The Wayfarer
“For the world is broken, sundered, busted down the middle, self ripped from self and man pasted back together as mythical monster, half angel, half beast, but not man … Some day a man will walk into my office as a ghost or beast or ghost-beast and walk out as a man, which is to say sovereign wanderer, lordly exile, worker and waiter and watcher.”
- Walker Percy, “Love in the Ruins”
St. Augustine said that we are merely pilgrims in this world on our way to another, exiles from Paradise searching for our way back home. As earthly cities rise and fall and empires disintegrate into ashes, the faithful remain in waiting for their Final Destination.
Wayfarers do not make it Home by forging Utopia with their own two hands. The City they yearn for is not one of those constructed by mortal means. No, wayfarers make it Home by enduring the desert, wandering the night in full hope of the light of day. From dusk to dawn, wayfarers wade through the ruins of a fallen race and learn to love in the ordinary just as they do in the extraordinary; in the day-to-day just as they hope they will in the day of all days.
But learning to love in the everyday is difficult. There, man feels lost. He feels out of place. Something is wrong, and he knows it. Thus, the everyday sometimes feels unbearable. We can easily lose our way in the shadows of the ordinary if we have no means to lift our eyes up to the extraordinary.
When we lift our eyes to the extraordinary, we are reminded of our Final Destination once more. We are reminded of who we are and where we are going.
Who is The Wayfarer for?
This Substack is for wayfarers all, fellow travelers eager to glimpse into the light and remember where they’ve set out to arrive. Yet, it is not for everyone. It is not for wanderers seeking concrete solutions to the problems of this world. It is not for those looking for polemics, cheap thrills, or even apologetics.
Here, I serve only to enchant, and I will do so with mystery, myth and reason; joy and fear; and, hopefully (God permitting), beauty too.
Fiction, Criticism, and Reflections
The Wayfarer consists of literary fiction, criticism, and musings on anything from Thomistic philosophy to Mint Juleps. It can be broken down into the following sections:
A Traveler’s Tales
These are stories, typically set in or about the contemporary American South, often exploring existential, moral, and spiritual themes, especially those particular to (or particularly pronounced in) our “deranged age.”
Like Dante before me, I will sometimes show my readers the Inferno before I show them Paradise. Don’t always expect happy endings. Don’t expect me to abuse you with melancholy either. My stories are intended to reflect our world: a world that is both tragic and splendid, for in the midst of our tragedy, there is hope. We exist in a grandiose tragicomedy of which I can only aspire to capture fractions. On that note, I ask that you please enjoy and share my stories with anyone you think might be moved by them.
A Stranger Speaks
Here, I take my stand. In this section, you will find previews of my public essays like the ones I’ve published on Word on Fire, Front Porch Republic, and elsewhere, as well as occasional critical essays or reviews exclusive to Substack.
Common subjects include Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor, Dostoyevsky, Catholicism, the South, literature, and education. You will NOT find: analyses of current events, tabloid-esq. celebrity gossip, or formulaic self-help blog posts.
Every essay will be crafted with extraordinary care and, I can only pray, be guided by the virtue of charity. A man must stand indignantly in defense of goodness, truth, and beauty, but, if he purports to be a Christian and a gentleman, he must do so in good taste. Thus, I intend every critique to be constructive and am open to critique myself. If I have taken part in petty squabbles on or off the internet, I have erred, even if the herd has encouraged it.
A Journeyman’s Journal
Finally, we have A Journeyman’s Journal. Here, you will find a more diverse array of my thoughts excerpted from my personal journal, where I square away ideas regularly about philosophy, books, culture, experience, art, faith, and more.
I reserve the right to (and sometimes bear the responsibility of) editing these excerpts for the sake of clarity. Nevertheless, they remain raw, developing, often open-ended, and, unlike the previous section, not yet formulated into an essay, that is, an attempt. That being said, these ideas have not yet been put to the test. I also reserve the right to be wrong and am very open to the possibility that I am.
Quality over Quantity
Short stories, critiques, and musings on The Wayfarer will come to you as I see fit. Because I value quality over quantity, and (believe it or not) have other obligations - a wife, a religion, a job, a social life, etcetera, etcetera - I will not commit to posting on a predetermined basis. I will also not write according to trends or use artificial intelligence or similar tools. I do not wish to create “content.” I wish to create art.
Is The Wayfarer Free?
Most of what I post will be available to you at no cost. I write because it’s what I love to do, not because it’s entertaining or makes me money. Just like loving another person isn’t always fun or profitable, I make sacrifices for my writing because it is more important to me than mere sensation or financial gain. Writing is what I must do. It is what I can’t conceive of myself not doing. And it is what I will do, regardless of whether or not I make a dime from it.
That being said, if you genuinely feel my work deserves compensation, I would be grateful for your patronage. Those who wish to support my work can sign up for a paid subscription. To demonstrate my gratitude to these subscribers, I will make some of my work exclusive. The rest of it will be available to everyone.
About the Author
Born and raised in West Georgia, I graduated high school and enrolled in Auburn University as a freshman in 2017. There, I studied public relations and political science and met my now wife Emily.
I graduated in 2021 and later worked as a journalist in Birmingham, Alabama, for close to two years before transitioning to a marketing position at my local Catholic school in January 2024. In August, I will begin earning a Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) through St. John’s College while continuing to work for my parochial school.
I have been a writer since I first learned to hold a pencil. However, my literary interests didn’t quite develop until my senior year of college. It was at that point in my life when I really started to take reading and writing seriously. Over the next several years, I started to explore the Western Literary Canon and Western philosophy.
At the same time, I felt a close connection with classic Southern novelists like William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy. These writers, along with my upbringing and personal experiences in the South, have informed my understanding of myself as a Southerner and led me to recognize the impressive cultural, musical, and literary traditions native to this region. I dare say (albeit with bias) that many of these traditions are unmatched by any other region in America and the world.
Though I did not grow up in the Catholic Church, I am a convert, having been led to the faith not only by my wife and the personal experiences I had during the years leading up to our marriage but also by my encounters with the profound wisdom of Catholic saints like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. I can only hope Catholicism informs my writing in the same way it did other Catholic writers like Percy, O’Connor, Dante, and Tolkien.
If my writing has caught your attention (hopefully in a good way), please don’t hesitate to comment on my posts and share your thoughts or reach out to me via direct message (see below). I am always open to connecting with other writers, artists, or individuals with similar interests.
Your Fellow Traveller,
L.W. (“Will”) Blakely
