Gleanings from Amazing Grace

This is probably obvious from the trailer, but with all the talk about modern-day slavery we've been having and the connection this film has to the Amazing Change campaign, I thought I should at least clarify something: this film is not about the modern movement. It is, in the purest sense, a historical bio-pic.

That said, here are some of the manifold encouragements you will receive when watching the film this weekend:

1. You will see that faith does not require a retreat from the world to be effective and substantive.
2. You will see that a person can have influence in the exact sphere in which he or she has been gifted. (What sphere has He given you?)
3. You will see the strength that's gained from community when a group, however small, unswervingly commits to something bigger than itself.
4. You will see that unity in one point is sometimes more important than unity in every point, as demonstrated by Wilberforce and his band of co-belligerents.

And finally, you will see humor. You will see friendship. You will see fervency and passion and love and pain and heartbreak and victory. When you get back from the theatre, stop by and share your thoughts!

Find a Stranger, Pick Them Up?

While driving to pick up dinner from the best sushi place on the planet last night, I saw a middle-aged black woman standing at the bus stop right across the street from the restaurant. She was wearing a long, heavy coat, and she had a small roller suitcase propped beside her. I wondered if I should ask if she needed a ride somewhere but decided to wait until after I picked up the food, since it was almost time for the restaurant to close.

When I stepped outside my car, I heard music coming from across the street. The music was kind of off-key and a cross between praise songs and 80s hits. It was the woman; she was singing to keep herself warm. I stared at her for a moment, totally taken in by the freedom she was apprehending by doing this, and then stepped inside the restaurant.

When I came out, she was still there, and still singing with gusto. I smiled and made my way to the car, wondering again if I should offer to give her a ride wherever she needed to go. I thought again of her heavy coat and the cold air and wondered if a warm cup of coffee wouldn't do her some good as well. I turned the car onto the street, made my way up to the stop sign so I could turn around, and felt incredibly jittery. I'd never done something like this before! I wasn't sure I had the guts to pull it off.

Then I looked ahead and saw, making its way down the street, a big purple bus. I wondered if it was coming to pick her up. I waited at the stop sign to see if it would stop and let her in. It did, and she did. And there went my opportunity to help a stranger in need.

I'm wondering if any one of you has ever chanced into a moment like this -- an opportunity to help someone or simply offer kindness to a face you don't know. Did God show up in the moment? Did He overcome your fear of rejection, ridicule, or being taken advantage of? Did you know it was a moment you had to take? Did you ultimately decide not to take it?

I'm asking this for two reasons. One, I'm surprised by how taken I was by this woman and wanted to somehow connect with her. Was it a moment provided by God? Did I fail by not ensuring I found her before the bus did? And two, as I've shared in comments on two blogs now, Laura's and Al's, I've stumbled upon an idea to do even more of these things with complete strangers and am entirely scared of doing it. Laura and Al have been asking people to think of something they could do with $100 to expand the kingdom of God in their own sphere, and my idea is to buy coffee for 20 different people and offer to share a conversation with them. How do I muster the courage to do it?

What Writing Means to Me (Part 6)

(Continued from Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.)

Prefatory Note: In the last couple posts of this series, I have been telling things that happened 7-8 years ago, when I was a junior in college, recently married, and discovering my desire to write and edit books. I was also starting to get my life flipped upside-down spiritually. (And in every other way, I should say. Can anything not be termed spiritual?) In this installment here, you'll find that we've taken a significant leap forward in time. I am telling about things that happened about a year and a half ago, when I was recently divorced and had been turning my interests to the more intellectual life of the written word. Where this story picks up, I have no longer been asking questions about my dreams for a writing life. Those were dreams that, I guess you could say, had gone safely underground.

About a year and a half ago, I attended a C.S. Lewis conference in Oxford and Cambridge, England. (You can learn more about that conference here.) Before I went to the conference, I had been planning for my life to be about academics -- first with a PhD stint in literature, then on to a teaching post at university, and then on to writing articles that would extend the literary conversation in those academic circles forever and ever, amen.

But I had, a few months prior to the conference, been denied a graduate studies spot at Baylor University. This had rocked my world at its core and left me aimless, confused, and even despairing. I had just come out of a divorce and was living on my own for the first time in my life. I was loving it, as I was getting to make my own decisions about how to spend money, spend time, and spend life. I was getting to decide what my life was going to be about, and I had decided that it would be about academia -- something I had always done well.

In pursuing this goal in the preceding months, I had turned my interest in the novel on its head and decided to pursue programs that would let me think and write about how our theologies of creation affect our theories of creativity about the novel. With a proper determination to do things "right," I proceeded to conduct all the appropriate online research for schools, write all the appropriate e-mails to faculty, and even take a few of the appropriate out-of-state jaunts to visit programs I liked. After all that work, I was positive Baylor was the place for me. I was, I thought, finally on my way to the life God had always wanted for me.

Until I got denied entrance.

Like I said, this completely unglued me. I started questioning all the things you're bound to question in these sorts of situations. Things like "Did I misread God? Do I really know how to hear His voice? Will I ever be able to trust myself to make a big decision again? Does He even care about me anyway? How could He let me get so lost?"

When I had the opportunity about five months later to attend this study conference in England, then -- a conference that was academic at its core and filled with opportunities to hear from PhD after PhD after PhD -- I was ecstatic and intensely hopeful that something meaningful would come from it. I was still caught up in my hopes for an academic life of teaching and writing journal articles. And I was especially excited to learn that the keynote speaker was none other than one of the key figures from Baylor who had drawn me to study there in the first place. I looked forward to connecting with him again and learning from his lecture.

Once I got there, however, God had other plans in mind. The plenary sessions with the PhDs began, and my heart dried up to a crisp. The academic life became dead to me, right then and there, as I sat in my cushioned seat at St. Aldates. What real impact could it have, I wondered, when there are people walking up and down the street outside these doors who just need a real conversation? Who needs the theoretical jargon when it comes to connecting with very real people living very real lives?

