A Guide for the Perplexed

Salvation is what every man, woman, and child on the face of this planet wants. They don’t always call it that. They’ll say they want truth, or they want happiness, or they want love, or they want a relationship or whatever. But salvation is really what they’re after. Basically, they want deliverance from the guilt of the past, the pain of the present, and the uncertainty of the future. Part of our task as Christians is to point the way; to give directions so that others can know where to go to find the salvation we have been fortunate enough to find. We have a map that clarifies the journey and shows the destination we all seek. And so, in a series of blogs, I’d like to talk about maps, about offering a guide for the perplexed.

I take the title from a little book that’s worth reading, if you’ve never seen it, by E.F. Schumacher: A Guide for the Perplexed. In the introduction to that book, Schumacher tells a story about a time he was trying to find his way around Leningrad before the wall came down. He had a map, and in looking at it, he was sure he was in the right place. He could pinpoint where he was on the map, but he was confused by something. He saw churches all around—big magnificent buildings—that he could find nowhere on the map. Of course the map showed many other buildings, but it was absent these obvious churches. So he asked someone on the street, if he was actually in the right place. And they said, “Oh, yes, you’re right here”, and he said “But that can’t be; none of these churches are shown on the map”. The man said, “That’s because we don’t show churches on our maps”. And Schumacher said, “Well, that’s not true; here’s a church and there’s a church...” and the man said, “Oh, no, those aren’t churches, those are museums.”

Now, what that illustrated for Schumacher was that in many parts of his world, the world of the Academy, he was constantly being told what reality was by people who were looking straight at reality in the face, and couldn’t see it. People were giving him maps for how to live life—how to engage in a particular discipline, how to do a particular task—without answering any of the larger questions about those disciplines and tasks. What are the reasons for that truth? What’s the structure with which we operate in order to be a lawyer, or to do history, or to achieve some great accomplishment in civil engineering? In the same way, the generation of which I am a part, has an idea that there actually are no maps to give, and gave up hope long ago in trying to find one. It’s often said about the sixties that we were the generation that had hope; we were going to tear it all down and build it again anew, but that’s not the way I remember the sixties. I just remember wanting to tear it down, and not really having much of a plan for later.

This is illustrated by a song, which again will date me, by one of my favorite singers from that period. Bob Dylan writes in autobiographical fashion.

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges soon,” said I,
Proud ’neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundations deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

In each verse, Dylan sings some form of the idea that he used to believe in justice, or in good and bad, or in right and wrong, but that he “was so much older then; I’m younger than that now,” ironically, of course, meaning, “I had all the answers then, like an old person is supposed to. Now, I don’t have any answers. I don’t know anything.” Now, this is not the Bob Dylan of 2009; this is the Bob Dylan of 1964. For almost a half-century, our culture has been giving out maps, trying to lead and train its leaders without any notion of those maps being consistent with reality, or perhaps more accurately, without any beliefs that those maps are ultimate, or really transferable, or really something worth dying for. And I think we face a crisis in this culture as a result of that. We have a culture that is filled with the perplexed.

Now, all this doesn’t mean that there aren’t maps still being given out today. In future blogs, I would like to explore four areas and the maps that artists, philosophers, social theorist and others are offering for trekking in those areas. They are the areas of morality, authority, purpose and knowledge. Thoughts?

And Now....For A Little Music

WILCO - AIRLINE TO HEAVEN

How Things Are

Amy Carmichael was the founder of Dohnavur Fellowship in India in the early Twentieth Century. You may allow yourself to picture all of the usual suspects: women in long dresses and pith helmets, dusty snake-charmers crouching before straw baskets, young gallants with bad facial hair riding elephants in search of tigers to turn into hearth rugs.

The work of her community, however, was to rescue and to raise baby girls who had been dedicated, and abandoned, by their parents to temple prostitution in the name of Hindu piety. Today Her efforts would be viewed as struggling against one facet of the international sex trafficking world.

Carmichael was a prolific author and poet, whose first work How Things Are was not published in England because it was considered too honest – and therefore too critical – of  Western missionary efforts in British India. Only after the success of other books was this first one made available.

But it is not the simple story, not the usual tale of fearless honesty confronting and finally overcoming prissy Christian obscurantism. The story is as messy as reality and as complex and an individual’s psychology.

As I read The Gold Cord, Carmichael’s telling of the work of rescue and of the Fellowship’s growth and struggles, I never come across an unambiguous explanation of just from what horror it is that the baby girls are being rescued. Such a subject was simply too taboo for the audience of her time. Or at least, so she felt.

