Recently, while teaching my youth group, I quoted a favorite author of mine, N.T. Wright. My lesson, and Wright’s quoted topic, was worship, and he had this to say about it, “When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship. Those who worship money become, eventually, human calculating machines. Those who worship sex become obsessed with their own attractiveness and prowess. Those who worship power become more and more ruthless.” His unspoken implication is, therefore, that we should worship Christ and in doing so, become more like Him. Cue applause.
But my mind is sometimes a bit mathematical in the way it reasons. Wright’s statement is easily boiled down into a formula. If you worship X, you display attributes of X. Just as we can determine one angle of a right triangle from the length of two sides, and one side from an angle and the remaining side, I thought I could flip my Wright Worship Formula the same way. Instead of determining my displayed attributes by knowing who or what I worship, I wondered if I could figure out the object of my worship by looking over the main characteristics of my life.
Though I may regret it later, I’m going to share them with you here.
I love to write and talk about writing.
I love to read and talk about reading.
I cannot turn away from a good writer who addresses, in tandem, any two of the following subjects: relevance, spirituality, theology, creativity.
I get really excited about a neat concept.
I get even more excited about a neat concept expressed with a brilliant delivery.
I want to be a full-time writer/lecturer someday.
It would be easy for me to go on, but I’ll assume that I’ve given you enough to make my point (and enough to make myself look shallow). Even though God finds His way into what I write, what I think, what I read and what (hopefully) I speak about, the key is always the written word. I do not generally get excited about God during worship unless the lyrical concept is great. Revivals rarely rouse me unless the speaker is witty or intriguing.
I display attributes of the written word therefore, I worship the Writing Ideal, my idea of being or becoming the perfect writer, storyteller, and orator. Coming to this conclusion was quite a shock as it is, I suspect, for some of you. A long time ago and three unpublished novels away, my creativity stemmed from my fellowship with my Creator, but as is the case with many things like worship, art, and business, the focus gets turned around and the tail begins to wag the dog.
As terrifying a revelation as this was, the solution to my problem was also its saving grace. I can escape this lions’ den, not by not writing, but by remembering why I write. The why and how is the last principle that I’ll throw out before I lose my place on this soapbox. As much as I want to write, I eventually reach a point where I’m ready to call it quits, at least for the night. My love for God, however, pushes skyward my capacity to love anything that can be used to honor Him. It breaks the glass ceiling that holds the leash of my ability to love. By writing for God, I can exceed my natural ability to want to write, and by putting my Writing Ideal second-place to God, I can enjoy it more than if it were in first place. Tying back into Wright’s earlier quote, putting money second-place to God allows you to enjoy the money without fear or guilt. The same is true if you put sex second-place to God. Power, when placed behind Christ, comes piggybacked with the responsibility of good stewardship. And writing, when second to Christ, opens doors to imagination that, through our own dedication and ability would remain, not only locked, but wallpapered over.
~JM
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
15 October 2007
25 August 2007
Disguising the Truth
I am an immature artist.
This doesn't really come as a surprise to anyone who has read my stories. You all know that I need to improve my writing. But the reasoning behind my confession has very little to do with the quality of my work; in fact, even if I attain a certain level of skillful prose, eloquent turns of phrase, and profound insights into the nature of reality, my art will always remain immature if I continue on my present course.
Best of all, it occurred to me while roofing.
Hauling loads of shingles up the roof, getting grit under my fingernails, and sweating rivers of sweat--not exactly the typical setting for an artistic epiphany. Yet while I tore off the old shingles from the slant of the roof, I constructed a brief theodicy. Consider the act of tearing off shingles: For a roofing team, it's necessary and good. For a random person, it's usually called vandalism. So, it's not that it's right or wrong, but rather that the action's morality is contingent on authority.
From there I started thinking about God's inherent authority, and thus His inherent arbitration of right and wrong, not as standards, but as extensions of His character. Then it struck me: I was more concerned about the ideas and concepts of the roof than the roof itself. I had missed its reality in the pursuit of its supposed metareality. Not to mention that I had left the rest of the roofing team to toil on without me!
This physical, concrete reality is not superior to an amorphous metaphysical system of truth or forms, however. That is most emphatically not what I'm saying. Nonetheless, if we divorce the symbolism from its reality, then we have, essentially, a disembodied bit of heady theory (not to be confused with a disembodied head, of course). I want to reconnect the two, not advocate one at the expense of the other.