It all started to crumble around me, right there on that very first morning, and after that first lecture I sat in my chair and began to cry. At this point, Kirk was good enough to lead me out of the building and down the road to the nearest coffeeshop in order to disassemble what was going on inside of me. Basically, I sat there crying and staring at my dried-up heart on the table until I was finally able to ask the question, Could God really pick my life apart yet again? (And the obvious answer is, of course He could.)

As the conference went on, I realized I was absolutely willing to let Him pick my life apart again, but who even knew what that meant? I thought about C.S. Lewis -- the man around whom this conference had been inspired -- and marveled at his ability to write for the common man. Here was this brilliant man who studied at Oxford and taught at Cambridge but published books that almost anyone can pick up and read and get even today. His books change real lives. They are so accessible, even though they're so smart. There has to be a way to reach more people the way he did, I thought, and I want to be someone who does.

And just like that, my life changed. Gone were my illusions of a life in academia. Gone were my intentions to dissect the classics until I could do nothing but eat, breathe, and sleep them. Gone were my desires to get caught up in conversations only 1 percent of the world was likely to join. I wanted to find the source of bubbling life and offer it to everyone else!

Kirk was a Godsend at that conference (for more reasons than one), particularly by the way he helped me step into my new skin through this whole process. On my own, I wasn't really able to see what all this was supposed to mean. But a couple days into the conference, when we were walking behind Christ Church toward an outdoor French cafe for lunch and talking about how our individual experiences of this conference were blowing the roof off the measly ideas we'd had for our lives beforehand, he asked me to share what a day in my ideal life would look like. Though my idea of this ideal life has changed a little bit since then, at the time I said that I would spend my mornings reading books by great thinkers and jotting down thoughts and impressions about what they said in a journal and then spend my afternoons writing creatively, either in essay or story form.

"Hm. Interesting," he said. "And where would you find time to teach in this plan?"

Um, I guess I wouldn't. That's when I realized I had been trying to fit myself into the life of a college professor without having any real heart to actually do it.

The next week, when we stepped off the coach in Cambridge to begin the second week of the conference, I finally embraced my identity as a writer, and here's what I mean when I say that. Up to that point, whenever I thought of becoming a writer, it always felt like something I was putting on, like something I was trying to be, like a persona. But in the exact moment of stepping down from the coach onto the pavement, surrounded by the old, old buildings of the colleges and the fantastic shapes, sizes, and personalities of its old, old trees, I just knew: I am a writer.

It's not something to be proud or arrogant about. It's not something that makes my life more privileged. It's something that just . . . is.

Later that week, Kirk gave me an antique brooch that's a curio of (we've both decided) Jane Austen. It's diamond-shaped and silver, with the oval-shaped curio in ivory with a black background right in the center. I pinned it to the side breast pocket of my aquamarine-colored corduroy jacket, where it remains to this day. Every time I wear that jacket, which I have since named my "writer's jacket," I am reminded of that transformative moment stepping off the coach in Cambridge and Kirk's good heart toward me in God's surprising plans for my life.

More Thoughts on Mother Teresa

Did you know Mother Teresa didn’t even want to become a nun? When she was 12 years old, she wanted to become a missionary to the poor. However, when she learned that she could only become a missionary if she first became a nun, she changed her mind. “I didn’t want to be a nun,” she recalled years later in an interview with an Italian journalist (later recorded in Teresa of the Poor by Renzo Allegri). So she put her missionary dreams on hold.

Six years later, when she was 18 and the time for choosing a vocation had become imminent, she found her desire to serve the poor remained unchanged. If becoming a missionary required that she first become a nun, then so be it, she decided. This time, she took her holy orders.

After her novitiate period, Teresa’s superiors sent her to teach in a prestigious high school for wealthy girls in India. This was not the life she had in mind when she committed her life to the convent, as it was a far cry from serving the poor and disenfranchised of the world, but she kept at it for eighteen years. Eighteen years! And during that time, out of obedience, she worked at it with all her heart. She did not look to the right or left. She committed herself firmly to her students and her colleagues and was quickly beloved and admired by all. Eventually, they named her principal of the school.

Then one night in August 1946, she was in the train station on her way to a weeklong private retreat in Darjeeling and found herself surrounded by the homeless, the fatherless, and the poorest of the poor. It was the night she later referred to as “the night of her conversion”—the moment her eyes were fully opened to the misery of her brothers and sisters in the world, and the moment she saw Christ in each and every one of them.

In that moment, Teresa knew that Christ was calling her into a brand new kind of life. She had no idea what it would entail, and it ended up costing her a great deal. “No Catholic religious congregation had set forth the ideals that Mother Teresa intended to carry out,” Renzo Allegri wrote in his book. “The new plan she had for her life was unheard-of, highly unusual, and totally unfamiliar within traditional church organizations.” But she decided to fulfill it anyway. After all, she had pledged her life to Christ, and as His bride she needed to carry out the plans she distinctly believed He was calling her to do.

What I find so enrapturing about this part of Mother Teresa’s story is her undivided obedience for those eighteen years before she received permission to pursue the truest desires of her heart. Even though the girls she taught in the high school regularly visited the poor communities right outside their cloistered walls, Teresa never accompanied them or spoke with them about it. She had committed herself to what God and her superiors asked of her in that present moment, and she did it unwaveringly until He or they spoke otherwise. How many of us would do the same?

A Wrecking Ball of Life

The latest issue of Relevant Magazine hit the streets two weeks ago, and I devoured every page of mine over the course of about seven days. Nestled in the middle, under an article by someone I'd never heard of before, was something that has caused an interesting turn of events in my life.

The article was called "Jesus Wrecked My Life." The author was a guy named Shane Claiborne. Ever heard of him?

