Story Inspiration

 

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

 

The first question folks often ask a novelist is about their book’s inspirations. How did you come up with the idea? Is this a true story about you? What inspired the book? Often I tell people a fictional story is a compilation of truth and made up details. I might find a person’s quirk interesting and include them in a work. One of life’s perplexities might have been niggling at my brain for many years, and it ends up in some form in a novel. Often I take a little reality and change some of the actual details and it becomes fiction.

In the case of my middle-grade novel, Hotel Oscar Mike Echo, many experiences inspired the novel—some of them embedded deep in my soul, and some as a result of volunteer work I’ve done, or relationships with front-line folks. The book addresses hard issues in life, from a mother and daughter with no place to live, poverty, bullying, unstable parenting, and more.

Here’s an example of a moment that I carry embedded in my soul and that caused me to look long and hard at the cruel treatment some people encounter, as well as the worth and value of all people, no matter their race, economic status, education, etc. I suspect, unconsciously, this experience influenced my writing.

When I was in college in Tallahassee in 1978, I had a Black roommate in the dorm. One day, the two of us went to a local restaurant for lunch. Once we were seated, the waitress came by and slapped the menus on the table without a word then walked away. I thought it was a bit abrupt on her part, but just studied the menu and mulled over my selection. And then we waited. And waited. When I tried to flag down the woman, she wouldn’t come to our table, instead huddling with other waitresses across the room.

Finally, I said out loud, looking around the place, “What is going on here?”

My roommate, sitting straight and tall and dignified, responded, “You really don’t know?”

“No. I really don’t know. What’s happening?”

“It’s because you’re with me,” she said.

For a moment, my world tilted. I had never encountered behavior like that waitress exhibited. It was 1978, as I mentioned, and I naively believed race relations were improved. I was from Massachusetts, far north of the Mason Dixon line, a place with its own stories of racism, but I had never encountered such hostility in a restaurant before. And at that moment with my dear roommate, I couldn’t fathom the indignities in her life, indignities that allowed her to read the room immediately and know exactly what was happening while I decided between a chicken sandwich or a cheeseburger and fries.

I grabbed her and we left to patronize another establishment.

Somewhere deep inside, that episode left a mark on me, along with other experiences. I didn’t consciously decide to write a middle-grade novel portraying people from different racial backgrounds living together because of that moment in time, but I do wonder about the power of that day to seep into my psyche and  shape my story when I considered who would be the hero in my novel, who would stand straight and tall and dignified. I’ll give you a hint: it’s the Goodwins, the Black couple who envelop my main character with love and safety.

Other experiences contributed to my desire to write about hard circumstances. For years, my son worked for a non-profit tasked with finding permanent homes for kids in foster care. His up-close perspective on the plight of these kids and their longings for a stable home life broke his heart—and my heart. Today, he drives around his city, pointing to different houses and saying, “A sad kid lives there. And a sad kid lives there. And a sad kid lives there.”

All those sad kids.

And then my husband and I started teaching parenting to men in our county’s local maximum-security jail. Through their stories, we heard about the children at home waiting for stability in their lives, trying to stay in touch, trying to connect with their fathers. One young boy showed up for visiting hours dressed in all orange. He told his dad he wanted to look like him. “Don’t you ever come here wearing that again,” the father told him. “I don’t want you looking like me in here. I want you doing better than me.”

Their story became one more inspiration for me to write about kids whose parents have lost their way.

In addition to the jail, I’ve taught literacy to the formerly homeless and incarcerated. In my novel, I based the transitional home where my main character and her mom finally land as they try and get on their feet on a home here in Illinois where I used to serve as a literacy tutor to women with no home. Through the power of fiction, I moved that Illinois home into the city of Richmond after spending time with a dear friend who lived in the inner city there and served the children of an impoverished neighborhood. Her work and the work of her organization embedded itself in my soul.

Because these stories simmered below the surface for many years, growing my own burden for the plight of the hurting, as fiction writers do, I took these life experiences and perspectives and blended them together on the page. Writing often allows the writer to make sense out of chaos and find meaning in moments that feel meaningless. I combined snippets of my life and formed them into a story to be passed along to others, hopefully to instill the same world-tilting moment as I experienced while witnessing my college roommate’s indignity.