It's part of the sacramental view of reality that Jeremiah referenced in his exceptional blog last month. For everyone that missed it, the blog (and the accompanying link) provided an excellent and thought-provoking discussion. But at the time I didn't really understand the significance of what was said. Until my experience on the roof, I failed to grasp its import.
My work on the roof, which has continued into this week due to inclement weather, has given me considerable time for rumination. After careful consideration I have come up with the following points:
1) My art is immature because of its cowardly subject matter. I am afraid to tackle meaningful issues and significant elements of life, opting instead to write about safe topics and supposedly 'interesting' segments of life. Face it: car chases, gunfights, and alternate galaxies are more fun than cleaning the toilet. But most of us don't flee from international assassins, fight off mafia thugs, or wake up in another world; we do, however, clean the toilet. (Or so I hope.)
2) My art is immature because of my insistence on the fantastical over the real, the bizarre over the ordinary, and the mythical over the historical. For example, I have a fascination, currently, with steampunk and Gypsy culture. Any guesses as to the subject matter of my next novel? None of these are wrong, of course, but if I refuse to deal with the real, the ordinary, and the historical, then I have effectively cut myself loose from my moorings. The sea may be a marvelous place to explore, but I will want to bring along a tried and true map if I want to voyage successfully.
3) My art is immature because of my refusal to engage objects, people, and places as objects, people, and places; instead, I always turn them into symbols and emblems of a larger, somehow more mysterious reality and thus divorce them from their current concrete reality. Christians especially fall prey to this tendency--worse, they use Jesus' parables to reinforce their laziness.
(Stay tuned for more musings about the parables. My next series of blogs deals with story principles according to Christ.)
4) My art is immature because I insult my reader's intelligence on a regular basis. Instead of allowing them to draw their own conclusions and to interact with the work as a piece of art, I transform beauty into a bludgeon. This is awkward, ugly, and hardly beneficial.
Before I go any further, let me say that I do not consider immature art bad art; it simply is less refined, sophisticated, and significant than more fully developed mature art. Moreover, sometimes disguising the truth is beneficial or necessary. We often need a fresh perspective, a new insight, before we truly understand something (cf. my earlier entries about the power of fantasy and myth).
As a friend pointed out, and I completely agree, I can certainly make a fantasy story which is significant and meaningful: I can create a sort of pseudo-reality and hide real life in a fanciful package. This is an excellent and powerful form of storytelling. Currently it's the bulk of my art. But, as stated, I believe it's a halfway point, a transition phase along the way. This current stretch of the road that leads to maturity is concerned with disguising the truth to make it more palatable to my readers--and to myself.
I hope that in time, however, I'll write less fantasy/surreal pieces. I want to talk about real life without any trappings. But I know that I'm 1) not a skilled enough writer and 2) nowhere near experienced enough with The Way Things Are to say much worth saying.
Please note that the point is not that some art isn't as advanced as other art; the point is that people mature at different rates, and many people (myself included) are not ready to understand reality in a non-mediated form. We need a filter, a buffer, so that we can understand things in more manageable bits and pieces.
The most mature art has to do with reality and everyday life. But creating significant, meaningful art about real life is hard work. It's sweaty and smelly and dirty. In the end, both the process and the result are often not very attractive. But they take on their own beauty because of their fundamental authenticity: they are, for all their faults, real.
Grace and peace,
Andrew <><
This doesn't really come as a surprise to anyone who has read my stories. You all know that I need to improve my writing. But the reasoning behind my confession has very little to do with the quality of my work; in fact, even if I attain a certain level of skillful prose, eloquent turns of phrase, and profound insights into the nature of reality, my art will always remain immature if I continue on my present course.
Best of all, it occurred to me while roofing.
Hauling loads of shingles up the roof, getting grit under my fingernails, and sweating rivers of sweat--not exactly the typical setting for an artistic epiphany. Yet while I tore off the old shingles from the slant of the roof, I constructed a brief theodicy. Consider the act of tearing off shingles: For a roofing team, it's necessary and good. For a random person, it's usually called vandalism. So, it's not that it's right or wrong, but rather that the action's morality is contingent on authority.