He lives in Philly. He grew up in Tennessee. He walked the mainstream evangelical life for most of his youth but, disenchanted and disillusioned by it in college when he started hanging with the homeless in the downtown streets of Philadelphia, he went to visit Mother Theresa in Calcutta for a few months. There, he served the poorest of the poor, the dying, and the lepers, and even befriended many of them and learned what it meant to see Jesus incarnate on the earth. Then he came back to complete a one-year internship at Willow Creek in Illinois. (Big culture shock.)

The culture shock propelled him back back to Philadelphia, where he and small troupe of believers started something they called The Simple Way. This is centralized around a house (of the same name) where they live in community and exist to serve the poor and the homeless. They dish out food and dispense clothes. They plant gardens in concrete jungles and rehabilitate abandoned houses. They play with children and pray with prostitutes. And this is their daily reality, birthed from a passion to live the gospel Jesus brought to the world, not just theorize or talk about it anymore.

I was disarmed by Shane's sparse, deceptively simple message. And I wanted to go back to part of the source of it: Mother Theresa. That same day I read his article, I checked out three biographies on Mother Theresa from the library and settled into reviewing them in bed. From last Thursday to this past Sunday, I have pretty much lived and breathed Mother Theresa. She has been pretty much all I have talked about. (Ask Kirk. He now knows more about her life than he ever knew before, too, since I've been sharing whole passages about her life from one of the biographies, and we even rented and watched a movie about her on Sunday.)

Now I'm reading Shane Claiborne's book, The Irresistible Revolution. All of this is pretty much wrecking my life, too. I'll share more as my thoughts have time to surface and make sense. In the meantime, you should check out his book. Be prepared to start thinking about life in a whole new way.

What Writing Means to Me (Part 5)

(Continued from Part 4.)

Okay, I lied.

I told you that we would continue this series with a discussion of the writer-poser, but I’ve tried writing that part of the story at least five times and have decided I just can’t do it.

It’s not that I can’t confess what it was like to be me in that place—that part of the story is definitely going to “go public” real soon—but instead that I can’t plunge into a description of the writer-poser self without detouring into the spiritual upheaval God began working in me at about that same time in our story.

Along about my junior year in college, right after I had gotten married and right before I discovered the path to creative writing and editing, God flipped my life upside-down. Really.

I should stop here and say that this is not the sort of thing that’s good for a brand-new marriage. But when God begins flipping your life upside-down and you’re 100 percent sure that it’s Him doing it, it would be kind of pointless and self-defeating—in the truest sense of the word—to ignore Him, brand-new marriage or not.

So, I listened. And here’s what He did: He had me read a book.

An adjunct professor I had during my sophomore year of college knew a guy who wrote a book. The guy was Clifford Williams, and the book was Singleness of Heart. This was a book about the spiritual journey, my professor said, that pulled from lots of great, classical works of literature in its explanation of the spiritual life and the human heart. Since my instructor knew the author, he had tons of copies of the book, and he was willing to give a copy to anyone who wanted it—free—so long as we promised to read it.

Free book? Spiritual journey? Great literature? Where do I sign up?

Well.

When I finally picked the book up, a few months after I got it, I had no idea I was holding in my hands a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode. And of all the things I learned from that book, here are two of the most mind-blowing realizations it created for me at the time.

First, I came to admit that I had no real understanding of grace, didn’t really believe I needed it, and, since we’re being completely honest here, didn’t see what the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, had to do with me. Ouch. Who admits these things, really?

Second, I came to see that I had been living with doubleness of heart my entire life. (Remember the title of the book? Singleness of Heart. The goal of the book was to get you to see your own doubleness so you could, with God’s help, find the path that leads to singleness instead.) Despite what I knew about the traditional stream of doubleness—namely, the path of the hypocrite who lives an out-and-out existence of perversion without shame—this book defined a subtler side that shined a mirror back at my own face.

You could be double-minded, Williams said, and not know it. You could be double-minded, in fact, and still love God with what you thought was your whole heart. And you could do this in one or two ways: through the unwitting mechanism of ambivalence, which means living with an authentic proclivity and aversion to someone or something at one and the same time, or through the equally unwitting mechanism of illusion, which means thinking you want or act on behalf of something you don’t actually want or act on behalf of.

These are incredibly simplified ways of describing what are quite delicate and complex ways of being—and without any of the author’s helpful, more thorough explanations—but the truth basically boils down to this: You could be living a life of doubleness, via ambivalence or illusion, and be completely ignorant of this fact. And that was exactly me.

Thus, the sturdy boat of my life began to leak and, eventually, break. Thank the Lord God above.

What Writing Means to Me (Part 4)

(Continued from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

So how did I get from teaching to writing? Well, first I had to go through my writer-poser stage. Here's how it all went down.

Along about my junior year in college, I grew increasingly aware that teaching kids was definitely not my thing, but I had no idea what was. Until one day I happened upon a number of print ads and billboards and books that had typos in them. I began to wonder what someone with an eye for these details could do.

That's when I hit upon book editing.

It all came clear so suddenly. I mean, wasn't I the girl you could find with a book in her hand in practically every place commonly known to man? At the dinner table, in the high-back chair in the living room, in the back seat of the car, at large family gatherings and holidays, in restaurants, and even in department stores, as I waited for my mom to try on clothes. My family would joke about it, but I didn't care. In my opinion, books were the best invention in the world, and learning to read the best gift ever given me.

Besides reading books, writing in my journal and writing essays for school were my favorite ways to pass time. That, and solving algebra problems. Oh, and maybe playing piano.

With this new direction, I took off running. I dropped the elementary education emphasis and began loading up on as many English classes as I could fit into my schedule. Which means, first, that I enrolled in a short-story creative writing class and made quick to let the professor know my plans. I appointed myself the learned and savvy editor of the class -- something I did without asking permission or even letting my peers know -- and committed more crimes against my classmates with my arrogance than I now want to remember.

I wrote some horrible stories.

