.070 some ways. Why do you say that again you said 0:07:21.130 --> 0:07:24.400 it's not that they would you just say that they 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.010 don't do so it's not that what happens is I 0:07:29.010 --> 0:07:32.730 think the dynamic is it's not always a matter of 0:07:32.730 --> 0:07:35.310 how I'm thinking about the world or what I believe 0:07:35.310 --> 0:07:38.340 about the world. That's really the source of my problem. 0:07:38.340 --> 0:07:40.770 You know I might say you know you could have 0:07:40.770 --> 0:07:42.990 a character and it looks like oh well their problem 0:07:42.990 --> 0:07:45.090 is they believe the wrong thing or they have the 0:07:45.090 --> 0:07:49.020 wrong ideas but in fact usually that's just a symptom 0:07:49.020 --> 0:07:51.760 and a manifestation that they want the wrong things in them. 0:07:52.610 --> 0:07:56.490 And so a resolution for a character is not always 0:07:56.490 --> 0:08:01.680 like figuring something out. It's it's actually sort of finding 0:08:02.100 --> 0:08:05.190 what they were made for and finding the end of 0:08:05.190 --> 0:08:06.450 their loves in that regard. 0:08:06.570 --> 0:08:09.150 I mean interestingly I think that's exactly the trajectory of 0:08:09.150 --> 0:08:12.960 Augustine's own story and the confessions is that in a 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.080 way it looks for a long time like his problem 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.110 is this intellectual puzzle he has to solve. How should 0:08:19.110 --> 0:08:21.600 I think about God and what's the truth. But what's 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:23.670 interesting is by the time you get to book seven 0:08:23.670 --> 0:08:26.280 of the confessions in a way he has resolved all 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.820 those intellectual problems he knows. He actually sort of knows 0:08:29.820 --> 0:08:32.489 what the truth is. But he would still admit he's 0:08:32.490 --> 0:08:35.729 not who he's supposed to be. He still is characterized 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.450 by anxiety and fragmentation and it's not until he actually 0:08:39.690 --> 0:08:43.140 gives himself over on the order of his loves that 0:08:43.140 --> 0:08:47.400 he really finds kind of wholeness and resolution for himself. 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:48.460 And I think that's important. 0:08:48.750 --> 0:08:51.240 And even that prayer Lord might be chaste but not 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.809 yet it is. I know in my head what I 0:08:54.809 --> 0:08:56.410 need to be but my heart's not there yet. 0:08:56.830 --> 0:08:57.970 Yeah yeah exactly. 0:08:58.020 --> 0:09:01.590 And he knew I think that this is the difference 0:09:01.590 --> 0:09:04.770 between different kinds of stories too I think the heart 0:09:04.770 --> 0:09:10.199 of what would be an Augustinian story is the heart 0:09:10.260 --> 0:09:13.230 I need is itself always going to be a gift 0:09:13.350 --> 0:09:15.320 it's gonna be like what talking called you know the 0:09:15.330 --> 0:09:18.660 you catastrophe it's going to be something that's that's given 0:09:18.660 --> 0:09:19.229 to me. 0:09:19.230 --> 0:09:21.960 And if there's an act I need to undertake it's 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.750 an act of surrender it's an act of opening myself 0:09:24.750 --> 0:09:28.709 up of receiving which of course is a deep offense 0:09:28.710 --> 0:09:31.320 to my pride who wants to be able to say 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.200 I've figured it out I achieved that I accomplished it 0:09:34.470 --> 0:09:43.319 yeah yeah yeah that's that's great as as you the 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.969 this these longings send us on journeys right. 0:09:47.970 --> 0:09:51.660 I mean the central metaphor of your of your latest 0:09:51.660 --> 0:09:54.480 book is yes on the road was in August. It's 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:59.100 this this moving through time and space in search of 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.370 something and not just your time and space is also 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.240 a mental. A metaphor journey. And I'm sure you've heard 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.850 the the the old saying there are only two kinds 0:10:08.850 --> 0:10:11.339 of stories. A stranger comes to town or a person 0:10:11.340 --> 0:10:14.480 takes a trip and I have not heard them. 0:10:14.530 --> 0:10:16.000 That's that's certainly good. 0:10:16.140 --> 0:10:19.410 And I thought about that as I was reading through 0:10:19.830 --> 0:10:23.370 your book on the road with Dana Gustin. Yes. This 0:10:23.370 --> 0:10:27.390 is why this is why that's where that saying comes from. Yeah. 0:10:27.620 --> 0:10:32.220 We're on journeys because we don't know because we well 0:10:32.309 --> 0:10:36.600 because we're because there's a there's space between where we 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:38.650 are and what we want. 0:10:38.780 --> 0:10:42.330 Yes. Yes. So there's that there's a sense in which 0:10:42.330 --> 0:10:46.080 to say that human beings are lovers first and foremost. Right. 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.939 That we want that we long almost built into that 0:10:50.940 --> 0:10:52.020 is a picture of. 0:10:52.020 --> 0:10:55.140 There is an out there that I'm after and that 0:10:55.140 --> 0:10:55.580 I'm said. 0:10:55.620 --> 0:10:59.809 So humans who are lovers are also chasers. 0:10:59.910 --> 0:11:03.839 And so it's almost by the very nature it propels 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:09.380 you elsewhere. And so I think that's part of it. 0:11:09.380 --> 0:11:11.580 I also think I mean I think it's a really 0:11:11.580 --> 0:11:15.569 interesting question because there's something about the journey to which 0:11:15.890 --> 0:11:21.660 this locates me and maybe that's also what happens when 0:11:21.660 --> 0:11:23.219 the stranger comes to me. 0:11:23.370 --> 0:11:26.910 There's a kind of dislocation where now I have to 0:11:26.910 --> 0:11:31.260 confront something about myself like in the journey maybe the 0:11:31.260 --> 0:11:34.920 comforts of home drop away and now I have to 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:39.270 see something in myself or I'm encountering others who are 0:11:39.270 --> 0:11:42.590 a mirror for me that I never had at home. 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:47.610 And I think that explains the why pilgrimage is so 0:11:47.610 --> 0:11:50.449 crucial to the spiritual life in a way. 0:11:52.740 --> 0:11:57.330 Yeah that that that disorientation that that I mean this 0:11:57.330 --> 0:12:01.500 is where a story comes from. Yeah. Right. Right. 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.770 And I think I've said this in this podcast before 0:12:04.830 --> 0:12:08.280 you know it. Florida is such a rich source of 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.160 story because people are always running into each other who 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:15.210 don't normally run into each other hand also the natural 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.550 they find themselves in the swamp and you know the 0:12:17.550 --> 0:12:20.880 swamp itself is a place where the water meets the 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:22.740 land and this kind of animal meets and that's kind 0:12:22.740 --> 0:12:26.170 of its it's that yes I've got yeah I've got 0:12:26.179 --> 0:12:27.900 to Florida thing but but the. 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:32.880 No that's okay. You know Lauren Groff trajectory. That's right. 0:12:32.900 --> 0:12:34.200 Have you ever thought of it that way. 0:12:34.570 --> 0:12:38.880 I mean for Dustin too I think. And not just 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.120 for Dustin but I think Dustin gets this. I think 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.030 he he thinks this is part of the human condition 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:49.990 that we are in a way all looking for another country. 0:12:50.070 --> 0:12:55.920 We are all exiles. We are all strangers in the 0:12:55.920 --> 0:13:00.690 land now. That's partly because we made ourselves strangers. But 0:13:00.690 --> 0:13:04.650 he he thinks there's too mean to try too big 0:13:04.650 --> 0:13:08.790 theological world words but he thinks there's this eschatological aspect 0:13:09.090 --> 0:13:13.910 that everybody is is looking for this kingdom to come. 0:13:14.020 --> 0:13:15.610 So some version of that. 0:13:15.630 --> 0:13:19.680 And so because we are all oriented to some end 0:13:19.710 --> 0:13:23.569 like that we're looking for another country like Abraham. 0:13:24.150 --> 0:13:28.600 Everybody's on this track. And and the situation of Ragsdale 0:13:31.530 --> 0:13:33.920 also names something about the human condition. 