Even the main premise of the novel appeared as part reality and part fiction. During the weeks where I was mulling over how to begin and how to structure Hotel Oscar Mike Echo, I went on my usual walks in my neighborhood, thinking about who would people my story. Several nights in a row, an older White gentleman and a young Black girl road their bikes past me, right down the center of the road as they peddled side by side, eyes locked on each other as they talked. Their bond captivated me, and I wondered about their story and their relationship. Was he her grandfather? A friend? A neighbor?

I decided to explore them in fiction but didn’t feel I had the authority to write from the first-person point of view of a young Black girl. So, I switched them—and eleven-year-old Sierra and Mr. Goodwin were born. Once I made this literary decision, I never saw the man and young girl in my neighborhood again. It was as if they rode into my life to inspire a novel and kept riding right on their way. Their bike ride became an actual scene in the novel. Mr. Goodwin, based on the man in my neighborhood, takes young Sierra on bike rides through the city of Richmond to teach history lessons.

The novel releases in a few days, offering a glimpse into the kind of pain some kids and their families tragically live with on a daily basis and sometimes for many years. I hope you read Sierra’s and the Goodwin’s story with all of this background in mind, growing in compassion and understanding as I like to think I have done.

Hotel Oscar Mike Echo is available wherever books are sold, or here, or at the book’s website here. Follow me on Instagram @lindamackillopwriter or Facebook at lindakerrmackillop. And let’s keep in touch via my newsletter!

 

 

 

Reaction Videos and Book Releases

 

 

I learned something new yesterday. I’ve never heard about Reaction videos on YouTube before. (Thanks, Joel!) My first reaction was to be dumbfounded people spend time watching how others react to their favorite movies or songs. Don’t they just want to watch the video or listen to the song themselves? But then I thought of these videos in light of finishing a novel.

When a novel requires so much time in the shoes of fictional people, learning their mannerisms, foibles, mistakes, fears, embarrassments, quirks, and glories, eventually you grow to love most of these people in the same way you grow to love your imperfect family members. We see all the faults of those in our homes or close circle but, with grace, learn to overlook them. When developing characters, a writer grows empathy for even the challenging folks because we know them so intimately.

As I worked on Hotel Oscar Mike Echo, I admit to falling in love with everyone in the book. Even the bullies became folks I had empathy for because I knew their home lives and the circumstances that fueled their anger and mean-spirits. Even if the reader never learns those details, I know them.

So now that the writing process is over, which in the case of this book took six months for the first draft and six months for a rewrite, these characters aren’t a part of my daily life anymore. The editorial process involved several back and forths with editors over the better part of a year, during which I had the opportunity to once again immerse myself in the characters’ world. And then one day I hit “send” on a finished novel. We watched the book cover come to life with typesetting and that fabulous moment when an artist envisions your story and characters and renders them with ink. And off it went to the printer, leaving me to await its arrival and the moment when readers will step into the pages where I lived for so long.

Today, knowing my time spent with them is over, the finality of it all feels sad. I’m missing them. The story elicited emotion and heartache for me as my empathy grew for Sierra and the others. Truly I wish I could step onto the page of this emotional story and help heal all the wounds present in their lives. I would enjoy just one more bike ride with Mr. Goodwin through the streets of Richmond with Sierra by his side, or another afternoon in Mrs. G’s kitchen planning yummy meals for a crowd, or one more moment watching Sierra creatively making a meal out of her nearly empty pantry with humor and fun as she pretends to be hosting a cooking show. I would speak the kind of encouraging words to her that she hears from the Goodwins.

But we are done with each other…

…until I hear from others meeting these characters for the first time. A friend wrote recently while reading one of my author’s copies to tell me she loved how Sierra pretends to have a cooking show in her empty kitchen to ward off her fear of being left alone for too long by her mom. Instantly, I slipped into the memory of that scene and empathized with little Sierra trying to set a table for herself using dirty dish towels as placemats to “feel fancy.”

Maybe it’s a little like life when we love people in our circle and one day they are gone—either from death, relocation, or estrangement. We remember them fondly and, in some cases, long for just one more dinner, one more conversation, one more moment together.

The friend who shared about reaction videos spoke about them in light of reliving a favorite movie through the eyes of someone else. You can only have one first encounter with a book, movie, or song. But watching someone have their own first encounter in some way triggers us to remember how we felt during that first introduction. I’m sure brain science has things to say about reaction videos.