In my heart and mind, I was headed toward New York or Boston as quickly as I could manage. I read Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner at least three times. I read Book Business: Past, Present, and Future by Jason Epstein. I read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird at least five times (and counting). And I discovered Emerson College, with their M.A. in Publishing and Writing. I visited and fell in love with it, and with Boston, wwhich is still, by far, my favorite metropolitan city in the States.

Along the way, I tried to write.

What began to emerge -- and become the bane of my existence for at least six years -- was nothing short of schizophrenia. I could not determine what I was: a writer or an editor? I had so much to say, had been clogged creatively my entire life, and wanted to let things out. But I didn't know how, no matter how hard I tried.

What happened next, in the midst of this manic schizophrenia, was the pained and crude development of my writer-poser self. We'll talk more about her in the next installment.

How Do You Do, Mr. Modern-Day O'Connor?

About six years ago, when I had just graduated from college and was working my first full-time job as an editor at Insight for Living, I used to take the MetroLink train from Corona to Anaheim and back every day. It was the best investment I could have made in my life at that time. For about $120 a month, which was pretty much what I would have spent in gas, less the oil changes and the stress, I could get to and from work in 20 minutes and read while doing it. In other words, instead of slogging through 2 hours worth of traffic on the 91 freeway every day -- which is, in my opinion, well nigh close to hell on earth -- I sat instead by a window on that fast-moving and quiet-keeping train, in turn watching those sad-seated drivers on the freeway right beside us and broadening my budding literary life.

That's where I first read Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life." It's also where I discovered Bret Lott.

Bret Lott wrote, most famously, a book called "Jewel" that was selected for Oprah's Book Club back in 1999. I didn't read the book because it was selected for the book club. In fact, I stayed away from it for a good, long while because of that. As a rule, I don't trust media hype or books touted by supersized figures. Oprah's stamp of approval, then, was a stamp I did not trust. That is just my way.

But eventually my curiosity got the better of me. This is because I'd heard Lott is an evangelical Christian writing in the mainstream market. For those of you unfamiliar with this terminology or why it even matters, here are two things you should know:

1) Most "Christian writers" (though I hate that confining and off-putting term) publish with Christian publishers, sell their books in Christian bookstores, and never enter the mainstream conversation the rest of the world is carrying.

2) Fiction written by these people is thought to be sub-par in quality because most Christian writers -- and their publishers -- tend to think these books should carry a strong evangelistic message more than anything else. This means that it should have overtly Christian characters, speak well only of Christian values, and include characters who obviously need to find Jesus. It also means that everything will be neatly tied up with a bow by the end, the non-Christian vagrants converted and everyone living happily ever after. As if that's how life really happens, once you're inside the church.

Needless to say, I think this criminal. It infuriates me. If you want to get me going on a subject, this is one you could pick because I think we fail both God and others when we do this. Yes, that's right, God and others -- the same two categories of people we are to love with a true heart more than anything else. But the sad thing is, I think these Christian writers really believe they are loving God and others by doing this -- that because they're writing novels that show "redemption" in the end, where people find the Lord and come into the Christian fold, they are preaching the Good News and helping others see the need for it. The only problem is, they're not reaching the world with this message (remember how I said they only publish for a Christian audience?) and they don't show people or events or even, dare I say, the heart of God in truest form when they do this.

I could write a whole book on this subject.

This is where Bret Lott comes in. You can see now why I'd find it curious that he'd 1) be an evangelistic Christian publishing in the non-Christian market and 2) Oprah would pick him for her must-read list. This is curious because publishing in the non-Christian market means actual Christians probably never heard of him. It's also curious because getting an Oprah endorsement means a million non-Christians now were reading his books. (Just to prove my point, try this little bit of trivia on for size: The day Oprah called to tell Bret Lott she wanted to add "Jewel" to her book club list, the book was ranked 1,069,713 on the sales list on Amazon.com. By that evening, it had catapulted to number 1 on the list.)

All this to say that I finally read Bret Lott on the Amtrack train during my commute 6 years ago and have been entranced by him ever since. I loved that book, and I still do not know why. It's about a woman living in the South who gives birth at an older age to a little girl with Down syndrome. At that point in time, I wasn't one to read Southern fiction, nor had I ever been drawn to books about motherhood or children with disabilities. But there was something about the way he wrote that captivated me from the start.

The same is true with the latest book I am reading of his, called "A Song I Knew by Heart." Again, this is not a book I would normally choose to read. It's a modern-day retelling of the story of Ruth and Naomi -- two women joined by marriage who have lost their husbands and return to the hometown of the mother in the folds of grief. I've read the book of Ruth in the Bible handfuls of time, so I didn't particularly need to read it again. Nor do I usually enjoy stories that retell classic ones. I usually think the original is better to read, so why not just point the way to that one?

But this was different. Almost immediately, I was captivated by the language, by the details, by the emotional undercurrent of grief and pain and confusion and anger and hope for some new beginning. If you want to be really moved by something -- and find your own self inside the story of another person -- read pages 26-31 of the paperback version, where Naomi recounts her baptism experience from when she was a child. That's just one example of the power of his words that I'm talking about here.

When I read this book -- and so far I am only on chapter 5 -- I am entranced by Mr. Lott's ability, as a man, to not only enter into the skin of a woman who has lost her husband and her son, but also his ability to speak openly about faith without "putting it on." Faith isn't trying to be worked into these books; it just is in them already. The best way I can explain it is to say go and read it yourself.

I know this is a really long post already, but I have three last things to say:

1) I think Bret Lott is our modern-day Flannery O'Connor. She was overtly Catholic but published books in the mainstream. She had lots to say about what art should or shouldn't be, and especially art coming from people of the faith. (Just read her book of essays "Mystery and Manners" or her collection of letters "Habit of Being" to learn more about this and get what I'm talking about.) She is generally respected as an authority on this subject by parties on both sides of the fence. I think someday everyone will look to Bret Lott as an example of how to do it best, just like they do for Flannery O'Connor now.

