LA TIMES, June 1, 2008: of Kennedy and Keats and Salmon Rusdie

“When hope lived” is the title of a book review of three books about Robert F. Kennedy by David L. Ulin.

The review ends this way: “Hours after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed Kennedy spoke in an inner-city Indianapolis neighborhood. . . . . He told the largely black audience they were right to be enraged. Then he talked about compassion: ‘Let us dedicate ourselves,’ he said, ‘to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.’ Unlike other major cities, Indianapolis did not explode. Was Kennedy responsible? Who can say? But it suggests something fundamental that, even in a moment of extreme crisis, he chose to speak to our hopes and not our fears.”

Commentary: “To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” What a daunting challenge. I find it so easy to express anger (righteous of course) and to find fault; to write or speak words that will make people “shape up.”

Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt. 11:29). Perhaps to “make gentle” my words would be to make them more like Jesus. What a wonderful challenge to think that one’s words could calm a city; ours might not do that, but if we calm a hurting heart; if we challenge someone to express peace and not anger in our teaching or writing, we will have helped to make gentle the life of our world.

From a book review by Nicholas Delbanco, quoting Stanly Plumly’s biography of Keats

“He feared he had failed, his body brought down by disease, his poems belittled by Tory critics. But he also knew something: Trust the writing.”

Commentary: Trust the writing. For good or ill, what we write survives and shows who we are in ways we can’t imagine. Which is one reason, I suppose why it matters so much who we are ultimately writing for.

I’ve been working on a piece for quite awhile, working title: Beware the Seinfeld Syndrome: the challenge of reverence in an irreverent culture. It’s one of the most difficult things I’m working on because I don’t want to sound like an old shrew in it. But I’m writing it because I believe we serve a holy God and some of the flippant approaches to church communications I see today seems to be directed to the same audience that idolized Jerry Seinfeld rather than a divine one. I’m not quite certain the two audiences coexist kindly.

Quotes from three reviews: the first about the recent book by Salmon Rushie, the second a book on literary criticism by Adam Thirwell, the third on a novella by Gary Amdahl. The reviewers name follows each quote:

“No style should be a substitute for a story.”Amy Wilentz

“The finest literary criticism, the stuff that lasts, prompts thought-provoking questions, hitherto unimagined points of view and context. It should never (we were always taught, ahem) overshadow its subject in histrionics, iconoclastic or otherwise . . . . . style, like real life cannot be too precious, controlled or confining. ‘Real life is stylized,’ he says, ‘but it is messy as well. It is an accurate portrait of minute feelings.’” Susan Salter Reynolds

“Walter works for a media conglomerate that publishes a ‘series of books, light written, heavily produced.’” Ellen Slezak

Commentary: Today we can inexpensively and easily “heavily produce” anything; we can pile it on with images, flash, graphics and colors. But with all that is possible, we need to be constantly watchful that our style, no matter what tools technology makes available, never obscure the Christian story. Whether it is the story of the life of our Lord or our own, it is often messy.

A messy life, mine is certainly that often—which may be one of the reasons why I become almost physically nauseous at the pictures of smiling happy families gracing the covers of mass-produced church bulletins and industry churned-out web templates.

Where do they find those people? Nobody at my church looks like that and I live in Southern California. Many folks I know go to church because their lives are messy and Jesus gives hope; not to join a country club of picture-perfect people who smile all the time. To me that is to exchange style for story and in so doing, often make the story false.

Which brings me back to the challenge to make life, to make our writing, our church communications gentle—not perfect, stylish or flashy—gentle.