All that to say, if you read Sierra’s story—and I hope you will—please let me know your thoughts. I’ll be reliving my first introduction to them through your words. In the meantime, you can pre-order and learn more about the book here. The official release date is June 6.

When Your Main Character Hijacks Your Blog

Photo by Jake Thacker on Unsplash

 

My name is Eva Gordon, and I may have memory loss, but I can still read. And I’ve read all those harsh words people have used to describe me in that book: cantankerous, hard-edged, stubborn, irascible, unpleasant. At least one person tacked on that the author portrayed me with “grace and care.” Hmph.

Here’s how I see things. There I was, living my life, minding my own business trying to be productive and solitary, working my refinishing business, and then—Bam!—someone’s writing a book about me, revealing all my problems, snafus with memory and tangled family relationships. The nerve of that author. (I’m not as good with names as I used to be, but her name is Linda Something.) Did she ask my permission? No. She barged into my life, making observations and assumptions—even drawing a few conclusions. Hmph again.

It seems only fair I have my own opportunity to speak up, defend myself a smidge, give my side of the story. Bear with me. I’m going to try and maintain my train of thought here for a minute.

What would she think if I wrote a book about her, showing all her foibles, her nail biting as she sits at the computer trying to voyeuristically look at others, calling it “fiction writing”? All those conversations with her husband about how she doesn’t know if her stories are any good? Those times she raises her voice or slams doors in a huff? Burns dinner and doesn’t return phone calls? She’s no angel. Trust me.

Now come a little closer. That’s right. Lean in. I do have a little secret, but don’t tell that author. I was just the teensy weensiest bit flattered someone thought my life worthy of a novel. I’ve done nothing extraordinary—just tended to my work, raised a family, tried not to get arrested or kill anyone. Nothing of note, but the strangest thing happened while that author wrote about how I had to go live on that “Trying Times Farm,” as I like to call the place. (You should’ve seen what a dump it was the first time I laid eyes on the place). As I watched her day in and day out tapping away at her computer, working like a dog to tell all my stuff, she didn’t seem all that bad. I mean, I guess I kind of liked her—especially when she did the most amazing thing as she told my story. She started to cry. I’m talking real tears.

I’ve never figured out exactly what made her cry, but something about me and my story touched her enough to make her blubber. I decided to give her words a good read. And something happened while I paid attention over her shoulder. I started to see some things in myself I hadn’t seen before; I even had some feelings. I’m not always fond of feelings. They can really get in the way of all the business a person needs to tend to and make you do things you’d otherwise prefer not to do. Like apologize or talk about yourself in the first person the way I’m talking now.

Oh, she certainly pointed out my rough edges, but when I saw myself from her point of view (maybe I was just the tiniest bit hard to live with), she seemed like she felt bad for me that I had to live with other people. Her words implied maybe an understanding about the challenges of combining your living quarters with the younger generation. No fun, indeed.

The biggest surprise of all to me was that, in addition to pointing out my rough spots, she found some moments in my life that gave me pause and even a little self-understanding.

Overhearing her conversations with her husband, apparently it takes some time to find someone who’ll commit to print a writer’s words into a book. (Was it me or the author they didn’t like? Oh, who cares. It’s all written down now.) Then one day someone told her they’d like print my story and along came that box loaded with copies of the book. Can you keep another little secret? I like how the story turned out. If you have to buy the book, it’s called The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon. But as someone recently said, I’m forgotten no more. Hah!

If I wasn’t so darn old with a fading memory, I might become a writer. Seems like an easy thing to do, working by yourself and tossing a few words into the computer. How challenging could that be to learn?

Wait. What were we talking about?

Encircled By Friends

Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash

 

An excerpt from my article on friendship in The Redbud Post. 

We were in a heavy conversation about career frustrations and disappointment and the way life’s planned path sometimes jumps the rails. My son was expressing pent up feelings about his financial situation and its impact on starting a family with his wife. But during the talk, he suddenly pulled out his phone and scrolled through his pictures to show us one of his friends. After finding what he was looking for, he turned the phone in our direction and pointed to a photo depicting his friend standing in a group of about eight young men posing by a couch at someone’s lake home where they had escaped for a guy’s weekend.

“These are my best friends,” he said, referring to the group of millennial guys who do life together, even meeting regularly as a group to process life and faith.