2) Have you ever heard of those books called "The Best Short Stories" or "The Best Travel Writing" or "The Best Mystery Writing" of whatever year we're currently in? They have a whole slew of different ones, including one on best Christian fiction. I don't usually read those books, and I particularly take great care to avoid the Christian version (for reasons I mentioned above), but Bret Lott was the editor of the latest version of the Christian one, called "The Best Christian Short Stories of 2006," and I aim to check it out soon. I have hope that he's found some noteworthy and substantial Christian writers our there that will be worth watching as they grow in their careers.

3) In even more recent Lott news, he just received the Christy award from CBA, which the bookseller's association for the whole Christian market. He was pretty shocked to get this award, since he doesn't publish for Christian markets, and so was I. Turns out a lot of other people were shocked and offended by his very direct speech at the meeting when he received his award, while other people, including myself, cheered. Read what he said about the point of fiction -- and fiction from the standpoint of faith -- here.

I Get Paid to Do This?!

As I've shared in previous posts, much of my first month at Strang was spent working a big health book coming out in January. We've been working feverishly on the main book, the workbook, the leader's guide, and the DVD series in order to get them to the printer and then stocked in our warehouse soon. That has been a great experience -- though a baptism by fire, for sure, because it's such a huge project that has so many working parts, all of which affect every other working part.

The past few days, however, have seen their fair share of the other two imprints I came here to edit: Realms, which is our fiction line, and FrontLine, which is our social and political line.

First, fiction. Debbie asked me to review a manuscript submission to determine if it's worth pursuing for a proposal. That meant delving in our previously published Realms books to discern if this recent submission fits what we're already about. Fun, fun, fun, because I got to spend an afternoon researching and reading fiction -- two things I love very much -- plus developing more of my "fiction editor" wings, which has been a long-time professional goal of mine.

Then she asked me to review a book by an author who's already been offered a contract because the author wants to have a creative meeting next week. So, I spent four hours yesterday afternoon reading the synopses and the first few sample chapters the author sent us (about 80 pages in all), making notes and asking questions as I went along. I loved it. I went home feeling so entirely energized. It's probably the best work I've done and have enjoyed the most since I've been here. That's saying a lot, since I already enjoy everything else I do.

This morning I wrote up a formal letter for Debbie and the administrative team about the ways I've worked with fiction -- either writing or critiquing -- in the past so that they have a better grasp of the extent of my skill and potential for working with Realms. I want to help Realms grow, and I'd love any leadership responsibility they want to assign me in this area.

And then there's FrontLine. We're bringing out a revised and updated version of one of our best-selling FrontLine books in January. Today, the editor on the project (my boss, who is above Debbie) sent me the edited version of the revised material. I'm working as the copyeditor on this project.

It was sobering material, indeed. Just fact-checking some of the material taught me more about Islam, Iran, Lebanon, the greater Middle East, and all the political parties and leaders involved in the past 50 years than I ever knew before. Part of me is glad to finally be on the path toward becoming a more informed citizen and believer. The other part of me wishes I never read the testimonials included in the book, nor all the encyclopedic information I gathered on the Internet today.

Needless to say, I feel my territory broadening here at Strang, and it feels incredibly good. I love what I'm learning, I love what I'm doing, and I love the feeling of participation and expertise that I have when working with my team on these projects.

Now it's time to go home and enjoy the weekend. I've been having so much fun on these projects this week, though, part of me wishes I could just keep working through the weekend. Weird, huh?

What Do My Days Look Like?

Lots of people have been asking me this question, so here's a scan down a regular day in a regular week in my life.

730 AM: Alarm goes off. Grr.

830 AM: Leave for work. Listen to good tunes on the way or spend time in prayer or talk to Kirk on the phone if he's on his way to school, too.

900 AM: Arrive at work. Check e-mail. Get up to speed on the Publishers Weekly and Faith in Fiction websites.

(Notice that by this time it is still only 6 AM in California and most of you are still in bed. You people need to get up and get going already!)

930 AM: Sometimes a meeting with Debbie about our current big work project, for which she is the book editor and I am the workbook and leader's guide editor. Sometimes a joint meeting with our author's liaison to tinker with the deadlines for our projects. Or sometimes a production meeting with our whole department to make sure we're on track with the huge production schedule we have going for all our million projects in the company's four imprint groups.

1030 AM: Back to my desk. Working, working, working. Right now, that means rewriting the workbook, getting changes approved, updating the document with my changes, applying our style guides and style sheets to the documents to "clean them up," and then applying the changes to the corresponding chapter in the leader's guide. This also means making sure I answer all the questions from the workbook in the leader's guide version.

100 PM: Lunchtime! Usually I eat a PBJ sandwich and peach while reading a book or playing Sudoku in our author's conference room. Or I eat my desk while I check email and get caught up on people's blogs. Or I go for a "liquid lunch" with girls from the department, which means that we get sodas while wandering around Target or The Body Shop or some other such retail establishment.

200 PM: Back to work. At this point, Debbie and I usually have a conversation about the latest hilarities (read: hiccups) in our projects. I let her know how I'm progressing on the workbook and leader's guide, and usually I take this opportunity to ask questions about our policies and procedures so I can become a greater master of my job and this industry. She's the perfect person to be learning under. For instance, just last week I heard her talking with a new and prospective author on the phone, and I was able to learn how to feel out a writer's book plans and ask questions that will help determine the "sale-ability" of those ideas for our company.

400 PM: Usually, being a bit burnt out on the workbook and leader's guide project for the day, I'll work on some periphery projects. This usually involves research for new book ideas and new authors on the internet or scouring the interior of books by our existing authors for "derivative" ideas, which means finding ways to make new products out of existing books -- kind of like the way that book Boundaries has been adapted for marriage, teens, dating, etc. Sometimes I'll deal with queries we've received from readers, which also sometimes requires internet research or finding the information they need from the book they're asking about.

