a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God?

Tpmonaghan at aol.com Tpmonaghan at aol.com
Thu Sep 12 11:54:39 EDT 2002


Settling down with a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life, 
sounds a lot like Eden to me.  God is obviously there.  God did observe that 
was His plan, and that even before the Fall, it was not good that man should 
be alone and there is all that about from the rib, not the foot, not the 
head... from the Church fathers then the madonna and child.....  As time goes 
by, the fundamental things apply....whether 20's, 30's, 40's, 60's, 70's, 
80's and on and on and even millenniums...

The Great Books, the hot bodsky bite of bourbon whiskey, chicken soup, and 
grits all in a cave in Lost Cove, Tennessee with Ellen and a moral 
life...isn't this as close to the eschaton as some of us should think of 
getting on this side of the river?  Isn't that the good life for Tom and 
Ellen, and Adam and Eve, and .... And if that option is not our vocation, 
there is the prophet/hermit crying in the wilderness and enjoying the things 
of creation and studying and writing and pondering.  Both approaches depend 
upon each other.  Praying, moral living, and tending the garden are 
requirements for all.

Percy wrote somewhere that boy and girl finding each other usually solved a 
lot.  That would seem to be indicated as well in common experience.  It's 
also reflected in the pop reading of Westerns...man spends 19 chapters 
clearing out bad guys, building fences, etc. finds woman in last few 
paragraphs, kisses her and book ends and life begins....or in the Romance, 
man clears out the bad guys, builds fences, etc. in first few paragraphs and 
spends 19 chapters geting around to finding girl, kissing her, etc. which it 
turns out is a lot more complicated than he ever thought and book ends and 
life begins.

Actually, I just found the quote that I remembered.  It is on the back cover 
of "More Conversations with Walker Percy" edited by Lewis A. Lawson and 
Victor A. Kramer..."You would like for your characters to get out of the fix 
they are in and achieve some kind of happiness.  The best way to do it, the 
easiest way to do it, is to fall in love.  A man falls in love with a woman 
or vice versa.  If both happen at the same time, that's pretty good."
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