“These are your best friends?” I asked, and he nodded. “You have this many best friends?” He nodded. “Oh, my son, you are so much richer than most people.” Thinking about the angst we were discussing moments ago, I suggested he hang a hard copy of the picture on his refrigerator. “Whenever you look at it, remember you possess a gift many, many lonely people long for in life and never receive.”

Continue reading HERE.

 

 

An Instrument of Peace

I still own the same sewing machine that once belonged to my grandmother and great grandmother. The small black Singer machine assisted me with making childhood clothes, my wedding dress, and curtains hanging today in one of our rooms. In the past, when people saw my machine, they often asked, “Is it a toy?” No, it’s a sentimental gift I inherited from my great-grandmother—an old, small, reliable machine with a lot of miles on its motor that still works—a little like me.

But for the past two decades, I’ve ignored the Singer, leaving it in a closet for rare moments when something needed a repair. I’ve replaced my active sewing hobby from younger years with writing. Sewing needed to go bye-bye if I was going to complete novels.

Then a friend suggested making baby blankets from our family’s Scottish tartan pattern for our growing brood of grandchildren. I agreed. Unfortunately, when I threaded up the machine, the threads appeared unevenly on the fabric, some too loose, some too tight—a tension problem. As a child, I used to descend into tears when tension problems occurred with my thread until my mother appeared, usually from the kitchen, when she heard my cries for help. Quietly and patiently, she adjusted the machine, talking to me in a soft voice. I calmed.

When I brought the machine into a local repair shop recently, the familiar amused look appeared on the repairman’s face when I lifted the machine onto the counter so he could give me an estimate to get it running again. Within minutes, he was suggesting I turn it in for a new model.

Not a chance.

While I’ve created many items on this machine, mostly the Singer is a tangible reminder of some of the best moments with my mother who emotionally struggled in many ways. In that scene above where I mention her helping with quiet patience, I failed to mention the rarity of those kind of responses from her. Maintaining a healthy relationship with her during my adult years became challenging. Despite being able to find words for many of my broken family’s turmoil, I’ve struggled to find the words to write compassionately about her.

But when I pulled out this outdated sewing machine, my attitude softened, allowing me to see her complexity.

While the machine’s sturdy, compact, and simple 1950s design seems obsolete to some people, to me it holds some of the warmest memories of my mother. Engaging in domestic tasks brought out the best in my mother. Where the world outside our door seemed to intimidate her, domestic life gave her pleasure. She loved cooking, sewing, and keeping a nice home, and taught me those skills. Looking back, I believe she appreciated how I stepped into her domain with enthusiasm. Whenever we sewed or cooked together, a transformation took place and she became the world’s most patient mom.

If only we could have threaded together words of apology and retraction with that old Singer machine. Her relationships and family would’ve been different.

In a few days, my novel, The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon, makes its debut, offering a glimpse into some of the pain involved in broken relationships, and the challenges of dealing with a difficult, hard-to-love person. While Eva Gordon is a fictional character, the idea of challenging behavior comes to mind when I think of my own mother. I’ve heard it said authors sometimes have one story they are trying to work out through their fiction. Maybe my story is how characters can be complicated—difficult to love, in desperate need of empathy and compassion, and loveable all at the same time. I hope I’ve conveyed some of that truth in The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon.

 

The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon is available wherever books are sold. Follow me on Instagram @lindamackillopwriter or Facebook at lindakerrmackillop. And let’s keep in touch via my newsletter!

 

 

 

The Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus

Photo by Brian Ho on Unsplash

Several years ago, I was deeply influenced by a biography I read with a friend about German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I am now a lifelong admirer of the man. When I heard about Laura Fabrycky’s new book, The Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus, I knew I needed to read it. And I chose to read and process it with the same friend who read the Bonhoeffer biography with me.

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For those unfamiliar with Bonhoeffer, he was a German pastor, theologian, and double agent involved in a plot to overthrow and attempt to assassinate Hitler. He would be arrested and hung in April, 1945 for his involvement. Despite growing up in a lively, loving, aristocratic home, he developed a heart for the poor and suffering, as well as a conviction that he couldn’t remain silent in the face of injustices toward his neighbors. “Civic and political housekeeping is what loving our neighbors looks like,” Fabrycky writes in her book.

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My own admiration for Dietrich Bonhoeffer grew when I learned how this man from a privileged background fell in love with Harlem and the Black church on his two trips to the US during World War II. Deeply moved by the perseverance he witnessed under great suffering, he wrestled with how he would bring the lessons he learned in New York back to those hurting in Germany during the war. I often think of him when we worship in Black churches in the Chicago area, resonating with his love and admiration for these people and institutions.

