Category: Words and Rabble

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Writing with the Body

If I did not resist with my life, I should be unable to write…The Christian idea has got to be served; that the word is made Flesh. One must write with one’s body. {Antoine de Saint-Exupery}

Antoine de Saint-Exupery was an acclaimed author (primarily for his children’s book The Little Prince) and also an aviator who volunteered as a fighter pilot during the French Resistance in WWII. Older than most combat pilots, Saint-Exupery refused to surrender his commission. He believed that to write honestly required that he live honestly; and, in the historic moment in which he lived, Saint-Exupery believed that honest living demanded he offer his full self, even his life, for the just cause of resisting the Nazis. In the end, his choice did demand his life – Saint-Exupery went missing in July 1944 during a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean, shortly before France’s liberation.

For Saint-Exupery, writing was not merely something he did, but integral to who he was. His writing both flowed from and fed into the whole of who he was as a man. If he lived dishonestly or without courage and integrity, then his writing would suffer the poison. He could not ignore the great cause of his day (perhaps his life) without his cowardice and selfishness corroding his soul.

He believed then that a writer “must write with one’s body.” In other words, a writer writes with their whole self – or we don’t write truly at all. We write with our actions, with our friendships, with our laughter and our tears. We write with our hopes and our commitments and our generosity ever bit as much as we write with our words.

With Saint-Exupery, these notions of life and writing emerged from his faith. The central notion of Christian faith is the Incarnation, the belief that God went physical in Jesus. God is not an idea, but a person. Christianity is not primarily a moral code or set of theories and principles. Christianity, rightly observed, is the story of how God is making (and re-making) the world (and the people who make up this world) to be splendidly overrun with beauty, truth and goodness. Energized by this, then, how could a writer not write with intense passion, conviction and truthfulness. (And, the same is true for a painter, a baker, a builder, a grocery clerk.)

As a writer, I’m pondering Saint-Exupery’s words – and asking myself the question: what do I need to write with my body before I write with my sentences? As a writer who is also a Christian, I’m pondering Saint-Exupery’s words – and asking myself the question: where does my writing need to imbibe the way of Incarnation, to go physical and move toward beauty, truth and goodness?

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Make the World Beautiful: Autumn Film

For the next installment of our make the world beautiful collection, here’s another recommendation (introduced to me by Rob Johnson): The Autumn Film. I’ve just begun listening to them, but there is a rich texture to their music that makes me want to listen longer, more intently. Something there reminds me of one of my favorite bands, Over the Rhine, with perhaps a little Snow Patrol or Coldplay thrown in.

Best of all, they are giving away 3 separate EPs right now, 11 songs in total – and the video for “Joy,” well, you’ll just have to give it a watch. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard something so haunting and original done to an old Sunday School tune. In fact, the only reinterpretations I’ve heard that compare to this are from my friend Tom Conlon.

Enjoy the beauty.

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Holy Curiosity Jumps the Pond

It usually take a bit for a book to cycle into the international market. Apparently Holy Curiosity has begun to make its way. Two weeks ago, I did an interview with Premier Radio in the UK – and this month a very kind review landed in Christianity Magazine, a British periodical.

Also, in other international news, this week I’m in the middle of a three week stint where I am doing six 15 – 20 minute interviews for Open House, a weekly radio program airing on 300 stations with 600,000 listeners. Mainly, though, it’s just fun talking to a thoughtful guy with a really cool accent. I’ll post later when the interview audio is available.

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Silence, Shusaku Endo

After I got past the Japanese use of the passive voice (“the scent of the grass was wafted over the white rock”), this simple, haunting story pulled me into a valuable conversation about the character of the gospel: what is the essence of Christian faith? How must the gospel incarnate itself in radical new ways within new, distinct cultures? How much of the gospel has been trapped in Western garb? How much can Christian faith accommodate itself to new cultural forms without surrendering its essence?

A line from the translator’s introduction, quoted from another of Endo’s essays will be on my mind for a while: “Unless there is in [Christianity] a part that corresponds to Japan’s mud swamp, it cannot be a true religion.”