530 PM: Start to close things up for the day. Organize my desk. Read the latest issue of Christian Retailing to keep in the loop on current happenings in our side of the publishing industry.

600 PM: Set my phone to "Do Not Disturb: Gone Home for the Day" and walk out the door. Give Kirk a call to see what's happening for dinner and makes plans for our evening.

630 PM: Sit on the couch with Kirk to share about our days and pet our kitties, who are prowling around our feet and jumping on our laps because they're glad we're finally home.

700 PM: Dinnertime. Usually we steam chicken and vegetables or steam edamame or make sandwiches. Sometimes we order pizza. Other times we decide to go out for Thai food or sushi or something yummy like that.

800 PM: Settle in for the night. Usually catch up on the news with Kirk while reading on the couch. Sometimes we'll watch a movie. Sometimes we'll read together. Sometimes we'll take a walk. Other times we'll just talk about stuff on the couch, like how things are going financially or with our goals for our careers or education or ministry. Or we'll talk about what we've been thinking about and learning from work and school and books and church. Every couple of days or so I'll have a good conversation on the phone with Kate or Hannah or my mom.

There.

I hope that satisfies those of you who are wondering what the heck Kirk and I do all day long while we're way out here in Florida on the other side of the whole dang country. Pretty much the same stuff we did before we were together, only now we do it together. It's pure bliss, and I love it. I never knew life could be this easy and fun and . . . well, happy.

First Week Finished

Wow, I can't believe how much I love what I am doing. Never before have I felt more fully utilized in a position, where a perfect intersection exists between my right and left brain.

The Left-Brain Me
When I was younger, I used to walk by banks and administrative offices, look in the windows and see all the office supplies and computers and paperwork on the desks, and think that I wanted to work in that kind of environment when I grew up. The environment here at Strang is just like that, and my job here in the Imprint Group is just like that, too: administrative in a fun way. There's lots of typing and inserting of changes and checking of documents for consistency, clarity, and correctness, and I love that part of my job!

But I'm a Right-Brain, Too
Then again, I also have a strong mind with great capacity for new ideas and how they should be structured and expressed. I wouldn't be satisfied with a job that was only data-entry or typing other people's words all day long. Thankfully, the even bigger part of my job involves working directly with manuscripts and making them even better.

Just today, for instance, I took the first chapter of a workbook that will accompany an important health book we're publishing in January, and I whipped that chapter into shape. The book it accompanies is dynamic and fun and inspiring, and I had to do a bit of work to make the feel of the workbook match the feel of the main book. I must say I'm pleased with the end result. (And Debbie was, too, which boosted my confidence in what I am bringing to this team.)

But Don't Forget: Relationships Are Priority One
When I was half-way through my term at Biola last year, limping along from the difficult writing class I had created for 100 honors freshmen, a very special girl in my life revealed the unique stamp God put on me.

"Christianne," she said, "don't compare yourself to all the other people you work with and the strengths they bring to the department that you don't." (She was speaking to their unified possession of PhD diplomas, compared to my measly BA.)

"From where I stand," she continued, "they're all the same, like black-and-white. But what you bring is color. You have a heart for people and their hearts that they need desperately to receive. So let your color shine!"

I'll never forget those words Hannah spoke. They're what helped me realize that God gave me a great heart and open mind and listening ears for the needs of others. It's a unique thing to be able to provide God's compassion and mercy and grace to people who need to feel His loving embrace, especially in places where a stellar performance is emphasized and in a world where nobody listens.

In the end, it's most important that I bring the love and authenticity of Christ to those I work with here -- both inside and outside the office, with coworkers and with authors. I want them to see His grace and mercy shining through my words, actions, and presence whenever they come around me, and I have great hope He's already begun planting those seeds.

First Day News

So, the big news today is that my boss -- the one I was so stoked about working under -- is retiring in two weeks. He let the team know last week, and Debbie let me know it was her job to let me know when we were on our way to lunch.

I'M SO BUMMED.

I really like my boss. Bert's a cool guy. He's about 5 feet tall, has a quirky personality, likes to rib people, but also gives them props when they deserve it. He's been in publishing for 32 years and has published 17 books of his own. He's huge in the Catholic church, too. I was looking forward to the conversations we might have shared, given the interest in the Episcopal (ie., more liturgical and sacramental) tradition Kirk and I have begun to have.

Oh, well.

Other than that, I'm going to love my job. The people are super nice and very talented, and everyone seems to really enjoy working for the company. I can already tell that the work they're going to put me on will challenge and invigorate me.

A New Era Begins

Tomorrow's my first day at my new job, and I must say that I'm quite ready and excited to get started. I didn't think I would be on the job track when I came to Florida, but it turns out to be a good thing for me for a few reasons:

1) I went from not writing at all to trying to be a full-time writer in one shot, and the long slate of open days has been a bit too daunting to be productive -- though some essay work and a new novel have come out of it, as well as more regularity on this blog.

2) I want an outlet for meeting new people and making new friends, and working by myself on novels and essays in my own home or at Panera is just not a realistic way to accomplish that. Besides, those kids working at Panera, even though they're used to seeing me around all the time, are just a bit too young for my taste. :)

3) I've come to see how much I enjoy being a part of something bigger than myself -- some kind of project or mission for which my skills and talents and abilities and personality can help make a difference. I like being part of a team that's working toward a common goal.

4) And besides, I just like working with the written word and other people.

So, tomorrow begins New Era #2. (The first was getting married and moving to Florida, obviously.)

Kirk's life is back on the fast track, too, with school and prospective coaching clients coming up, so now we'll both be focused and on point in our respective areas of life. The past few months have been a gift, though, with all the unending time together. It helped establish us as an "us" in our new life. Now we're ready to "go and do" with that foundation laid.

