Desire: To Live.

One of our members, Terri, blogs over at Loaves and Fishes. She recently wrote about the connection she sees between Lizzie's War, Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux and Jane Eyre.

Here's an excerpt:

"Lizzie, Therese, King, Jane--they are all embodiments of passion and desire.   They aren't playing by a map or script written by themselves.  They aren't just playing a script written by those around them either.  They don't operate according to the dictates of what society says makes a "good girl" or "good person."   They are following a compass, deep within their very cores--their souls.   The journeys are not perfect.   The paths are not always straight.   And those paths are never neat, tidy, or easy. "

Go read the rest!

Lizzie's War Character Reflection: Fr. Zeke

“All things are interesting, in that sense. If you’re paying attention. That’s just the reality of the incarnation.” (p. 62)

Fr. Zeke is my favorite character. His struggle sums up the all of the ‘wars’ that take place throughout the story. Interestingly, Tim Farrington originally named the book "Careers of Faith". And, while I'm glad that title didn't stick, it makes clear what the book is about. Maybe too clear, and thus the title change. The book is about vocation. About embracing your 'war'. And letting it go. Fr. Zeke Germaine seems to be just that, distilled. No question. Warring with himself, his past, his suffering, his desires and his vocation to love.

(from just after he was wounded in the war, pg. 148. Italics are mine.)

"He was terrified but strangely calm, as he often was under intense fire. Combat was the world, and he was in the world but not of it. There was even an exhilaration to the experience; he'd never felt so free, so true and so real. The blazing adrenaline made him simple as a flame, all radiance and quiet heat, a lit place where everything was clear and all he could see, in perfect focus, was the next man in front of him in need of care and comfort. He didn't think much about dying himself. Death came, in such a place, or it didn't. That was in God's hands."

These two scenes captivated me: The Pastoral Care meeting at Priscilla Starkey's parlor and the Bingo game at St. Jude's.  Fr. Zeke travels between the base reality of the present: who should receive which leftover altar flowers and who's cheating at bingo, to the deep love of a priest acting "in personal Christi" and loving his flock. Remembering the death of a good man, Mr. Condotti and his compassion for hard-of-hearing old Mrs. Malewich in her wheelchair who just wants to win one durn bingo game. And, interestingly, Mrs. Starkey is the instigator in both scenes, as dull and uninspired as her weak coffee.  What beautiful, delicate contrast. How real. Hasn't every priest been here? And, do they pray the words of St. Peter, too? 

Baby Anna and Fr. Zeke share a birthday. This really didn't stand out at me until reading the book again, this third time through. Is it stretching too much to think there is some connection there, with the birth and death of this little innocent baby and Fr. Zeke's ability to find "what it takes to make a human being into a priest"?  In a way, it is because of Anna that Fr. Zeke finds freedom from his feelings for Liz.  Our last view of him is at the front door of Lizzie's house, saying good-bye, no longer full of craving and dread. " 'I might come by on Saturday,' he said.  'The lawn could use mowing'... Germaine smiled. He still wanted to kiss her. He probably always would. The only difference now was that he knew it would never happen. Something had changed between them, in that hospital room. He was, forever, the man who had given last rites to her daughter. And soon enough he would be the man who had sent the pictures of her dead baby to her husband. And he thought, So this is what it takes to make a human being into a priest. 'Okay, then,' he said. 'I'll see you Saturday.' "

One last Fr. Zeke moment. Liz and Fr. Zeke start talking about the weather (p. 104):

Fr. Zeke: “ ‘I’m ready for some real fall, to tell you the truth. I don’t do well in the heat.'

'That must have made Vietnam tough for you.'

'That, and all those young men dying.'

So much for talking about the weather, Liz thought. Conversation with Germaine was like hiking on a glacier; things had a way of falling through the covering of small talk into dauntingly deep crevasses."

Lizzie's War

I'm interested to hear your thoughts about the book, Lizzie's War by Tim Farrington.

Who is, in your opinion, the most interesting character, and why?

(post answers in comments)

From Catholicism, to Hinduism and back home again...

This snippet of an interview with Tim Farrington gives us a glimpse into the part of him that made Lizzie's War come to life:

"I was raised Catholic, the oldest of four children. My father was a Marine Corps officer who served in Korea and Vietnam, and my mother was an actress and drama teacher, so I had plenty to reconcile right from the start. I had several years of Catholic school in the classic Catholic experience, including a good dose of the terror of hell and sin, and nuns with sticks, but I was also blessed in having an aunt who was a nun, and I spent a lot of happy hours at her convent and got to know the human and fun-loving side of religious vocation as well.

I was an altar boy right around the time the mass switched from Latin to English after Vatican II, and thought about being a priest for a while when I was a kid. In my teens, though, I got into Buddhism, philosophy, and literature, and went through a long period of alienation from Christianity. But I was definitely looking hard for meaning.

In my twenties, I entered an ashram in Oakland, CA, where the prevailing philosophy was Hindu, Kashmir Shaivism. Strangely enough, it was during my two years there, while I was chanting to Kali and Krishna, meditating to an Om Namah Shivaya mantra, and chopping tons of vegetables in the ashram kitchen, that I discovered the profundity of the classic Christian mystics, beginning with The Cloud of Unknowing, and began to heal my alienation from that tradition. By the early ’90s I had come full circle, had discovered the bottomless wisdom of John of the Cross, and had embraced a centering prayer practice after meeting Fr. Thomas Keating."

If you'd like, you can read the entire interview here.

Lizzie's War

"Farrington's resolve is physically embodied by his two-inch-thick file, dating back 18 years, of ideas, sketches, notes, and quotations (there's one at the beginning of each chapter) for Lizzie's War. '[The book] felt enormous to me ... it covered a bigger canvas, and I consciously committed to it. It's so close to my heart, the theme of sacred vocation, of finding your calling in the world.' "  Linda M. Castellitto and Tim Farrington on Lizzie's War

 Are you reading Lizzie's War yet? I hope so.

It's an interesting book. Probably one of the easiest reads we have on the list. Easy in terms of reading level, sentence complexity, etc...

On the other hand, it might be one of the most difficult to read emotionally. At least, I think so. Even this being my third reading of the novel, I find myself both dreading to pick it up and dreading to put it down.

So real, and raw. 'True' is a good word to describe the book. Nothing happens for shock value. It's just the story of these very real people. And it's hard to believe that they aren't really alive somewhere right now. Could they really be made up? Fictitious? Can Liz not come over for coffee tomorrow morning? Did they really all come out of Tim Farrington's imagination? And how does this guy know so very well what goes on in the mind and soul of a woman. HOW!??

After I gave this book to a friend a few years ago, I called her up a few days later with an apology. "I'm sorry for all the cussing. I forgot about that."  She wasn't fazed by it. I'm not going to apologize now. Not that I go around my house in secret swearing like a sailor. I don't. I don't like cussing at all. But in reference to this book, and to the character of Mike in particular, I think it would be dishonest to portray him in any other way. If you were a man fighting in Vietnam in the 60's, you used bad language. To have him speak in any other way would be outside his character. And such a character he is... don't let his f-bombs keep you from loving him!

And, I won't apologize for Liz's attitude toward her pregnancy in the beginning of the book (no spoilers here). While it might not be the 'text book' response that we as Catholic women would want to hear from a friend, I think it is a very honest emotion, and probably an emotion that has been felt by millions of women in the past.

It all comes around. It does. Don't worry.

So, enjoy! Can't wait to meet up soon!

If you want to comment on your thoughts and have a bit of a spoiler, just place above the revealing paragraph <SPOILER>.