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.

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?

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.

Like This, Lord? Surely Not

God Surprises

If we are Christians, we hear this Bible verse often during Advent: “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his son . . .” (Galatians 4:4, RSV) Though plans for Jesus’ birth may have begun in eternity, their fulfilment surely hit like a tsunami to those involved.

So it must have seemed to a peasant Jewish teenager named Mary. Mary marveled at what God was asking her to do—didn’t seem possible—but she obeyed.

But really, now—the Jews had prayed for the Messiah for centuries, and this is the way God answered their prayers?

Elizabeth Elliot writes in A Slow and Certain Light of the call that came to her to serve among the Auca people, members of whom had killed her husband. She writes of the call: “And when it came, it was as clear as the sunlight. What to do was all mapped out for me exactly, and I had a matter of minutes to make up my mind to do it.”

Years ago, I passed the exam for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service, but for over two years, nothing happened, so I chose another job, one I fell in love with.  Then, just before a weekend, a woman called from the Department and said I was eligible for entry into the Foreign Service, but I must decide immediately. I asked for the weekend to decide. That weekend I attended a stimulating conference in connection with my current job. I decided I loved that job and would not exchange it for the unknown of the Foreign Service. But I prayed that I would do God’s will. On Monday morning, I told the woman I would accept the offer for the Foreign Service. I still, to this day, cannot explain why I said yes when I planned to say no. An exciting life opened to me that I have never regretted choosing.

Perhaps the key to finding our path is to busy ourselves with what is at hand: applying for jobs, housekeeping, studying, working hard and honestly. We do well whatever comes to our hand and trust that God’s call can best find us there.

No Pain, No Love?

My stories often begin with the death of a loved one or of a relationship. Perhaps it’s a subconscious wrestling with my father’s death when I was thirteen.

Though I want my stories to give hope, I see them as a slice from the characters’ lives. They have come from hard times and easy times and will go on to more of the same. Though I like my stories to end on a note of a victory won, an understanding gained, every wrong is not righted.

Hannah, in Searching for Home, resolves grief from her fiancé’s death and finds meaning, but his death remains a tragedy. God transforms wrong; he does not wave a magic wand that obliterates it.

The question of the suffering of innocents is probably the most difficult of all for Christians. You know the question: if God is both all powerful and all good, why does he allow suffering?

I do not presume to answer this question, but I think invalid the assumption that if God is both good and powerful, then he would not allow suffering. It assumes that if you love someone, you never cause them pain.

That, it seems to me, is false.

When my children were small, I took them to a giant who stuck needles in them. No baby or even young child could possibly understand about vaccines and the antibodies that develop from the pain inflicted with the giving of the vaccine. They have no conception that it protects them from diseases that could kill them: diphtheria or whooping cough or measles.

I don’t claim this illustration answers all theological questions, or even a minute part of them, concerning the world’s pain and evil. I only wish to suggest that we don’t just allow pain, we sometimes inflict it on those we love because of that love.