As a man who has wrestled with his faith on more than one occasion in the early days of my Christian journey, Graham Greene was the ideal man to have on your tag team – a fellow wrestler who isn’t afraid to explore the darker issues of faith.
Graham Greene was largely a humble man of faith, making great strides to defy Dr Johnson's claim that it is only fools that write for other reasons besides money (an assertion that Graham Greene probably never dealt with face-on).
For those who do not much like reading, many of his books have been made into films, although the strict rules of unintended consequences has in part much more to say to those whose financial exigency forced their hand than it does to those whose books have (in very rare cases) been improved through the prism of celluloid (two such examples are, I would say, Mario Puzo's The Godfather and Stephen King's The Shining).
Some of his best film adaptations are The Third Man, Brighton Rock and The End of the Affair - some of the less-good adaptations are The Comedians, Travels With My Aunt, The Quiet American, and The Power and The Glory (although in novel form they are all terrific). I remember watching the film adaptation of The End of the Affair at a time of deep introspection after a relationship break-up, and being lifted up by one particular scene between Sarah Miles and the man with whom she had fallen in love, Maurice Benedix. The point at which she thinks he is going to die when a bomb hits the house she makes a heartfelt plea that God will save him, the consequences of which would require her to set him free from any further involvement. The work of Mr. Greene is work in which we are often confronted with the difficult aspects of faith:
That whisky priest, I wish we had never had him in the house
The Power and the Glory
We see in his wonderful travelogue, Journey Without Maps, how cerebration has caused the world to become erratic and displaced from the very things that will really benefit it. The essence of Greene is also the candidness with which he explores the deeper aspects of faith and human emotion - the dark shadows that come from contemplating faith.
I have held the same employment position at work for several years now and occasionally someone will enquire as to whether I have the urge to move on. But all the time in asking this they fail to see the real departure - for it does not come in colours or textures it comes from within. As the poet Horace once remarked, 'Those who depart change only their skies not their condition'. It takes much more to grow than mere occupational improvement, for you can be sure that every job in which you find yourself the real demands that the spirit world makes on us will be in every office and on every chair. Had consequence chose differently we might not be saying these things. The real rewards I have distilled from Graham Greene are his methods of making the desperate and the glorious so recognisable in each other's company. The zeitgeist has shifted much of our potential impact - our spreading of the gospel can be our biggest mountain particularly when we have too strenuous a demonstration of agreeability to convince people that their arguments are, to us, rather flawed. How soft our whisper often is when a roar is needed; how resounding our bellow when a whisper is required. Make no mistake about it, faith is a glorious thing, but in the dark corridors of uncertainty, it can be quite disquieting, as Graham Greene knew very well:
"Her voice was low, almost tender; she might have been urging a loved dog toward a lethal chamber"
We have, I'm sure, all felt this way; we have seen where our attempts to compromise the truth have led us. We have felt what Saul Bellow found; the knife and the wound aching for each other - we have seen that pain travels on the same road as pleasure, and throughout this we have seen the glory and the inspiration of living. That is what Graham Greene means to me - when I read his work, I find myself on that road where pain and pleasure travel together and I am reminded that all the times I travelled with hope that the mysteries at the end of the road would be glorious mysteries, I also saw that reason would reward me every time I came to a crossroad.
Graham Greene was largely a humble man of faith, making great strides to defy Dr Johnson's claim that it is only fools that write for other reasons besides money (an assertion that Graham Greene probably never dealt with face-on).
For those who do not much like reading, many of his books have been made into films, although the strict rules of unintended consequences has in part much more to say to those whose financial exigency forced their hand than it does to those whose books have (in very rare cases) been improved through the prism of celluloid (two such examples are, I would say, Mario Puzo's The Godfather and Stephen King's The Shining).
Some of his best film adaptations are The Third Man, Brighton Rock and The End of the Affair - some of the less-good adaptations are The Comedians, Travels With My Aunt, The Quiet American, and The Power and The Glory (although in novel form they are all terrific). I remember watching the film adaptation of The End of the Affair at a time of deep introspection after a relationship break-up, and being lifted up by one particular scene between Sarah Miles and the man with whom she had fallen in love, Maurice Benedix. The point at which she thinks he is going to die when a bomb hits the house she makes a heartfelt plea that God will save him, the consequences of which would require her to set him free from any further involvement. The work of Mr. Greene is work in which we are often confronted with the difficult aspects of faith:
That whisky priest, I wish we had never had him in the house
The Power and the Glory
We see in his wonderful travelogue, Journey Without Maps, how cerebration has caused the world to become erratic and displaced from the very things that will really benefit it. The essence of Greene is also the candidness with which he explores the deeper aspects of faith and human emotion - the dark shadows that come from contemplating faith.
I have held the same employment position at work for several years now and occasionally someone will enquire as to whether I have the urge to move on. But all the time in asking this they fail to see the real departure - for it does not come in colours or textures it comes from within. As the poet Horace once remarked, 'Those who depart change only their skies not their condition'. It takes much more to grow than mere occupational improvement, for you can be sure that every job in which you find yourself the real demands that the spirit world makes on us will be in every office and on every chair. Had consequence chose differently we might not be saying these things. The real rewards I have distilled from Graham Greene are his methods of making the desperate and the glorious so recognisable in each other's company. The zeitgeist has shifted much of our potential impact - our spreading of the gospel can be our biggest mountain particularly when we have too strenuous a demonstration of agreeability to convince people that their arguments are, to us, rather flawed. How soft our whisper often is when a roar is needed; how resounding our bellow when a whisper is required. Make no mistake about it, faith is a glorious thing, but in the dark corridors of uncertainty, it can be quite disquieting, as Graham Greene knew very well:
"Her voice was low, almost tender; she might have been urging a loved dog toward a lethal chamber"
We have, I'm sure, all felt this way; we have seen where our attempts to compromise the truth have led us. We have felt what Saul Bellow found; the knife and the wound aching for each other - we have seen that pain travels on the same road as pleasure, and throughout this we have seen the glory and the inspiration of living. That is what Graham Greene means to me - when I read his work, I find myself on that road where pain and pleasure travel together and I am reminded that all the times I travelled with hope that the mysteries at the end of the road would be glorious mysteries, I also saw that reason would reward me every time I came to a crossroad.
