The Wired World: Pressure Versus Promise

In the not so distant past, when a writer finished a book, fiction or nonfiction, and it was accepted for publication, the process was simple. The author might make bookstore appearances for signing copies of her book and perform a few other tasks to promote the book, but basically, she spent working hours or spare time in writing.

Today an author is encouraged to create a web site, post regular blogs, maintain a presence on Facebook and perhaps on one or two other sites, prepare book trailers, tweet, and join in discussions with online groups. Also, of course, he should keep up with additional sites, like Goodreads and others that deal with his writing interests.

The wired world offers myriad opportunities never before available to anyone with an Internet connection, not just writers. The problem is that we can never take advantage of all these opportunities. We can never upload all the books to our Kindle or Nook that we want/need to read, skim all the online magazines, keep up with the news downloaded to our iPad, create meaningful comments on all the relevant blogs, or appear regularly on Facebook and other social media.

When do we have time to work? Or ponder? Or worship? Or read. Or enjoy time with family and friends? Or chill out? We miss one day of checking our email, and the next day we stagger in our attempt to catch up.

I’ve found out the hard way that I must accept boundaries and make choices. I must limit my wired time, delete immediately much that appears in my inbox, and concentrate each day on only a few tasks. What doesn’t get done, I will have to leave to God. Else life becomes a frantic guilt trip.

Come to think of it, I guess our lives have always been about exercising faith by choosing certain paths.

Dorothy Sayers And The Themes Of My Novels

Dorothy Sayers subtitled her book, The Mind of the Maker, as “An examination of God the creator reflected in the artistic imagination.” (Reviewed in From My Bookshelf on this site.) In this book, she dissects her own novel, Gaudy Night, a detective novel, into three parts: 1) A puzzle to be solved (the crime); 2) A human perplexity dealing with the relationships of the protagonists; 3) A conflict of values.

At novel’s end, the first, the puzzle is solved. In the second, the protagonists develop a new relationship, with possibilities for good or evil. Finally, the collision of values, is not “solvable” but the conflicting values, from their tension, may create a new, stronger value.

I applied Sayers’ ideas to my own novels. The romance, mystery, or other plot finds resolution. New relationships (both between the protagonists and between the protagonists and God) begin a growing process, that offer hope but not completion. Finally, a background theme in many of my novels is that of the Christian’s struggle in a postmodern world of shifting values.

In Singing in Babylon, the American protagonists feel exiled by their Christian faith within a country predominantly of another religion. When they return to the U.S., however, they sense exile from their consumer-hypnotized fellow citizens.

Quiet Deception unfolds in this country during the 1970′s, a boundary between a time of generally accepted common values and the time after, when those values changed and collided with others. Kim chooses a path already becoming less favored, one, in a cultural sense, of exile.

In Searching for Home, the protagonists constantly must exchange one home for another and eventually discover that the idea of home is at best a spiritual destination. No permanent home exists in this world.

My characters operate in a world that has lost its way, one in which values, including those common to most religious faiths, are questioned. Kate and Philip, Kim and Todd, Hannah and Patrick are remnant exiles. They struggle with the worth of old values as cultures collide.

Simple Solutions Can Be Deadly

 ” . . .when a man is driven to despair he is ready to smash everything in the vague hope that a better world may arise out of the ruins.” So wrote a former German official, Erich Koch-Weser, in 1931, as the spellbinding Hitler hovered on the periphery of power. A beaten down people saw in Hitler a chance to rise again. Their misery was real, but their choices in dealing with it caused tragedy for themselves and most of the world.

While the misery in this country has not reached the level suffered by the German people during that time, we can still note the tendency to grasp at simple solutions. They range from “down with government” to “down with Wall Street” to “down with religion.” Atheism would answer the problem of religious intolerance, for example, by simply ridding the world of religion. That solution gets rid of religious intolerance but offers no help for our intolerance of differing political views or ethnicity. Could it be that the underlying issue is not religion (or government, or Wall Street), but our sinful tendencies?

