Friends, Books, and Enjoying the Simple Life
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My Dear Lovelians,
I have this friend who I like to describe as quietly alive. She may not be everyone’s friend the moment she steps in the room, but she will take you out for cookies and ice cream at 10pm because you are new to the area and she wants to get to know you. When you offer to “hang out sometime,” she says “great, when are you available this week?” I love it! While she is incredibly polite, she understands the importance of not putting off friends because “sometime” means “never” if you do not stop in the moment and actually set a time. This is the same friend I took to an antique fair and met Doug in my letter "Finding Lovely----Now Not Later". She also involves the other people in her life if need be. If she wants to have a baking day and has an aunt who likes to bake, then she will invite me to her aunt’s house. She has shown me how uncomplicated life can be. She has also taught me how to say “yes” and try new things. Our last outing took us to a nail salon, which I had never been to before, and then the mall where I helped her piece together a set of Lego figures for her brother’s birthday. I enjoyed myself immensely. I think we ended up with a macho beefcake ‘stache-man with a cowboy hat, a cool red-headed elf chick, aaaaand I do not remember the last one, but each character got an item. We gave ‘stache-man a bulldog puppy, elf-chick a chainsaw, and somebody got a violin. Oh yes, we are minifigure-building pros.
An uncomplicated way of thinking is beautifully childlike. I walked to the neighborhood playground because I wanted to spend some time on the swings. It is not a large playground by any means, but it is rarely unoccupied. Today when I arrived, I pulled out my earbuds and sat down. A little boy rushed over to the swing beside me and took off superman- style, though with less pose and more limp noodle. This is Camden. He is four years old, and after discovering I liked swings as much as he did, he decided we should be best friends. He spelled out his name for me, first and last, then asked me what my family name was. I am rather unfamiliar with this term, so I thought he was asking what daycare I went to or something. Instead of giving him my last name, I gave him all these little reasons why he wouldn’t know it. Good heavens, I need to spend more time around children and people with an uncomplicated approach to life. I told my sister about this little encounter, and she looked at me curiously and asked “Why didn’t you just give him our last name?” I replied with “You know, that is a very good question. I have no idea.” I left the playground for home around dinner time after promising Camden I wouldn’t forget him. I hope I see him again. When I do, I am going to give him my family name and maybe kick a soccer ball.
I am really starting to enjoy this simple way of life. If you have ever read a book by Bob Goff, then you know how he makes ordinary life sound so extraordinary. I mean, yes, the guy has accomplished some pretty incredible feats having to do with justice and education in third-world countries, but he also lives life like a normal human being. His most recent book called Undistracted, which came out at the beginning of this month, discusses this very topic. Life. He asks what are you willing to risk to start living your life as fully and completely as it was always meant to be? For him, it was dying and coming back to life. I am only half-way through, but he has hit every nail on the head that I have been thinking about for the past year or so.
I love books, not only are they excellent models for stories I want to tell but through them I can view life as another person, see from a perspective I never would have otherwise because my walk of life is oftentimes so different from the people I read about, fictional or not. My mom recommended to me this duology by Anne Rice about the life of Jesus told through the eyes of Jesus himself. I am only three-quarters of the way through the first one, but I can honestly say it is one of the most biblically creative stories I have read in quite a long time. The author spent so many years of her life studying Jewish history, culture, and customs in order to provide as accurate of a picture for her readers as she could, portraying what life might actually have been like for young Jesus. I will admit, I struggled at first because there are some aspects about it that do not line up with what I have come to know about Jesus and his humanity. I put it down that night unsure if I wanted to pick it up again.
I thought about my stories and my fears as an author. Something I tell myself repeatedly when I put thoughts to paper is it’s not about being right; it’s about understanding. By this I mean, the point of stories is not to be right, though I try to be as accurate as possible where applicable. Being right all the time is an impossible standard. If this were my goal, I would never write at all. I write to understand, as C.S. Lewis says. I write to understand myself, God, people, and life as I know it right now. I have no doubt that when I am 50 and look back at what I wrote as a young adult, my understanding and beliefs will have grown and possibly even changed. So when I do look back, I do not want to grimace in shame but smile in recognition of how far I have come, sort of like how parents keep track of their children’s growth by making marks on a doorframe. I want to look back and say to my soul look how much you’ve grown. There is so much freedom in this way of thinking! And so long as the heart behind biblical fiction desires to honor God with their creative license, I really do not care how different our opinions are. Just enjoy the story.
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