April 22, 2022

Further reflections on Genre

Sci-Fi is about the hypothetical human condition - how do we behave, what changes, when we learn something new about the natural world?

Fantasy is about the superhuman condition - tapping into knowledge beyond the natural world, and asking how we respond to a larger reality.

- Horror is a sub-genre

Drama is about the human condition - how do we behave in natural, human conditions, both happy and sad?

Romance is about the male/female relationship - how do we respond to the other sex?

February 1, 2022

Magic in fantasy stories - What makes a good fantasy story?

Elements: Hints at truth deeper than apparent reality

Apparent reality is what we see around us everyday: through our five senses, our mind, and our heart, we recognize how the world appears, how society is structured, and how people interact in relationships - all as they appear from a physical and sensual reality.

Genres:

Reality Novels:

Stories about apparent reality portray reality according to one’s senses, emotions, and experiences.

Fables:

Presents things as other than how they appear.

Sci-Fi:

Imagines a different world

Fantasy:

Speaks in stream-of-consciousness, tapping into the subconscious, to portray true but unseen realities.

---

Books that deal with these physical and sensual realities are dramas, mysteries, animal stories, and historical fiction. Fable is more similar to reality stories than sci-fi or fantasy, because fable portrays everything as it truly is, only with the replacement of animals instead of humans.

Deeper truth penetrates to the things we do not see: emotions, choices, and spiritual realities. This includes things like love, free will, and angels. Fantasy stories use various combinations of analogy, imagination, metaphor, and a free-flow of the subconscious to connect with realities deeper than that which we see around us everyday.

No fantasy story is ever a direct metaphor - if it were, it would cease to be fantasy. Direct metaphors limit the fullness of portraying the unknown, because it reduces the imagination back to what can be understood. Fantasy does not aim to show what can be understood, but metaphor does. The purpose of metaphor is to lower the defenses of the reader in regards to truth by telling a story that is apparently about something else, but at the last minute, unveiling the apparent layer to reveal the original, hidden truth. Fantasy, however, is not a layer concealing something beneath - it is a story in it’s own right. Only by accepting the story as it is, and letting it sink deep into your imagination, will you perceive the deeper realities it is portraying.

Magical creatures

No magical creature is a direct metaphor for a deeper reality, although some will symbolize ideas: for example, an imp is impish. Dragons represent evil and temptation (see article on page 130), tree and water nymphs represent nature, and lions represent kingship.

October 14, 2021

Way-Makers are always survived by unfinished work. This is why heroes are always conquered by a monster. Why authors have posthumously published work. Why artists have models and half-sculpted forms in their empty workshops. If they were not in the middle of creating that change, of forging that way, when death came upon them, they would have ceased to be a way-maker long before their heart ceased to beat. These things do not exist because they are failures, but because they are successes. Beowulf’s death is not a defeat, but a victory!

August 17, 2021

If not now… when?

One day, I will eat that cookie!

You gaze at it, sitting on the counter in front of you. Chewy, moist, hot… full of chocolate chunks dripping sweetness… If only you could simply reach out your hand to take it…

But it’s only a dream…

You are not eating that cookie because you’ve shut yourself away from this dream. Decided it’s not for you. Locked your heart against your desires because practicality says it’s bad for you.

And yet, you still want it; and promise yourself that, some day, you’ll be able to eat it again.

I ask you, when will be the right day? When will you be thin enough, confident enough, assertive enough to say, “Yes. Today is the day! I will eat that cookie, feel good while doing it, and not gain weight!”

Do you have a plan to get to that day? A plan to lose weight, reduce sugar cravings, and rewire your mindset?

Ok, do you know we’re not talking about a cookie?

I had you going there though, didn’t I?

I’m going to let you in: that cookie represents your creative desires. Uh huh. You’ve told yourself for years that someday you will start your creative career.

‘Someday’ never comes. It’s like ‘somebody.’ My dad’s catch phrase to us kids whenever we asked, “Can somebody help me with this?” was always, “‘Somebody’ isn’t here.”

His point was: “You’re never going to get the help you need unless you address someone specific.”

So I’m going to tell you now: ‘Someday’ is never coming. You need a specific plan if you want to live the life you crave.

Do you have that plan? Do you have that resolution? Do you know how to lose the ‘weight’ that is keeping you from living your dream life? If other people can do it, so can you. You just need to start taking the first steps.

August 17, 2021

If Not You… Who?

“Before you were born, I dedicated you.”

Do you know what the basis is behind all conspiracy theories?

• Is it that someone controls all our tech?

• That someone controls all our minds?

