Simplicity vs. sophistication in mystical fiction, part 1
Making an impression vs. touching the heart, with some notes on stories attuned to modern times
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In my early post Mystical realism: Motivations, inspirations, and opportunities, I describe how the impetus for Deus in Fabula was a trusted friend’s comment on the apparent lack of, to rewrite the statement a bit, “simple, devotional stories, attuned to modern times, that inspire people to seek God.” Assuming that there is some kind of market for such stories, this shortfall becomes an opportunity. That opportunity, in turn, calls for which greater clarity around what those stories might actually look like in practice. Hence the Deus in Fabula tagline, “A quest for spiritual, devotional, and mystical realism.”
Other posts have already discussed the spiritual, devotional, and mystical aspects of this search (see the recent round-up for relevant links). What’s next, then, is an exploration of the key words and ideas in that original seminal phrase as they apply to the written word:
Simplicity in stories (vs. complexity or literary “sophistication”)
Attunement to modern times
The nature of “inspiration”
What it means to “seek God”
Truly, the phrase as I wrote it in the first sentence above contains only thirteen words— just three (plus one) for each idea—each triplet worthy of a fuller exploration. That’s what we’ll begin in this post, starting with the part about attunement to modern times, then delving into simplicity and its relationship to inspiration, which will continue in the next post. Posts on “seeking God” and the nature of inspiration will then follow.
Attunement to modern times
A story that’s “attuned to modern times” primarily means a story with a contemporary setting. Mystical realism, as I’ve discussed before, implies that such stories are set in the here-and-now real world with people like those living today navigating their way through situations that readers are likely to encounter in some way themselves. This kind of realism helps readers visualize themselves within the story and thereby feel that the story is relevant to their own lives. Relevance, then, helps the story’s message be meaningful and inspiring to those readers, by which I mean that it can help them to see the world we live in with new eyes and to potentially make different choices than they have in the past.
Historical fiction can also be attuned, that is, relevant, to modern times but is harder to pull off the farther one gets away from the trappings (and traps) of modern life. The trick, I think, is to have character’s behavioral patterns, conflicts, and emotions reflect those of modern readers while staying within the appropriate language, concepts, and concerns of the time period. Human emotions are the same in any time and place: the love, joy, fear, loathing, disgust, sadness, and hope that ancient Egyptians or the inhabitants of Norte Chico in ancient Peru felt are no different from what we feel today.
For example, people have always been concerned about their appearance, but although such vanity is a constant the standards for attractiveness have varied dramatically. Vanity in our modern era is expressed as a desire to be thin, whereas in former times, when food was scarce, excess body weight was a coveted sign of wealth and status. Thus, a story set in Roman times would demonstrate vanity through overconsumption rather than an obsession about one’s clothing size.
Science fiction and fantasy, for their parts, are much more challenging where realism is concerned because they’re not only typically set in different times but also, in fantasy especially, in entirely different worlds. The stories that do this well are those in which another world—like C. S. Lewis’ Narnia— intersects with the modern world that’s populated by modern humans and who respond like modern humans. Carl Sagan’s Contact, similarly, as discussed in Genuine spirituality in fiction, part 4, is a set in and doesn’t even depart from our contemporary world—the otherness comes in the form of a message from Vega. Even when humans travel in The Machine to the center of the galaxy, they are presented with an earth-like environment and interact with beings who take the forms of people they know. The characters, and thus the readers, remain throughout the story in a modern, relatable setting.
Inspiration is a function of the heart
Let’s move now from matters of modern attunement to those of simplicity in stories and especially the relationship between simplicity and inspiration.
Many years ago, I did some assistant teaching in the Living Wisdom Schools of Portland, Oregon, and Nevada City, California. I did so on the advice of spiritual directors who correctly observed, “You’re too much in your head,” and suggested that I work with children to address that imbalance.
One of the most valuable pieces of advice for my teaching role came from the schools’ founder, Nitai Deranja: “Send the children home excited about what they learned rather than impressed with what you (the teacher) know.” Wise words! Children who go home inspired by what they learned one day will likely want and choose to come back for more.
The same principle applies to art, such as writing and music. Music, especially that which is specifically composed to inspire, often suffers from a performer’s desire to impress audiences with their virtuosity rather than convey the meaning of the music clearly. If, as a musician, you want people to go home raving about your skill and praising you on social media, great. But if you want to help audiences feel the inspiration that you feel from the music, then you must do more than merely demonstrate your skill: you have to “move” them by touching the heart, which is to say, touching the soul, the “heart” of one’s being.
