I spent the nicest afternoon yesterday traveling, eating fine foods, playing golf and taking in a World Series game. I did all of this in the quiet comfort of the public library, a short walk from my house, and somehow fittingly located across the street from the National Cemetery. For three hours, I skimmed through books on multiple subjects, simply enjoying the pleasure of reading for relaxation and relishing the gift of the vicarious life. 

I’ve always loved libraries, perhaps more than any other public space. As a child, I spent hours in the Stewart-Lakewood branch of the Atlanta Public Library, where the librarian did magic tricks for children at the circulation desk. As a Baptist choir boy, I spent every Wednesday afternoon—skipping choir practice, of course—at the old Marietta library on the Square. I learned then the value of hooky as well as self-education. In graduate school, for more than 10 years I spent many late nights in the Georgia State library, walking from stacks to carrel over the Decatur Street sky bridge. When I wasn’t there, I was likely to be found in the maze of shelves in the beautiful Downtown main library, the same library where I later strolled my baby son every day when we lived just down the street. 

Yes, I love libraries. I love them much like I do churches. A library and a church, particularly an open and unlocked Catholic Church, have much in common. Open to all, universal in scope, inspired in their mission to nurture each generation, libraries and churches minister to the young and old, the beloved and the lonely. For a while in either space, mind and spirit are restored. 

Don Quixote’s key 

In his early 17th century Spanish masterpiece Don Quixote, the prototype for the modern novel and one of the most read books in the world, Cervantes’ beloved protagonist says of himself “I know who I am, and who I may be, if I choose.” 

Don Quixote of La Mancha is a man who has lost touch with reality. Depending upon the translation you read, he has either “gone mad,” “gone witless” or “completely gone out of his mind.” Having read so many romances of chivalry and courtly love, Don Quixote inhabits an alternative reality, one in which ordinary animals and people become steeds and damsels; one in which windmills become giants to be feared, attacked and slain. 

Is Don Quixote insane? Or has he simply decided to live in his imagination for a while? Is he like Linus of Peanuts, who fervently believes in the Great Pumpkin, or more like Snoopy, who pretends to battle the Red Baron? In Charles Schulz’s world, the believer is mocked and the pretender tolerated, and neither is understood. Nor is Don Quixote. In the beginning of the novel, his beloved library is burned as a cruel means of curing his perceived madness. 

I like to think that Don Quixote is completely rational. I like to believe that he has discovered a secret, a key to navigating this life to find meaning that resonates hereafter. 

Don Quixote believes. He believes that his idealized romances are real, and plausible. He believes because they are beautiful and true, as Keats put it. He believes because they delight and instruct, according to Aristotle’s aesthetics. That his belief is made visible through his pretending demonstrates the transcendent power of the imagination, and the imagination is an essential link to faith. 

Don Quixote fighting windmills is from “Stories of Don Quixote: Written Anew for Young People” published in 1910 and illustrated by G.A. Harker.

Don Quixote, like Cervantes himself, is a man of faith. He frequently reminds his squire Sancho Panza of the essential goodness and mercy of God. He spurns fortune and insists instead that Divine Providence guides our lives. He is, also like Cervantes, a practicing Catholic. Cervantes was a member of the Third Order of the Franciscans. Mystery is essential in both Don Quixote’s and Cervantes’ realities, but as Flannery O’Connor knew, “mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind.” 

Yet Don Quixote is beloved around the world, especially in Spain and Latin America. It should be no surprise that Picasso revered the character. Picasso made a famous simple painting of Don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho Panza. In the painting, Don Quixote sits proudly astride his steed Rocinante while Sancho shares the foreground in smaller stature. The windmills—the giants—have been reduced to almost incidentals. 

Picasso celebrates in this little picture the triumph of the human spirit and the imagination. To fully appreciate Picasso’s gift at making imaginative power real, see Henri Georges Clouzot’s wonderful 1956 film “Le Mystere Picasso,” in which Picasso paints—in real time—a figure that transforms three different times. It is a marvelous example of Picasso’s genius at work and a universal testament to the power of the imagination. It is a beautiful example of what we often call “the Quixotic.”  

A season of fear, hope and faith 

Throughout this wonderful liturgical season of All Hallows,’ All Saints’ and All Souls’, I have thought much about the transient quality of chronological time. St. Teresa of Avila, also a Spaniard and a contemporary of Cervantes, puts it so beautifully in her famous prayer: “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing … God alone suffices.”  

St. Paul reminds us that “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am known.” St. John gives us comfort that “Now we are children of God, and what we will become has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  

The saints, like the artists Cervantes and Picasso, knew that reality on one plane is not necessarily what will be in the fully realized ideal. This is what drives the artist in any medium to create again and again. This is why Don Quixote tilts at windmills. 

I’ve mentioned Charles Schulz’s Great Pumpkin. The synchronicity delights me as well that James Whale’s horror movie masterpiece, “Frankenstein,” climaxes at a burning windmill. 

Think of Tolkien, Faulkner, Grahame, Christie, Potter, Lewis, Rowling—anyone who has created an imaginary literary world has invited you into a fuller understanding of not just what lies beneath, but what may lie ahead. 

This season of the year is one of fear, hope and faith. Three days of fright, happiness and lamentation—all of which, if viewed through the lens of faith and imagination, culminate not only in comfort, but joy. 

St. Raphael’s prayer is a good one, both for this time of year and for affirming the imagination: 

“St. Raphael, Angel of happy meetings, lead us to those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us. May all our movements be guided by your light and transformed with your joy.” 

Cervantes died on April 23, 1616, the same day and year as his English contemporary William Shakespeare who, as you know, also wrote a bit. Fittingly, both died on the feast day of St. George, beloved by Catholic children who know that he slew the dragon of evil. April 23 is also World Book Day, which commemorates the treasures of writing and books. Shakespeare, by the way, was also quite likely a Catholic, but that’s yet another story!