It was also Carmichael who wrote as advice to young women thinking of sailing to India and joining in her work, “Beware of novels, especially good ones.”

We are confronted with a puzzle: a woman too honest for the polite, devout Christendom of her day; a woman who masks the real nature of her vocation for modesty’s sake; an author who considers good literature a dangerous distraction.

If I may muddy things with a final clod in the mix. Amy Carmichael’s community was one the three greatest influences upon Francis and Edith Schaeffer and the formation of their own work in L’Abri Fellowship during the second half of that same Twentieth Century. And, if anyone remains familiar with the Schaeffers or L’Abri, one of the notions in that familiarity is of earnest, Bible-believing evangelicals learning to appreciate the arts. Appreciating them as ways of understanding the ‘worldview’ of the culture surrounding their church parking lots, but also appreciating them on their own terms of existence: “Art needs no justification.”

It seems to me that the idea of “redemptive entertainment” has some utility in untangling the knot presented by Carmichael and the Schaeffers and my own current difficulties as an author.

“Redemptive” here is an adjective, if I still remember my grammar lessons from School-house Rock, and “Entertainment” is our noun. The implication is that we know that we are going to have entertainment and the question we should address is of what sort, that is the extent of our discernment, the limits of our choosing. Entertainment – certainly; redemptive – maybe.

Carmichael might disagree. She was of a previous generation. I believe she would say that entertainment was not an inevitable component of life. One could – and should – stay away from novels because they were distractions from the situation at hand, temptations to a romantic and vicarious escape, an abandoning of the baby girls in front of you who have already been abandoned by their mothers and fathers to be replaced in our affections by Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff. Carmichael might say those things, but then she gave them the lie by writing her poetry.

I think Carmichael would actually just change our parts of speech – switching our adjective and our noun. I think she would advocate “entertaining redemption”, and this is of course what many of us fear after the Schaeffers (and others) have taught us to value art with no justification, that using art to teach can become propaganda and bad art en route.

We are now at the third stage; we now expect for redemption to be entertaining and yet to avoid the guilt of propaganda. Propositional truth is no longer found a sufficient guard of efficacy. The essence of Christianity is no longer – if it ever was – a firm mental assent to true doctrines. That candidate for essence seems to privilege portions of the human, gives the priority to the objective reason and leaves as welcome but unnecessary additions the involvement of the subjective emotions and the public behaviour.

As I write a novel asking “can people actually change?” This would seem a world-wide query and that a Christian is allowed to contribute to the discussion. When I use a real addiction in a fictional character as my ve

hicle – I believe that the story can be entertaining, that a reader can fall into it. But – not unlike Carmichael – I think I must tell the story in such a way that reading a description of the addiction’s temptation in my character’s heart and mind and hormones doesn’t lead a reader to wet their lips and fall into the very behaviors and experiences that I am hoping can be changed. To find that people can change – whether or not my character does – seems redemptive, hope-infecting; but to do so in a way that might contribute to the continued enslavement of the audience would not be loving on my part. The artist is to be honest, but we are not allowed to despise the audience, even when we serve up ugliness for consideration, it is meant to make our audience dissatisfied and hungering for something better. If people can change it must begin in the imagination and the ability to hope for a better future.

Wade Bradshaw

When Writing...

Do you stop to think, "Will this offend someone?"

If it doesn't, you probably haven't written enough Truth into your story. I'm not sure when Christianity became synonymous with bland, but if you present the idea of "Christian Entertainment", many people will run for cover. They'll treat the concept the same as the Jehovah's Witnesses at their door or SPAM in their email. I can understand why Jesus spent His time with sinners. They're much more willing to accept Truth than those who see themselves as "holy".

My spiritual gift is discernment. The flip side of that is judgment, and I can be judgmental too. It's my struggle. If you look at your own spiritual gift, and you're honest about the flip side of that gift, you may see that even the best of us have something we'd rather not share with the world about ourselves. But if we're going to have an impact, we have to put our Truths down. In my novel, "What a Girl Wants" which has been options for a movie starring Rebecca St. James, I got a lot of what I'll call "hate" mail.

Let's see -- just to give you an idea, I was called a racist, judgmental, materialistic, hateful, everything that's wrong with Christianity -- that will get us started. But the verse that kept me going, kept me writing was Proverbs 16:2, "All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord." I knew my motives were for my love of Jesus and the dysfunction I saw in the singles here in Silicon Valley.