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As the wife of a foreign diplomat, Laura Fabrycky moved to Berlin in 2016 with her family. Her book offers fascinating glimpses into the life of a diplomat’s family and their adjustments to new places—and she takes us on her journey of discovering the Bonhoeffer Haus, Dietrich’s family home. Eventually, she would become a volunteer tour guide there and a student of Dietrich’s life.

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During that same time period, she watched the turbulence in her homeland with great concern as the news and social media showed escalating political divisions and vitriol. Researching Bonhoeffer’s life helped her process her own homeland’s incivility and choices while offering inspiration for living faithfully in turbulent times. Bonhoeffer’s life would inform her own.

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Her book is not partisan in its leanings, but she does guide readers to think deeply about our own civic engagement. While the author would be given physical keys to open the Bonhoeffer Haus for visitors, through the chapters in her book, she encourages us to each consider “keys” we have been given to places we care for and where we hold responsibility. I take her words to heart and highly recommend gathering a friend or two or three and reading this book together. Dietrich Bonhoeffer—and Laura Fabrycky—have important truths to share with us all.

 

We’ve Been Here Before

I’ve been quiet during this stay-at-home pandemic season, working out my thoughts, reading many articles and posts written by others. Connecting with people online has been a source of comfort and pleasure, hearing about their experiences, giving and receiving support and encouragement through words and prayer. Until now, I’ve been hesitant to add my own words to the mix. But last week I picked up Marilyn Robinson’s novel Gilead for a re-read and received her words like a wise voice from the past.

We feel we are living in an unprecedented time. Surely having the entire world stop has never happened before. Certainly, having even churches shut their doors is a first. Didn’t people run to church on D-Day and at the end of any war, after the stock market crash, or on 9-11?  Shutting church doors is a first in my lifetime. The very people who I long to be with during this uncertain season are only available online, causing my soul to ache with longing. And then Robinson’s words delivered a timely message about a historical season that mimics our own moment. Someone has been here before…and they survived.

If you are unfamiliar with Gilead (one of my favorite novels), the story is written in the form of a long letter from ailing pastor, John Ames, to his young son about Ames’ life and his descendants. Here’s the brief passage that encouraged me. I hope it encourages you, too.

“People don’t talk much about the Spanish Influenza, but that was a terrible thing, and it struck just at the time of the Great War, just when we were getting involved in it. It killed the soldiers by the thousands, healthy men in the prime of life, and then it spread into the rest of the population. It was like a war, it really was. One funeral after another, right here in Iowa. We lost so many of the young people. And we got off pretty lightly. People came to church wearing masks, if they came at all. They’d sit as far from each other as they could. There was talk that the Germans had caused it with some sort of secret weapon, and I think people wanted to believe that, because it saved them from reflecting on what other meaning it might have.”    ~Marilyn Robinson

Not only did the people in John Ames’ day have to deal with the Spanish Influenza, but at the same time they were going through the horrific period of World War I—The Great War. The words from Gilead offer a glimpse into our days ahead, church and otherwise, when stay-at-home orders are lifted and we venture out. Masks will be commonplace when we once again gather to eat in restaurants, shop, attend events, or worship. Here in Illinois, as of May 1st, the governor has ordered everyone to wear a mask in public. I’ve thrown together one mask out of a bandanna and ordered a few more online. This will be the norm.

But I’m encouraged that after the Spanish Influenza, people did once again come out of their houses, eventually take off their masks, and return to work and church—although likely they were changed forever.  I’m sure we will be changed forever as well.

When I was young, I had to put myself through college, working a full-time graveyard shift job to pay my tuition and rent while remaining a full-time student. Most days, I only slept four hours or so before I had to either get to a class or head to work at 11pm. (I worked for an answering service, manning a switchboard for calls to AAA, doctor’s offices, and other emergency businesses.)

But let me tell you, the hardship of that experience formed me. While my roommates were getting ready for bed in their comfortable rooms, laying their heads down on soft pillows knowing their parents would be paying their tuition bills, I had to head to work in the dark of night and save every penny to survive. In fact, whenever I use a paper towel today, I recall how this item still feels like a luxury to me. I never bought paper towels during those years because they seemed like a one-time-use extravagance—and I didn’t buy paper towels for many years following for the same reason. Each time I dry my hands today with a paper towel, I’m grateful I can afford to buy this simple product. Whenever I made coffee during those hard college years, I would re-use the filters to get extra use out of them. When I use an extra coffee filter, I feel the same gratitude.

