The Mind of the Maker

I borrowed ‘The Mind of the Maker’ by Dorothy Sayers on an instinct at the British library recently. This edition was published as a part of a series – The Library of Anglican Spirituality. For some time now I had been meaning to get hold of some of Sayers’ Christian writings just to see what kind of theologian she was, so I was quite happy to have found it but I was a little afraid that I would be disappointed if it turned out to be a bit propagandist in nature.

I needn’t have worried. However devout a Christian Sayers was, her writing is brilliantly detached and superbly incisive. Plus she writes about my most favourite topic, the relation between Art and spirituality. God! That sounds hopelessly inadequate, but I imagine it is because ‘spirituality’ is such an abused term these days that it is impossible to use the word without it dredging up a hundred common connotations. But that is without help.

In ‘The Mind of the Maker’ Sayers uses a compelling analogy of the creative artist, more specifically the writer (of The Word with all its Biblical implications) to elucidate the doctrine of trinity. Or perhaps it would be righter to say that she uses the statements in the doctrine to explain the creative processes that converge in an Ideal work of Art.

The most appealing aspect of Sayers’ thesis is that she doesn’t ‘argue’- she states. After a surfeit of academicians who use the ‘argue and withdraw’ tool to impress their audiences with the solidity of their academic objectivity, it was a rare pleasure to read an extremely well-ordered thesis presented almost as facts. I am personally convinced that that is probably the only valid way when one is talking of matters of theology or Art. Simply because in some matters rational debate will take you only so far till you reach a stalemate. A person who will rationalise life on his dying breath has got to be uncommonly foolish.

And it is an uncommonly good book that can find coordinates for the ‘Trinity’s Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Three Persons) in the Idea, Energy and Power – the three elements within a ‘maker’s’ make-up that together and simultaneously ignite, fuel and sustain a work of Art.

Through this schema Sayers guide us through the meaning of Free Will drawn parallel to originality in Art, Evil corresponding to Bad Art, Real love equaling True Art, and my personal favourite, what she calls very interestingly Scalene trinities – which correspond with the various types of Less-than-ideal Art, and she lets us in on how to identify what exactly is ‘wrong’ with such a piece of flawed Art.

Most, most fascinating stuff.

If you are interested in theology or Art, or the correlation between the two or just plain writing, this book will probably interest you.

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• I am struck repeatedly by how all the major religions of the world essentially say the same thing. Very often the kind of imagery and knowledge-constructs are so similar it really gobsmacks me. The Three Persons of the Trinity are crazily similar to the Bhramha-Vishnu-Maheshwara of the Hindu trinity or even to the Shiva-Shakti-Kundalini concept.

• Also I am tying myself into knots about this one: see the workings of the Trinity are very similar to the Hindu concept of Dharma. Okay, now the word Dharma comes from the root ‘Dhri’ which of course sounds like ‘Tri’ but actually means ‘that which holds or sustains’. We know that the Hindu theology holds the Trinity as the mechanism through which the world as we know it is sustained. Of course Dharma is a much much older word and concept. So I am thinking maybe ‘Dhri’ comes form an older form of ‘Tri’. What say?

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I have never had any deep knowledge of Christian theology, in spite of being educated at a convent for the first fourteen years, or probably because of it. I must have crossed myself thousands of times, and muttered the words “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” not quite knowing what I was committing. I think I had a grasp on the father and the son (often equated with Christ) but I wasn’t ever sure who the Holy Spirit was. Considering the fact that subsequently the subject of theology has become a prime favourite with me I am quite surprised that I had never explored the doctrine of trinity or in fact any other aspect of Christian theology until this recently. I blame this squarely on being subjected to the mundane peripherals of the religion too early in life, which made it familiar but somewhat uninspiring.