You can keep us in your prayers about the future.

Some of you know we have been thinking and praying toward a life of ministry in Oxford for over a year now, and it's become increasingly clear that that's where we're headed in the next 2-3 years -- at least, unless God drastically intervenes to direct us otherwise, but it seems quite clear all this has come from Him. We're beginning to take some material steps in that direction, and we would covet your prayers for continued clarity on the means and methods and timing for this.

Just so you know what we're thinking of doing, we may start with a 9-month program on missions and apologetics with Alister McGrath and Ravi Zacharias at the Oxford Study Centre. Since it's based at Wycliffe Hall, we'd have the two-fold privilege of being an active part of the college while in regular fellowship and community with Christians from all around the world. We'd also delve into practical missions work on a regular basis with those in the program and learn first-hand about the climate of faith in the United Kingdom.

After that is done, I feel very strongly that God is leading me to start a Ministry of Mercy for people in the city, residents and students, who are broken and need the healing touch of comfort from the Holy Spirit as He seeks to revive and reclaim their hearts. Kirk is also praying toward a ministry of availability and encouragement, so I guess you could say that both of us are being called toward loving people where they are, plain and simple.

Besides praying for us, please also keep in your prayers those whom we would touch through our life of ministry there. This is something I've just begun to do as well.

And that new step, of course, would be the start of New Era #3 in our life! Dear Lord, hear our prayer and guide us in Your sacred way all of our days in You.

In the Bag

Well, I got the job.

You are now reading the blog of the newest associate editor of the Imprint Book Group at Strang Communications. You may start your congratulations adulations now.

Check out my new boss. He's super-cool and about 5 feet tall. I'm really looking forward to learning all I can from him and adding all I can of my quality dynamite zest to his team.

Speaking of Bert's team, it consists of 3 people: him, me, and Debbie. Debbie is the editor, I'm the associate, and Bert is the editorial director. Together, we'll put out titles in three imprint groups all year. The imprints are:

• Siloam, offering titles in alternative health from a Christian perspective;
• FrontLine, which discharges political and social justice views; and
• Realms, their new fiction imprint with a supernatural flair.

Debbie does most of the work with Siloam; I think it is her "baby." They're interested in what I can add to Realms, and this excites me even though I don't read much of the kind of fiction they produce. I wanted to work in fiction when I started out toward the book business, and now it seems I'll finally get that chance.

(As a sidenote, I think they want me to help with Realms because I mentioned I write my own stuff. Sure, I have a few novels in the works, but I warned them my problem is I never finish anything. I just started a brand new story last week, for instance.)

Even though Strang publishes books and magazines that are geared toward an audience different than myself, I'm looking forward to what I can learn from this job. I'll not only get to groom my editorial skills far beyond where they've currently grown, but I'll also be working with a team I already like and feel great affection toward. Plus, working on stuff that challenges my own way of thinking and believing has a twofold benefit: it can teach me something new and it can offer an opportunity for me to challenge others in their places right back.

So, here's "cheers" from me. I'm going to have a glass of wine in honor of myself tonight. I'm sure convincing Kirk to join me will not possibly be that hard. :)

God's Comic Genius

Some of you know, and some of you don't, that I've been looking for a job.

I sent almost 15 resumes into the void in the past month and waited over 3 weeks for a nibble. All told, I got 3 interviews: one from the first job I applied for, one for the last job I applied for, and one for a freelance job I applied for the same day as the first.

The freelance talk went well on Thursday. They need a proofreader for a Bible research book, the second in a series, and also someone to write a study companion guide to the first one they published last year. I enjoyed talking with the author, a successful businessman by trade, who is writing these books as a lay theologian because he believes God asked him to do it and to give all the proceeds away. Wow. I felt inspired when I left that meeting -- inspired enough to reduce my fee for the job when I sent them my bid.

The Friday interview was flawless and spirited and fun. I hadn't expected to interview with more than one person, but I ended up interviewing with three -- all at the same time. I liked all of them immensely and immediately, and I especially loved the work I was being considered to do: copyeditor for an imprint group at a book publishing house. It's just along the lines of what I was aiming to do when I left college, but didn't see much chance for finding without going straight to New York!

Mind you, copyeditor positions are the "lower end" of the editorial food chain, and I have tons more experience in higher-level editing. However, the group is growing, the chance for promotion is high, and the doors of opportunity are open. They were very accommodating, in fact, when I expressed concern that I might want to offer more input on the books than copyeditors usually provide. Great!

Besides liking them a lot, they spoke openly of their very keen interest in me. This was aided in great measure, it seems, before I even arrived by my performance on the 10-page editor's test I took and sent in before the interview -- a test I had great fun completing, though it was rigorous, and which they said was one of the best tests they've ever graded since they'd been grading them. They also seemed to get a kick out of the self-deprecating humor I exhibited about my professional foibles, as well as greatly respecting the personal strengths and accomplishments I could bring to the job.

The Monday interview, in contrast, went less well. I wasn't keen on what the job turned out to be -- copyediting (in the truest sense of the word, meaning little to no editorial heft with the authors) techical manuals about film and music production. The samples I saw were replete with illustrations of amplifiers, wires, and machinery. Blech.

Plus, the whole interview carried a negative tone. Most of the questions were directed toward professional failures, conflicts, and weaknesses, with a few positives thrown in here and there, and the department itself is young and underdeveloped. The turnover rate is high; even the supervisor has only been on hand for a mere 3 months. And the workspace is too open and interactive for my liking. I left that meeting with great relief that it was over and in hopes that they would not call me back.

But this left me in a vulnerable spot. The only full-time option on my hands -- and the one I wanted very much -- was the one from Friday. And even though they liked me, and were open about my being the strongest candidate, what if they didn't call me back?

