I thought I would write a modern day novel about the Apocalypse without the dramatics of fire, famine, or fomenting mobs of angry zombies destroying everything in their paths like locusts. But the task seems too laborious and heavy without the props of catastrophe and earthquakes to sustain the dramatic arc. Besides, without the antics of the cinematic theatrics people are used to today, I have my doubts anyone would recognize the Apocalyptic literary fiction for anything other than a sad tale. I know this, because they do not recognize the fact now in the moral majority of families today, the fact of the Apocalypse unfolding everyday in a multitude of domestic tragedies that would rival Euripides.
The Church is in eclipse. Where the hierarchy is, no one who believes the hierarchy is not synonymous with heretics, knows. The faithful, scattered about the world like ashes and dust, are numbered by God but almost unknown by men. They subsist off spiritual communions, repeated acts of perfect contrition, rosaries, penances, and prayers for a world left in desolation. Yet this is not my story I’d tell of the Apocalypse.
My story would be about a family in the farmland wilds of the Midwest. Think Grapes of Wrath without the grapes and without the wrath. The story would lack many other things one might reasonably conclude were in a post-apocalyptic world. For starters, no murders, no oppressed people, no poor crying out for bread or soup, no tyrannical government big brother business; nothing that would strike the reader as especially egregious or systematic misery.
The book would lack other details of desperation that would signal the sky’s imminent collapse. The story would not contain any unhappy people. Only happy people. “What? Preposterous! You cannot have a book with no wretched and miserable characters!” I suppose you cannot, which is why I haven’t written it yet. Yet there would be miserable characters reading it. So the requirement could be fulfilled in a sense.
You see, my story would be called “Where the Eagles Gather” after the biblical quote concerning the faithful gathering around the Body of Christ like birds of prey around a corpse. The idea (I am giving it away for anyone brave enough to write it) is that this Midwest farm family lives mostly apart from society. They do not even go to church on Sunday because there is no church worth going to. They do not grocery shop, because they make all their own food. They do not wear nice clothes, but the clothes they do wear don’t fade away after a season of washing because they make them themselves. This family needs almost nothing from the world. Not a slew of modern medicines, not a garage of modern machinery, not even much modern money, except for nickel and dime things. A metaphor here, to be sure, meant to mean spiritual detachment from worldly goods, but because of this detached spirit, the family is truly happy.
The unhappiness in the reader would slowly set in as the story unfolded, revealing domestic harmony, husband and wife in love, mannerly and well-behaved and jolly children, meals made in joy and eaten in solidarity, gratitude, and pleasant conversations. Such domestic harmony diametrically opposite their own familial lives. Labor in the field would feel like leisure or a happy holiday or hobby compared with the office or factory worker today. And Sunday would be kept with the utmost solemnity, like the mood at a funeral or coronation, depending on the season.
The portrait of this family would not be all light but have its shadow, which, as with actual paintings, accentuates the light and makes the picture more beautiful. There would be pain, but not anguish. There would be privation but not depravity.There would be death but not sin. The story would be of a family living life in Christ, in the living Mysterium Fidei, the living Bread which comes down from Heaven giving eternal life.This Eucharistic family, if I may, would be unknown to the cars that pass by, the mailman, the government officials, the religious congregations, organized society and individuals. No one other than the family itself would be aware of its everyday, mundane glorious beatitude.
“Where the Eagles Gather” would not be a mirror I hold up to nature merely, but nature perfected by grace. The book would break your heart (as all great books do) because it would show what life is supposed to be, and show the reader consequently the counterfeit life he is living without Christ. But the truth is, I really am trying to write this book now; not with the pen or a computer keyboard: I am writing this book with my will. I encourage you all to do the same.