• That someone has put chips inside all the bananas, so now we have chips inside us, that are telling someone, somewhere, the blood pressure levels of every person on earth so that they can put this information to dastardly purposes! *gasp here for dramatic effect*

No.

…Well, sort of.

The basis behind every conspiracy theory is the idea that somebody, somewhere, knows all the secrets about life.

This person is a danger to us because none of us have a clue about life. The idea that somebody out there actually knows the secret to life, and isn’t telling us… Well, that sounds like a pretty powerful, pretty evil person.

I’m not an evil mastermind, and I don’t have all the secrets to life… but I do have one. And it’s kind of THE one. In fact, it’s very existence destroys any basis for wild, overblown conspiracy theories…

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength;” and “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

I used to play the comparison game constantly, and I didn’t even realize it was happening. I thought others could do anything I tried to do better than me. I thought if I didn’t evangelize, someone else would. I thought if I didn’t defend Christ, someone else would. I decided it was enough to just feel love for God - I had abandoned Him in my mind, and thus, I did so with my actions. I had failed to love Him with my whole strength. The love in my heart wasn’t true love.

If you truly love God in your heart, you love Him in every thought. And if you truly love Him in every thought, You love Him with your every action.

The Lord has dedicated you to a unique, unrepeatable life. No matter if you don’t have life figured out. No matter if you’re not as good at something as the next person. No matter if you don’t want to do it.

NOBODY has it figured out. NOBODY wants to do the hard stuff. NOBODY is as good as God, and yet, He chose you to do His work. Your imperfect attempts please Him more than if He did it Himself.

So if He’s called you, are you going to listen?

February 15, 2021

What is Art?

Etienne Gilson once said that ‘Art is Making.’

A character, Eliot Spencer, from the TV Show “Leverage” says this, ‘It’s not just food. Alright, some people could look at it and see just food, but not me. I see art. When I’m in the kitchen I’m creating something out of nothing, you know what I mean, and sometimes I crush it, sometimes its crap, but either way, it makes me feel something.... This is my art.... It’s like letting a stranger in your head, just for a second, and you allow them to feel what you’re feeling.”

Craft

In both these contexts, Eliot and Etienne are speaking of creating as a ‘craft.’ I have no desire to minimize the importance of craft - it is a beautiful and necessary practice. But the question arises whether there is a distinction between ‘craft’ and ‘art’, in a real and tangible sense.

We can craft many things: couches, food, clothing, etc - which are both practical and beautiful. And then we have art which is not practical: paintings, novels, film, theatre, etc. And these things are sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying, and yet, can all be called art.

vs. Art

What distinguishes art from craft, other than the fact that it is impractical, and how can we clarify that distinction?

This is the question that arose in a conversation I was having lately with one of our patrons. We both attended the same small Liberal Arts college, and read The Art of the Beautiful, by Etienne Gilson, and as an artist herself, she said his definition of art never truly satisfied her.

The deeper we delved into the topic, the more we realized that art is what ‘cannot be fully captured in any other way; it is indefinable; beyond what we can capture.”

Let me explain.

The Meaning of Life

Catholicism inevitably entered into our conversation at this point, and for good reason. As Catholics, we are fortunate that we can sometimes take short cuts in these types of conversations.

Instead of trying to work our way solely from the bottom of the argument: art, to the top of it: the reason for art, we can sometimes jump to the reason and work our way back, encountering the fullness of the question somewhere in the middle.

Because we know that the ultimate aim of anything on earth is a deeper union with God. That’s the easy answer, the cheating answer, in a sense, to anything we ask. So sometimes, if we get stuck, we can jump there and ask, “How does art pursue and bring us deeper into God?”

As creators, we were then able to apply our own experience to this question. When creating art, we are trying to meet ourselves and God within the work. Art combines the human experience with the Great Mysteries.

By Great Mysteries, I mean questions such as:

• How can God allow Suffering?

• Who is God?

• What is the Incarnation, and why was it necessary?

• Why did God create me?

These are questions to which we can apply Catechism answers, but unless we know our infinite God in His totality, then we can never fully understand them.

Not only does art ask these questions, it seeks to answer them. On some fundamental level, since we are created in God’s image, we can answer them, and often the answer is not something we can put into words or a direct image translation. The artist is hinting at a reality she herself does not understand.

But the artist feels that reality, and seeks to encounter it through the greatest act of a human being: creating. The act of creating is part of this question and answer process, just as much as the final artistic work.

And after the work is created, we can, as Eliot said, let ‘a stranger in your head, just for a second, and you allow them to feel what you’re feeling’. And this feeling, for an artist of impractical artwork, is awe, confusion, joy, passion, and succor.