0:13:33.929 --> 0:13:35.699 And then the question is can you be an exile 0:13:35.730 --> 0:13:38.520 who also knows where home is. And I think there's 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.720 a lot of rich possibilities for narrative arcs in between 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:43.890 those two things. 0:13:43.890 --> 0:13:47.190 Yeah yeah. You use the term out there a little 0:13:47.190 --> 0:13:52.620 while ago and I think that's you know one thing 0:13:52.620 --> 0:13:54.840 that's that's distinctive. 0:13:54.940 --> 0:14:00.120 We we're used to the idea of pursuing our desires 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.740 to pursue to to you know every Disney movie starts 0:14:04.740 --> 0:14:06.740 with the I want song right. You know that you 0:14:06.730 --> 0:14:09.560 know I want this reason in the movie into and 0:14:10.670 --> 0:14:14.130 an insight that I've run run into throughout your work 0:14:14.250 --> 0:14:16.950 and some of this is from from Charles Williams and 0:14:16.950 --> 0:14:19.950 Simmons from Augustine and but the idea that we don't 0:14:19.950 --> 0:14:22.320 get to we don't get to invent what's gonna make 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.420 us happy we don't get to. We don't get to 0:14:24.450 --> 0:14:27.450 invent them. Speaking of the last words we'll get you 0:14:27.450 --> 0:14:30.810 and then our own tea here and here. 0:14:32.250 --> 0:14:34.470 And so the idea of something out there somebody it's 0:14:34.470 --> 0:14:38.720 not I don't look inside to know what I need. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:43.140 Who I am. But rather I look to something beyond me. 0:14:44.100 --> 0:14:47.960 I think that's a really important insight for a right 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:49.830 or not. I mean not just for characters in a 0:14:49.830 --> 0:14:53.190 story but but for a writer to realize my work 0:14:53.190 --> 0:14:57.450 is not just a map of my inner world but 0:14:57.450 --> 0:15:01.740 rather I am I'm giving an account of what I've 0:15:01.740 --> 0:15:03.750 seen in the world a world that I didn't make. 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.320 Yeah. Yeah. I mean I wonder if that helps explain 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:12.060 though to why maybe so many many contemporary stories don't 0:15:12.060 --> 0:15:15.210 have this purchase on us because I do think we 0:15:15.210 --> 0:15:18.390 live in a cultural moment where people do imagine they 0:15:18.390 --> 0:15:20.010 can make up their own kilos. 0:15:20.340 --> 0:15:22.650 They imagine that they can make up their own good 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.070 and then that makes for a terrible story because the 0:15:26.070 --> 0:15:28.890 world just sort of bends to your will and you 0:15:28.890 --> 0:15:30.520 try to. 0:15:31.590 --> 0:15:34.410 I mean it's just fantasy in the worst sense of 0:15:34.410 --> 0:15:37.180 the word right. Like it's it and it's not true. 0:15:37.260 --> 0:15:40.950 Whereas yeah for August and for the kinds of stories 0:15:40.980 --> 0:15:45.450 I think for the human condition it's actually about how 0:15:45.450 --> 0:15:48.920 do I find the way I fit into the world. 0:15:48.930 --> 0:15:52.440 I didn't make how do I find a way to 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.110 fit and make sense of myself into a world that's 0:15:55.290 --> 0:15:58.440 given that yes given in the sense that I've run 0:15:58.440 --> 0:15:59.740 into it. 0:15:59.910 --> 0:16:01.970 But also given in the sense that it's gifted hits 0:16:02.100 --> 0:16:05.370 it's created it's given to me and I think that 0:16:05.370 --> 0:16:09.270 actually just makes for much more interesting literature much more 0:16:09.270 --> 0:16:13.740 interesting narrative though and this is where in some ways 0:16:13.740 --> 0:16:18.840 it's almost hard to read Gustin from modernity because as 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.590 you said we've kind of inherited this this assumption that 0:16:23.580 --> 0:16:25.800 the world is what's in our heads and what we 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.760 make of it whereas interestingly for Dustin even when a 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:34.200 gust and turned inward and he starts trying to plumb 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.700 the depths of his own conscience consciousness. 