Manna
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Caleb Warner. Manna. One year on the road, a collection of 365 journal entries re-configured into a novel about a protagonist (and the originator of all internal antagonism) looking for answers about the spiritual in America. July 20th, 2017-July 20th, 2018
"The spiritual in America?" This is not a New Age-y project: the cause for doing Manna (coincidentally, this is the name of the main theme, the name of the novel, the name of the trip, the name of the camper van (not yet included), and the wannabe name in some way of the protagonist) is the internal strife of a "finite being lost in time". More specifically--and to carry on with the St. Augustine undertones--a creature living amidst an empire (America. Rome?) that seduces him towards a thousand little deaths. This is not a political entity: it is a different city altogether.
(side-note: why is it when I am most afraid of death, I go to those places which most resemble coffins? I am alone and it is dark and I burrow under cold layers of linen: "Now I'm drunk and afraid, wishing the world would go away" - Sufjan Stevens :: "I'm hoping that I can borrow a piece of mind. I'm behind on what's really important--my mind is really distorted. I find nothing but trouble in my life. I'm fortunate you believe in a dream. This orphanage we call a ghetto is quite a routine and last night was just another distraction or a reaction of what we consider madness." - Kendrick Lamar).
I have for a long time wondered why people continue to believe in a spiritual realm--the realm of the unseen, of the invisible--when there seems no apparent reason to believe in it. For example (and here is where I sound most like an Emergent-church-type), if God wanted everyone to believe in him, why doesn't he just take everyone out to coffee?
That's what I would do.
And what is the point of visions? And where are the physical realities that allow me to perceive God with my senses? I was built with an ability to perceive, but if the Lord wanted me to perceive him, why didn't he put something in front of me that I could see, taste, or touch?
These are in-house questions for someone who would very much like to give into every little thing that might kill him gently. For example, why can't I watch five hours of television and smoke marijuana while I do it? Every day? For ten years? Why can't I spend every day on the couch? Something compels me not to "give into" these sorts of indulgences which, from a material perspective, are superfluous. It's questions like these that I don't just throw out as stock questions. I don't ask these questions because I need to give my life purpose by finding answers. I ask questions about God and about the way he relates to me, because I seem to do it naturally. I seem to ask these kinds of questions as naturally as I perceive what is in front of me. And when I find myself asking questions naturally--when they force themselves on me (and cannot be tamed, only ignored with various distractions) like the sensation of touch, or the general belief that my body takes up *some* space--I believe it is the most natural thing to look for answers.
That is what Manna is. I am looking for answers. This is not the result of a general desire to doubt the existence of divine intervention (this is at the heart of my search: if the divine exists, when and where and why would it intervene for its creatures in contemporary society? And when various creatures do believe in divine intervention, of the invisible permeating and transforming itself into the visible, how do they respond? I have found myself for years now drawn to communes, intentional communities, and monasteries. And extrapolating from the micro to the macro, I believe that my desire is one that is generational. My desire to pursue places like monasteries, I believe, is one shared by millions of people. Why? We are all trying to kill ourselves with comfort and finding ourselves extremely uncomfortable after the highs run low), but it is instead the result of me asking those very specific questions, not only about the existence of God, but his character.
The formal way I am going to find my answers is by beginning with a set of assumptions that I would like to test. Under the assumption that the divine has intervened through Scripture and the material world, what is it we can expect to see? This by no means will lead me to any certain conclusion, but it will allow me to find what are the gaps in my own understanding. By figuring out what I would like to expect, I will find also what can honestly be expected by divinity and what is actually the result of my "bad understanding" of God. I believe that many of the questions we ask of God, desperately, are asked out of ignorance. Ignorance is only an evil if it maintains its grasp on the mind, but it can lead to more maturity as the starting point for inquiry. Allow me 2 put my ignorance 2 use.
I mean, u got 2 start somewhere rite?
Manna is a journalistic project: a snapshot of spirituality in America. Manna is a written history of intentional communities in America. It is a fictionalized non-fiction book: an autobiographical novel. The genre is non-fiction journalistic magic realism.
It is journalistic in the sense that the raw material for the book are journal entries.
It is journalistic in the sense that I am going to be a journalist of intentional communes and "life on the road in America" for a year. This will include formal interviews, written conversations, and descriptions of my experience of taking the place of those I am interested in. I will be visiting communes (or being kicked out of them).
I suspect there will always be a tension in my own heart and with those I encounter about my economic choices and my participation in what might be perceived as the "system". Who am I to show up in button-down shirts, a *hopefully* nice camper van, and a hashtag (#MannaNotMammon) + travel blog + smartphone + a laptop computer + a gofundme campain? Is this me paying my tithes to Mammon? Communes and intentional communities are almost always (AA) the result of a countercultural spirit, or a desire to opt out of culture-wide polarizations. Me using a hashtag (which to me still smacks of insincerity and/or neediness) is simply not countercultural. Additionally, communes are AA economic entities that are AA structured around some variation on the theme of distributing wealth. I admire this, but me as the one in the camper van will simply be unable to afford becoming a member of any kind of economic community like this while on the road.
