You Can't Go Home Again?

When was it that you realized your early inspirations no longer held sway over you, when that childhood book just didn't hit you the same way anymore? What changed?

For me, this moment occurred when I looked back over some of my early stories and found that they were the work of  different writer than the one I had become in the years between writing them and  re-discovering them. My early work tended to be inspired more by the allegories of C.S. Lewis, and I was was working in a Christian bookstore at the time trying to get a job as an editor for a Southern Baptist Convention, I  wrote what I knew. And what I knew was the stories within the Christian subculture of Frank Peretti and Randy Alcorn, so that's what I wrote, only with a sci-fi slant.

However, a few years later (even while working for the SBC) I found I had become a different kind of writer. I no longer felt compelled to write to the choir (so to speak) or to write for any evangelistic or allegorical motive. I simply wanted to tell stories.

Because I am who I am and was who I was, certain values will and would come through those tales, but gone were the days of writing with an foreordained agenda.

I still love to read C.S. Lewis -- don't get me wrong -- but I'm not looking to write that kind of story anymore, nor do I believe that's my calling.

Preach It, Sister Flannery

"The writer can choose what he writes about, but he cannot choose what he is able to make live." 

~ Flannery O'Connor

Part of my "Sean shelf"

A Facebook friend sent this as a comment on a recent discussion (http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-writer-will-take-your-questions-now_16.html) and I have to admit that the truth of this quote really hit me. It's completely beside the point that I'm a huge fan of Flannery O'Connor however. No, really, it has no bearing on it. (Okay, methinks I doth protest too much.)

Anyway, it hit me again as a strong reminder that as writers, we have no control over what actually sticks with readers and what falls by the wayside. Will it be our Holy the Firm or our Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, our As I Lay Dying or our "Rose for Emily"? Will it be the work that makes us look like the best of all saints or the one that makes us look like the worst of all possible sinners?

We simply can't make that decision for our readers. They make it for us. 

As I look back on my own work,is there anything I'm not proud of in the sense that I regret what it says about me? No. Not even the Dominatrix book for Gene Simmons. I'd do it all over again. That book speaks truth. It does. It tells of the emptiness of a person who is driven like the preacher of Ecclesiastes to pursue a path that ultimately ends in vanity and nothing. It doesn't hold back, but it speaks truth.

My pulp work? Nope. Nothing there either. Those tales are filled with sacrificial action and folks risking their lives for others, trying to do the better thing, even when such a course of action is unclear.

So regardless of what sticks, if any of my work even does, I stand ready.

As such, it's important to me that I write what I believe I'm called to write. That I follow the dictates of Scripture to the best of my understanding and the teaching of the spirit of God. That I listen to the still small voice prompting me toward this and away from that. That I remain a true example of being not just who I am in Christ, but who I am period, not putting on airs or writing for a pre-fab submarket so I can be a best-seller by preaching to the choir and not ruffling pharisaic feathers, neither hiding my light under a bushel nor trying to sneak in "spiritual stuff" to fool "the lost" into reading it and suddenly saying the magic prayer.

In short, I have keep walking that straight, narrow line that gets hard to see sometimes and be a fallen man saved by grace through faith telling stories that I hope come from the kind of heart that says something that causes people to pick up some truth to ponder as they read. And if they can get even a little bit of truth from me and my stories, then hopefully, they'll keep reading and find out that old saying about the truth is actually, well, true... the Truth will set you free.

Is it possible for an artist to do something so detestable that his or her work should be banned?

Wow. That's a tough one, primarily because as people we find it difficult to separate the creator from the work itself. In a perfect world, the work would be able to stand on its own merits and the creator's life wouldn't be taken into account when analyzing whether the work itself held value. I believe even a detestable person has the capacity to create something good (after all, in my belief system, we are created in the image of a creator, so creating comes naturally to us all in some way). 

For example, had Charles Manson written a great play, would it be "moral" to perform it because of the awful, horrible person he was? 

Personally, as long as the play itself wasn't detestable, I wouldn't hold it against a theater company who chose to perform it. But I'm sure the families of Manson's victims might feel differently -- and with good reason. 

In my own life, I know that Richard Wagner's symphonic works are often associated with Hitler and Wagner's own anti-Semitic views, but it doesn't make me appreciate the simple beauty of the melodies any less. 

I tend to discourage wholesale banning on any official level anyway, and I prefer to leave it up to individual people and companies to make those decisions based on their beliefs, values, and clientele. For example, a family-run, community theater might find performing a Manson-penned play a distasteful endeavor and refuse to produce it, but another theater troupe might enjoy sharing the work in spite of the Manson connection. It becomes, at least to me, a matter for the individual and individuals of the company to decide for their circle of influence, not for the governmental powers that be to decide for the rest of us. 

True censorship makes me feel very, very uncomfortable, because it involves making decisions about what's best for the whole of society, and I'm not content to let others make that decision for me -- or for me to make that decision for others, except for perhaps minors in my own house.  

(Thanks to James Wynn for this question.)

Drawing the Moral Line as a Writer

Is it moral for a writer to /choose/ to write just any kind of story?

I would say no. And that's a great question.

For example, because I don't believe (based on my Christian worldview) that life is essentially meaningless and purely about survival, I couldn't and wouldn't write a traditional nihilistic slasher film. Would I write one about redemption and self-sacrifice and the search for meaning in death? Absolutely.

