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This is a speech I gave for the Anselm Society, in 2017, about Milton, Dickens, Augustine, and the word of God. It’s all about the necessity of retaking the high ground, the imagination. The whole conference was terrific, too.
Lecture given at the Anselm Institute, "Your Imagination Redeemed"(2018).
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Wonderful lecture well worth the time involved. I am now even more impressed and devoted to Esolen.
Love the talk...I wish I had it 40 years ago when some in my family were part of a Feenyite group, and one of the things condemned was using A Christmas Carol in connection with our Catholic faith.
During the first part of the talk, something you said brought to mind an idea I had some years ago (I hope the connection comes through)...The absurd, but fun film, "Stranger Than Fiction"--One day, a man suddenly hears a voice narrating his life, exactly...he sets out to try and figure out what's going on, and ultimately discovers his life is being written by an author who ALWAYS kills off the main character at the end....he meets the author, lets her know HE is the character she is writing...she becomes distraught , knowing she intends to kill him off...finally, she gives him the finished, BUT NOT PUBLISHED, book (so he's not dead yet), and tells him he can decide whether it is published or not...............after he reads it, he tells her she MUST publish it, because the story is PERFECT exactly as she has written it.................final scene (sort of) we witness his death as she wrote it...
(((Sadly, it's an American film, so it must have a hppy ending--so the scene fades back in, with him in the hospital, and she tells him she had to change the ending.....)))
My immediate thought was that this, in a way, is what what God asks of us............Do we have the courage/faith to let God write OUR story however He chooses--because then, the story will be perfect.................When still thinking being a Passionist was in my future, I had thought to work this notion out as a retreat weekend...
In relation to being reminded of this, another thought came up regarding your mention of stories being truncated when they ignore man in relation to God.................I have a number of movies/TV show episodes in mind, which were very definitely of the sort which want nothing to do with God...BUT...in which Godly themes come through anyway...something like Judas' line to Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar--a truth which I'm sure Webber/Rice were not even remotely trying for..."You've begun to matter more than the things you've said."
Finally...silliness...you commented, "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Drunkard"........have you heard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqE99Mc7ueA