Today, a chat with the brilliant and prolific Bob Hudson, formerly a book editor at Zondervan/Harper Collins, who has another book out, a novel this time, titled The Beautiful Madness of Martin Bonham. As do most of Bob’s other books, this one has a spiritual theme running through it, the question of loving God versus merely knowing about God, which is why I think it’s a perfect conversation for Christmas Eve. I had a wise priest friend who quoted some lines which went something like this and, which seem relevant here:
Tho’ Christ be born a thousand times anew, despair o man, despair o woman, unless he’s born in you.
Bob’s novel goes to this question of how to fulfill the divine directive to love God with one’s whole self as opposed to merely learning about God. It may be instructive that Bob has been undergoing treatment for a slow-growing bout of cancer. Let’s put some positive vibes and/or prayers into the ether for Bob.
Before I bring him in, a coupla things I’d like to let you know. First, even though it’s winter, WESU is still in its fall pledge drive, looking to raise $25,000 to keep its free form community radio mission going. As of this writing, we’re less than halfway there. If you love this kind of programming, please click here and give what you can. The other thing I want to say is that this will be my last Open Studio episode for awhile. I’m taking a hiatus of a few months to indulge in some creative self-care: namely, painting. I look forward to resuming after the summer. Till then, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and happy every other holiday till I’m back on air!
And now, without further ado, my friend, Bob Hudson:
The famous — and famously satirized — 1960s-era black-on-black art of Ad Reinhardt, who was a friend of the Catholic mystic Thomas Merton, figures into the novel’s discussion of darkness vs light. As one of Hudson’s characters, an art professor, says, “Perhaps we love God by not presuming to know more than we actually do, and by just opening ourselves to the mystery we can’t begin to comprehend, and to hope in things not seen. We can love God in the darkness.”
Below, Warner Sallman’s ubiquitous 1940 “Image of Christ”:
The Beautiful Madness of Martin Bonham follows in a long tradition of comic novels set on college campuses.
Hudson appeared on my previous WESU-FM program “Reasonably Catholic: Keeping the Faith.” Here are links to those episodes:
On his book, The Art of The Almost Said: A Christian Writer’s Guide to Writing Poetry
On his book, The Monk & The Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, & The Perilous Summer of 1966
The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style
Seeing Jesus: Visionary Encounters from the First Century to the Present
The Further Adventures of Jack the Giant Killer
The Poet and the Fly: Art, Nature, God, Mortality, and Other Elusive Mysteries
Kiss the Earth When You Pray: The Father Zosima Poems: 42 Meditations and a Prayer
Four Birds of Noah’s Ark
Open Studio 