But I see those as theme issues, which is where I draw the line. Morality issues are a grayer area because my characters must have different morals than me and each other in order to fully realize them as "people" in the illusion of the story. If they are all moral people who use the same guideline, then the story has no "truth" to it. It's just a setting for preaching to a choir (pick your choir, religious or political or socio-cultural, propaganda is propaganda).

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Post Facebook discussion addendum (warning -- theological content, proceed at your own risk):

I don't believe that morality is objective. I belive that we in the Christian community have confused morality and (what we call) holiness for way too long. Morality is culturally based, whereas the biblical principal of holiness is an objective one (in our belief). And we tend to care less about that objective one (with its dictates to feed the poor, take care of the widow and orphan, have no other gods before me, extend grace, love others like God loves them, be one in spirit etc.). 

That's one of the core reasons we Christians get into such a cultural/philosophical argument with the world, because we criss-cross our terms so much and try to argue an objective concept using words that reflect connotatively to the average listener a sliding scale.

I know its a semantics question for some, but in a world of deconstructionism, it's an important one, I think. To the rest of the world, morality IS relative, and that undercuts any argument of what's intrinsically right in any given situation. Therefore we must use words that speak to the issue.

For my part, I can only respond to the question by exposing what I mean when I say morality, i.e., is it moral for ME to write just any kind of story?

Emphatically no. 

When the theme of such a story opposes my values as I understand them, no.

When the content in such a story may however require understanding and grace from the reader to understand and not immediately judge my moral standing before Christ because of said content's presence in the story, that's a different matter.

Which brings me back to the morality/holiness semantics issue. I'll trample morality underfoot in my writing all day because it is inconsistent depending on the time period in which is standardized. Preachers can use "suck" or "crap" in the pulpit today in some places without a shocked face in the pew (or nice comfy chairs). Forty years ago, they would have lost their jobs. Why? Because the morals around what is profanity change. Besides, biblically, everything I've found about language involves speaking truth and not using oaths. And while we are biblically instructed not to engage willy nilly in sex, writing about sex is clearly not a sin or else it wouldn't be in scripture. Not even writing designed to titilate (i.e., Song of Songs, which would have hit readers in its context a lot stronger than it hits us today).

As long as I can write what I write while my soul remains clean before God (to couch it in Christian terms), I feel that is between me and God. As Mike Yaconelli once said, (paraphrased because I can't remember in which book I found it):

I stopped worrying about my behavior when I realized that it wasn't offending the least of these out of the kingdom and causing them to question the truth of faith (which is the meaning of that verse). It was only causing those within the kingdom to question whether or not I had it, and I could live with that.

If writing something causes me to stop loving God with all my heart, soul, and mind or loving my neighbor as myself, then I will not write it because to do so would be wrong based on God's standards of holiness. To practice some of the things I write about would be wrong based on that standard. To write about others practicing them, not so much.

That's the long-winded answer. How's that?

Christian Comics?

What advice would you give to other Christians who are considering making comics?

-- Justin Martin  (from an upcoming interview with R-Squared Comicz)

I get this question a lot, actually, and I used to get it even more when I used to work for one of the major worldwide Christian denominations at one of its missionary agencies.

My response today is the same as it has always been.

If you are a Christian who is considering making comics, then be a Christian making comics. Don't make Christian comics. The world doesn't need more Christian comics. But it does needs more Christians making comics.

It's the same thing I'll say to musicians, artists, and actors. The world doesn't need another Christian band, or Christian paintings, or Christian movies. It needs more Christians being salt and light in the real world who are musicians, painters, and actors.

Just like it doesn't need Christian plumbing or Christian network installations or Christian stationary sets.

For all authentic believers in my chosen faith, it's impossible to hide what you really are through any art your create. (Ask Billy Tucci, for example. His new book "A Child Is Born" is a global big deal, thanks in no small part to his amazing Shi work) Trust that your nature will come through your work. Don't force it in order to fit into a certain market.

So I say: address topics about faith and forgiveness and grace as a writer and tell redemptive stories, but don't hide your stories and art in a Christian bushel (to flip the phrase over) in a subculture where only other believers will see it. Be Christian in all that means (not just the political involvements) in the world. Feed the poor. Help the helpless. Forgive others. Extend grace. Live an exemplary life. Be like Jesus. But for heaven's sake, please don't create any more so-called Christian stuff. We've already got stockpiles of it, both good and the lackluster and the blatant attempts at cashing in on Christians' dollars, filling up our subcultural landfills.

To put it in a more "spiritual" way, don't ever assume your art is your ministy. YOU are your ministry. What you say, what you do, how you live, how you treat people. You art is your art. It is not a means to a religious propaganda end. It's an outgrowth of who you are as the child of a Father who is also a Creator.

A caveat, if I may... If you are creating a comic book format to make a more effective teaching tool (i.e,. as in -- don't get me started on -- Chick Publications) , go for it and make the best tool you can, but don't call it art. You're creating a tool for a particular purpose, like a hammer or screwdriver. Art is more expansive than that. Art opens itself up to interpretation and takes chances that open it up to be misunderstood as often as understood. Just ask Jesus how many times he had to re-explain his parables.