Sacred Texts, Vol. 1
Six random works of art that shaped my spiritual worldview.
Hiya folks. We live in a busy, chaotic world, with countless digital megaphones blaring at us on any given day, so I won’t fault anyone for failing to notice this, but guess what: Healings is slowly getting its act together. We recently started posting twice a week, with our new questionnaire series going out on Sundays. On top of that, I finally did something I’ve resisted doing for over a decade: I started posting on Instagram. Ho-lee crap.
Do I have misgivings about this level of personal brand building? Sure, yeah, but those misgivings are out of fashion and/or boring and/or who cares. This whole project has been an experiment, and experiments are only helpful if they involve falling on one’s face a whole lot. So, I’m doing IG and probably screwing it up, just like I’m doing this newsletter and probably screwing it up (for example, I’m aware that it’s inadvisable to regularly publish 1,600+ word personal essays). But we trudge on, hopeful that things will cohere sooner or later. Or not.
Anyway, speaking of experiments, I’m quite pleased with the initial response to the Healings Questionnaire. I thought it’d be hard getting people to take time out of their busy lives to answer questions about death, but turns out everyone I’ve asked has been eager to do it, with multiple folks citing the strangely good timing of my request, which I think means a) I’m onto something; and b) people in my age group tend to have good excuses to contemplate this stuff, for better or worse. All of which is to say I’ve got some good folks lined up for the next few weeks. I’m excited to hear and share their answers.
As you may recall, the series is based on questions I was frequently asked by both friends and strangers in the wake of my cancer diagnosis, however one question I wasn’t asked but started tacking on, simply because it interests me, is this one:
Give me an example of a sacred text, for you personally—a work of some kind (book, album, song, painting) that’s essential to the formation of your spiritual worldview. Explain.
To unpack this a little bit… Like anyone else, I have a long list of books, albums, movies, etc. that I’d consider formative, influential, or just plain beloved for various reasons. And in some respect, everything on this list contributes to what I might think of as my spiritual worldview, in that just the mere existence of beautiful works of art that resonate across space and time fills me with a kind of faith in humanity. However, there’s also a shorter list of these types of works that I’d consider specifically formative to however we’re defining “spiritual worldview” (which as Tim Quirk pointed out is admittedly sorta tricky, but it’s the best and most concise term I can think of for the time being). Similar to how I was able to retrace my spiritual steps through the years, I can look back on this otherwise disparate set of works and recognize it as connected by this thread.
And if I’m going to ask people this question, it’s only fair that I venture some answers myself. So herewith is my personal non-exhaustive list of sacred texts:
“Randy Described Eternity,” by Built to Spill
One of my favorite concepts is the asymptote. In geometry, it’s defined as “a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance.” So it’s like…you keep getting closer and closer to something, but you never actually touch it, ever—to infinity! The Buddhist concept of enlightenment, to me, is asymptotic: It’s something you can orient toward, but never achieve. Randy’s titular description of eternity goes like this: “Every thousand years, this metal sphere, 10 times the size of Jupiter, floats just a few yards past the earth/ you climb on your roof, and take a swipe at it, with a single feather, hit it once every thousand years/ till you’ve worn it down, to the size of a pea, now I’d say that’s a long time, but it’s only half a blink, in the place you’re gonna be.” Asymptotes and infinity are related but different concepts, but they both suggest a scale that is beyond human comprehension (or at least my personal comprehension). How is it possible to always be getting closer to something yet never touch it? It breaks my brain. This song breaks my brain, especially the way its wallop of distorted guitars perfectly captures the feeling of being bowled over by these big ideas/feelings.
Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger
I’m embarrassed to admit I feel self-conscious about listing Salinger as a formative spiritual teacher—all those weird associations with Catcher in the Rye, plus I’m a middle aged man and I feel like I got a message somewhere along the lines that I’m supposed to have outgrown this stuff. But c’mon: Salinger’s prose here is especially delectable, and this book builds like a symphony toward its unforgettable epiphany: There isn’t anyone out there who isn’t Seymour’s Fat Lady. Those words were tattooed on my heart sometime in high school, and I’ve aspired to live up to them ever since (rather asymptotically, I might add).
My Dinner with Andre, directed by Louis Malle
I pulled this movie up to grab a quote from it—it’s free on YouTube!—and quickly realized just about any line would work for my purposes here. Here are a few:
“Goals and plans are fantasy, they’re part of a dream life. It seems so ridiculous how everyone has his little goal, it’s so absurd when you consider it doesn’t matter which one it is.”
“When I was young, all I thought about was art and music. Now that I’m 36 all I think about is money.”
“The trouble with always being active and doing things is I think it’s quite possible to do all sorts of things and at the same time be completely dead inside.”
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” by William Wordsworth.
True story: Shortly after college I backpacked through Europe. My first stop was the UK, where a friend’s mum picked me up from Heathrow, then drove us out to the English countryside where she lived in a cottage with my friend’s stepdad, a poet and all around Man of God. My first night there, he asked if I had a favorite poem, and I mentioned this rather psychedelic meditation by Wordsworth on “thy Soul’s immensity,” attunement to which comes naturally to children but becomes ever more elusive as adults. Without missing a beat, dude took a volume down from his shelf and proceeded to recite this long-ish poem in full in front of a raging hearth, then we all went outside, smoked a spliff, and watched the stars.
“Self-Portrait at 28,” by David Berman, from the collection Actual Air
“I am trying to get at something so simple
that I have to talk plainly
so the words don’t disfigure it,
and if it turns out that what I say is untrue,
then at least let it be harmless
like a leaky boat in the reeds
that is bothering no one.”
“No Title (Vavoom. I know)”, 1994
ink and pencil on paper
By Raymond Pettibon
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Healings is written by Garrett Kamps and edited by Tommy Craggs. Ayana H. Muwwakkil provides art direction.
Healings is about illness, recovery, spirituality, and related topics, and began in the summer of 2023 as a chronicle of Garrett’s battle with cancer. We make no guarantees that it will hold together, thematically speaking, now or ever.
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