Well, they did. They liked me so much, they even gave me a promotion before I started the job! (Instead of copyeditor, they offered me associate editor.) This is great timing, in my opinion, given a comment I just made to Kirk yesterday, which was, "If I get this job, I wonder how long it will take me to get promoted." Because I have a knack for expediting the promotion process wherever I go, and I always have promotional hopes in mind.

God is so funny. I especially think he's funny because of the way he took care of what I was "losing" from not wanting the full-time job with the other company: higher pay and a closer commute. It cracks me up that God made accommodations for me in these things anyway. Not close to my house or paying quite as high? Here, Christianne, take a promotion and pay raise before you even get started! Ha ha ha. That's freaking hilarious.

So now we're in salary negotiations for the new position, and I should have a job in hand by tomorrow evening. Here's hoping, anyway. I hate these money talks, and just hope I don't blow it in some way along the way!

What Writing Means to Me (Part 3)

Journalism lasted less than a semester. Less than a week. Okay, if you want to get really technical about it, it didn’t even make it through the front door of my new college life.

That’s because the School of Journalism closed, suddenly and irrevocably, two weeks prior to my arrival. In favor of Theatre Arts. In a letter that hailed the new program on two sides of a memo but denounced the old one in fine print on the back. Did I want to join the new program instead, they wondered?

Of course I didn’t want to join the new program instead. I was, after all, a news writer with my integrity to uphold. (Who knows to whom my indignation here was directed. I had, ahem, just one semester of high school journalism behind me and a couple of years on the yearbook staff. Promising news life ahead, indeed.)

But one thing was certain. There was definitely no room in the very important plans I had in view for my life for traipsing around wooden stages in purple and green nylon stockings and big fluffy hats with feathers spouting out the top!

So I blundered my way into education instead and proceeded to spend the next two and a half of what I now deem wasted years doing . . . well, something. I must have been doing something those two and a half years I spent in that major, I’m sure, but all I remember now are a few of the kids I taught, a lesson plan I made about illustrating scenes from Goosey Goes to Market, and the many frustrating days I endured trying to explain abstract math concepts with the likes of hardened kidney beans, paste, and popsicle sticks.

I just wasn’t -- and never have been -- good at teaching young kids whose frames stop short of five feet tall.

And let’s face it. I just wasn’t -- and never have been -- interested in teaching young kids at all. I never knew how to talk to other kids my age when I was one of them, never hit upon the knack my sister innately had for baby-sitting and playing mommy to all the little kids down the block, and didn't really enjoy the company of wee ones. Why did I somehow think all that had changed when I got to college?

I don’t know. So goes the first set of “wasted years” in my life.

As a disclaimer for those quick-to-be-alarmed-at-anything-sounding-unorthodox types out there, let me be quick to point out that I know nothing is wasted in the hands of God. Those years weren't really wasted; it just feels like they were. He used that time in the classroom, I’m sure, to help those kids and myself. At the very least, he used it to show me at least one thing I am not and perhaps shine some rays of sunshine and love into the lives of those otherwise needy and lonely inner city kids with fathers in jail, uncles on bail, and brothers in hardened and streetwise gangs. And he used the next stage of my life -- the “writer poser” stage, into which we step next in our story -- to wrap me in the skin of a real aspiring writer, finally.

I thank God every day for the mercy He extended to me in leading me out of some darker -- and, albeit, somewhat embarrassing -- phases and into His marvelous light: the wide open fields of true and unimagined and unparalleled identity in which I now walk today.

Stay tuned for the next bit of news in this story of grace, coming your way later this week.

What Writing Means to Me (Part 2)

When I was in elementary school, it seemed like everyone knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. One time, in a conversation with friends, all the girls in my group said they wanted to be doctors or lawyers or teachers or moms. I remember being amazed they all had an answer, whereas I had never even considered the question.

I couldn't imagine the girls actually wanted to be the things they said they did. They hated school and all things school-related, so how could they want to do 10 more years of law or medical school beyond regular college, if they even went to college?

Whereas I, on the other hand, was the smart and capable and studious one in the group. I knew I could do school for a long, long time, and I knew I could make a career at something big and important in life, like law or medicine. Except I had zero interest in the sciences or being something like a big-shot scary lawyer. Hm.

So I started telling people I wanted to be the first woman president of the United States.

This is funny to me now, considering 1) I had no concept of politics, 2) if I did, I wouldn't have been interested, and 3) what could a 5th-grader possibly know about what it takes to run a country?

But, hey, why not shoot for the top, right?

I actually took this route because I didn't know writing could be a profession. Books were my life, and writing was my love -- just ask my family to tell you the stories, or maybe I'll tell you some later -- but it never crossed my mind that these could be a real part of my life in any real way beyond reading and my journal.

But then I discovered journalism just before I went to college, and I decided I was going to be the next Katie Couric. I was going to be an international correspondent, and I was going to be good. Chase all the "hard news" and stuff. All this, despite my never sitting down to read the newspaper on my own.

I think it had more to do with the smart-looking business suits and cute shoes than anything else, to be honest. But at least I was on the writing trail, and God wasn't done with me yet.

Stay tuned to hear what happened next . . .

What Writing Means to Me (Part 1)

I've been reading some stuff by Donald Miller again. I read his third book for the first time, Searching for God Knows What, which made me re-ponder a lot of things that are already important to me, like how to read the Bible as an unfolding narrative about real people and a real God, and about how propositional theology doesn't move or change people the way myth and story do.

Reading that book motivated me to re-read his second book, the one that made him famous, the one called Blue Like Jazz. And it's the first paragraph of Blue Like Jazz that I could re-read again and again and never grow tired of it because of its absolute beauty. I've only read the book twice, but I've read this first paragraph at least six times or more by itself. Here's what it says, and I hope you read it slowly and let it move you:

"I once listened to an Indian on television say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze. I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face."

The first thing I want to say about what writing means to me is that it means talking face to face with God on a blank page and saying the things that are true of Him in the best, most worthy way I know how. Writing, to me, means worship. It means telling the truth.