T.S Eliot once wrote that "Midnight shakes the memory." I've loved that line. I wish that I came up with it because it is intensely accurate for me. The other side of daylight is when my mind starts working and starts trembling and starts talking. And here is something I've been kicking around these past couple nights. It seems like such a silly confession, such a silly problem. But for a distracted mind like myself, it's no paper tiger.
I tend to feel guilty about reading fiction. Funny, isn't it? Stay with me now. I've felt guilty about it for some time. Fictions feels lie a mistress kept in the dark by my fidelity to Scripture. Why would I feel that way? I think it's because Truth and fiction wear the same clothes. They're dressed up in leather and paper and they wear black and red ink on their faces. And so, when I spend too much time drowning in Vonnegut, I'm soon smothered with guilt for neglecting my delight in my mind's immersion in the Word. So, I've kept my distance from fiction and imagination for fear of whoring after a greater love than God. I'm very much a monomaniac. When I devote myself, it's to one thing and to one thing only. And my mind becomes a breathing, bleeding hell of shame for being "lured" away by a good paperback.
That's why I'm so glad that Francis Schaeffer wrote "Art and the Bible". It's been so liberating to see that God's sovereignty is not threatened by artistic expression and, in fact, He uses it and created it. The God who incarnated His Word to save my soul isn't scared that Hemingway or Bradbury will posses my heart. They may capture my interest but interest is only the surface. It's the paint job on the hull. What's beneath, what's impenetrable, is a captured heart, bought by Christ's blood.
Speaking briefly of "artistic breakthroughs", I'd like to say this. I have no patience for epiphanies. In the same way that progress for the kingdom is stalled by people waiting to hear God's will for there lives, how much creativity remains dull while writers and artists wait for the lighting to strike? All you need is the mellow motivation of coffee or a song or a beating heart. No one expects gold in every prospector's pan. If that were the reality, it wouldn't nearly be as exciting to hunt for it.
Your PB from J for today: "You just shook your head! That doesn't make you happy?"
Sunday, July 20, 2008
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