Rather than harming me, those challenging financial times impressed on me the need to live within my means, stay out of debt except when necessary, carefully consider how I choose to spend, be grateful, question my consumer values, and be generous to others who are suffering hardships like I once suffered. Your lesson might look very different than mine, but may we all come out of this season with positive but individualized lessons as we endure the coming days and years.

 

Novel Beginnings

I’m getting to know some new folks these days. I’m feeling them out, watching them in their private moments, wondering why they do what they do. They’re a little hard to read and sometimes they act inconsistently. They change their clothes a lot and make awkward hand gestures over and over. Something unspoken lies beneath their surface, like wounds and anger, but I’m not sure of the cause yet. We’ll have to spend more time together, and I’ll need to see them in a variety of situations that make their behavior more understandable. Do they have temper tantrums, lie, forgive, pray? Do they love walks on the beach, staying indoors, or getting lost in the city?

In other words, I’ve been working on a new novel. But it’s still a rough first draft, and I don’t know these people well yet. It’s a little like meeting a new friend at a party. You like their initial appearance, that cool knee-length sweater and those earrings. Man, I love the earrings. And the way the woman laughs when someone’s made an obvious cut about her efforts to parent, responding with winsome words—even a gracious compliment about the insulter’s own parenting style. You decide you want to get to know her better, but she’s only a blur of a person so far. Her outline isn’t solid, her features undefined, her character traits fuzzy. In fact, when you leave the party and go home, you forget her appearance and decide to sketch in your own details. Then when you finally meet again, she’s nearly unrecognizable. That’s what she looks like? You had filled in the blanks when she wasn’t in your company and got it all wrong. So you spend some time together and ask a lot of questions. A lot of questions. And slowly, detail by detail, she becomes a real person, different than the image you created in your head.

I love throwing odd people in a room on the page to see what they do and say to each other. I’m often surprised by their demeanors and dialogue. I usually fall in love with them, flaws and all. But let me just say this getting-to-know-you stage is hard work. Because I want my characters to surprise me so that they’ll surprise a reader, I don’t arrive at my desk each day with a prescribed task. I give them freedom. Many writer friends think this is cuckoo and incomprehensible, but lots of writer friends, and Anne Lamott and Madeleine L’Engle, write the same way. “Serve the work,” Madeleine L’Engle wrote in Walking on Water. And so I’m learning to follow the lead of the story that appears in my head, while holding a lose framework in mind. I want to write about how children can torment us as parents and we still adore them. I want to write about how we must learn from history—ours and the world’s—or else we’ll repeat it over and over with grave consequences. I’m beginning with that framework and some other details, like a location, a narrator, a time period, a specific family and event.

But even with all those details and facts, the blank page, fuzzy characters, and loose plot are scary things to face each day. Where will this story go? Will it go anywhere? Am I wasting my time when I could be trying to save the world? When the worries descend, I can find a million little distractions to prevent me from working on the novel, like writing this blog post instead, running some errands, taking a nap, checking my texts. Anything to avoid this hard, hard feeing of making something out of nothing with all the unknowns. Give me 90,000 words in the form of a novel, no matter how rough, and I’ll find life-giving joy in moving things around on the page, cutting, pasting, rewriting what’s already there, diving down deep into the details and the sounds of their voices and the wind outside their windows. The rewriting and editing part is easy compared to creating something out of nothing. Only God finds that task easy.

And my initial drafts are quite ugly at first. I can reread yesterday’s work and think, “Who would want to publish this?” Thankfully, I’ve been down this road before and know that those early ponderings seldom look all ready to go out in public. They can have paper thin characters and awful dialogue. When I wrote one of my first creative nonfiction essays years ago, I threw all the ideas I wanted to explore down on the paper. Messy stuff, most of which barely made sense to me the writer—and much of which ended up deleted. But I focused on each paragraph, cutting, rewriting, deepening, until something started to sing. Eventually, the words surprised even me with their appearance and the story they had to tell. It won a couple of honors.