From there I started thinking about God's inherent authority, and thus His inherent arbitration of right and wrong, not as standards, but as extensions of His character. Then it struck me: I was more concerned about the ideas and concepts of the roof than the roof itself. I had missed its reality in the pursuit of its supposed metareality. Not to mention that I had left the rest of the roofing team to toil on without me!
This physical, concrete reality is not superior to an amorphous metaphysical system of truth or forms, however. That is most emphatically not what I'm saying. Nonetheless, if we divorce the symbolism from its reality, then we have, essentially, a disembodied bit of heady theory (not to be confused with a disembodied head, of course). I want to reconnect the two, not advocate one at the expense of the other.
It's part of the sacramental view of reality that Jeremiah referenced in his exceptional blog last month. For everyone that missed it, the blog (and the accompanying link) provided an excellent and thought-provoking discussion. But at the time I didn't really understand the significance of what was said. Until my experience on the roof, I failed to grasp its import.
My work on the roof, which has continued into this week due to inclement weather, has given me considerable time for rumination. After careful consideration I have come up with the following points:
1) My art is immature because of its cowardly subject matter. I am afraid to tackle meaningful issues and significant elements of life, opting instead to write about safe topics and supposedly 'interesting' segments of life. Face it: car chases, gunfights, and alternate galaxies are more fun than cleaning the toilet. But most of us don't flee from international assassins, fight off mafia thugs, or wake up in another world; we do, however, clean the toilet. (Or so I hope.)
2) My art is immature because of my insistence on the fantastical over the real, the bizarre over the ordinary, and the mythical over the historical. For example, I have a fascination, currently, with steampunk and Gypsy culture. Any guesses as to the subject matter of my next novel? None of these are wrong, of course, but if I refuse to deal with the real, the ordinary, and the historical, then I have effectively cut myself loose from my moorings. The sea may be a marvelous place to explore, but I will want to bring along a tried and true map if I want to voyage successfully.
3) My art is immature because of my refusal to engage objects, people, and places as objects, people, and places; instead, I always turn them into symbols and emblems of a larger, somehow more mysterious reality and thus divorce them from their current concrete reality. Christians especially fall prey to this tendency--worse, they use Jesus' parables to reinforce their laziness.
(Stay tuned for more musings about the parables. My next series of blogs deals with story principles according to Christ.)
4) My art is immature because I insult my reader's intelligence on a regular basis. Instead of allowing them to draw their own conclusions and to interact with the work as a piece of art, I transform beauty into a bludgeon. This is awkward, ugly, and hardly beneficial.
Before I go any further, let me say that I do not consider immature art bad art; it simply is less refined, sophisticated, and significant than more fully developed mature art. Moreover, sometimes disguising the truth is beneficial or necessary. We often need a fresh perspective, a new insight, before we truly understand something (cf. my earlier entries about the power of fantasy and myth).
As a friend pointed out, and I completely agree, I can certainly make a fantasy story which is significant and meaningful: I can create a sort of pseudo-reality and hide real life in a fanciful package. This is an excellent and powerful form of storytelling. Currently it's the bulk of my art. But, as stated, I believe it's a halfway point, a transition phase along the way. This current stretch of the road that leads to maturity is concerned with disguising the truth to make it more palatable to my readers--and to myself.
I hope that in time, however, I'll write less fantasy/surreal pieces. I want to talk about real life without any trappings. But I know that I'm 1) not a skilled enough writer and 2) nowhere near experienced enough with The Way Things Are to say much worth saying.
Please note that the point is not that some art isn't as advanced as other art; the point is that people mature at different rates, and many people (myself included) are not ready to understand reality in a non-mediated form. We need a filter, a buffer, so that we can understand things in more manageable bits and pieces.
The most mature art has to do with reality and everyday life. But creating significant, meaningful art about real life is hard work. It's sweaty and smelly and dirty. In the end, both the process and the result are often not very attractive. But they take on their own beauty because of their fundamental authenticity: they are, for all their faults, real.
Grace and peace,
Andrew <><
02 July 2007
I Wish I Wrote That: The Briggs Picture
Not long ago, I picked up, or rather, my wife picked up, a paperback entitled Mooncalled, by Patricia Briggs.
