Getting Lucky

Last night, following a rather intense final study session for my final, difficult final exam (here as the semester reaches its final days), I took a much needed rest after my friends left my apartment. Sitting up there, alone again in a remarkably quiet building, I knew I needed some decompression time. What must be known about me is that I will always trade studying for sleep, confidence in what I've studied for semi-confidence and an hour of television. Some may call it lazy. They would probably be right.
Decompression for me can be achieved through a variety of different activities away from the computer, books, and hundred-page packets of assigned readings. Last night, it was a game of Xbox MVP Baseball (my Red Sox lost to KC 3-2, but they're still ahead in the AL East) followed by a glass of Kool-Aid while I watched a re-run of The West Wing. This is a show that I discovered late into its third season, but became totally captivated by. Thankfully Bravo airs old episodes constantly, so I have since caught up; though, because of my Wednesday schedule and my inability to pay for TiVo (c'mon, who really needs it?), I am completely out of the loop as to what is going on this season. However, I liked it better when Aaron Sorkin wrote for the show - as he did in the episode I watched last night, which brings me to the point of this post.
Toby Zeigler, the White House Communications Director, was responsible for meeting with the new Poet Laureate, Tabitha, played by Laura Dern. Tabitha has been requested as the featured speaker at an upcoming White House dinner, but has brought dread upon the White House because of her adamant position about the military's use of land mines (they are a horrifyingly bad weapon, in her opinion). The White House fears she might take the opportunity of speaking before the President and a large collection of government officials to admonish the administration for not choosing to sign an international agreement to no longer use land mines. The last thing the White House wants is for the President to be lectured by the Poet Laureate, thus Toby (who has a bit of a crush on Tabitha, a fellow writer) must meet with her several times in an attempt to dissuade her from her plan to point a finger at the President during the dinner. Long story short, Tabitha experiences a brief moment of crisis as her passion for poetry and her desire to speak the atrocious truth of such an issue collide. She questions what she should do: should she recite her 64 couplets on the American experience, or should she not back down from an opportunity to expose what she sees as a failure of the administration? Finally, things are resolved between her and Toby as well as her and the White House. And, toward the end of the show, as she speaks to Toby she says something quite extraordinary about which I could not stop thinking. It is a wonderful statement regarding artists/writers and what they are meant to be in society. She says (and I'm quoting as best I can recall), "The goal of an artist is not to communicate truth. An artist's goal is to captivate you for however long we've asked for your attention. If we stumble onto truth, we've gotten lucky."

At first, I took offense to this statement, but I soon realized that there is much truth to it. I have always considered my desire to write fiction a very pointed desire to communicate truth. Literary fiction, for me, is a type of commentary on the world, only placing make-believe people and places where real-life ones are. However, we cannot speak truth to those who are not captivated by us. I believe this statement transcends the television screen and the fictitious Bartlett administration, and speaks to the very heart of both secular and religious art, as well as Christian ministry. As a writer, many times I catch myself with a desire that seems to eat away at me, a desire to hold out truth as blatant and noticeable as possible, to make sure no one misses it, no one walks away living outside of it. Call it my own personal fundamentalism, but this is not the way. It was not the method used by Jesus 2000 years ago, nor should it be the way of one who is striving to live in a manner that honors him.
There is so much cramming of truth down the throats of people today, especially within the Church. I believe it is turning the stomach of the world - they have become purposely allergic to our heavy-fisted, white-knuckle messages of truth, not because of the truth itself, but because of the way we try to thrust it into the forefront of everything. We do not take into account feelings, personal emotions and histories, and all that makes humans what they are. We reject the need to captivate people. We accept only the assertion that they need truth and they need it NOW!
I hope, as both a writer and a minister, I will stumble onto truth often. I hope I will get lucky time and time again. I hope Someone will help me with that. But I hope I will never trade artistic beauty and charisma for blatant, in-your-face-whether-you-like-it-or-not truth. Such truth is bitter to taste, irritating to the eyes, and all in all adverse to the body. It does not build up, it does not mature, it does not make healthy. It only brings on the dry heaves to those who are desperate for real nourishment. Art, I believe, can be real nourishment. Our world does not need artists who are truthtellers as much as it needs truthtellers who are artists.

Speaking of art that communicates truth, I close this very long post with a plug. I have read an extraordinary novel by a writer who knows how to accentuate the wonder of life. She has recently been rewarded for this right effort with a little thing called the Pulitzer Prize. If you desire art that gets lucky with the truth, I strongly recommend the book below.


Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

May we all, in our own way, be artists, and may we be considered the luckiest people in the world.