Dorothy L. Sayers messed me up. Whimsy, indeed. Hmph. One cannot help, when one begins to think in Dorothy’s whimsical terms, but see whimsy in the minutest details and the most complex matrices of life. Whimsy has invaded, and I like it.
This essay is a newbie’s response to Dorothy L. Sayers’s collection entitled The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays.1 I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but whimsy called and, as whimsy would have it, I answered. And answered. And answered.
My first attempt at recording my response to her writings was as a butterfly fluttering from essay to essay gleaning nectar, dusting my feet with pollen, reacting, responding, and relating my encounter with this woman whom I have heard much of, glanced at what has been written of her, but had not read anything she wrote herself.
I relate this to the experience of hearing much of God, reading a little of what has been written of Him, but not having read the Bible itself, and making judgments and conclusions off hearsay. How potentially discouraging to the heart of God, for no one likes to be misunderstood. So, on a lark, I wandered into Dorothy’s garden of words to hear her own footsteps on the path she trod.
My first laid writing plans fell flat when, through a bout of whimsy (there are many definitions of the word), the source website was hacked the very day I went back to gather the multiple references and page numbers, having completed the reading the day before. I have learned my lesson. Technology, as much a stable science as we would like it to be, is vulnerable to the capriciousness of humankind. And so, the more quote-filled response remains in waiting.
My second attempt was a poem, taking a stab at the soil of the garden rather than the flowers. So far, all I have is figuratively graphite-tinged fingers and incomplete verse. It may come together by the end of this essay, or I may, in a fit of whimsy, present it as is. (It came together and is found below.)
My third attempt — I promise the last, and the one which you are now reading — is a glide over the garden, let’s say from an eagle’s height. One may see the theme of the garden and catch glimpses of color without discerning — or having to provide references for — specific flowers. With this in mind, I present: How Dorothy L. Sayers’s Writing Influenced My Life and Now I See Whimsy Everywhere.
The morning had the relief of a chill without a threat of one, the sun rising pinkish orange over palms, vines, pines, a smattering of unidentified trees . . . and a dragon.
Yes, I said dragon. And dragon I meant. He had been on the path many mornings before, yet so well camouflaged as a hurricane-downed tree his true form was unrecognized until this morning.
Walking to the bus stop, Wolverine providing balance, I slowed as I approached the still-green light, perceiving I didn’t have time to cross, so rushing was unnecessary.2 The light turned red, I tapped the crosswalk button — a few times for good measure — and checked my transit app to be sure I had not made a mistake by slowing my pace. No, I did well. I still had 15 minutes before the bus would arrive and I only had to cross a busy road, turn a short corner, and face a dragon on my way.
I was halfway across the road, having glanced back to ensure no one was turning right onto Wolverine and me, when I saw him: the dragon. Clear as day, he was there. Resting, not hunting thankfully, laying across the sidewalk perpendicular to the path I would tread. Small mercy, for waking a resting dragon was not on my physical therapy plan for the day.
Smiling at his posture, I gave a quick nod — the drivers at the stop probably wondering what I was up to this morning as I typically find myself humming and smiling at the wonders of the morning twice a week on my way to the YMCA. The beast didn’t move — did I expect him to? — so I turned without incident toward my stop and waited for the #31.
Before we had traversed two blocks, whimsy next caught my attention in the form of clouds. Mulling their peculiar shapes, I thought of Dorothy L. Sayers and our God of whimsy. The One who created a beautiful world, and then placed fallible creatures into it with a plan to redeem them with His own offspring when they screwed everything up.3 And here I am enjoying the fruit of His creation in the form of water vapor obeying the laws of His nature and character while I disobey them myself. What mercy. What whimsy.
Although Sayers’s approach to the idea of a whimsical Christian is vastly different from my own, the core of her message is the foundation of mine. Throughout the beauty and horrors of the biblical narrative streams a light of hope from above, as sunlight through treetops in the breeze of an approaching hurricane. The eagle sensing the sunlight, piercing eyes narrowing her view through the canopy, soaring with the breeze of an incoming storm, observes the garden below, a meld of fallen world heartache and hope-filled grace.
God did not destroy whimsy when He dealt, most needfully, with sin. He simply set boundaries around it, for our good, from His love. The thought of whimsical boundaries leads me to the second train of thought I had on the bus to the Y: bubbles.
Bubbles, like clouds, follow the laws of nature, and yet they have boundaries which clouds are not even aware of. Without the boundaries of bubbles, we would only have a slippery substance and, not to limit the powers of whimsy but, a rather boring experience washing hands or dishes and blowing soap film through plastic wands.