Novel writing isn’t the only endeavor filled with unknowns. Parenting certainly has its risks and challenges. We pour into our kids for years and years, but on some days, the outcome is completely uncertain. Will they ever make it through this rough season, give up that troubled boyfriend, bad habit, lack of motivation? Teachers have those days, as do engineers and designers and project managers, trying to work out a seemingly unsolvable problem but sticking with it until the answer appears in its wholeness and beauty.

Well, I’ve procrastinated enough today by writing this post. Off to work on that getting-to-know-you task. In the meantime, I wish you well as you work on whatever job lies before you. Keep digging and deepening until it sings.

 

Finding Purpose in Jail

Photo by Ye Jinghan on Unsplash

 

“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” Fyodor Dostoevski

My husband and I go to jail weekly. One night a week we enter a maximum-security facility, get searched and patted down, and led deep into the bowels of the place to be locked in a room with inmates. Once there, we huddle around tables and talk to them about how to parent kids from behind bars and again on the outside once they are free.  We discuss the generational struggles of families trying to build strong units when many have never seen a strong family unit. We talk about how to help their kids avoid the pitfalls that have plagued them.

These men have left so much behind. They’ve left behind the clothes that reflected their unique identities and culture, replaced with matching orange jumpsuits and maybe a worn long-underwear shirt underneath to keep them warm. They’ve left behind the physical touch of loved ones, the smell of fresh air, jobs, careers, relationships, and many substances that numbed their pain.

Most of the guys would admit to being at the lowest point in their lives since being incarcerated—and many would admit to finding value at this low point because they’ve embraced the opportunity to grow, change, and see the world through a different lens, often a spiritual lens. Many have never seen a successful marriage, a loyal relationship, a faithful walk with God, but in jail they’re meeting an assortment of teachers, volunteers, and staff who invest in them. So they choose to finish degrees they never completed outside, read books and think about topics they never investigated before.They are a breath of fresh air to us who live in a land where folks are either lavishly comfortable or numbing their sufferings through a myriad of options, silencing any pain that might otherwise call them to a more purposeful life.

Pinned to the bulletin board in my  home office, hovering over me like an impossible to-do list, sits a newspaper list of “Books You Must Read Before You Die.” Recently I squeezed in a moment to cross one book off the list when my son’s fiancé loaned me Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Written by a Viennese psychiatrist about his horrific experience in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, the book chronicles his time there. Despite losing his wife, parents, and brother in the Nazi camps, Dr. Frankl came away with a deeper understanding of our need to find meaning and purpose in all suffering. And suffer he did.

He writes of prisoners taking great risks to help or save someone else, giving purpose to their existence and igniting their spiritual lives by looking beyond their own comforts and safety. If he had to die, Frankl wanted some sense in his death by helping others. Quoting Nietzsche, he writes, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” On occasion, they rushed outside to bask in a sunset, rejoicing in the momentary beauty. They put on skits for each other out of the sight of guards, sang songs, trying to escape from the oppressive darkness. They took the time to express gratitude for the smallest of mercies, like being deloused. Survival tactics in the most heinous of situations.

For the brief time we huddle together with our inmates, they often find humor to distract from the hardships. We share our stories—and our failures—hoping to impart hope to them. Some try to be sacrificial to others during their stay.  They hope to be different people when they walk out those locked doors, presenting a new self to family members waiting for them – if family members are waiting. They hope for reconciliation where relationships have shattered.

I see Frankl’s words offering significance to the inmates’ experiences. But aside from the inmates, I believe Frankl offers a message for us all. If he could find meaning and purpose in Auschwitz, with a little intentionality, we can certainly find meaning and purpose in the United States of America with our wealth of resources and comforts. Haunted by an epidemic of anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction, injustice, and more, Frankl encourages us to search for purpose.

In the prison camps, Frankl noted those prisoners most likely to survive knew a task waited for them to fulfill. Our inmates need to know valuable work awaits on both sides of the bars. One day most will be released, and helping them catch a vision for a new way to live and think about their world will go a long way to offering them success.

Ever since reading the book, I’ve mulled over the message, thinking about our jail class but also thinking about the message in terms of parenting a generation of kids in our world today. Do you know young people lost and drifting, making bad decisions? Point them to the possibility of finding hope and meaning in the most challenging of situations by living beyond themselves and their wants. Steer them on the path of finding the purpose in life.

The message applies to us all. If prisoners in a death camp can find meaning and purpose when people are being starved, murdered, dehumanized, and torn from family members, we can all find hope after a broken relationship, a job loss, a disorienting move, unemployment, etc. when we choose to live for a larger purpose.