Brief overview: In the near future, all of those things that we consider to be mythical creatures are outed. Society is faced with a hard fact: elves, fairies, vampires and werewolves exist among us and have done so for the whole of human history. Mercedes, the main character, a shape-shifter with a coyote alter-ego, falls into the middle of a werewolf culture clash that threatens to destabilize the happy relations between the magical community and the rest of us.
Unlike Mooncalled, your typical Christian novel (until the last few years or so) relays the message of the bible in the most superficial of ways, through the transcripted words and choreographied actions of the main characters. Good guys are Christians. Bad guys are not. The solution to nearly every problem lies in a sudden outburst of prayer. And so on.
Patricia Briggs' novel is hardly Christian fantasy literature, just to be clear. I do believe there's a "No Werewolves Allowed" policy for most Christian retailers. Her novels, however, point to a magical veil that separates this natural world from its supernatural counterpart. Sometimes this veil is torn, sometimes pulled back outright. In some places, the curtain is so sheer that you can see the supernatural from the sidewalk. That's where it gets interesting.
To be sure, Jesus exists as savior in Briggs' world. Demons fear him. Vampires are limited by his authority. Mercedes is even a believer of sorts. She despises the cross, wearing instead, the figure of a lamb around her neck. The difference is that, in the world of Mooncalled, God is active in something other than the King James Bible. Maybe the most important factor is that God is brought near, not by some manufactured "sinner' prayer" but by personal, even silent, submission to Him and love for others.
Before this begins to sound like a book review, let me turn to my main point. Briggs' fantastical tale, with all its lights from above and cries from below, is the kind of story that Christians ought to be writing. C.S. Lewis once said something to the effect that the world needs less Christian authors and more good authors that are Christians.
For example, one thing that's always stood out in my mind as an obvious symbol for the Judeo-Christian belief system is vampire mythology. I got some dirty looks the last time I brought this up at a bible study, but I hope you'll be more forgiving. At least until I can explain myself. Vampire mythology, insofar as it disincludes bloodbaths and orgies, has always felt like a good addition to my religion bookshelf. As I once said in discussion with Eric Wilson, author of The Best of Evil and A Shred of Truth, vampires and Christians have at least three things in common:
A blood-centered belief system. Blood means life. In both cases, it's someone else's blood. For one group, the drinking of blood is a metaphorical communion; for the other, it's a way to survive. I won't get into all the wonderful digressions that can result from a discussion of transubstantiation; you can read Peter Leithart's blog, Why Evangelicals Can't Write (Blame it on Marburg), if that's what you're looking for. For this monologue, it should suffice to say that the symbolism is there for all to benefit from.
Immortality. It's an understatement that mankind is obsessed with not dying and for good reason. From an Edenic outlook, death is unnatural. It's the end of everything we know. From almost every angle, it's something to be avoided. Christians have their way of doing this; vampires have theirs. Both echo back to that blood-centered belief system and reach forward towards something that looks very much like the first and second chapters of Genesis.
Strangers in this world. We call ourselves aliens, citizens of another kingdom. Vampires are out of place in time. No undead individual illustrates this better than Anne Rice's character Marius, a man out of time, removed from his culture, constantly reminiscing about the world where (and when) he belonged. In either case, you're looking at a minority of people who "get it" who are hunted and haunted by those that don't.
To briefly illustrate these three points one final time, ask yourself, what would happen if I came up to you and said, "This world is not my home, but I shall live forever, because of the blood of another. I can show you the way, if you're willing." On one hand, I might be preparing to explain to you how Jesus Christ came two thousand years ago to set you free from the dreariness and despair of this life. On the other hand, I might just bite you on the neck. It's a gamble, really.
This is certainly not the only way to tie together the magical and the spiritual. I'm sure that someone more versed in banshee, gremlin, or fairy folklore could do an even better job at pointing our parallels between those worlds and ours. In fact, it doesn't even have to be fantasy. The cyberpunk novels of the nineties--authors like Bruce Sterling and Wlliam Gibson--could do the same with the wonders of technology. Romance isn't exempt from this discussion either, for what is Jesus but love?
At the danger of sounding as though I'm authoring a preface to the latest edition of "Finding God in Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Superman," let me make this final statement. Our deepest thoughts, our most closely held daydreams, they all spring from the fact that we're created in the image of God and are longing to see in fiction what we know to be true in our hearts. Write accordingly.