If I hadn't written some inflammatory statements in that book, would it have received the attacks that it did? Granted, California Christianity can be very different from the midwest's, because we are simply exposed to more flagrant exposure of sin out here. I have the emails to prove that some of those sweet midwesterners were downright ugly when they told me I wasn't a Christian (a judgment only Jesus has, thank goodness!) Yet none of these people could see their own hateful venom in their own words toward me. That's how we are as Christians. We see the plank in others' eyes, not so much the sawdust in our own.

As artists, when we hesitate to write the Truth, to be politically-correct, we may not offend someone, but we may not touch them either. Everyone comes to a movie, a book, an article with baggage. Some recognize it. Some don't. Those are the people who will blame you for how you made them feel. Maybe showing an ugly side of yourself on the written page made someone face something they didn't want to see in themselves. But if your motives are pure, God will use your words. Remember, every gift has a dark side. Use both and your characters will be recognizable.

After all, we're all the Prodigal Son. The brother who stayed home only thinks he's the good one. God knows otherwise.

Creating Timeless Children's Characters

William Zinsser once wrote, “No kind of writing lodges itself so deeply in our memory, echoing there for the rest of our lives as the books that we met in our childhood, and when we grow up and read them to our children they are the oldest of friends.”

Winnie the Pooh. Peter Rabbit. Aslan. Misty of Chincoteague. Laura Ingalls. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March. Charlotte A. Cavatica. These are the characters of my childhood that echo in my memory. So much so that I am making sure that I read them to my children.

I have often puzzled over why some children’s characters transcend generations and what the components are that help them befriend both children and adults.

They seem to be many things: fictional or real; human or anthropomorphic, young or old; male or female; black, white, green, or purple and almost any other category one can imagine.

But somehow these characters give their readers the pleasure of recognizing the world they know, a future world, a past world, or a fantasy world in such a way that makes them laugh, cry, or even dance for pure joy.

So what makes them timeless?

After reading and rereading these books, I began to see three things that the timeless characters of my childhood had in common: First, they were made tangible through physical attributes and mannerisms sprinkled through the text. Second, they were given the breath of life through revelations into their emotions and intellect with which the readers could identify. And third, they had big hearts with the capacity to care about and love others unconditionally.

Take my favorite, Charlotte A. Cavatica from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.

Charlotte is made tangible with her thin but pleasant voice, her gray gumdrop-sized body, and her hairy legs. Her breath of life includes her cleverness, ability to nurture her friends, and quick sense of humor. Charlotte could trap an insect, had an enormous vocabulary using words such as salutations, and was able to devise a plan to save Wilbur the pig’s life. She spent a great many hours comforting Wilbur and singing lullabies to him. And once when she was asked if the messages that she spun in her web would draw human attention she replied, “People believe almost anything they see in print.” Charlotte cared fiercely about two things – her egg sac and Wilbur. Through her big heart, she kept herself alive until she was positive she had saved both of them.

I encourage all children’s writers to read and reread books containing timeless characters. Then with patience, persistence, and practice make your own characters tangible breathe life into them, and give them big unconditional hearts. Who knows? Maybe one of them just might eventually be passed down from parent to child.

Jennifer Elvgren

 

AS BAD AS ADAM

One of my sons attended pre-school with a child named Adam. Each day Adam would find a new way to torment his teachers and other students. This happened years ago, so I don’t exactly remember how. I have vague memories of him pouring sand on a little girl’s head, of him using an abacus as a deadly weapon—you get the idea. At four, Adam was already infamous.

In fact, Adam’s “badness” became the standard by which my son judged his own behavior. Some days he’d describe himself as bad as Adam, and other days, not so bad as Adam.

You might be expecting that I will now attempt to draw some grand parallel between infamous pre-school Adam and the first Adam of original sin fame. However, making that argument in a persuasive and articulate way would require lots of deep thinking. When I think too hard, I fall asleep. So I’ll make one simple point rather than many weighty, sophisticated points.

My son tended to think in terms of black and white when he considered Adam. Adam was bad. And to be fair, Adam energetically did his part to contribute to that view. However, as we all know, no person is entirely good or entirely bad. We are complex creatures. While it may have been difficult to see the good in Adam, it was there, nuanced perhaps, but there nonetheless.

All right. I can hear you thinking out there, so what is her point, the simple point that she said she was about to make. Here it is: as writers we need to make sure that the characters we depict are complex, not all bad, not all good.

Why should we do this? Characters should seem real. You want to write truth. The truth is that no one is perfect and no one is perfectly bad.

We also want to create interesting characters. Very good characters and very bad characters are dull and predictable. Why bother reading on? You know who they are and what they are going to do.

You want to create characters for which your readers feel empathy. Honest readers will admit that they have admirable traits and also ones they will avoid listing on a resume. Those folks will be able to identify with and be more invested in complex characters.

