Arthur's "Solution"

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 4 August 2014.

If everything Arthur experiences is a distorted version of the antecedent will of God, then Iceland should have been his Patmos experience. The solution that Will comes up with is a religious stretch for him, but not for Arthur.

So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me empty,
but shall do what pleases me,
achieving the end for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)

Being a good Catholic is not enough for Arthur; he is a type of Catholic that has been largely banished from both secular and religious circles. He's kind of like a Abba Joseph of the Desert Fathers or a St. Joseph Cupertino or a St. John the Apostle. It's also reminiscent of Thomas Merton, who spent his early conversion days teaching Harlem youth--clearly a good thing--but not where he belongs. He's a contemplative, a visionary, a mystic. The guy levitates, has fire come out of his fingers, alternates between visions of Heaven and Hell, and does very little that would work in the context of a K of C Pancake Breakfast.

Iceland is not where he belongs either, but it needs to be something on that level. This is the situation inside God's consequent will, which is patiently guiding Arthur's feet back making use of these broken elements.

Perhaps the happy ending can be conveyed in an epilogue-type thing, like at the end of Life of Pi. Maybe we visit Arthur in a small hermitage. Maybe he has even become a priest through some special dispensation (he wouldn't be able to get through any of the heavy theological study--I'm sure there is some example of this in history).

That's the final frontier for Catholics: being able to retreat from life altogether. But only priests who can confect the Eucharist can truly live this lifestyle. Maybe the hermitage is out back on some huge property that Will bought with the money from some successful endeavor--maybe even from making it big with Arthur White!

Will's solution is a neat and tidy one, but the point for me is that Arthur's "solution" no longer has any place in society--maybe it never did. The only fellow feeling he finds is in music world of the Jimi Hendrix-style druggie mystic and in the cult world of Carlton Farthington. It's not like either of those are necessarily closer to God's will, but I think this may be one of those areas in which “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you" (Mt. 21:31).

The people sitting in the pews--still trying to "win a game of ball in a cup," as you say--are so far removed from the reality of the kingdom. Who would convert more quickly were they to meet Jesus face to face: the former or the latter? I think what Jesus is saying is that the former, having unmoored themselves from any chance of success in the worldly sense, are so much more ready to embrace the kingdom. They already live in tents; once they see the column of flame, there's nothing to slow them down from following it through the desert.

So, the Catholic audience is chastened by this message, coaxed into laughing at Carlton Farthington and the cult, only later realizing that they need to get down to at least that level themselves--not in the context of the cult, of course, but in the context of their detachment from the world and seeking the kingdom first.

Last little bit: I've often wondered if the ring in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is something like this fervor that drives someone to burn out on psychedelic drugs or join a cult. It's nothing that the usual hobbits in the Shire would ever encounter because they're too comfortable, too averse to adventure. So, from that perspective, Bilbo, Frodo, and--yes--even Gollum can be considered closer to the kingdom than the hobbits back in Hobbiton. Yes, there are many dangers and pitfalls that beset the hobbits that come in contact with the magic of the ring (or of the adventure in general), but there is never any sense in which ordinary life back in Hobbiton would have been the better or more noble option.