A New Blog

Following the collected advice of several friends, I will try to write something interesting every day. I hope that this will help me like a journal would - collect my thoughts, reflect over time, and improve writing. Starting a blog is easier and cheaper than buying a nice leather book, but the more important advantage is the ability to share my thoughts with others. I hope you (whoever you are, reading this) will make good use of the 'comments' function, or get in touch some more personal way. Today, I will start a tradition of no-less-than six paragraphs with thoughts on writing and relationship.

Yesterday I shared a meal with my friend and former professor Kathleen. Amid our usual (but too infrequent) liberated discussion of religion and the universe, and while giving an equal dose of motherly love to her six doting dogs, she mentioned her plans to travel to Chicago for a Thomas Berry memorial. She has been invited to speak on her personal relationship with the spiritual master, who died last summer. One of her greatest concerns since his death has been the distribution and preservation of her reams of unpublished writings, original manuscripts, and recorded interviews. Her stress is between donating them to Chicago, which already has a Berry archive and which has approached her several times for them, and Loyola New Orleans, which is far less than inviting over the idea.

She has given me copies of these texts in the past, and I read them carefully. Berry is a hero of mine, too, and these unpublished works are golden. Many of them are key to understanding him as a thinker, or touch on unique topics unturned in his (few) published works.

When I was preparing my thesis on Stephen Duffy, just after I had finished my first copy, one of the older professors in Philosophy gave me a copy of a short article Duffy had written for a Loyola reading circle in the late fifties (as far as I can guess). I felt like I was reading sacred papyrus scrolls - hand-typed, signed, faded and yellowed. He still used his priestly prefix and suffixes, which he had thrown off by the time he published most of his work. This manuscript evidenced an unique and challenging image of Duffy who I had not met, even after reading basically everything he had written.

We know, it is obvious, that speaking or singing are done to communicate. We know that there must be an object, a thou to whom the communication is addressed. But not so with writing. Written words are like furniture, or architecture, or functional art, or watches - they straddle communication and meditation. They do not need a thou to address to be beautiful and real. Perhaps because spoken words disappear, while written words etc persist, and can be enjoyed for their beauty later. Doug says that nothing is more sad than a piece of furniture going unused, or a house standing unoccupied. But one day the house or chair may be used, and if they aren't, they are still present. A spoken word unheard is entirely vain.

Thus, this journal replaces vain speech. I am not actually sharing the link, and digital text does not persist like papyrus, so perhaps it is vain. But I will read it, and draw from it, so instead of vain perhaps it is entirely self-serving (like a watch one makes and then only wears when alone, or a painting in a closet). I wonder if I will allow myself to edit it? will I make it every day? (this post took about 20 minutes - I think I can manage that). Will it ever be interesting?

Writing is good. I sign off (into a rainy New Orleans) with a clearer mind. I feel like reading an essay or a book, which was not the case twenty minutes ago. Ask me in three weeks.
-Andy