0:16:38.890 --> 0:16:41.580 Augustine so he uses this metaphor of a cave and 0:16:41.580 --> 0:16:44.400 he says when you turn me into myself and I 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.010 start trying to plumb the depths of my own soul 0:16:47.340 --> 0:16:50.460 it's like I reach this cavern whose bottom I can 0:16:50.460 --> 0:16:56.380 never sound. And there's almost a kind of infinity within me. 0:16:56.430 --> 0:16:59.490 And then you hear the echoes of God reverberating from 0:16:59.490 --> 0:17:00.210 the bottom of it. 0:17:00.210 --> 0:17:06.830 So either for Dustin interiority is so different than modern interior. 0:17:07.090 --> 0:17:11.400 No it's it has it in infinity about it because 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.760 it's the soul that's made in God's image. And I 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:19.080 do think so. I'm a huge fan of you know 0:17:19.109 --> 0:17:22.890 19th century French literature and in many ways I still 0:17:22.890 --> 0:17:26.609 think they understood that. I think a lot of flow 0:17:26.619 --> 0:17:30.419 better understood. Despite all his sort of proto modernism I 0:17:30.420 --> 0:17:33.240 think he understood that we are always more than we 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:37.950 could make of ourselves and trying to grapple with that mystery. 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.800 I think mystery is a bit of a lost category 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:42.750 for us in London. What do you mean when you 0:17:42.750 --> 0:17:47.730 say that there is there is a sense in which 0:17:47.820 --> 0:17:55.150 there's an elusiveness we we elude ourselves which is precisely 0:17:55.150 --> 0:17:58.780 why you want to trust the one who made you 0:17:58.780 --> 0:18:01.119 to tell you your own story. 0:18:01.350 --> 0:18:03.890 Great that there is there is I don't trust the 0:18:03.890 --> 0:18:06.640 story I would tell about myself because I am I 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:11.020 don't have confidence that I know who I am and 0:18:11.020 --> 0:18:15.310 yet if I surrender myself to the one who made 0:18:15.310 --> 0:18:20.830 me and knows me in a sense I'm receiving the 0:18:20.830 --> 0:18:24.550 gift of a story that helps me narrate my own 0:18:24.940 --> 0:18:28.260 identity and that's perplexing. 0:18:28.300 --> 0:18:31.090 I unfortunately I think what happens in modernity in an 0:18:31.090 --> 0:18:34.750 age where we think we know everything is mystery just 0:18:34.750 --> 0:18:38.409 has a negative connotation like what we're saying is the 0:18:38.410 --> 0:18:41.320 mystery is something that has to be solved it's all 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:43.859 there's a puzzle and we're gonna figure it out whereas 0:18:43.869 --> 0:18:47.409 this historic you know even the St. Paul sense of 0:18:47.410 --> 0:18:49.870 mystery in the book of Ephesians or what a Gustin 0:18:49.869 --> 0:18:52.960 means by mystery or the mid evils is mystery. Is 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:58.630 this plenitude this Fullness this overflowing so that when you've 0:18:58.630 --> 0:19:02.050 waded into a mystery it's not that you're puzzled it's 0:19:02.050 --> 0:19:07.120 that you're sort of overwhelmed by possibility but it requires 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:08.830 a lot of trust like you have to know who 0:19:08.830 --> 0:19:12.010 you're trusting in that context I'm not sure if that 0:19:12.010 --> 0:19:15.340 helps is very helpful for writers but I do think 0:19:15.340 --> 0:19:18.940 it gets at something more true about the human condition 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.330 than imagining that we could figure ourselves out Well I 0:19:22.330 --> 0:19:25.960 think it's one reason it's helpful for writers is that 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:27.369 it frees. 0:19:27.369 --> 0:19:33.040 It opens up some possibility. OK. If if you know 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.439 there aren't many Christian bookstores left. But but when you 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.290 go through a Christian bookstore you realize the extent to 0:19:38.290 --> 0:19:44.830 which Evangelicalism has bought into that that modernist D mystification. Yes. 0:19:44.859 --> 0:19:46.869 You know it's it we're going to you know here's 0:19:46.930 --> 0:19:49.890 seven steps to this in five easy ways to what 0:19:49.890 --> 0:19:52.600 you were going to solve this problem rather than wading 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.070 into a mystery and saying I think this the universe 0:19:57.070 --> 0:19:58.720 is too much for me and God is too much 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:00.919 for me. But but here we go. We're gonna try it. 