New Determination - Messy Genuineness

"Testimony books, as you know, are complete stories, usually tidied up and made as coherent as possible for the benefit of the reader. They have their place, but they do not meet the need of ordinary struggling Christians to understand that they can be part of the glory of God's work in this world despite the fact that their faith and their feeling are untidy and inconsistent and will probably remain like that until the grave." -Adrian Plass

For a while now, I have wanted to write, be a writer, express myself through the written word, etc. However, nothing I've written, aside from class assignments, can really be classified as a certain kind of genre. A couple of years ago, I began writing a book about my first experience "in love". I've yet to finish it because it's not conclusive. I've yet to pinpoint the resolution of the whole dastardly, heart-breaking experience. It's not "tidy" in the telling and it's too humiliating to put the thorough truth down on paper. The intended honesty reeks of pious bitterness rather than vulnerability. I admit, I was waiting for my feelings to settle on the whole matter to be able to wrap up the whole affair in a tidy little package as a life lesson of use to others.

The same is true of other things I have attempted to write. I begin, but then get bogged down in trying to conform my writings to a form others would find familiar. This never rings true of myself, but like so many other areas of my life, I didn't know I had the choice or option to differ from the norm.

Then, I picked up Adrian Plass's book "Jesus: Safe, Tender, Extreme" and read the quote above which broke away the imaginary shackles to which I clung.

Adrian Plass has been a favorite since I read the line "take your sword and battle through the thicket of the things I have become" in his poem Creed from the album City of Gold.

Today, I have a new determination to be more fearless in my writing, to be genuine no matter how messy. Like Mr. Plass, I have "no interest in writing one of those unremittingly positive treatises that fails to deal with life as it is actually lived."