“Not Chapter 6”
#1. “In art, the Trinity is expressed in the Creative Idea, the Creative Energy, and the Creative Power—the first imagining of the work, then the making incarnate of the work, and third the meaning of the work.” Thus Madeleine L’Engle in her “Introduction” to Dorothy Sayers’ “The Mind of the Maker” briefly [obviously! Dolt!] summarizes the trinitarian nature of the creative process. I quote this sentence at the beginning of Chapter 6 as a way to encourage you to read Sayers’ book with ML’E’s introduction. Who would understand better the nature of the creative process than an intelligent, insightful woman who had written a number of compelling mystery novels? [I put the numbers at the beginning of these paragraphs to indicate the order in which they were written.]
#3. And yes, I [Author as narrator, for the moment, perhaps like an Old Testament prophet, speaking for Yahweh] bought the book on kindle and thus am able to quote it. I suppose when I am talking for myself I become the lower case “author,” for the text will undoubtedly be here for a little while after I am dead. Dead and gone and not feeling too well at the moment! Here I introduced a bit of confusion into the narrative, for below I go off to watch a TV show, which I did, then came back, and inserted this comment into yesterday’s text. So the next paragraph is what I wrote yesterday [#2]. I am at least bright enough to know I could adjust the next paragraph, but I rather like how I defined my problem there. Thus, without further ado, yesterday’s paragraph, which originally followed the first paragraph:
#2. As I understand the creative process, and there is no guarantee of that understanding!, I am in the midst of the “Creative Energy” part of the process, the incarnation of the “Creative Idea,” speaking factually. And while we are at it I object to being called a dolt simply because I said “briefly summarize”; I have read lengthy summaries as well as brief summaries. That summary was brief, one sentence. I suspect someone hereabouts needs to do a better job of reading and thinking! And having said that, I think Art ought to be a way of clarifying how we think and understand ourselves, I find, however, that I grow more confused as I proceed. Ontologically, it’s what I would call the problem of the floating “I”; the Author cannot make up his mind when he is “creating” [cough, cough] which character he is: Author/author/narrator. Perhaps he should give up and let Philip tell the story from his bird’s eye view. Granted that wouldn’t work though I have been reading a series of mystery novels by Spencer Quinn wherein the detective’s dog is the only narrator, the only “I” who narrates the adventure. Talk about a conflicted writer! Goodness! In any case the Author is going to give up trying to write for the night; he’s going off to watch a second episode of “Inspector Manara” (in Italian with subtitles) on Prime, leaving all of us in Limbo, so to speak!
#4 Two or three days later and I have returned to pick up the narrative where I left off. One of the problems with the story thus far is that the Creative Idea has slightly changed to allow for the intrusion of the Author into the story in a way he never imagined when he started to write a simple fairytale. At this very moment he is conflicted, for he knows he needs to get the Prince and Philip back on the narrow road to Ardor and the Princess, whose name he keeps forgetting, and yet he also wants to talk about other stuff, like art and the nature of the creative process, and perhaps certain fundamental ontological problems that much occupy his mind. Couple that with the fact that his eyes keep filming over so that he can scarcely see the iPad screen, the lap board that he has the iPad standing on bounces every time he hits a letter, and that his spellchecker has a mind of its own and you can understand that life is somewhat difficult at the moment.
Let’s take the ontological problem first or perhaps it’s an epistemological problem. In any case he was lying in bed this morning thinking about the Big Bang and the Choice regarding the fundamental question: why is there something rather than nothing? [Astonishing! The “speller” knew each word in order following “why.” That is spooky!] Since the Author is a touch simpleminded, he thinks it’s one way or the other: either Matter always was, is, and will be and everything that now is is the consequence of Matter in motion or Mind [as in Divine Mind, i.e. God] as in Psalm 90 is from everlasting to everlasting. While the fundamental question is one that all persons need to answer for themselves, his thought this morning was that imagining Matter as always existing or even just popping into existence—bang—here-we -are is an impossible thought. Of course we know Matter is real and present because we can see it and it is us.
On the other hand, Mind [consciousness] is a reality too. We all have them, minds, that is, some more so than others (cough, cough), and while we know we have them we can’t see them, as it would seem to be with a Divine Mind, which we also can’t see. As with ourselves there is much evidence that such a reality exists. For example, there are immediately the intangibles: Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Justice, to name only four. If there is no Divine Mind to which they point, then they must be illusions, or so himself is thinking. Well, one could go on about these matters, and many have, but meanwhile our characters are still in Limbo or perhaps it is really just suspended animation for a while. Limbo conjures up images of Dante’s wonderful tale wherein he is also a character, and Dante’s Limbo is definitely not where our characters are currently residing. Dante made it into his work and out again without any of the current problems, so we know it can be done. It just takes a better mind than the one at work here to pull it off smoothly. Cough, cough!
So! Chapter 6 still has not come into existence and we have constructed another Interlude. Perhaps the Author is channeling Laurence Sterne after all. Perhaps Godric is really Tristram, but no, I don’t think so, and I should know. Wink, wink!
