Notableandquotable

Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church

"Notable & Quotable"

"I never presumed to think of myself as a Christian apologist," says novelist John Updike. He then adds: "Even in those many works of mine in which religion plays no overt role, mundane events are considered, I like to think, religiously, as worthy of reverence and detailed evocation. Much in our lifetimes dazzles and puzzles; much invites us to doubt and despair; yet a world in which no better is imagined, and the motions of our spirits are not at all valorized, would be one without not only any religion but without any art." In the Lutheran church of his childhood, his father was a deacon, and Updike once wrote a short story titled "The Deacon." He says, "That dogged deacon was, in a way, my father; and also the many, including clergy, who, against the modern grain, borrow light and lightness from ancient lamps, who suffer from a Sabbath compulsion, and take comfort in the periodic company of like-minded mothers, who-to quote from ‘The Deacon’-‘share the pride of this ancient thing that will not quite die.’" Servants of the Lord who do not quench a flickering wick dare not despise the nostalgia-laden intuitions of those for whom that ancient thing may one day burst into life, and life abundant.

Updike quoted in Context, May 2008