I was once asked to substitute as director for a small church choir before the weekly Sunday service. The songs that day were just simple melodies, sung in unison rather than with harmonies. For that reason, some of the singers didn’t think that the songs would be all that meaningful to the congregation, which is to say, intellectually satisfying. But neither intellectual nor even spiritual satisfaction was the goal, for satisfaction usually just leaves people feeling content. The goal was rather the same as that of the whole service: to inspire people to love God more deeply.
During our short rehearsal, then, I helped the choir connect with and thus convey the transforming power hidden beneath the songs’ apparently simple forms. That afternoon, I was delighted to receive several phone calls from congregants telling me how moved they were.
Inspiration, in short, requires neither complexity nor sophistication. It’s a function of the heart, not of the head, and thus to inspire others it’s necessary to touch the heart.
One of those songs, I Wander with Thee, by J. Donald Walters, was written to express the spiritual freedom of Saint Francis in the moment that he threw off his rich garments and dedicated his life wholly to God. Here’s a recording similar to how we performed it:
Making an impression vs. touching the heart
If you watched the 2024 Paris Olympics, you might have seen Google’s “Dear Syndey” ad promoting the company’s Gemini AI technology. The ad triggered such a tidal wave of backlash that Google quickly pulled it off the air.
Although reports cite various reasons for the backlash, I think Google made two primary mistakes.
The first error is what The Verge identified as “completely missing the point of writing a fan letter…a heart-to-heart, human-to-human connection.”1 We humans intuitively treasure authentic feeling as one of our most precious characteristics. We thus innately rebel at the thought of sacrificing that part of ourselves—so clearly embodied in the image of a child reaching out to her heroine—on the altar of mindless technology.
The second error is assuming that a heart-to-heart connection requires some level of perfection. As the father’s voiceover in the ad says, just before bringing up Gemini AI, “She [his daughter] wants to show Sydney some love, and I’m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right.” (Emphasis added.)
Setting aside whether AI can do anything “just right” (which present evidence throws into question), isn’t it enough for a child to just say, “Thank you for inspiring me?” This fan letter isn’t an application to Harvard or UCLA upon which hangs the daughter’s entire future in track and field, after all. Yet Google assumes that a polished, AI-assisted letter is more meaningful to a celebrity than a heartfelt note from a child—one perhaps even written in crayon or colored markers. Their standard, apparently, is that making an impression is apparently more important than touching the heart.
I think the implicit hope in writing to someone you admire, especially one in which you give part of yourself is to not just elicit a response, but a personal response. How, then, would an AI-generated letter that’s “just right” distinguish itself from a thousand others written in the same way? I imagine someone like Sydney would simply have an assistant respond to all of them with a generic form letter. A deeply personal and sincere note, on the other hand, would likely make its way into Sydney’s hands directly and inspire her to give a little bit of herself, the kind of reply that would likely inspire the young girl for the rest of her life.
“Suffer little children come unto me,” Jesus said, rebuking his disciples in Matthew 19:14 for scolding the little ones, “for of such is the kingdom of God.” Or, as he said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8). Both statements say that God, too, is touched by childlike—which is to say, simple, not childish—sincerity. Paramhansa Yogananda, the great mystic noted in Three literary accounts of mystical union, part two, likened God to a little child in the sense that sincere devotion draws His response rather than attempts to win him over with intellectual eruditeness, complex theologies, “correct” doctrines, “proper” prayers and diplomacy, and the ability to quote scripture. Many great saints who’ve found God and communed with Him, like Saint Francis, have been, so far as the world is concerned, illiterate simpletons.2
Writing, then, whether in letters or fiction, doesn’t need to be “perfect” or complicated to inspire others, any more than those songs we sang that Sunday needed to be rich with harmonies and other musical sophistication. We’ll pick up that thread in the next post and consider what simplicity looks like in practice.
In the meantime, share your thoughts in the comments!
(If you like this post, bless the Algorithm Angels, the Digital Devas, or whatever you’d like to call them by selecting the “heart” icon ❤️ even if you’re not a subscriber. It helps!)
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/2/24212078/google-gemini-olympics-ad-backlash, accessed 10/1/2024.
As Leo Tolstoy depicted in his story, The Three Hermits.