I will be the despised of St. Benedict, a gyrovague: "the worst kind of monk": "These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province, staying as guests in different monasteries for three or four days at a time. Always on the move, with no stability, they indulge their own wills, succumb to the allurements of gluttony, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. Of the miserable conduct of all such, it is better to be silent than to speak."
Not the Sarabaites!
I will be balancing the desire to be like those I will meet with the necessity of maintaining distance.
Maybe this is a tension that only exists in my mind, the result of my fear of being hated. I know I would secretly judge anyone who had a hastag and a travel blog. But there is only so much I can do about this. After all, my desire is to go and come back. I want to be the prophetic bridge between those who have answers and those who need them. I want to keep my feet in both worlds, the worlds of opting out and the worlds of speaking out. Somewhere in the middle is where I want to be. I want to follow the pattern of divine intervention--and this is why Manna is my wannabe name. Maybe I will be granted the privilege and responsibility to be manna for someone, to sprinkle bread from heaven, or at least show the way to some fountain.
This is the intersection of my huge passion for magic realism as a literary genre, but I will spare you the theory. Suffice it to say, I essentially want to create a new genre with Manna. If this sounds like ambition-turned-delusion, that is because it likely is. I hold onto the distant hope that the star in the sky I cannot reach will still lead me to a new coast. Really. I have been exploring the genre of magic realism for years now in both fiction and nonfiction and I don't believe I have yet found what I am looking for in it. I AA come away dissatisfied with my own representations of magic realism and with the narrow-viewed ways that other authors do it. Magic realism, as a genre, I believe is the ultimate genre, the genre which gains its life source of truth from the patterns of divine intervention.
Anyway, I could go on, but the thing is: I need money for this trip. I need to buy a camper van. I need money for gas. I need money for food. I am saving money now from my job, but I can only achieve so much within the next year. There are a lot of financial uncertainties about this trip. I have never done anything like this. The 5k I am asking for will go to buying and/or renovating a camper van. The rest will go to saving money for the road. Before I leave, I will try to get a job online that I can do wherever and whenever.
I have no experience of living on the road. I need to learn. I am learning. But this will only really happen once I have a camper van and I am driving away from where I am now. And I hope I will be driving away from ignorance. Oddly enough, money is essential for this theoretical, ideologue journey.
Thank you for reading.
"The spiritual in America?" This is not a New Age-y project: the cause for doing Manna (coincidentally, this is the name of the main theme, the name of the novel, the name of the trip, the name of the camper van (not yet included), and the wannabe name in some way of the protagonist) is the internal strife of a "finite being lost in time". More specifically--and to carry on with the St. Augustine undertones--a creature living amidst an empire (America. Rome?) that seduces him towards a thousand little deaths. This is not a political entity: it is a different city altogether.
(side-note: why is it when I am most afraid of death, I go to those places which most resemble coffins? I am alone and it is dark and I burrow under cold layers of linen: "Now I'm drunk and afraid, wishing the world would go away" - Sufjan Stevens :: "I'm hoping that I can borrow a piece of mind. I'm behind on what's really important--my mind is really distorted. I find nothing but trouble in my life. I'm fortunate you believe in a dream. This orphanage we call a ghetto is quite a routine and last night was just another distraction or a reaction of what we consider madness." - Kendrick Lamar).
I have for a long time wondered why people continue to believe in a spiritual realm--the realm of the unseen, of the invisible--when there seems no apparent reason to believe in it. For example (and here is where I sound most like an Emergent-church-type), if God wanted everyone to believe in him, why doesn't he just take everyone out to coffee?
That's what I would do.
And what is the point of visions? And where are the physical realities that allow me to perceive God with my senses? I was built with an ability to perceive, but if the Lord wanted me to perceive him, why didn't he put something in front of me that I could see, taste, or touch?
These are in-house questions for someone who would very much like to give into every little thing that might kill him gently. For example, why can't I watch five hours of television and smoke marijuana while I do it? Every day? For ten years? Why can't I spend every day on the couch? Something compels me not to "give into" these sorts of indulgences which, from a material perspective, are superfluous. It's questions like these that I don't just throw out as stock questions. I don't ask these questions because I need to give my life purpose by finding answers. I ask questions about God and about the way he relates to me, because I seem to do it naturally. I seem to ask these kinds of questions as naturally as I perceive what is in front of me. And when I find myself asking questions naturally--when they force themselves on me (and cannot be tamed, only ignored with various distractions) like the sensation of touch, or the general belief that my body takes up *some* space--I believe it is the most natural thing to look for answers.
