Report from the Between

a kind of update

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks..

Last Thursday a very curious thing happened. My wife and I left the house for a little while to look at countertops (we are currently renovating the kitchen in our old farmhouse), but our four youngest children were still home. When we returned, I went into my office to do some editing and respond to some emails when I found something that wasn’t there before. Now, because we are working on the kitchen, a framed print of the Sistine Madonna, which usually hangs in our dining room, has been in my office leaning against a bookshelf and set upon a lambskin rug I tanned a couple years ago. When I entered my office, I found a few papers in front of the Madonna: two printed icons of St. Tikhon (my brother-in-law must have given them to me after he bailed on the Orthodox Church in order to become a Lutheran pastor—I don’t know anything about St. Tikhon, other than he has a beard), a watercolor of mountains one of my older kids painted in high school, and a silkscreen print of the great mystic and philosopher Simone Weil (pictured above).

The portrait of Simone, one of my patron saints, was a gift from one of my very favorite students EVER, a young woman named Alejandra (I love her so much it hurts—I’d link her here, but I am trying to save her embarrassment). I say the print was “a gift,” but she didn’t technically give it to me: she left it outside of my office when I taught at Marygrove College (RIP). No note. No nothing. But I knew who it was from. I taught Alejandra in a number of courses—among them, Classical Myth and Literature and a senior seminar on Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur (and she wasn’t even a senior). She was a better writer and thinker even then than most colleagues I have had in my time (purgatorial) in academia. When I guided Alejandra through a tutorial on medieval mysticism, she wrote what I still hold to be one of the greatest opening sentences ever written in undergraduate history: “Mechthild of Magdeburg is the baddest of all badass bitches to ever have lived.” (That might not be the exact wording, but it’s pretty close).

When I moved my office into my new digs a year and a half ago, I had planned on taking this print (one of my prized possessions) out of storage and hanging it over my desk. But I couldn’t find it. I looked in every closet, in the basement, in every conceivable hiding spot. Multiple times. I feared that someone had mistakenly thrown it out (it happens). I prayed to St. Anthony. It didn’t show up. I was mortified.

The strange thing, though, is that when I asked my kids who put those materials (and the print of Simone) in my office, none of them claimed to it. Neither did my wife. My wife suggested they may have been on a shelf in my office (they weren’t) and fallen. Even if they had been on a shelf, they certainly wouldn’t have fallen in a neat arrangement right before the Sistine Madonna. Then one of my friends on X reminded me it was the Feast of St. Anthony, the Patron of Lost Articles. (Speaking of lost articles, here’s one I wrote, partly on Simone, for Plough seven years ago [!]. It was one of their most popular articles that year, but they haven’t asked me to write any more. I have a way with people.)

Needless to say, I am so happy Simone reappeared this week. Now, if I could only find that lost silver Celtic cross I bought at the Detroit Institute of Arts when I was eighteen and the jack-knife with an engraving of a buck on the blade that my father gave me before he died, my prayers to St. Anthony will be up-to-date.

Christian Romanticism

I have been rather surprised (and pleased) by the reception of my announcement of my online course on Christian Romanticism which starts next month (there are still a few spots left). So far, in addition to the US, we have participants from all over the world, even as far as Australia (which is about as far away from Michigan as possible). The very gracious W. D. James even interviewed me on the topic over at his Substack, Philosopher’s Holler (which you should give a follow).

The Sophiologist Looks for a Publisher

I am currently looking for a publisher (and, no, I am not leaving Angelico Press). I have a play on the early modern polymath and magician John Dee I would like to see in print. The play, entitled A True and Faithful Relation, is about Dee and his conversations with “spirits,” a set of dialogues which led to his moral and professional ruin. I wrote the play in blank verse (I’m pretentious that way) and, though it treats a serious topic in a serious way, it is shot through with humor. It would make a great film or series—but it doesn’t quite fit with the Angelico list (and they probably get enough complaints about publishing me already). I published an excerpt from the play here on The Druid Stares Back about a year ago. I’d self-publish, but I’m too gosh-darned busy to start a new enterprise at the moment. If you have any suggestions, do let me know.

Dee

Sebastian Morello Is My Homeboy

Mike Sauter and I had the great pleasure of interviewing Sebastian Morello on the Regeneration Podcast the other day. The title of our conversation is “Mysticism and the Sacred Hunt” and in it, among other things, we talk about his recent article “The Theurgy of Deer Stalking” which he published with The European Conservative. It was a wonderful interchange.

Encountering Face to Face

This September I will be speaking (and probably playing the guitar and singing) at a conference sponsored by Grail Country in Olympia, Washington. Encountering Face to Face will take place September 12-14 and will also feature Paul VanderKlay, Chris Green, Karen Wong, Rafe Kelley, and Graham Pardun. You can find out more about it here.

And a review of Mythologies of the Wild of God

I was a bit shocked to discover Catholic priest and theologian Fr. Dwight Longenecker recently published an essay in which he discusses my latest poetry collection, Mythologies of the Wild of God. I think he really “gets” what I’m doing in the book.

So that’s probably sanguine enough for one newsletter. I promise to write next time something more focused—on St. John’s Day.

The poem by which Christ took possession of Simone Weil (in here own words)