Within the past year, two of my closest friends died. This has moved me to appreciate the enormous blessing that friends can be in our lives. I imagine that they are more influential than we can ever appreciate. As I have aged, I have come to see what a unique role close friends have played and continue to play in my life. 

When I started this series on culture and religious faith, my intention was to share with readers of this weekly column some of the ideas that I emphasize in philosophy classes at St. John’s University, especially ideas that I emphasize in courses on film and philosophy and on the Catholic novel. 

In an earlier column in this series I reflected on how many artists who might be characterized as secular humanists have influenced my view of the human person. As examples, I mentioned playwright Eugene O’Neill and film directors Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen. I think I have admired these three artists because of their extraordinary talent. 

Rereading Flannery O’Connor’s wonderful book, “Mystery & Manners: Occasional Prose,” selected and edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1957, 237 pp.) has helped me to appreciate anew the gift that talented novelists are to us. I have difficulty understanding some of O’Connor’s short stories but I accept the judgment of others who know more about literature than I do.

I have found reflecting on some of the insights of author Flannery O’Connor very helpful in trying to understand the relationship between good stories and religious faith.

I am wondering how many readers of this weekly column have a strong sense that they are writing the stories of their lives by the free choices they make. To be more accurate, I would say they are co-creating their stories with God by the free choices they make.  In his book “What Is God? […]

As I mentioned in last week’s column, my favorite American playwright is Eugene O’Neill. In a letter, probably written in 1925, O’Neill expressed what he was trying to do with his dramas. He wrote that he wanted “to see the transfiguring nobility of tragedy, in as much near the Greek sense as one can grasp it, in seemingly the most ignoble, debased lives. And just here is where I am a most confirmed mystic, for I’m always trying to interpret Life in terms of character. 

Anyone who reads this column regularly knows that I frequently write about the philosophy of secular humanism. At St. John’s University, in every course I teach I begin the course with two or three lectures explaining secular humanism. I think that the predominant view of reality in our society among many intellectuals is secular humanism. 

In my previous five columns I have been trying to promote great literature and other arts and to comment on how they can be a great help in the life of a religious believer.

I have been reading a wonderful book entitled “Western Civilization: A Global Comparative Approach: Volume II: Since 1600” (New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2012). I wanted to read an intellectual history, a book that would relate historical events with what was going on in philosophy and other liberal arts when those historical events were happening.