more from Eng 212

Another excerpt from a Creative Writing class essay. This one is taken from our final, "meta-essay", written with the prompt, "What does it mean to be a Christian Writer?". Good question. I still don't think I know, but it was a good topic to begin working out.

As a Christian writer, all our fears but one – the fear of the Lord – are unfounded. To our credit, we are creative in justifying these qualms. The label of humility is slapped over the trepidation we have of sharing our work, which translates into the Old Faithful of fears: rejection. Our culture as a whole fears what is unresolved and messy.  We resent art that points to and then past the undeniably sullied parts of our existence.  All of this leaves the Christian writer in a difficult spot, bearing both a compulsion to write and an opposing fear of self-publication and pride. Not to mention the heavy burden of creating in a manner that reflects the Creator but does not deny the desecrated nature of our culture. How then shall we write? For those who want to record the soul’s moaning and fitful bursts of joy, the place where the line in our heartbeat monitor suddenly spiked or faltered, I say write, but write well.

I recently saw a musician perform live, one celebrated by the secular and Christian community alike.  The best way I know to describe his performance is to say he played past our fears. He was transparent, and let us see the bizarre cracks of his mind that produced his new album; one filled with rawness and dance and outer space.  He did not provide what was comfortable, explaining during a musical interlude that the album was recorded during a dark night of the soul. Palpable disapproval emanated from Christians in the audience who had come expecting his trademark acoustic songs packed with biblical allusions.  At the end of the performance, he left us with a song about a convicted rapist and murderer, singing, “On my best behavior, I am really just like him/look underneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid.” He touched the darkness, but he did so in a way as to move us beyond it in the direction of wonder. How is it that we are spoken for by this man Jesus when we are no better than a murderer?  Excellent art does not tolerate skimming over the messiness. Our culture may fear the Fall, but that does not excuse the Christian from ignoring it. We can touch the darkness. We are messy people. And one of the things we can do is to invite others inside our messy minds and say, Look, you’re not the only one. And maybe also tell them where we find Jesus among the madness. 

When I write with the express purpose of conveying Jesus through my meager words, trying to serve as his personal spokesperson, my efforts are transparently inadequate. But when I write with the goal of writing well, incorporating what I have learned from those older, wiser and with a heckuva lot more talent than me, as well as speaking honestly from my gut, my writing is truthful.  In his book Culture Making, Andy Crouch writes, “What we most need are Christians who are serious about cultivating and creating, but who wear that seriousness lightly—who are not desperately trying to change the world but who also wake up every morning eager to create.” The job of the writer is to contribute excellent art to the culture. Not mediocre, blatantly “Jesus” art, but excellent art.