February 2, 2021

Hope in a World Torn Apart

“As far as building creative careers, those are over. The market is crashing all around, and careers and options are in the can.”

This is what one lady told me when I told her what I do. She went on to say that “You can’t coach someone to succeed in a game when the rules are changing constantly.” And then she laid out a game plan for how I could shift my entire career path toward teaching kids just coming out of Highschool on how to get successful, traditional, safe jobs.

It’s tempting to agree with her. A creative career is a gamble, and maybe it’s not worth it. She concluded with these words, “You need to be more self-disciplined and less hopeful if you want stuff to work.”

I am a creative career coach, and I coach women through the process of building a lucrative creative career. This job goes hand-in-hand with the entrepreneurial position I have undertaken - alongside my brother - of building a company dedicated to supporting Catholic artists.

My heart hurt after she said these things, but only for a moment. I turned to prayer, and immediately found solace in my heavenly Father, as He assured me, “I have not led you this far down this path for nothing. Believe in me.”

I do not believe creative careers are over. If we have been created with the drive to imitate our creator, and create in his image, as He did for us, then why would He snatch that opportunity away? Despite what many seem to believe, ours is not a vindictive God. He plants desires in our hearts because He plans to bring them to fruition. The Lord has called those of us who are artists to be creative. To ignore that call would be to stifle and kill something Godlike, and Godgiven, within us.

The Despair

Fundamentally, I am a voice against all those who would say we can no longer create; who would hold up any excuse to get out of rebuilding our world. And believe me, we can find many excuses: the world’s economy, depravity, or enjoyment in the ugly and deformed; the belief in man’s inability to rise above his circumstances: “we must play the hand we’re dealt, and hope for heaven;” or even the belief that SOME people are creative enough to make it, but not me: I just dabble: I could never be a second Michelangelo.

With attitudes like that, who needs the devil to destroy art? He’s off somewhere else, toppling the statues and art of the old world; burning Notre Dame and looting churches, while we bury ourselves in a world that sees no hope for rebuilding culture.

The Hope

But is hope merely dead weight?

In JPII’s letter to artists, he lays out the philosophy that we are not only created to ‘dominate the earth’, but that artists have a unique connection to God that allows them to communicate him to the world.

“Through his “artistic creativity” man appears more than ever “in the image of God”, and he accomplishes this task above all in shaping the wondrous “material” of his own humanity and then exercising creative dominion over the universe which surrounds him.... as Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa made clear: “Creative art, which it is the soul's good fortune to entertain, is not to be identified with that essential art which is God himself, but is only a communication of it and a share in it”. That is why artists, the more conscious they are of their “gift”, are led all the more to see themselves and the whole of creation with eyes able to contemplate and give thanks, and to raise to God a hymn of praise. This is the only way for them to come to a full understanding of themselves, their vocation and their mission.”

“You need to be more self-disciplined and less hopeful if you want stuff to work.” The same lady quoted above said this to me as well.

God bless her, she fears for mine, and every artists’, future. She has seen me start projects, and then drop them, as I built myself up in discipline, health, and direction, and now she fears, not only that I will not follow through with my call from the Lord, but that the Lord is not calling me at all. Not to this task. This task, she says, ‘is over’.

If the task of rebuilding culture, of teaching others how to create and share that work with others, of teaching them how to do this full-time, so that we can move away both from the ‘starving artists’ mentality, and the mentality of ‘dabbling’ in an etsy shop... if this task is dead, then I must believe that God has given up on us all.

Truly, right before World War II, in Warsaw Poland, a little priest began a monthly paper entitled Knight of the Immaculate. He circulated it on a shoe-string budget, and brought many hearts and minds into the faith, and into a sincere devotion to Mary.

And in another part of Poland, at the same time, a seminarian was doing impromptu theatre with his friends in outdoor corners of the country.

Who are we to say that God only called Maximilian and Karol Wojtyla? Who are we to tell Him that He can’t call us, too? We can stand at the brink of the end and say, “What use is it to call me to build culture? Don’t you see it crumbling? Come on God, stop being so dang hopeful all the time. People are going around wearing masks and shutting down churches, for crying out loud! They’re looting churches and killing priests. God, why don’t you bother more with the big stuff? Stop calling me to the impossible.”

In the beautiful words of JPII, “The artist has a special relationship to beauty. In a very true sense it can be said that beauty is the vocation bestowed on him by the Creator in the gift of “artistic talent”. And, certainly, this too is a talent which ought to be made to bear fruit, in keeping with the sense of the Gospel parable of the talents.”