That is what Manna is. I am looking for answers. This is not the result of a general desire to doubt the existence of divine intervention (this is at the heart of my search: if the divine exists, when and where and why would it intervene for its creatures in contemporary society? And when various creatures do believe in divine intervention, of the invisible permeating and transforming itself into the visible, how do they respond? I have found myself for years now drawn to communes, intentional communities, and monasteries. And extrapolating from the micro to the macro, I believe that my desire is one that is generational. My desire to pursue places like monasteries, I believe, is one shared by millions of people. Why? We are all trying to kill ourselves with comfort and finding ourselves extremely uncomfortable after the highs run low), but it is instead the result of me asking those very specific questions, not only about the existence of God, but his character.
The formal way I am going to find my answers is by beginning with a set of assumptions that I would like to test. Under the assumption that the divine has intervened through Scripture and the material world, what is it we can expect to see? This by no means will lead me to any certain conclusion, but it will allow me to find what are the gaps in my own understanding. By figuring out what I would like to expect, I will find also what can honestly be expected by divinity and what is actually the result of my "bad understanding" of God. I believe that many of the questions we ask of God, desperately, are asked out of ignorance. Ignorance is only an evil if it maintains its grasp on the mind, but it can lead to more maturity as the starting point for inquiry. Allow me 2 put my ignorance 2 use.
I mean, u got 2 start somewhere rite?
Manna is a journalistic project: a snapshot of spirituality in America. Manna is a written history of intentional communities in America. It is a fictionalized non-fiction book: an autobiographical novel. The genre is non-fiction journalistic magic realism.
It is journalistic in the sense that the raw material for the book are journal entries.
It is journalistic in the sense that I am going to be a journalist of intentional communes and "life on the road in America" for a year. This will include formal interviews, written conversations, and descriptions of my experience of taking the place of those I am interested in. I will be visiting communes (or being kicked out of them).
I suspect there will always be a tension in my own heart and with those I encounter about my economic choices and my participation in what might be perceived as the "system". Who am I to show up in button-down shirts, a *hopefully* nice camper van, and a hashtag (#MannaNotMammon) + travel blog + smartphone + a laptop computer + a gofundme campain? Is this me paying my tithes to Mammon? Communes and intentional communities are almost always (AA) the result of a countercultural spirit, or a desire to opt out of culture-wide polarizations. Me using a hashtag (which to me still smacks of insincerity and/or neediness) is simply not countercultural. Additionally, communes are AA economic entities that are AA structured around some variation on the theme of distributing wealth. I admire this, but me as the one in the camper van will simply be unable to afford becoming a member of any kind of economic community like this while on the road.
I will be the despised of St. Benedict, a gyrovague: "the worst kind of monk": "These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province, staying as guests in different monasteries for three or four days at a time. Always on the move, with no stability, they indulge their own wills, succumb to the allurements of gluttony, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. Of the miserable conduct of all such, it is better to be silent than to speak."
Not the Sarabaites!
I will be balancing the desire to be like those I will meet with the necessity of maintaining distance.
Maybe this is a tension that only exists in my mind, the result of my fear of being hated. I know I would secretly judge anyone who had a hastag and a travel blog. But there is only so much I can do about this. After all, my desire is to go and come back. I want to be the prophetic bridge between those who have answers and those who need them. I want to keep my feet in both worlds, the worlds of opting out and the worlds of speaking out. Somewhere in the middle is where I want to be. I want to follow the pattern of divine intervention--and this is why Manna is my wannabe name. Maybe I will be granted the privilege and responsibility to be manna for someone, to sprinkle bread from heaven, or at least show the way to some fountain.
This is the intersection of my huge passion for magic realism as a literary genre, but I will spare you the theory. Suffice it to say, I essentially want to create a new genre with Manna. If this sounds like ambition-turned-delusion, that is because it likely is. I hold onto the distant hope that the star in the sky I cannot reach will still lead me to a new coast. Really. I have been exploring the genre of magic realism for years now in both fiction and nonfiction and I don't believe I have yet found what I am looking for in it. I AA come away dissatisfied with my own representations of magic realism and with the narrow-viewed ways that other authors do it. Magic realism, as a genre, I believe is the ultimate genre, the genre which gains its life source of truth from the patterns of divine intervention.
Anyway, I could go on, but the thing is: I need money for this trip. I need to buy a camper van. I need money for gas. I need money for food. I am saving money now from my job, but I can only achieve so much within the next year. There are a lot of financial uncertainties about this trip. I have never done anything like this. The 5k I am asking for will go to buying and/or renovating a camper van. The rest will go to saving money for the road. Before I leave, I will try to get a job online that I can do wherever and whenever.
I have no experience of living on the road. I need to learn. I am learning. But this will only really happen once I have a camper van and I am driving away from where I am now. And I hope I will be driving away from ignorance. Oddly enough, money is essential for this theoretical, ideologue journey.
Thank you for reading.
Organizer
Caleb Joseph Warner
Organizer
Moscow, ID
