February Journal, Sexagesima Sunday, the Octave of the Feast of St. Joseph of Arimathea

It’s a curious thing to submit a manuscript to a publisher, rather like sending your child out into the real world. My desk is mourning the characters and the mischief they get into, the hearts they break, the loves they discover, the lessons they learn, the past they confess. Stories grow with the telling and I’ve learned to use a period occasionally, a save button, or a send button. Takes courage to stop.

I fuss over the words like a mother fussing over packing, taking out, adding, then realizing it was better before the fussing. The storyline becomes convoluted and loses its natural rhythm, weaving in circles and landing in all the wrong places.

So I’ve learned to tell myself to stop fussing and send the book through the air to an office (a phone?) where strangers will examine and pass judgment. Then it’s on to another publisher, another submission.

I tell myself the times are changing, and our culture is finally admitting it needs serious literature that may not follow a formula, may not check all the boxes, may not virtue signal, but falls into the category of… could it be… art?

After all, companies are now disbanding DEI and ESG and other letters that live together in a strange manner. They are no longer terrified there will be protests/riots outside their offices or stores. Fear continues in blue states (here in California to be sure) but many national producers, be they be books or groceries or clothing, are not as concerned as they were before the election of President Trump, our common sense hero (CSH).

Nevertheless, I understand products need to sell, and literary novels generally do not, but fall into the loss category, the top of the pyramid, the fewer the better for the bottom line. The broad base of the pyramid is largely formula fiction, or nonfiction written by famous folks with platforms, which has its place among readers and will sell, given promotion by other stars with large fan clubs. This broad base does indeed support the more eccentric and literary endeavors at the top.

At the same time, there has been a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the cultural decline of America and what happened and can we change course? Is it too late?

So I offer my little novels celebrating the Judeo-Christian tradition and its moral demands to create a civil civilization, to live together peacefully. Heroes and heroines desire virtue and work to achieve some semblance of such. Responsibility and hard work and honesty are lauded: ideals I grew up with in the fifties, fictional accounts that examine the human condition, the nature of love and suffering and sacrifice. 

I do believe I have a calling to write; what happens to the resulting novels (my talkative children out there in the world) is up to others. I’m a good soldier or try to be, and seek the will of God, hoping/praying I hear the right answer. I think I hear his voice, feel his angels nudge me one way or another. One day I will find out for sure when I enter the gates of the New Jerusalem.

In the meantime, that is, in Earth time, Father Seraphim of Nazareth House Apostolate read a recent draft and gave me an endorsement:

“Thank you, thank you. This book cannot be read apart from wonderment and awe couched in the liminality of Love. You have told the truth that has brought forth freedom out of the quarrel and quandary of this present age. You told the truth, you have told the truth… In The Music of the Mountain there are no stop gaps, only the ongoing flow of Love that leads us and holds us into a Reality beyond, in our midst. Again and again, thank you.”

Fr. Seraphim, Elder Nazareth House Apostolate, Taylorsville, Kentucky

And two professional editors have had a go with the book, tweaking and suggesting, and I have taken (most) of their advice to heart. A fourth reader/writer is still out there… and we shall see what he thinks.

So God holds me in his palm. Can’t get better than that, as we enter Lent and travel to Jerusalem with Our Lord. Saint Joseph of Arimathea, the Apostle to England, planted his staff in Glastonbury and set in motion Western Civilization. Today we do the same, planting our staffs to save our world, one word at a time, one story at a time.

Deo gratias.