Frankl shows us one man’s visit to hell offers the rest of us the opportunity to experience a taste of heaven on earth if we put these truths into practice.

Off to the next book on my long reading list….

A New Madeleine L’Engle Biography

Many years ago during my season as a young mother, I felt a deep longing for older women mentors. If those mentors were writers, all the better. Unfortunately, I didn’t know other wordsmiths at the time and felt isolated by my longing for people who could speak to me about art, faith, and the importance of family.

Fortunately, I one day stumbled upon Madeleine L’Engle’s Crosswicks journals, written from her great farmhouse “of charming confusion” in Connecticut. As the Newbery Award winner of A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle was just the person I needed. When I read those books all those years ago with four small sons tumbling around my feet and my eyes curiously gazing at the world outside my small home, I felt as if I had just sat down in an overstuffed chair across from the renowned writer in her Crosswicks living room and began to soak in her years of wise living and engaged intellect. She spoke back to me through those pages, assuring me I wasn’t alone as I felt this deep inward desire to both raise a family with devotion and care—and write.

Here I am in 2018, reminded once again of this woman’s influence on so many people, and the arts in general, as I soak up Madeleine’s life through a new biography written by Sarah Arthur: A Light so Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle. In fact, after reading the biography, I recently returned to those journals and found myself once again contentedly entrenched in Madeleine’s inspiring life of the mind and soul, flipping through the pages to see many of my old highlighted passages continuing to speak to me today.

In our age when stark lines divide our country by labeling people “right” or “left,” conservative or liberal, religious or atheist, Sarah Arthur’s biography is a welcome read for anyone weary of the divisions. Through interviews with family and friends as well as writers and thinkers influenced by L’Engle, the book paints a picture of a complicated but fascinating woman and  brilliant author who managed to straddle both the sacred and secular in her writing and personal life.

In a time when the church is divided among itself, and most certainly divided from the secular world, L’Engle’s most quotable statement loudly resounds: “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by loudly telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.” In a way so few can manage it today, L’Engle embraced paradox.

The book offers a multifaceted glimpse of L’Engle’s life: her friendships, her passion for science, writing successes and struggles, and her efforts at juggling the demands of a career and family. One of my favorite Madeleine stories, recounted in both A Circle of Quiet and A Light so Lovely, deals with the painful rejection of one of her novels received on her fortieth birthday. After receiving the news of the rejection, Madeleine made an abrupt decision to quit writing, certain the rejection was a sign from heaven she should stop. “I covered the typewriter in a great gesture of renunciation.”

But her quitting only lasted briefly—until she realized she was forming a novel in her head about failure. “In my journal I recorded this moment of decision, for that’s what it was. I had to write. I had no choice in the matter. It was not up to me to say I would stop, because I could not.” She went on to say, “It’s easy to say you’re a writer when things are going well. When the decision is made in the abyss, then it is quite clear that it is not one’s own decision at all.”

Madeleine’s books would go on to sell in the tens of millions and continue to sell today. For anyone who has felt like quitting their passion, L’Engle’s experience serves as an encouragement. We must continue to create even when the accolades and successes are absent.

In the pages of A Light so Lovely, Arthur also highlights the rare and poignant friendship between poet Luci Shaw and Madeleine. The friendship between these two women displays the ability to befriend others outside your circle of commonality. As an evangelical Christian, Luci Shaw found herself disagreeing with Madeleine, a liturgical Christian, on occasions. Sometimes after one of these disagreements during an editing session when they finally reached an understanding, the two women would spontaneously stand and sing the doxology.

We all need like-minded friends in both mind and spirit—and we all need friends to show us the world through different eyes.

In a timely, pointed question to us all, Sarah Arthur asks, “What would it look like to have friendships with those who are not like us, wherein we learn to argue well and lovingly—and yet at the end of the day we can still be friends? This is a lost art in our culture, particularly as we create ever narrower, taller, insular silos on social media, cut off from opposing viewpoints.”

A Light so Lovely speaks to us in our unique time period and to all those in our population worn down by the darkness encroaching on us, longing for the perfect friend, wrestling with how to gracefully navigate the sacred/secular divide.The book will resonate with writers, readers, and anyone interested in a discussion about L’Engle’s rich life. The book is now available for purchase here.