My faith is central to my life. I want it to inform my writing as well. But does that mean my writing has to be focused on Bible stories and hot takes on church drama?
We need theologians who write books about the Bible. We need devotional writers and journalists who write for Christian publications. I’ve benefited from all these things. I’ve written about Bible stories and for Christian publications, too. I hope to do more of that. But I don’t want to be siloed.
What does it mean for art to be “Christian”? This is an age-old question for Christian artists of any kind. Often we equate this with style, certain words, or specific topics. What interests me far more is whether my writing is informed naturally by my way of living in this world.
I recently brought this up to my friend Carla, a friend (and former teacher) of mine, a Christian and an excellent writer. She told me about an image she’d had of standing in the doorway of her church, handing things from a basket to people in the parking lot. “I felt God was telling me I was going to stand in the doorway,” she said. “Everyone is different. Ask God to bring something to mind for you.”
I verbal processed to a friend last week: “I want my writing to illuminate things from the inside, not glue sequins all over them.”
The writing I love the best takes the ordinary, looks closely, and finds what’s transcendent in it. This loving attention feels like honouring God’s world. I don’t feel I have to say, “And by the way, God made it,” for that to be evident. To attend in this way, to truly see the other, be it nature or a fellow human, is to display a little of how God loves. The writing process shapes me to be a more attentive, loving person who sees mystery and beauty in unexpected places.
What interests me in writing interests me in counselling, my (hopefully) future career. I want to engage with people’s stories. I want to help them see where their lives are already intersecting with beauty and grace. I want to help them attend to themselves and the world around them, to see the brokenness, yes, but to allow it to be transformed.
I love Marilynne Robinson’s writing, for example, because she grapples with complex, painful issues while still suffusing her work with ordinary loveliness. She talks about faith in a way that’s never preachy or trite. It’s not tacked on as a checklist or agenda; it’s the aquifer feeding it all. She is #goals to me. Pulitzer or nothing! Kidding.
Writing is also shaped by one’s background and context. If I lived in the southern US, I’d have a different set of neighbours and friends. There’d be a big Christian literary audience, instead of a tiny one in my city, where 2% of people attend weekly religious services of any kind. I’m used to living in two cultures at once and translating between them. I don’t want to forget where I live in what I write. I don’t want to alienate the majority of those around me by giving them no access points. They’re the people I spend the most time with, the majority of the people I’ve been given to love.
I’m shaped by the wild west coast. I’m shaped by the rugged individualism, the obsession with coffee and brunch, the passivity and chillness, the liberalism, the surfers, the insane housing prices, the hippies, the Arcteryx-wearing yuppies. I might not like all of this all the time, but it’s the water I swim in. I’m writing for these people first, my neighbours. Southerners, get in line. (But save me some barbecue.)
My writing is an extension of my relationships. I want my home to be a place all my friends can feel welcome in, and I want my writing to be the same. I’m grateful to have friends from all over the world and across the political spectrum. Some of them are writers and some of them wouldn’t read a poem if it could save their life. I work with adults with disabilities, some of whom are barely literate. Yet they shape my writing. I want to be hospitable to a wide variety of people in my words as well as my home.
What is most personal is most universal, as Carl Rogers said. Robinson lives in Iowa and writes about Iowa in a way that makes a so-called flyover state replete with beauty. I don’t want writing online to flatten out the particularity of my world. It’s easy for likes and follows to dictate what one writes. I’m wary of that. I want to write what matters to other people, but it has to flow out of what matters to me, which is, I hope, the gift of God.
I don’t want to judge anyone else’s vocation. We all write for different reasons and to different people. I’m just untangling it for myself. In the end, my audience will choose me. So come on in. Step inside. I won’t force you to read poetry unless you like it. Have a cookie either way.