“Where faith and poetry both work is in getting people to accept that things don’t line up in an easy way. And by learning that, ideally, we learn how to be with each other and how to be in a relationship with God.” (Shane McCrae, “Obliqueness and Extravagance; A Conversation with Rowan Williams and Shane McCrae,” Image, Winter, 2022)

As I remember, I was not a particularly early reader. Somewhere, however, as the alphabet came together in words, I discovered the joy of story. I read, and I mimicked by writing stories myself. I wrote all kinds of stories: children having adventures, solving crimes, righting wrongs.

Through stories, as I continued writing them into adolescence and adulthood, I dealt with everything from boredom to the wrongs in the larger world. My ability to right wrongs might be limited, but I could call out the wrongs and show how the characters of a story dealt with them.

I learned that a struggling individual has need of the “serenity prayer.”
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference. (First publicized by Reinhold Niebuhr)

Writing is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for good or bad—to build up or to tear down. Not everything built is good, nor is everything torn down bad. As the prayer says, we need, not only talent or opportunity, but wisdom.

And so some of us who are Christians, humbly asking God’s guidance, begin to write what we are given.