My mother was a tremendous sculptor and painter, who ultimately cared more about being a mom than about being an artist. I got lucky because she was talented at both. When I was very small—because we couldn’t afford babysitters and she didn’t believe in them anyway—she’d take me with her to galleries and museums. And though I didn’t become a visual artist, the storied demimonde of painters, sculptors, potters, and art students in 1970s California made a deep impression on me.
Once, standing before an electric blue painting of someone’s backyard pool with hills beyond it (I remember the image, not the artist, who may have been a graduate student at SF State), I noticed that I couldn’t look at it for long. This perplexed me because it was just a painting of someone’s backyard. I didn’t have words for what I was feeling, but my mom took the time to help me articulate it: the painting aggravated me. It seemed aggressive, even though its subject matter wasn’t. There are two sorts of artists, my mom said, those at war and those at peace.
Years later, I’d realize that this didn’t just apply to artists. As an English lit. undergraduate at UC Irvine, I had the great fortune of learning from a few university professors who actually took their job seriously. And, before that in Catholic high school, I’d met a few priests who were the same—serious people on a mission to articulate what they believed was true. All of them were at war with something and the reflection of that thing they’d found in themselves.
Maybe this is why I’ve started writing about The Exorcist again. It’s part of a collection of books and movies to which I return every few years. And I always see it from a new perspective. It demonstrates many of the personality types I saw growing up, but it also functions as a prism for what I happen to be experiencing in my life.
As a creative writer (and, I’ll admit, in general), I’m not at peace. I’m far more Father Karras than Father Dyer, and I’m certainly nowhere near the one-pointed authenticity and conviction of Father Merrin.
The first people I met like this were artists and writers. There was the Fr. Dyer type, a bon vivant, who has accepted the world as it is, enjoying the advantages and ignoring the restrictions of his life. Yes, he makes art—maybe a lot of it—but a certain calm contentedness radiates through it. At some point, he called a truce with the world. He’s happy and grateful to be part of things, but he’s not on a mission. He’s not at war with himself or the world. He’s mostly bearing witness. [1]
Then there’s Father Karras, at war with everything and so riddled with self-doubt and loathing that he can’t bring himself to commit to anything. These are some of the best artists and writers; though, it goes without saying that most of them die young, whether from addiction or mental illness or because the temporary release afforded by the creative process has stopped and their only recourse is ending their lives.
Their war is never ending. The pain of it, the alienation of it often makes me wonder whether they could have chosen differently or whether they’re condemned, by virtue of character and aptitude, to lead such a life. Looking in the mirror, I often ask myself these things.
And very rarely, there is Father Merrin, a man easily dismissed as a magical thinker [2], a man with a warrior ethic, who has no time for the bon vivant, who has transcended the inner difficulties of Father Karras and sorted himself out, completely committed, ethically and spiritually, to a single path.
Father Merrin is also at war. And he is particularly dangerous because he is not confused or in doubt. Teachers, artists, and mentors like this will change your life if you are lucky enough to encounter them. You may not agree with them. You may not adopt their beliefs. But you will never forget them.
They tend to be less prolific than the others, perhaps because of their deep commitment, because their output has nothing to do with magnifying their egos and drawing prestige or fortune. What they create is less visible because marketing is not relevant. They live wholly on the path and that is where they will die.
In The Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo writes, “Even if it seems certain that you will lose, retaliate. Neither wisdom nor technique has a place in this. A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams.” So it is with art. Like Fr. Merrin, it’s best to commit wholly, completely, and irrationally if you’re going to do it, instead of being lost in dreams like Ft. Karras. Granted, that is more easily said than done.
You need some money, food, healthcare, and a place to live because otherwise you cannot commit to the path in a meaningful way. But you don’t need fame, stroking, the adoration of crowds, the or accoutrements of respectability. All the things the world thinks are good take second place to the one thing you know is good, your mission, which matters more than anything else.
I hope the student who made that electric blue painting awakened from her dreams, found the path, and walked it. But ultimately, whether she did or not matters only to her. The world keeps turning. And war never ends.
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[1] I find it darkly ironic that the actor who played Fr. Dyer, an actual Catholic priest named William J. O’Malley, was accused of sexually assaulting a student in the 1980s, while teaching at McQuaid Jesuit High in Rochester, New York.
[2] The movie, however, settles this fairly quickly. You may be a medieval thinker but, look, the bed is floating and the girl’s head just turned completely around. That’s as medieval as it gets. Mirabile dictu, don’t you agree?