From Goodreads.

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Being You (and me)

On my last birthday, a friend sent me a card. She said some kind things, but two simple words sunk deep: Be you. I’ve heard it before, haven’t we all? But this time I found my heart grabbing at the words, clinging to them, knowing they were more true now for me than perhaps they’ve been before.

I live in a city with a load of history, an inspiring narrative – but a narrative that also lends itself to some degree of pretense and self-importance. Like any city, we have gatekeepers and elites and those who are “in” and those who are “out.” I want to be “in.” But I know the truth: Be you. And come what may.

Also, my writing – it’s been stuck for a while. The books I have published have been read by a few, but only a few. If I allow myself (and I do sometimes), I take measure by other writers I respect, other writers who seem to me far better at our craft. Then I start to scratch and claw to assert myself as a serious writer, so people will, you know, take me seriously. But I know the truth: Be you. And come what may.

A couple weeks ago, I heard civil rights icon John Perkins speak. This seventy-eight year old man has vigor and wisdom – I could listen to him for days. His passion and his life’s work raise vital questions of how the message of Jesus radically alters our views of justice, particularly the rejuvenation of forgotten neighborhoods. This topic pushes theological buttons for me, such as my firm conviction that Christian faith has embedded implications many of us have chosen to ignore. In good ways, this conversation pushes into other places – asking me what my responsibility is to my neighbors and to justice, asking me how my resources and skill will join God’s work of making all things new.

But these conversation also go someplace else, someplace hard to describe in words – but a place I know well. Most of my life, I’ve had an independent streak; sometimes good, sometimes not so much. But I’ve also had a strong impulse to meet expectations, to “get it right,” to not be dismissed by another because I don’t live up to whatever it is I presume they want me to live up to. Exhausting.

So, I hear stories of heroic lifestyle choices and noble justice work and radical communal life/integration; and I notice how my life is more vanilla, more middle class. And I feel guilty. Not open or curious or (healthily) wondering if God might be pushing me somewhere new. Just guilty.

My heart must have been moving toward that guilty place as I heard Perkins because of how I responded when, in one moment, he grew emphatic: “This is a call. You have to ask God what your call is. And then live it, whatever it is. Don’t live my call. And have some common sense – don’t be stupid about all this.” And I felt tears. I felt hope. Again, in my soul, I heard these words: Be you.

Not John Perkins. You.

For me, a whole host of names could follow the “Not” and come before the “you,” names from my story, from my profession, women and men I respect:

Not Frederick Buechner. You.

Not John Collier, Sr. You.

I’ll stop with specifics here because the list could go on and it could get embarrassing.

Truth is, though, God already made a Buechner and a Perkins and a Collier, Sr. They have their story, their path, their gifts (and their demons). The world doesn’t need another them. The world needs one (and only one) of me.

Here I pause, shrinking back from my word choice, typing “needs” in the sentence previous. Needs? Perhaps I’ve gotten carried away. Perhaps a backspace for a few strokes could clear up the damage. No. Needs does just fine. Of course, the world would survive without me. The sun would still shine and the rain would still fall. But (and I’m going to type it loud, if there is a way to do such a thing): without me, the world would miss something particular, something unique that God intended to be here.

And without you (typing loud again) the world would be an uglier place, a hollower place. I’m glad you’re here, just like you are – why don’t you be glad too?

So, let’s make a pact together, what do you say? No more comparing. No more self-cannibalization as we wonder if we are good enough, beautiful enough, generous enough, green enough, witty enough, smart enough, artistic enough, kind enough. Enough.

Let’s Live from our heart. Be curious about what God might be up to around us. Step with courage into those places that God and our heart tells us are true. And live.

Be you.

