Apart from the dark and murky souls who advocate “planned parenthood” and the kiling of babies, most people will see the obvious connection between pro-creation and the gift of life. Few, however, see the similar and parallel connection between sub-creation and the gift of life. Sub-creativity, i.e. the gift of poiesis, is, like the gifts of love and reason, one of the marks of God’s image in Man. It is, as Dorothy L. Sayers might say, the Mind of the Maker in the mind of man. It is an understanding of the relationship between Creator and sub-creator that animates the work of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. It is also at the heart of the poetic vision of the great convert poet, David Jones, whose masterpiece “The Anathemata” gives paradoxical voice to the mystical relationship between God, religion and art. The Divine source of the artistic gift explains the connection between art and life, art and wholeness, art and holiness, and art and health. It also explains why the culture of death destroys the reverence and respect for the creative gift.
There is an excellent article about the relationship between poiesis and wholeness in today’s Crisis Magazine:
This is the second article from today’s Crisis which I have linked and recommended. I would also add that there is another great article in today’s edition on the homosexist assault on Franciscan University of Steubenvile, which is also worth reading. Clearly Crisis is an exemplary on-line magazine giving voice to authentic Catholicism in the culture wars.
‘It is, as Dorothy L. Sayers might say, the Mind of the Maker in the mind of man.’
Speculative
Waugh found a handful of dust in South America,
Greene found the power and the glory.
Greene found the heart of the matter in black Africa,
Waugh found black mischief.
I’m not saying the stories were hidden there, or maybe I am?
Am I saying that?
Should God be credited co-author?
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh,
In collaboration with God.
Did God plant the story there in the Amazonian rain forest?
Did He cultivate it there?
Did the seed grow there?
The stories of Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh,
Are really sub-plots in the story of their lives,
In their life-story.
Did God make Greeneland?
We know he made the geographical place called Greenland,
But did He make the sleazy, seedy place we know as Greeneland?
Was it Evelyn Waugh who’ traced the operation of Divine Grace
On a group of closely connected but disparate characters’,
Or was it ACTUALLY The Holy Spirit?
They were both unique in creating stories so close to their experience.
They made stories out of their lives,
From the story of their life.
The Sword of Honour series is almost a direct transcription of what he did in the war,
It could almost be called Evelyn’s War,
Like a very lengthy military dispatch.
They didn’t have the imagination of a Dickens or a Balzac,
So they had to go out and find a story,
Like a reporter.
Waugh scooped the scoop of Scoop out of-‘the rubbish heap of experience’?
Graham Greene moulded Brighton Rock,
From the sugar and spice of life.
The Ultimate Story, the Greatest Story Ever Told,
The Life of Christ,
‘The fairy-tale which is true’.
What is true is stupendous,
What is fiction mundane.
The fiction of our lives is the mundaneness.
The truth; ‘we cannot stand very much reality’
Truth is stranger than fiction really.
Our lives are fiction compared to the Crucifixion.
Waugh was a cuckold (in despair),
So God guided him to South America,
Had him meet the model for Mr. Todd there.
That’s how God created A Handful of Dust
God is: ‘il miglio fabbro’
The Greater Creator.