Volume 2005 Parnassus

Letters From the Editors

Foremost on my mind is the need for recognition of the devoted efforts of the Parnassus staff and the guidance of our faculty adviser, Professor Satterlee. I could easily commit more text to the gratitude I feel toward them than I can rightly publish here. I feel that each staff member has embarked on a much more rewarding journey than simply working on the staff of a literary journal this semester. A reigning desire to unify the concepts of art and faith bore with us and encouraged us in forming this year's journal.

My personal search for some sort of convergence between my faith and artistic sensibilities resulted in encounters with myriad influential perspectives. Throughout my life, watching the continuous friction between left and right swinging views on artistic standards has tended to bring out the reactionary side in me, sending me reeling away from whatever I feel the collective embraces. Each developmental stage has accompanied many such personal pendulum swings in which I'm never quite able to find a balance or point of moderation.

This semester may be the first that I've truly acknowledged this resistance and have tried to make myself aware of its effect on me. Serving as co-editor of Parnassus and reading Gregory Wolfe's visionary writings have allowed me to develop a stronger aesthetic taste incorporating my faith and evaluation my tendency to irrationally oppose the stream.

I've discovered only one source for such standards and a more suitable model than the likes of those I react against. The ease with which I become disenchanted with human measurements should serve only to propel me more greatly toward the ultimate creative spirit. My vision for this publication is that we will reflect a purposeful alienation from mundane art forms of mass appeal and, as a result, engage in a more fervent search for a balance between art and faith.

The work of this year's Parnassus contributors reminds me of the delicacy of the artist's responsibility. In all of these submissions, I sense the thread of this consciousness weaved into each student's approach to their artistry. My hope is not that Parnassus is the end in itself but that it encapsulates a stage of our development as conscientious creators glorifying God through our craft.

-Joe Darling-

Writers. You've seen them walking around in their wool jackets, writing sloppily in small black notebooks. Usually they've got a beret somewhere on their person, as well as a scarf that they themselves knitted, and a pair of John Lennon's glasses. They smoke European cigarettes and drive old Volvos. They smell like your grandmother's attic. You know because you've passed them on the sidewalk, and that's about as close as you'll allow yourself to get. They're funny people, writers.

Some are called "poets." They're the ones who get a kick out of dead grass blowing in the wind, or a puddle, or maybe a leaf. They spend hours staring at clouds, and they read the dictionary for fun. They're always quoting Shakespeare out of context, drinking hot tea and listening to Ravi Shankar.

If you're not called a "poet," usually you're just a "writer." Writers and poets have their differences—it would be reasonable to compare their relationship to that of skiers and snowboarders—it is a special animosity that has been handed down through centuries. Fiction writers are always experimenting with "point of view" when they talk, and most of them refer to themselves in the third person. You can usually pick out the ones who write non-fiction due to their raging cynicism and dreadfully self-centered communication skills. They're always using words like "dreadfully." Editorials are especially dangerous.

Being a writer doesn't appear to be that exciting—it's a lifestyle that seems to be made up of low-fat meals, chess, old fireplaces, fountain pens and socks with holes in them. On particular days it might even involve a bicycle, but you'd probably prefer your life as a ____. After all, it's not like writing matters anymore. This is the digital age.

If you've made it this far down the page and find my generalizations to be not only true but personally satisfying, please read no further.

This journal contains work done by writers. Poets even. Most of these persons have never worn a beret and wouldn't even think about driving a Volvo. They're future doctors, teachers, lawyers, actors, philosophers and evangelists. They simply realize that words are powerful weapons, especially when paired with Truth. That, after all, is the mission of the Christian writer: to boldly bring Truth into the world. There's more to say, of course, but I'll let them speak on my behalf.

-Taylor Birkey-