Is it impossible to constantly see beauty? Is it impossible to rejoice in the talent we have received? If beauty invigorates you, if creating excites you, where are you hiding? Come out, come out to the light, and share your beauty with the world.

Hope is not dead. Hope is the resurrection and the life, which has already conquered death, and led us all into the light of freedom. We are free to create, free to worship, and free to immerse ourselves in the glory of God.

What if I’m Not An Artist?

In the words, again, of JPII, “Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”

We are not called to be like those of this world. If the world is cowering in darkness, we are called to smile in the light. If the world is afraid of dying, we are called to die as martyrs. And if the world is destroying art, we are called to create, promote, and support it.

The Flight House, the business my brother and I are launching, is more than a place for artists: it is an opportunity for artists, sponsors, art enthusiasts, business entrepreneurs, and everyday Catholics to connect and support each other. It’s a place to immerse ourselves in beautiful entertainment that does not serve an agenda, but rejoices in the creation and journey of life that we, as Catholics - created in the Image and Likeness of God - have undertaken.

When the World is Against Us

In this past year, God has shown me, time and again, how He operates OUTSIDE the world’s laws. When I began working for Freedom After the Trauma Conference in August of 2020, it was nothing more than an idea in my friend’s head of changing the world’s narrative on trauma, and spreading the belief that ANYONE can heal and live a full life, no matter their trauma. Now, it is an organization, which held an online conference in October, now has a board of directors, and is quickly shaping up to be the most controversial and transformative organization on the planet. All this, because my friend believed what was spoken by God into her heart: that she did not experience trauma for nothing; that she is His beloved, and is called to heal the world.

I saw this with Woman School, which two years ago, was also only an idea centered around human formation, but is now a fast-growing organization of women who are transforming the lives of millions of women across the planet, helping them design beautiful marriages, families, careers, and freindships.

These organizations were successful for one reason, and one reason alone: they believed. And with this belief came the organization, built up with collaboration, skill building, routine, and dreaming.

We only stop creating when we believe it’s impossible. But nothing is impossible with God. If we believe it’s impossible, then we have lost the gift of the Resurrection. My friend was right: we need discipline. Now, more than ever, we must practice the consistent discipline that meets with results. But it is the consistency of belief, practice, creation, and promotion, not the consistency of trying to play the world’s games, and getting dragged into despair. We’re not playing the world’s games: we are embracing that God and His methods are greater. God uses the world’s means, but is not confined to them. If the world changes the game on us, so be it: we’ll be adaptable, indefatigable, and joyful! Because creating in the image of God is a joyful activity!

So, to conclude, I will not be redirecting my career path. To do so is to ignore the call He has placed on my heart, and to doubt the skills He has given me. He has made me a writer, an entrepreneur, a career coach, and only HIS voice will I allow to speak over me! Will you join me? Will you help Christ rebuild a beautiful, life-giving culture?

January 26, 2021

The Flight House

Mission Statement:

Channeling an explosion of Catholic creativity, The Flight House is spearheading the forefront of training and promoting artists for the New Renaissance.

Structure:

Currently 3 Catholic Creators (eventually will max out at 25) who oversee basic operations of the business, training new creators through the course we are building, engaging with students, and building one another up.

• Elizabeth Russell: Secretary and Co-Founder - Responsible for keeping meeting minutes and itineraries, drafting course, and corresponding with potential students

• Timothy Russell: Treasurer and Co-Founder - Responsible for book-keeping, fine-tuning the course, and keeping track of paperwork.

• Ina Castillo: Content Creator and Marketer - Responsible for instagram marketing, drafting course, and corresponding with potential students

Course:

A three month course to teach creators how to create consistently, promote their work, and profit.

What need do we see?

The world is currently inundated with agenda’d art - art that seeks to convey a message, more than to stand on it’s own two feet. And there are two types of that agenda: Cultural and Christian.

The current culture seeks to teach; and not only to teach, but to indoctrinate the masses into the beliefs that it upholds as most sacred. These three they hold most sacred: the glorification of the individual, subjective sexual morality, and the scientific debunking of religion.

The creation of fine art, film, books, and music all embrace these three sacred social tenants, and sacrifice good story-telling to the justification of those beliefs.

This is a position for which we will not longer stand!

The Christian culture falls into this trap as well, by veering too far to the other extreme. Recognizing the immoral message of the culture, but failing to recognize that art ought not to teach, the Christian world has embraced creation as a medium for spreading its own beliefs. Even though I often happen to agree with those beliefs, I still have difficulty appreciating a work of art that is subjected to an agenda. These people have good hearts and, I have seen with my own eyes, have changed lives. For this, I am grateful to them.

