Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Lauren Stacy Berdy <lauren.stacy.berdy AT gmail.com>]

"Everything becomes shaped by his humanness, his perspective"

Thank you Patrick for expanding meaning and bringing more oxygen inti the room.

The thoughts about art that engaged the author that you quoted ( My Struggle Vol 1) have been given voice by many other writers and teachers.

Very very simply stated  art no longer serves the soul it serves the personality.
It has become a private truth.
We have permitted a normal sensibility only to some men/ women and to take it for granted that other men/ women have to be taught to feel.
this must be attributed to the kind of civilization that we have put up with?
Art at its bests and at its' most  well served sense .........."is the good of man" ( Aristotle)
 Now, it is used as a way to make an exhibition of oneself . (Personalities are interesting only to their owners.)

Art is a kind of knowledge. ( think Shaker furniture)
The knower is one with the known. ( think Tom More aligning himself to a more intelligent pattern of thought)

At one time art was a common language in the world.  it served the inner man. Now, personal symbols have evolved which are not based on any natural correspondence.
it seems to be based on private associations of ideas. ( now it is all about reaction)

I for one firmly believe that Tom discovers the " divine awareness" in himself. ( Grace maybe? I dunno.)

In the best sense this is what art can lay claim to. It can help towards a greater consciousness of being.

"Art" Immelman is the very opposite he is distorted . he is interested in sensation. he is compulsive.He is not united with anyone in spirit. He is for himself.
(Not unlike many modern artists)

he is concrete ( without ambiguity) to Dr. More's eternal (resuscitated self)

however even our devils are our teaches....................
(or our inadequacies are our teachers?)

And.........what are those Christmas carols telling us?????? are they a reminder of Samantha of a time when caroling was part of the everyday and caroling is in the atmosphere like harps to his ears and he is now open to hearing it....?( frankly, I would choose different music))
Somehow I feel they are a calling attention but attention to what?......( not my own cultural background)

(I read somewhere that Santa claus was left over from Sun worship?  he enters through the chimney bearing gifts  not the front door. Light finds a way in ;-) ...........)

Thank you,

Lauren Stacy Berdy