The science of bubbles and clouds is the foundation needed to experience their whimsy, just as Sayers’s whimsical God is the foundation of my freedom to enjoy the creation with a bright smile, a giggle in my heart, and a look on my face which attracts others to wonder what I am up to, and why I am so delighted at the minutest speck of God’s active presence.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Bubbles and clouds,” I reply.
“Bubbles and clouds?”
“Yes, I was thinking of bubbles and clouds, of the science which makes them possible, of the God who makes them mine to enjoy.” (I wish I had said it so eloquently in real life, but my giggle got in the way and I most likely only squeaked out, “Yes! Bubbles and clouds!”)
Dorothy’s influence did not begin with bubbles and clouds, however, nor will it end there. Swimming in the warm water pool . . . ok, today not swimming, more like moving gently to ease the ache of the fallen world . . . I found myself observing whimsy in nearly everything. I would say in “everything” but I had to catch my breathless mind slowing the imaginative roll as I felt myself getting lost in the sheer delight of all I saw from the eagle’s view.
The water, for example. I looked at it from, well, from its perspective. I brought my eyes to water level and tried to see what he saw. Yes, I personified water and asked it (in a whisper as the pool was busy) what it saw, what it felt, where it had been, and what it had experienced.
“Oh! You wouldn’t want to know all the places I have been, all the sights I have seen! Enjoy what we see now. Simply enjoy now.”
I tried to expand my mind to think of what he might be referring to and quickly rejiggered my gaze to the glistening turquoise of the whimsical now.
Then I saw a splash. A swimmer in a cold water lane splashed as he stroked below and then above the surface. What delight the water must have experienced! And yet, I noticed the splash was also limited by the laws of nature. The splash could only go so far in a certain direction. It could resemble the spray of a figurine whale, but it could not flash freeze into its form any more than a cloud resembling an elephant could trumpet a message from its gray storm-brewing trunk! (Unless one counts thunder, that is.)
The cloud, the bubble, the splash were all limited to the scope their Creator had formed in them, to the laws His nature allowed, to the boundaries of their best.
And yet, somehow we humans escaped the boundaries and tarnished our whimsy. This must break God’s heart. What Creator would want His fabulous creation to be self-destroyed?
How merciful of Him not to leave us in such a condition, but to offer us redemption to return to Him, then slowly, ever slowly restore us to our full whimsical state where we obey the heart of His nature and enjoy Him and His creation forever!
When I remark in this essay’s title, “Dorothy L. Sayers messed me up,” I say it in the vein of a child’s artistic work invaded by the scratch of a sibling’s crayon on my coloring page.
Dorothy used a color I never saw in her particular light, scribbling her words — and words, and words, and words — on my page. I could have ripped it up and pretended I never read her thoughts (I hear some do) but there was something about the way she wrote, the way she wove truth, history, and delight that made my coloring page brighter than it would have been without her unexpected invasion.
Almost as if . . . she planted new seeds and watered old seeds with a nutrient-dense mixture, nourishing the garden of God that blooms in a kaleidoscopic wonder — if only we spend moments seeing through the eyes and heart of a whimsical Creator.
If one thinks whimsy is solely bubble-headed nonsense, one needs to:
- Read The Whimsical Christian.
- Go on a walk.
- Look for wonder . . . and dragons.
We may find the Creator in a splash of water.
The poem mentioned above fell into place as I gave myself over to the King of Whimsy.
Weaving the Whimsical
Weaving the whimsical through fluttering trees,
How does one tell honey from bees?
Whimsy built on fluctuating flatulence,
Simply smog of smothering breeze.
Weaving the whimsical on turbulent seas,
How does one tell windward from lees?
Whimsy built on undulating virulence,
Simply fog of fomented sneeze.
Weaving the whimsical in capricious zeal,
How does one tell the mind from feel?
Whimsy built on dichotomous digestion,
Simply slog of slippery eel.
But whimsy, ah whimsy . . .
Weaving the whimsical within solid rock,
One can tell the real from the mock.
Whimsy founded on indulgent indemnity,
Gracious glögg of whimsical God.
Keep an eye on my Substack creation, Beyond Xistence, for the butterfly’s view of The Whimsical Christian, where I envisage scattering the life-giving pollen of Sayers’s essay collection – by the grace of technological whimsy – with references.
Notes:
1 Dorothy L. Sayers, The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987), https://archive.org/details/whimsicalchristi0000saye.
2 Wolverine is a bright blue medical rollator walker with all-terrain wheels.
3 Sayers, “What Do We Believe?,” in The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays, https://archive.org/details/whimsicalchristi0000saye.
