Posted by Though author Gary Jansen has written numerous books – ranging from spiritual advice to his Christopher Award-winning children’s literature – he had yet to fully integrate into a single volume his creative interests as a self-described “literary geek,” film lover, and devotee of Ignatian spirituality. He finally accomplished that goal with his latest work, “Meditations at Midnight: Poetry and Prose,” which explores both Jesus’s life and the human experience in ways that are both imaginative and memorable. We discussed it recently on “Christopher Closeup” (podcast below).
“Meditations at Midnight” is divided into five sections, inspired by the Italian poet Dante: Via Dolorosa, Via Vitae, Via Cordis, Via Memoria, and Coda. Along the way, Gary channels some of the other writers he most admires, such as Jack Kerouac, Paulo Coelho, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and more.
Via Dolorosa consists of 14 exquisite poems in which Gary imagines what was going through the mind of Jesus during His Passion. Perhaps surprisingly, the seeds of these poems were planted by the band U2’s song “Until the End of the World.” Though the song is from the 90s, Gary only realized five or six years ago that the lyrics occur from the point of view of Judas talking to Jesus.
Gary explained, “It got me thinking…’What if I could use my imagination to get into the imagination of Jesus during the Passion?’ So, there’s 14 stations in the Stations of the Cross, and so there’s 14 poems in this first section, which is called Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows. Each one is an interpretation of Jesus’s Passion following the stations…[It was] such a spiritually fruitful experience for me to get into the mind of having the conversation with Jesus and Judas, Jesus and Pontius Pilate, and observations of when He’s having memories of His mother and memories of growing up as a little boy.”
This kind of exercise is a regular part of Ignatian spirituality, which involves “praying with the imagination, and allowing yourself to read a passage of Scripture, and for you to use your imagination to get into the scene,” said Gary. “It’s an incredibly artistic thing to do. When you think about all the movies that have come out over the years – whether it’s ‘Passion of the Christ’ or TV shows like ‘The Chosen’ or ‘King of Kings’ or ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ – if you think about it…they’re taking this Ignatian approach: let me imagine what this scene would be like. Let me imagine what Jesus would be like. How would He react? How does Judas react?…I wanted to engage in that and to use…a little bit of creativity to create something that was artistic but also approachable.”
Though Gary is a practicing Catholic now, he spent his young adult years wrestling with God. He revisits that time in the Via Memoria section of “Meditations at Midnight.” At age 27, he felt a deep desire to “go search for God” by visiting various churches in Europe. The only problem: he had no money.
Gary recalled, “I had a job, but I had no savings, and I struggled about what to do. This thing was really eating at me. I wanted to go for 40 days and 40 nights. I wanted to make this my own pilgrimage. So, I remember thinking strongly about this and saying, ‘God, I really need a sign.’ And so, I was walking around Lincoln Center in New York City, and I stumbled upon this huge Dante statue, which I’d never known about before. And Dante was like a patron saint for me, even though he is not a patron saint…When I stared at that statue, I felt like God had given me a sign, so I quit my job and went off on this journey.”
Europe was the site of numerous spiritual encounters for Gary, including a lengthy conversation with a homeless man who dubbed himself “The Rebrainer,” because he claimed he was remaking the world through his mind. They all add to Gary’s goal with this book: to give the reader an experience that works on multiple levels.
“Meditations at Midnight” also serves as a way to honor some of the special people in Gary’s life, from his wife and sons to his mother and late mother-in-law. Of the latter two, he describes them as being “modern-day saints,” who were faithful, quirky, and independent – and who shaped his life and his family’s life in positive ways.
Gary noted that his mother saw his future as a writer before even he did. One story in the book occurs at a time in his boyhood when his parents were enduring a difficult time in their marriage that would ultimately lead to divorce. Things were bad at home, so Gary spent much of his time in the local library, devouring books by Stephen King. For some reason, those horror stories offered him imaginative escapes from his troubles at home.
When Gary learned that Stephen King’s newest book, “It,” was coming out, he pre-ordered it from the local bookstore. “I still remember my mom driving me that day the book came out,” Gary said, “to go pick it up at B. Dalton’s, and that’s when she’s like, ‘You know what? One day you’re going to be a writer, and I know you’re going to be a writer.'” And we had this really beautiful moment. So, I tried to recapture that in a way that Stephen King might write it.”
Regarding his hopes for people who read “Meditations at Midnight,” Gary concluded, “I do think that one of my strengths is being able to craft a little bit of a story, maybe grab some of your attention. I love the cinema, and I love cinematic-like ideas and pictures…This book is supposed to be like the app Hallow, but in book form. So, you could just open it anywhere, read a little bit, and then hopefully, it brings a sense of peace and a sense of connection with yourself, your own creativity, and hopefully with God.”
(To listen to my full interview with Gary Jansen, click on the podcast link):
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