by Jim Lawlor

A throw away remark by Fr John Fitzsimmons, lecturing on the Wisdom literature of the Bible, has stayed with me for 40 years. Every society, he argued, works through its disasters and collective traumas, not initially in its politics, theology, or philosophy, but first in its literature. When I revisit some history-changing moments of my adulthood, it is possible to identify a parallel literature trying to understand and express the meaning of those memories.