Come-From-Behind Comic Victories

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

More thoughts about why artists and prostitutes don't fit in to the usual progression of aesthetic, ethical, religious.

Whenever a group takes away the religious sense and tries to reduce faith to an ethical proposition, it spawns artists, druggies (of the psychedelic, not hedonistic, variety), and prostitutes as a "4th sphere"--almost a kind of limbo.

That's exactly what the Pharisees did. That's exactly what Pentheus did. And thus, you have prostitutes and tax collectors trying to get beyond that wall by breaking its rules (not the ideal, normative way through, by the way!). A similar thing seems to have happened in our own day, but actually both the the religious and the ethical senses are being attacked, leaving nothing but the aesthetic. You're right that there are no "noble Romans" in our day. Fr. Bernard could be turned into one, but I don't think it would be edifying for anyone.

You should never harsh the Bacchants' mellow frenzy

This phenomenon is bound to funnel a lot of would-be mystics into various distorted paths. I think I enumerated some of them back in our meeting at the diner: psychedelic drug use, sexuality, cult membership, bacchic rites of music (think Jimi), insanity, etc. All of these would be characterized by an inarticulate longing for the ecstatic union of the religious sphere, a longing that Christ seems to have readily picked up on.

That is why you and I rightly (I think) have so much more admiration for a Marvin Gaye or a Gil Scott-Heron than we do for the guy who comes to church wearing his team's gear, goes down for donuts, and talks about yesterday's game. I know that God is a lot more merciful than us, by the way. But I have little patience for people who presume to judge why these artists suffered such an ignominious demise. "They should have never left the Shire!" is what these Chubs, Grubs, Boffins, and Brandybucks would say! No, they risked traveling a very high and narrow path, without the guidance and expertise that existed in past centuries, and therefore had a long way to fall.

Is it wisdom to stay close to Hell so your fall isn't as profound?

I hope that the one who "began a good work" in some of these Pancake Breakfast types "will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6). And that is one of the more beautiful things about our religion: it finds everyone where they are and comes up with some unlikely, miraculous, come-from-behind comic victories.