WATCHWORD:
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Acts 17: 24-28
Meditation:
Second-hand God?
Even with two books published and two more likely to come out in the next couple of years, it is still hard for me to accept the title “author”. When my daughter surprised me with business cards that labeled me an author when my first book was published, it felt a little like bragging about something for which I had not earned. I guess, loosely defined, anyone who writes anything, junk or deathless prose, published or not, could be called an author.
One of my favorite Christian writers was/is JB Phillips (may he rest in peace). He writes about a “second-hand god” and argues that most people have a somewhat restricted view of life, and they rely, to a large extent, on the vicarious experience of life that they find in reading books, or going to movies, or plays. That way they come to know detectives, serial killers, children’s thoughts, lovers, abusers of animals, etc., but not really. I could tell you a lot about Barabbas, or Jericho Road, or even Jesus at Jacob’s Well in Samaria, and it is all fiction, based on Biblical and Google research, yes, but still fiction.
I have a friend who loves Nantucket Island. She’s read every fiction book set on the Island that she could get her hands on. She could probably tell you where to eat, which hotel or B-n-B to stay in and what there is to see on the island, yet, she’s never been there. Vicarious education based on her reading.
With Halloween just behind us, I would venture to say that there were parents out there, or evil uncles or aunts, that told “ghost” stories to young children, because they love a story. But in the kid’s minds, it was fun, but it wasn’t just story, it was something very real, and maybe it scared the b-jabbers out of them. “Don’t turn the light off, mommy!”
I am a fan of John Sandford’s creation, Detective Virgil Flowers. Aside from many characteristics of a good person, Virgil often spends time with God when he prepares for the night. I like that. One of Phillips complaints about popular fiction, is the absence of God references in the story. I don’t think that is true about my writings or Sandford’s.
I believe that true understanding of the nature of life and God rarely is represented in the artificial evidence of fiction. Philips tells us that we need to be constantly on our guard against the “second-hand god”—the kind of god which seems to be prominent in fictional writing that nourishes in fictional ideas of the deity of God. “One tiny slice of real life, observed at first hand, provides better grounds for our understanding of God, than the whole fairy-tale world of fiction.” I believe that. You want to know God? Spend time with Him.
What’s my point? You want to read a good book? Try THE Good Book, the Bible. That is where you will meet the real Almighty. So be it.
Prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
