Sacred and Profane Love

In this episode, I speak with professor of theology Fritz Bauerschmidt about Graham Greene's novel, The Heart of the Matter. We discuss the moral psychology of sin, and how it is that human beings are able to knowingly act against their own good (in this case: knowingly and deliberatively choose their own eternal damnation). How can someone find what is evil good? The answer in this case is a deft exploration of the interplay between pride and pity, self-deception and self-conceit. Read more about Fredrick C. Bauerschmidt and myself on The Virtue Blog by clicking the link below. The link also includes all social media platforms, streaming platforms, and contact email. https://linktr.ee/SnPLove

I am pleased to share a very special episode of Sacred and Profane, our first episode recorded in front of a live audience, and with the amazing Dr. Cornel West! The context for this episode is that the Classic Learning Test (which has sponsored several episodes this season, and on whose board of academic advisors I happily serve) held its third annual higher education summit in beautiful Annapolis, Maryland, and invited me to record an episode for the educators who had gathered for three wonderful days to discuss aspects of the summit’s theme: Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” The result is the conversation that is episode 41, in which Cornel West and I discuss James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Go Tell it on the Mountain. Cornel argues that Baldwin is a “Socratic prophet” and a “love warrior”, and that if we only approach him through a political lens we will miss or misunderstand so much of what he has to say. Cornel helpfully traces out some of Baldwin’s main influences: From Conrad and James to Mahalia Jackson and Ray Charles, but argues that, in the end, Go Tell it on the Mountain is a profoundly Augustinian novel. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation.

In this episode, I speak with the journalist Damon Linker about the Pulitzer prize winning American playwright, Eugene O'Neill.  Our conversation mostly centers around A Long Day's Journey Into Night, the semi-autobiographical account of the tortured dynamics within in his own family. We discuss O'Neill's uniquely Catholic variety of atheism, of how his work resonates with themes from Simone Weil, in her essay, "Literature and Morals," the difference between a transcendence that orders the self to the good and the transcendence that is ordered towards the obliteration of the self, and finally, O'Neill's his tragic vision of the human person.

In this episode, I speak with Michial Farmer about the philosopher and playwright Gabriel Marcel--more specifically, we discuss his play, Thirst, and one of his essays, "The Mystery of the Family."  We talk about how Marcel's plays give him the materials for his later philosophy, and how Marcel differs from other existentialist philosophers, like Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Kierkegaard.

In this episode, I speak with the writer Nick Ripatrazone about the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the authors featured in his latest book, Wild Belief.  We discuss the spiritual dimensions of wilderness and how the contemplation of the natural world can have transcendent dimensions.

Sometimes, you just need to do something fun, and this episode reflects one of those times.  I was in DC this summer for a week teaching, so I popped into the Hillsdale College recording studio (where I've been before to chat Walker Percy) to talk with one of my favorite children's lit authors, Matthew Mehan.  We discuss children's lit generally and also discuss his own books (which I highly recommend!): The Handsome Little Cygnet and Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals.

In this episode, I speak with podcast regular (see episode 14 on Walker Percy), Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson, about Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. We discuss one of the greatest literary figures of all time, Ignatius J. Reilly, “slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas all rolled into one” and his “great gaseous rages and lunatic adventures.” We discuss why a recent New Yorker hit piece on Ignatius is just plain embarrassing for its author, insofar as it displays an all too familiar inability to read books. But it is not difficult to be more intellectually sophisticated than the New Yorker these days, and we invite you to read this Pulitzer Prize novel as the work of comic art it truly is. I hope you enjoy laughter, because there is quite a bit in this episode!

In this episode, I am joined by Professor Thomas Pfau (Duke University) to discuss the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz.  We talk about his realism--i.e., his conviction that the task of poetry is to convey the truth by getting us to pay careful attention to reality.  We discuss his philosophical and theological influences--Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Weil--and how these show up in his poems.  For Milosz, poetry is the habit of accurate vision--we can only capture the real by looking.  Therefore poetry is not self-expression, but testimony or witness. Milosz, we agree, is a religious poet in that he seeks to affirm the world, to celebrate and marvel at the mystery of existence, even as he is keenly aware that the world is fallen and full of suffering and, in the end, not really our proper home.

In this episode, literary critic Morten Høi Jensen and I discuss the Danish novelist and poet, Jens Peter Jacobsen, and his beautiful novel, Niels Lyhne.  Niels is a man searching for love and for God, but who finds that God does not answer his prayers and concludes that the universe is without a creator and cannot offer us any consolation.  Originally titled The Atheist, Jacobsen's novel is an honest exploration of atheism and its paradoxical nature as parasitic upon the faith it rejects and a new faith in its own right.

OK, friends, we are finally in Paradise, with our faithful guides Beatrice, St. Bernard, and of course, Professor Matthew Rothaus Moser. It turns out that perfect happiness is resting, delighting, and dwelling in the good. How does Dante manage to write 33 more cantos about rest? You should listen to find out, of course!