However, for art to exist in this medium is only a slightly better alternative than the cultural agenda. It is not allowing art to live and breath in its own greatest sphere.

Art as it should be

Art is difficult. I will start by admitting this aloud, and then proceed by explaining myself. Art is difficult.

It is difficult in many ways:

• to explain

• to create

• to understand

• to know completely

and this is as it should be. Walter Blythe, in the seventh novel of the Anne of Green Gables series, declares it best: “That is one reason why I like writing poetry - you can say so many things in it that are true in poetry but wouldn’t be true in prose.”

I have felt this with poetry, with story, with music - these things strike us on a deeper level, and if we can sum them up in one unpoetical phrase, then the artist has failed in their creation. If we can subject Pride and Prejudice to the callous summary that it is a book about a man and a woman who hate each other to begin with, but love each other by the end, then why did Austen write Pride and Prejudice in the first place? She could have saved herself so much trouble.

If we can say of Michaelangelo’s David that it is a representation of a God-fearing young man, then why look at it? He could have been spending his time reading 2nd Samuel.

I cannot define art, but I will venture to go this far: it is a seeking after indefinable truths through the lens of beauty, or the lack thereof.

That is a paltry attempt.

I just looked up Oxford Languages definition, and I think it’s pretty good: “Art: 1.

the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”

I like their inclusion of the words ‘imagination,’ ‘beauty,’ and ‘emotional power.’

The term art may be able to be defined (and like I said, I really like Oxford’s), but the application of it is impossible. Because it is relegated to the imagination, it expands beyond creed, doctrine, or social expectation. To confine it to such ideas is to stifle it. It is imagination that shows us that life is so much broader and richer than the boxes into which we put ourselves, and art applies the imagination, taking that boundlessness and confining, capturing it, using structure, medium, and technique. (Incidentally, this is why I enjoy Catholicism. It, too, though on a separate level, constantly challenges our man-made boxes and structures, all while adhering to basic, unflinching principles that keep us ever striding down the untraveled road.)

The Flight House and Art

My brother and I believe, and Ina agrees with us, that as Catholics, we are all called to be saints, and CAN be saints.

Living our best lives, and living them for Christ, is our own personal path to sanctity. When we are doing that, and intentionally building our own moral imaginations, then I believe in cutting loose with creativity. We do not need to make our art mold itself into a specific idea, and fear leading others down the path of perdition.

The Lord of the Rings is a very good example. Written by a devoutly Catholic man, can we say it has ever converted anyone to Catholicism? Perhaps, one in a million, and I’d love to meet that person, but in general, it is no Mere Christianity. And yet, the world it creates paints a picture of a world that captivates, entrants, awakens imagination, and immerses the reader in beauty. This world is Tolkien’s masterpiece.

Now, I will tell you about a sad thing I once came across. Apparently, there is a society in and around Chicago that dresses in Elf (and other LotR costumes) and meets regularly to discuss Tolkien’s world. So far, not a problem. But you see, they have taken the world structure of Middle Earth and made it a religion for themselves. They have woodland dances, moonlit seances, etc. They genuinely believe that Tolkien took an real ancient religion and coded it into his books. It is this religion that they follow.

Could we, from this last example, build an argument around Tolkien’s work and argue that he should never have written it, because it has led to this sin?

Most definitely. We could definitely build that argument. But I don’t think we should.

It’s not that the good outweighs the bad - that’s a whole other argument that I’m not going to get into right now. But rather, that Tolkien did nothing wrong in letting his imagination run free. We was creating.

If we say Tolkien should not have created because it led to sin, then we must say God should never have created, because it led to sin.

No more putting “shoulds” and barriers on Catholic and Christian creation. By creating within the freedoms of who we are striving to be, we can create great work, even if our own lives are not perfect, our skill is not perfect, and our creation is not perfect. Even as we accept that we are limited, we embrace that imagination is not. We are not responsible, in imaginative creation, to convert others. We are only responsible for creating.

In Summary

The Flight House is spearheading this movement away from agenda’d art, and into a New Renaissance of beauty, as an overflow of the moral imagination. I see this overflow happening all around me. In grassroots, devout Catholic circles, Tolkien, Chesterton, George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and many more, have fertilized a soil of young people who are yearning for beauty. Not finding it in the culture around them, their own minds have become the gardens in which they are building a new world of richness and depth.

I want to help cultivate that garden. I want to help bring beauty to life: Let’s help these artists’ work reach their audiences, inspire the world, and transform culture!