Beware of the Writer Who Isn't Writing

I didn't make it out of the library parking lot before gently cracking the cover of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come and absorbing page one and two. I had to crack it gently because it is a very old book -- written in 1903. This particular edition, published in 1931, is probably a second edition. Nevertheless, it's very old, and the crispy, yellowed pages are fragile. I was so enthralled by the first two pages, I probably would have finished the first chapter, sitting right there in my car, had I not been on my way to pick up my son at school.

First of all -- no, this is not a book review, so read on.

Just by reading the first two pages, I already knew some special things about this book. I knew it was going to be visually rich and stunning. I knew it was going to weave historical truths into fictional beauty. I knew it would flow with a poetic rhythm that would make me feel like I was dancing from word to word, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and chapter to chapter. And I also knew that I would need to go to the online library catalog tonight and order another book by John Fox Jr. and have it delivered to my local library -- afterall, this one will only last a few days.

As I drove, the book laying in the seat next to me, I was thinking about a friend from my writers group who just lost her husband, whose visitation I had just attended earlier in the day. It occurred to me that as I was leaving the visitation and telling her goodbye, she had said she'd be coming back to our writing meetings soon.

Well, of course, I thought as I drove along. Because that's what writers do. We write no matter what. We write in spite of everything else and probably because of everything else. We write because what else would we do?

I've read that people who truly love to write, especially those of us who who love to write fiction, must have some degree of schizophrenia. Well, I say BEWARE OF A WRITER WHO LOVES TO WRITE WHO ISN'T WRITING. Has your husband or wife, who loves to write, been irritable, short tempered, or moody lately? Ask them what they have written lately - I bet the answer will be, "nothing." A true writer must write because it balances our psyche and keeps our pseudo schizophrenia under wraps.

Back to John Fox Jr. -- from The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come:

"The days of that April had been days of mist and rain. Sometimes, for hours, there would come a miracle of blue sky, white cloud, and yellow light, but always between dark and dark the rain would fall and the mist creep up the mountains and steam from the tops -- only to roll together from either range, drip back into the valleys, and lift, straightway, as mist again. So that, all the while Nature was trying to give lustier life to every living thing in the lowland Bluegrass, all the while a gaunt skeleton was stalking down the Cumberland -- tapping with fleshless knuckles, now at some unlovely cottage of faded white and green, and now at a log cabin, stark and gray."

Ahhh... as I stand between the mountain ranges in the lifting mist and steam, I relax but only for a moment as the author shatters my calm with the sense of brewing conflict. If it does that to me as a reader, imagine what a release it must have been for John Fox Jr. as he wrote it and twiddled with it until it was just right. When you have something like that inside you, it has to come out because if it stagnates inside you, God help anyone who comes into contact with you. In those first two pages that began with the quoted passage above, I knew why John Fox Jr. had to write.

And I questioned -- why do I write?

My answer:

I write because it helps me remember -- and I write because it helps me forget. I write because sometimes, oftentimes, this wretched world just doesn't make sense, and writing relieves my agitation. I write because it allows me to let go -- and I write because it forces me to grab on. I write so I can sleep at night -- and I write when I can't sleep at night. I write to protect my sanity -- and I write when I need to be a little nutty. I write to reclaim something, anything -- innocence, love, anger, security, fear, pain.

And most of all, I write because God makes me -- and I write because the devil dissuades me.

Why do you write?

Confessions of a Reformed Bible Speed Reader

My son pulled out a toy today that he has almost never played with. He got Batman a couple of months ago and the toy has been in his closet ever since. Today, however, he has played with him all day long. A few minutes ago, he brought pieces and parts of Batman to me and asked me to put him back together. Unfortunately Batman was broke. I couldn't fix him. The tiny, interior, plastic pieces that connected at his waste and pelvis and held his legs on just split apart.

I just happen to be laying back in my son's bed as I write this, and as I look around the room I see a variety of toys in disrepair. Most of them are toys that just never connected appropriately to begin with. I'm looking at his Pokemon Center right now -- the top has fallen off -- again. This one toy challenges my sanity because I spend more time fixing it than he spends playing with it. Air seems to be too heavy for its fragile makeup.

I still have toys from my childhood that are in better condition than most of my kid's toys. Sure, my Barbies' may have teased hair or no hair at all, and I may have drawn makeup on their faces in permanent marker, and one or two may have a tattoo they didn't start with, but that was all my doing. It had nothing to do with how they were made.

Toy companies, like many other industries, just don't make good products anymore. They've fallen under the curse of the production-driven society. They use cheaper materials, cheaper manufacturing methods, and cheaper labor, and they charge us way too much for the junk they make. But they sure are making a lot of it -- why? -- because we keep buying it.

Production over quality has become such a habit in our lives that it has bled into our Christian thinking as well. What is the trendy Bible reading method I'm sure we all hear about, and maybe even participate in each year? It becomes a HOT topic in churches around December.

--Read the Bible in a year--

Does your church do this one? Mine does. All through the month of December we hear about reading through the Bible in a year. Even testimonies make their way into an occasional service. And for the rare few of us that actually make it through, there is no victory because other church members immediately begin to encourage us to read a different version this year and the whole process just keeps cycling.

I've been driven by the masses the past couple of years. The first year, I think I made it to 1 Samuel and still experiencing Leviticus aftershocks just couldn't dig in and move forward. Last year was much more impressive, I finished the New Testament and made it through Isaiah in the Old Testament. It was August and I could have easily finished, but I chose to stop.

I had finished my reading that night in August and sat my Bible to the side.

God said to me, "What did you just read."

I said, "I don't know, but I read all that I was supposed to."

God said, "Says who?"

I said, "my Read Through the Bible in a Year schedule."

God said, "What did you read last night?"

"I don't know."

"What about the night before that."

"I don't know, but I don't have to remember it, I just have to read it."

"What's the point in reading My Word if you can't remember it?"

"Uh... well... um... maybe, no... I... well... I guess I'm not sure." I sputtered out.

Suddenly I was convicted. Reading the Bible wasn't taking the place of studying the Bible, but I wasn't studying it every day. I was reading it for 20 minutes a day and was comprehending nothing. But, doggone it, I was going to get through it in a year -- I was on a schedule after all and I was nearing completion.

God made me realize it would be better to study small passages for those 20 minutes each day than to read through multiple chapters each day. No, I wouldn't read the Bible in a year, but I would have 365 fully understood pieces of the Bible under my belt.

God's Word is too amazing and too important to be production driven. If we read for speed, His Word will be about as useful as my son's legless Batman. If we read thoroughly and deliberately, His Word, like my Barbies will last forever.

Have you ever read the Bible in a year? Did you maintain undestanding or was your main goal completion? Tell us about your experience.