Hello Fellow Traveller,
The founder and editor of Orison Books, Luke Hankins, recently penned this beautiful essay about the mission and ethos of his non-profit literary press.
Orison is an archaic word that means “prayer”, and Orison Books focuses on the life of the spirit from a non-ideological standpoint.
As Luke explains:
“[T]he highest and most essential function of literature [is] not to provide the so‑called answers that ideology attempts to, but to delve fully into the unknown, to accept it, to bravely meet it.”
This resonates with my own feeling that absolute ideological positions can’t account for the realities of the world or the complexities of our human experience.
Maybe artists and poets, mystics and dreamers, fill this void — seeking to put words to that which cannot be expressed, and music to that which lies in the depths of the human heart.
After all, beauty, imagination and soul still matter in our all-too-often mechanical world.
“[T]here is no time when the metaphysical or spiritual impulse is irrelevant to a culture,” writes Luke.
“But our culture is at risk of forgetting the indispensable place of beauty and the human drive for transcendence, which are wrapped so tightly together.”
I hope you find Luke’s essay as beautiful and moving as I did, and that it inspires you — whether or not you’re an artist — to show those you encounter “that they are not alone, that there exists [an] invincible human solidarity.”
Until next time,
Jason
Soulful Thoughts 
Jason, Luke Hankins’s essay and your comments on it, draw the reader’s attention to an area of spiritual and cultural poverty in our modern lives.
As religious adherence declines in the modern world, contemplative experience is more important than ever. It is therefore fortunate that the experience of beauty in Art and Nature, has potential to foster profound contemplative experience irrespective of a person’s religious disposition. Beauty is thus an increasingly important source of this experience in an age of increasing secularism and materialism.
Philip Brown
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Thanks so much for sharing this reflection, Philip – and I’m so glad you found something of value in the essay and my observations. I agree fully with your point that beauty in art and nature can foster contemplative experience and this is increasingly important in the modern world.
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