Solutions, most likely, will require difficult choices and the overcoming of our inclination to fight only for our tribe or group instead of the common good, not a magical waving of some political wand.

Those Who Don’t Know History

History for some is a boring recitation of dates. Others see history as a rich source of stories, as well as a background for today’s decisions. Why did people in the past choose as they did? What were the wise choices that bless us to this day? George Washington chose not to continue in power as the first U.S. president but to relinquish power to another elected individual, beginning a tradition of elected officials peacefully giving up office.

What were the foolish choices? Why did desire for wealth lead early settlers in America to allow slavery rather than forbid it, even though founding fathers like James Oglethorpe strongly opposed it?

We often hear the quote “History repeats itself.” The complete quotation, however, is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It’s a quote from the book, Reason in Common Sense, by George Santayana.

The first implies that we are victims of a ceaseless cycle that we cannot control. The second implies that we can influence the future if we remember and learn from the past.

Time and setting play a role in the stories I write. Why do the characters make the choices they do within the times in which they live? How do they handle the influences of the age around them?

To Understand Each Other Instead Of Wars

When I was about eleven, I became a pen pal of a girl my age from Austria, through an acquaintance of my father. We wrote for many years, until both of us married and she moved to Germany with her husband.

I was going through old letters recently and came across one written by her, in beautiful script in English. Like so many American children, I was not conversant in any language except my own, but she wrote in English.

One year we exchanged Christmas gifts, and her family sent us a thank you note. The parents expressed hope that one day we might see each other for “it is possible in these times.” (We have never met, but my mother, on a trip to Europe, did meet and visit with her.)

One sentence of their letter, now before me, stands out: “It would be much better for the people to understand each other instead of having wars.” How little did I fathom at the time the longing in those words.

The parents had lived through World War II and the Soviet occupation of a part of their country. How poignant their wishes now, when so many since then have died and been harmed by conflicts.

Dear Lord, please bring us more understanding, more love, for those different from ourselves.

Writing and Faith

Writing is a journey of faith. You write a novel, spend months, maybe years, fleshing it out, creating characters, not knowing if it will be read by any but an editor who will reject it. Or you pour your passions into an article that may never be accepted for publication.

But isn’t that the way with all of us who give ourselves to a task? Preaching the love of God to an alienated world, working for a better environment, aiding unwed mothers, building low-income housing, relieving hunger, or giving ourselves to a million other worthwhile causes that captivate our passions and may or may not know ultimate success.

In medicine and the sciences, researchers toil for further knowledge or to relieve human suffering. Others give themselves to political causes that grip them.

The journey begins in faith and gives purpose and meaning to one’s life. Which is not to deny that a cause can be in error, as with the suicide bomber who kills not only himself but the innocent. Misguided faith can mask terrible evil.

Nevertheless, those who live only for themselves without any outside interest are to be pitied. Those who are ignorant of faith are surely little more than animal creatures who have waylaid their souls.

Beneath Diversity, A Comforting Order

Our View!

As winter began, my husband and I rented lodging on the far edge of the wild Olympic peninsula. No telephone, no television, no Internet. Out the window a few yards away, the boiling Pacific Ocean crashed onto the beach. We scanned the sculpted rocks and the writhing horizon that took away our breath with its beauty.

We stayed only a few days. To gain the full benefit, I think, one needs at least a week, preferably two or three. A couple of days passed before I accustomed myself to the rhythm of the place, before the thoughts began coming, the words forming.

I didn’t miss the telephone (not even our cells worked) or the television. The Internet was the most difficult to do without. No checking on the weather two or three times a day. No news from the outside, which, these days, is perhaps a blessing.

I think what I came away with (along with a measure of deeper peace) is the sense of God’s infinite diversity. Tides four times a day, but each different from the one before. Ceaseless waves, but each one, like a snowflake, different from any other.

This diversity operated within a dependable order. Without order, we could not check tide tables or know light and dark would succeed each other.

Within this comforting order, one is free to create infinitely and never exhaust the possibilities.