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.409 Yes. Yes. Yeah. No I agree. We often don't appreciate 0:20:05.410 --> 0:20:10.540 the depths to which modern Protestantism sort of drank the 0:20:10.540 --> 0:20:12.340 modernist Kool-Aid in that regard. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:14.770 And it's it's it's one of the reasons why I 0:20:14.770 --> 0:20:19.900 actually think one of the best sort of imagination stretching 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:25.270 exercises for Christian artists is to immerse themselves in ancient 0:20:25.390 --> 0:20:29.820 and medieval wisdom and traditions because it's just it's pre modern. 0:20:29.830 --> 0:20:32.500 And so they haven't they they don't they've never fallen 0:20:32.500 --> 0:20:34.930 into the trap of imagining that we're thinking things. 0:20:35.770 --> 0:20:39.190 Yeah yeah. I've been I've been reading a lot of 0:20:39.650 --> 0:20:43.439 well as I say Aquinas really. JOSEPH Yeah I've been 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.020 getting my Aquinas through Joseph good guide. 0:20:46.090 --> 0:20:47.530 He's a reliable God man. 0:20:47.740 --> 0:20:50.230 And this is rock in my world I mean this 0:20:50.310 --> 0:20:55.750 this business of conforming yourself to again we've used this 0:20:55.750 --> 0:20:59.590 phrase already to a reality that we didn't make me 0:20:59.940 --> 0:21:02.700 and I think that is so helpful for a right. 0:21:02.710 --> 0:21:04.480 And I think it's freeing for a writer to say 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.560 you know what was Edmund Spenser you says fools that 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:10.330 my muse may look in the heart and write. But 0:21:10.450 --> 0:21:12.010 when I look in my heart and try to write 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.440 I don't know what to say but when I look 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.600 out at the world I say okay I can do 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.109 that yeah I can I can I can give an 0:21:20.109 --> 0:21:23.710 account of what I've seen. And it's such a relief 0:21:23.710 --> 0:21:26.680 to get out of my head and instead write about 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:29.320 well Florida or whatever you know. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:29.940 Yeah yeah. 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.850 But it's interesting to then also imagine your reader and 0:21:33.850 --> 0:21:38.880 make room for her to dwell in mystery writer. So 0:21:38.890 --> 0:21:41.080 the other another temptation for us is to be sort 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.770 of overly exposition all and to try to make it 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.370 all work for our reader and to solve it whereas 0:21:49.910 --> 0:21:51.949 Well it's funny I had this. 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.250 I mean I'm a philosopher I'm an academic so I'm 0:21:54.250 --> 0:21:56.260 still very much learning how to write. 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.660 And in this book that writing on the road with St. 0:21:58.660 --> 0:22:01.150 Augustine was a new experience for me because I knew 0:22:01.150 --> 0:22:03.850 I wanted to move into a kind of writing that 0:22:03.850 --> 0:22:05.790 was more narrative and literary. 0:22:05.830 --> 0:22:07.629 And one of the things I realized I had to 0:22:07.630 --> 0:22:12.070 learn is I had to actually say less and I 0:22:12.070 --> 0:22:16.200 had to make make room for the reader to have 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:21.460 an encounter but to then not program exactly how every 0:22:21.460 --> 0:22:24.570 reader was going to respond to that encounter. And there 0:22:24.570 --> 0:22:27.430 is a certain almost a a discipline of a kind 0:22:27.430 --> 0:22:32.439 of minimalism of not wanting to explain it all. And 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:35.230 then once I think I'm not saying I accomplished it 0:22:35.260 --> 0:22:37.990 but I think once I understood how that works I 0:22:38.020 --> 0:22:43.810 then thought of novels memoirs biographies that I value and 0:22:43.810 --> 0:22:47.830 realized oh yes they gave me room as a reader 0:22:48.070 --> 0:22:51.130 to do some of my own imaginative work in in 0:22:51.140 --> 0:22:52.230 that encounter. 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.159