-JM
Brief overview: In the near future, all of those things that we consider to be mythical creatures are outed. Society is faced with a hard fact: elves, fairies, vampires and werewolves exist among us and have done so for the whole of human history. Mercedes, the main character, a shape-shifter with a coyote alter-ego, falls into the middle of a werewolf culture clash that threatens to destabilize the happy relations between the magical community and the rest of us.
Unlike Mooncalled, your typical Christian novel (until the last few years or so) relays the message of the bible in the most superficial of ways, through the transcripted words and choreographied actions of the main characters. Good guys are Christians. Bad guys are not. The solution to nearly every problem lies in a sudden outburst of prayer. And so on.
Patricia Briggs' novel is hardly Christian fantasy literature, just to be clear. I do believe there's a "No Werewolves Allowed" policy for most Christian retailers. Her novels, however, point to a magical veil that separates this natural world from its supernatural counterpart. Sometimes this veil is torn, sometimes pulled back outright. In some places, the curtain is so sheer that you can see the supernatural from the sidewalk. That's where it gets interesting.
To be sure, Jesus exists as savior in Briggs' world. Demons fear him. Vampires are limited by his authority. Mercedes is even a believer of sorts. She despises the cross, wearing instead, the figure of a lamb around her neck. The difference is that, in the world of Mooncalled, God is active in something other than the King James Bible. Maybe the most important factor is that God is brought near, not by some manufactured "sinner' prayer" but by personal, even silent, submission to Him and love for others.
Before this begins to sound like a book review, let me turn to my main point. Briggs' fantastical tale, with all its lights from above and cries from below, is the kind of story that Christians ought to be writing. C.S. Lewis once said something to the effect that the world needs less Christian authors and more good authors that are Christians.
For example, one thing that's always stood out in my mind as an obvious symbol for the Judeo-Christian belief system is vampire mythology. I got some dirty looks the last time I brought this up at a bible study, but I hope you'll be more forgiving. At least until I can explain myself. Vampire mythology, insofar as it disincludes bloodbaths and orgies, has always felt like a good addition to my religion bookshelf. As I once said in discussion with Eric Wilson, author of The Best of Evil and A Shred of Truth, vampires and Christians have at least three things in common:
A blood-centered belief system. Blood means life. In both cases, it's someone else's blood. For one group, the drinking of blood is a metaphorical communion; for the other, it's a way to survive. I won't get into all the wonderful digressions that can result from a discussion of transubstantiation; you can read Peter Leithart's blog, Why Evangelicals Can't Write (Blame it on Marburg), if that's what you're looking for. For this monologue, it should suffice to say that the symbolism is there for all to benefit from.
Immortality. It's an understatement that mankind is obsessed with not dying and for good reason. From an Edenic outlook, death is unnatural. It's the end of everything we know. From almost every angle, it's something to be avoided. Christians have their way of doing this; vampires have theirs. Both echo back to that blood-centered belief system and reach forward towards something that looks very much like the first and second chapters of Genesis.
Strangers in this world. We call ourselves aliens, citizens of another kingdom. Vampires are out of place in time. No undead individual illustrates this better than Anne Rice's character Marius, a man out of time, removed from his culture, constantly reminiscing about the world where (and when) he belonged. In either case, you're looking at a minority of people who "get it" who are hunted and haunted by those that don't.
To briefly illustrate these three points one final time, ask yourself, what would happen if I came up to you and said, "This world is not my home, but I shall live forever, because of the blood of another. I can show you the way, if you're willing." On one hand, I might be preparing to explain to you how Jesus Christ came two thousand years ago to set you free from the dreariness and despair of this life. On the other hand, I might just bite you on the neck. It's a gamble, really.
This is certainly not the only way to tie together the magical and the spiritual. I'm sure that someone more versed in banshee, gremlin, or fairy folklore could do an even better job at pointing our parallels between those worlds and ours. In fact, it doesn't even have to be fantasy. The cyberpunk novels of the nineties--authors like Bruce Sterling and Wlliam Gibson--could do the same with the wonders of technology. Romance isn't exempt from this discussion either, for what is Jesus but love?
At the danger of sounding as though I'm authoring a preface to the latest edition of "Finding God in Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Superman," let me make this final statement. Our deepest thoughts, our most closely held daydreams, they all spring from the fact that we're created in the image of God and are longing to see in fiction what we know to be true in our hearts. Write accordingly.
-JM
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