Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 1 Corinthians 4:8-10 ESV
I will let the father from the story Christmas at Shadowlands’ Edge explain his take on why he does what he does and then I will explain mine. Without giving away too much of the story, the verse at the outset of this blog and the recounting of the time David feigned insanity when he fled to King Achish of Gath in Philistia form the backdrop for this short citation:
“Then the Lord brought that story about David back to my mind and he mixed it with these verses and an idea popped into my mind. If David could feign madness and still have God’s blessing and Paul could be content to be considered a fool by the Jews and their Roman conquerors and even his fellow believers, why couldn’t I do the same thing amongst these Muslims and Chinese? I prayed about it and prayed about it, but I finally talked myself out of it. The problem was that then I had no peace. I would argue with God saying I must be crazy to think I could feign being crazy and then I would think ‘what is faith about?’ if it is not doing something out of the ordinary if one thought that was what God really wanted you to do. But He was real patient with me and over time it occurred to me that when I would entertain the idea of being crazy for His sake, I would feel closer to Him and when I rejected it, He felt further away. Finally, I decided I’d rather be close to Him and be thought crazy than be estranged from Him and thought sane.”
Pamela laughed at this juxtaposition of sanity and insanity.
That is why I write nonsense. Not because I think I am author material because I don’t. Not because I think anybody really wants to read what I write because I don’t. Not because I like dystopian fiction because I don’t. I will not even read someone else’ dystopian fiction.
There is a Matlock episode where a small town spinstress allegedly writes a steamy, thinly disguised novel about her neighbors When asked by Ben Matlock if it ever occurred her that people would get upset, she replied, “it never occurred to me that it would ever get published.”
So no, I don’t write nonsense because I expect to be published.
I write nonsense because in the writing of it, it makes me think about The Father, The Son and especially the Holy Spirit in ways I would not otherwise think about them. My writing is informed to a certain degree by the writings of the Early Church Fathers and from historical works like Foxe’s book of Martyr’s and Sweet Believing (a book about the persecutions of the Scottish Covenanters).
When Voice of the Martyrs had their traveling Wall of Martyrs at the National Religious Broadcasters one year, I spent more than a few passing moments looking at the names on that monument. Blandina, Mathias, Polycarp and many others were names known to me, their stories were known to me, and they lived again in stories I wrote back then. And for some reason reading about them and bringing them to life in the stories I wrote and the one I am rewriting now bring me closer to God. And I can no more explain why that is than Russell can explain why his own feigned insanity does.
Speaking or writing nonsense…
I finished writing the framework for Christmas at Shadowlands’ Edge recently. To explain that that means let me illustrate it this way.
You are making a coloring book for your children to color pictures in. This may be to keep them quiet at church or for home school for example. You put the pages in a three-ring binder. You put the pictures in you want. Later you may want to add more–possibly in a certain order.
That is how my framework works. I have a Prologue picture, 21 chapter pictures and an Epilogue picture. In my case all of the pictures have been colored in some. Some are nearly fully colored in and the remaining ones are in various stages of completion. The story starts where I wanted it to, ends where and how I wanted it to and gets between those two points the way I wanted it to. But what I see in my mind hasn’t found its way to some of the pictures yet so that others can see it. Where somebody looking at my coloring book page would just see black lines with white space in the middle I may see red or green. That is where I am now in the process.
For example, last night (as I am working on the first draft of this post) I woke up in the middle of the night with one of my characters demanding to know from another character why she sent her on a wild goose chase. That part of the picture wasn’t colored in. Actually, I didn’t even know until the character complained about it in my mind that there was even an issue–that there was a space that needed to be colored in. So, I had to wait until the other character told me why the goose chase was necessary so I could color that space in which I have done–mostly.
Character interactions in my mind are nonsense for a different blog.
So, to wrap up this one…
Why do I write nonsense?
“... He was real patient with me and over time it occurred to me that when I would entertain the idea of being crazy for His sake, I would feel closer to Him and when I rejected it, He felt further away. Finally, I decided I’d rather be close to Him and be thought crazy than be estranged from Him and thought sane.”