When you create a character with strengths and weaknesses, you give yourself a lot more to work with. You can show how a flaw ultimately brings down your mostly good character. You can show how the glimmer of a good trait can lead your mostly bad character to do a good deed.

When you portray a complex character, one who has the potential to behave honorably as well as to sin, you’ve given yourself an opportunity to talk about grace and redemption. What do I mean by that? You can show good coming out of bad. You gently can point your reader in the direction of hope.

So, go ahead and make your good characters a little bit bad and your bad characters a little bit good. Why not? You are reflecting reality, you’re adding interest to your story and you’re allowing us readers to identify with the characters you create.

So, whatever happened to Bad Adam? I’ve heard that he is an honor student and plays in the high school band. Go figure.

Deborah M. Prum
www.deborahprum.com

Does Jacobs pull punches on Pullman? (not really)

In a little noted entry in the American Scene blog, noted Lewis scholar and frequent Mars Hill Audio guest Alan Jacobs backed off some of his previous criticism of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. When I first read this, I immediately checked the comments section of the first post to see if there was some engagement there that prompted this clarification. Frankly, the post from early April to which he links doesn't even reference Lyra's deceits. So I saw nothing there to cause this apology which means Jacobs offers it up solely out of his sense of integrity. Accordingly, I applaud Jacobs for his willingness to go back to re-read the books and then secondly, being able to re-think a small part of his critical response. There are a number of human foibles that cause us all to deeply entrench, particularly in the face of the oft-lamented culture wars. In the Intelligent Design debate for example, there is no quarter ever offered and neither side seems able to own to any weakness in their arguments. Additionally, some scholars become so wedded to their writings that they can't accept or acknowledge where they may have erred or had the scholarship pass them by. So being able to say "my bad" when called for is a sign of humility and grace.

But I must admit to being a bit deflated.  Jacobs, a professor at Wheaton, merely clarifies one small aspect of his critique, the deeds and consequences Lyra faces upon lying (or lack thereof), not his over-arching condemnation of the series' weaknesses. This should only enhance not negate his previous writings. For me, Jacobs'  book reviews of the Pullman trilogy greatly aided my digestion of the books. I found The Golden Compass good (loved the Polar Bears and the souls as animals thing), The Subtle Knife less so, and I found The Amber Spy- glass quite dreadful. The diminishment of my enjoyment of the books as I went from one to other mirrored their increasing didactic quality.  In short, the more the lecture overwhelmed the story, the worse the tales read for me.

Now this could be merely an example of an ungenial reader. Most Muslims read the tortured end of the Byzantine Greeks with joy not sadness.  And if I don't like horror movies, don't send me to one to get a straight-up assessment on how good a slasher film it may be. But I do enjoy a good read in Sci-fi/Fantasy so it is not a genre issue; I found the underlying attack on Christianity both weak and over-bearing. And I don't find critics of the faith too threatening; I find value in "dialogue" partners who can speak to either deep misunderstandings of the Church or places where the Church falls down (cause indeed we do). But Pullman falls in the Dawkins/Harris/Ehrman camp where the zeal to tear down leads them into implausible claims and straw man arguments.  Jacobs skewers Pullman on these points and as best I can tell withdraws nothing on that front.

Pullman states in many settings that his ire against C.S. Lewis and the none too subtle Christian apologetics embedded in the Narnia Chronicles fueled his own writing.  A lot of writers begin with a didactic purpose, composing as a means to teach (or preach). But that urge to educate or enlighten cannot come at the expense of solid story-telling. I believe the narrative needs be the driving force. Aristotelian concepts of plot standing in tension with character set aside, the telling of the tale must stand first and foremost in the author's head. When you write, what pushes you? The need to make, to create? A desire for personal expression? The opportunity to change minds? The implacable yearning to simply tell a good story? And if this blog can become, as hoped, a place where redemptive entertainment can be discussed and dissected, where stands that call to redeem? Christians are not alone in looking for tales that show not only upward, happy endings, but prodigal tales where the lost become found, the blind see.  If those are values indeed worth consideration, then whither excellence? How do these qualities stand in tension? Do they? Jacobs finds fault with Pullman's failure to write an honest tale; his standing critique indicts Pullman not for his worldview per se, but the surrendering of the narrative to the furth-ering that end.  Ironically, the anti-God sermon negates the virtues of the tale; a wonderful fantasy dragged down by a lecture, the same charges Pullman places on Lewis (albeit less charitably.) Perhaps this stands as a warning to all of us who would take pen to page....