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The Echo Within: Robert Benson

A writer ought to offer something worth saying as well as something worth hearing. Some authors have a thing or two to tell me, but frankly, after a few pages, I don’t care to hear it. I’ve come to believe that truth without beauty … well, isn’t truth. I reveal my bias here, but writing is a sacred calling (just as is photography and carpentry and mothering and leading a parish); and I don’t understand “writers” who don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the actual craft of writing. And it’s no better with religious books (maybe worse). Slapping the name Jesus on bad art still leaves bad art. My hunch is that Jesus doesn’t much appreciate the association.

Thank God, however, there are writers like Robert Benson.

If you’ve hung around Miska or me very long, you’ve probably heard Robert’s name tossed about. Miska has recommended (or given away) Benson’s Living Prayer more than a few times. And a few summers back, the small community that met in our home read A Good Life, Benson’s exploration into St. Benedict’s Rule.

Robert’s latest book, The Echo Within, offers his ruminations on embracing one’s calling and vocation. It’s a fabulous read. I loved the numerous (and conflicting) ways I encountered his wise mind and artful pen. On one page, I’d find myself saying, ah, yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say. And on the other pages, hmmm, I’ve never seen it that way before. One moment, I’d laugh out loud; other moments I’d sense a deep piercing where a word or image had landed well. I think collisions like these signal how we are on to something good.

Our exploration for what we are called to be and do, for what deep gift is uniquely ours to inhabit and then give away, is one of our most central, most human, questions. By virtue of both living so many years in a university context (among young friends beginning to chart their way) and by simply having the kinds of conversations pastors tend to have, I’ve long lost count of how many times I’ve heard this question: how do I know what I’m supposed to do with my life? We’re all asking this when we’re twenty-three. Many of us are still asking when we’re fifty-three.

I wish I’d had The Echo Within to recommend in all these conversations. Now I do. When I pass it along, however, I will also pass along a warning. Some will find Benson frustrating. When we ask these questions of our life’s direction, we often are looking for someone to tell us what to do – or at least to give us some fool-proof system that will tell us what to do. Exactly. Prescisely. Clearly. And quickly. Even if you didn’t know Benson and were unaware that such things will always be the opposite of what Benson provides, you’d know soon enough by skimming a few of his chapter titles: Listening (ch 1). Hearing (ch 3). Waiting (ch 6). Dreaming (ch 10). And there’s more where that came from. Lots more.

Benson reminds us that finding our vocation is about finding our truest selves. Or, to put it another way, it is about finding the “echo of the Voice that spoke us into being [which] is the sound of our own true voice.” To find ourselves, we must listen to what God has spoken uniquely to us, in us.

This is the heart of the matter. Finding our vocation, our call, our life’s work, is not first or foremost about what our business card says about us or how we find the way to pay our mortgage and put food on the table. Your life’s call is about embracing the beauty God had in mind when he took joy and delight in making you. And then, your taking joy and delight in singing the song you (and only you) were intended to sing.

“Your vocation” says Benson, “is not only about the work you do with your hands and your heart and your mind; it is about what shapes the work, the person you become in and around that work as well.”

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Clean Head on the Cheap

I’m not too great at keeping New Year’s resolutions. But when a funky idea hits me – and it will save me money – I’m in. On January 1, 2007, I noticed the large pile of shampoos collected from hotels and motels across this great country of ours. And I decided to see if, using them, I could make it a whole year without buying shampoo.

Well, let me tell you, I did. And I’m still going strong.

A few observations:

[1] Among large scale hotels, Hyatt Place has the best shampoo . My opinion might be skewed by the fact that I think this is the coolest chain (when you must do a chain) hotel in the world, hands down, but still…

[2] The motels that pass out the little squeezable tubes where you can barely scrunch out enough for one wash. Cheap, man. Cheap.

[3] Niwot Inn wins best shampoo among independent / boutique establishments.

[4] I have discovered a moral dilemma: is it inappropriate manipulation to work the system in order to get multiple shampoo bottles? Once I embarked on this challenge, I found this constant urge to gather as much shampoo as possible. Amazing the many forms greed can take.

Still, my challenge continues. How long, I do not know. If you wish to send me your samples, feel free.

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