Telling a Better Story

I am typing at my desk at the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

(If any bad guys are reading this, I’ll have you know I left behind the forester. Don’t let his Santa Claus vibe fool you; he’ll either force you to listen to his fishing stories or make you pull weeds in the garden. You have been warned.)

I worshipped this morning with the lovely people of Christ Community Church in Montreat. I was introduced to at least 20 different people with open, joyful countenances, and shook old Barry’s hand so firmly he started warning off the others. The pastor spoke on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, based on the passage in Acts 16 where Paul and his entourage toured the region but at each city sensed the Holy Spirit say, No, not here. Not until Paul had a dream of a man in Macedonia saying, “Come over here and help!” did Paul find an open door. When the others heard it, they agreed and there they went.

When people ask, as they did this morning, “What do you write?”, sometimes I just say I am a writer wannabe. But sometimes I tell them I want to tell stories that bypass the gatekeepers and flow into the heart where the yearnings are. I want to write stories that tug us away from the unquestioned assumptions and the iron framework of this culture’s narrative about who we are and what we are to do. I want to write stories that take the reader out of bondage into the wide place of grace upon grace expressed by Christ’s incarnation and resurrection.

No arguments will do in these bewildering days. Only narratives can speak to those who think they have sound reasons for dismissing the Christian worldview. I believe stories–imaginative, winsome, and authentic ones–are the bridge I can build to the people I love so much who simply cannot see that they cannot see. “Let me tell you a story,” I want to say. “Once upon a time, a young woman…”

“What do you write?” Well, I can tell you what I have written. Essays in this blog on all kinds of things but mostly my reflections on art and life. Articles for Classical Conversations which still live on their site. Songs. Poems. An annual Christmas letter full of stories meant to tickle the reader. Lots of letters to people. Journal entries for fifty years, as of May 11, 2024.

I credit journal writing for the honing of my writing skill, ever since I gave myself permission to scratch out an awkward passage and try it again until I was satisfied. It gets messy, but nobody is going to read it; certainly not my kids, who can’t read sloppy cursive. It is like a code. My secrets are safe.

Here I am, at this writers conference, open to hear from the Holy Spirit for my path forward. I am devouring Telling a Better Story; How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age, a book recommended to me and the only reading I brought for my travels. It raises the right questions and good answers. Yes, and yes. I think I know what door beckons me.

(Can we just agree to ignore the fact that this open door is to the bathroom?)