I'm feeling a kinship to Pontius Pilate, as I keep asking myself "What is truth?" 

What's got me so ponderous is, I'm creating a class on memoir for Perelandra College, and at the same time beginning to pull together a collection of articles, hoping they can become the rough draft or the outline for a memoir.

My question isn't some James Frey issue about whether I should include a blockbuster scene that never happened. And it's not about distrusting memory. I'm comfortable writing scenes and thoughts from the long past as best I can recall them. If I later discovered it was really Gretl who said something I attributed to Harry, I would lose no sleep over the error. 

What's got me stumped is bigger than detail, and more thematic. 

My life is rocky at best these days. For now, at least, I don't intend to tell what happened to land me here. I'll just confess to struggling with depression and ask, because our past is the story of what got us to where we are, can I honestly conclude the memoir in the uplifting way I would prefer to, by ending the story at a time when I felt on top of the world?

Suppose I were a tycoon, and the theme of my life was that diligence pays off. Suppose I made a billion dollars, then lost it all. Is the truth that diligence made me a billion dollars or that it made me lose a billion dollars? It all depends when I end the story, right? Suppose I go all the way and end with losing a billion, then publish the book and make millions on royalties. Does that make my story a lie?

What I'm asking is, how can we honestly know the theme of our life story or stories until after we die?

I can think of a half-dozen pat answers for this dilemma, but none of them seem to work.

I considered ending a previous post with a quote from Branch Rickey, but realized the quote deserved to be more than a punch line.

For those who don't know the man: Branch Rickey  (1881 –  1965) was an baseball executive best known for: breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson and drafting Roberto Clemente; creating the framework for the modern minor league system; and introducing the batting helmet. His achievements and outspoken Christian faith earned him the nickname 'the Mahātmā.'"

This wise and accomplished fellow advised,  "Prefer excesses of enthusiasm to the complacency of wisdom."

Which doesn't work as a punch line, as it's easily misinterpreted to mean prefer enthusiasm to wisdom. 

To me, it means, when wisdom becomes complacent, it threatens to nullify the enthusiasm that arises from passion, imagination, or inspiration. 

In the context of writing, the proper role of wisdom (craft) is to serve enthusiasm.

For instance, wisdom ought to remind us that not every passage delivered from a passionate heart is a gem to be shared with readers. Some of them will only speak to us, or only to to us in a certain frame of mind. And even the real gems might not deserve to be in the context we've placed them, if they intrude upon the story.

All of which is why some folks claim writing can't be taught and some claim it can. Craft can be readily learned. Passion, imagination, and the openness to inspiration, not so readily.

 

A forwarded email told of a master violinist who spent time in a subway station playing a most intricate piece on a violin worth millions. But few people paid him or his music any attention. 

Raymond Carver, a master of the short story, commented that a writer doesn't need to be the smartest person on the block, but should be able to look with amazement at a leaf or an old shoe.

We writers need to pay attention.

But many of our heads are spinning too fast to allow us to stop and look. No doubt we could benefit from practicing some of the attentiveness meditation that's popular these days, unless the idea of practicing anything else than what we're already doing sends us into quakes of horror.

Lately, I've been writing, running Perelandra College where I also teach, and raising my amazing seven year old Zoe pretty much on my own. I'm determined she'll stay happy and as innocent as one can be in a perilous world, and that she'll grow up emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and financially able to pursue whatever she's called to. 

All these tasks are privileges for which I'm grateful and which give me joy, but they don't leave much time to pay attention to leaves or old shoes. I could quit running the college, or teaching, and when the time's right, I will. 

Meanwhile I often remind myself of  the way my friend Bob cooks and washes dishes, at a leisurely clip, as though he'd as just as soon be doing those chores as anything else. The only way we busy folks can wash dishes without rushing is to convince ourselves that the other chores on our agenda aren't as urgent as we've considered them.

Us Christians are advised that the only crucial chore is communing with God. Besides, in all but rare cases, the key to succeeding with our goals, whether they be clean kitchens or novels, isn't urgency but persistence. 

Lately, I keep thinking about Bob Dylan and King David and the benefit of being ornery. Dylan's "Desolation Row" is a favorite song of mine. I get a kick out of the lines "Yes I received your letter yesterday about the time the doorknob broke. When you asked me what I was doing, was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention, yes I know them, they're quite lame. I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name."

Another of my favorite Dylan lines is, "I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes, and just for that one moment I could be you. I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you."

King David got so ornery in some of his psalms, wishing everything but good on his enemies, for years I puzzled about how a fellow so bent toward revenge and apparently lacking in forgiveness could be not only a big contributor to the Bible but could get himself referred to as a "man after God's own heart."

I'm neither brave nor ignorant enough to launch into an analysis of God's heart. I'll stick to what I know best, which is the process of writing. 

Philip Yancey's book Prayer got me to reassessing King David by pointing out that the man's excesses aren't meant to be taken as righteous but as honest frustrations of a fellow who has taken some major hits. I was reminded of this last weekend when Pastor Ed suggested that our prayers oughtn't be nice and respectful but real. If we're frustrated, be frustrated. If we're confused, be confused. Furious, go ahead, let it out. We all get those ways, and (I'll add) to pretend we don't is an attack upon everybody we're trying to fool.

I've long thought that if I built a church, I'd inscribe into the wall over the entrance, "No Bullshit." (Of course I'd be tempted to censor and make it "No BS" but since everybody would translate anyway, what's the point?)

As I'm in danger of skating off into tangents here, I'll return to Bob Dylan. Anybody who doesn't appreciate him as a lyricist either hasn't listened or has my sincere sympathy. But, he's not always good, either in a moral or an artistic sense. Sometimes he's downright mean, sometimes he's brokenhearted, sometimes world weary, sometimes flippant, sometimes smitten. He writes insightful commentaries, ho hum ballads, sappy love songs. 

My point is, he's real, and maybe his willingness to be real is a essential part of his gift, and a key to his mastery.  And maybe, like King David (I'm asking for trouble here),  he's a man after God's own heart, at least when declining to censor his emotions.

So I finished The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles. Unless another wild idea or inspiration arrives before tomorrow, I'll send it off. It's scheduled for publication May 2010. It's the sixth book (though the earliest in chronology), in what I'm calling the Tom Hickey California Century series, which is a hit and miss chronicle of the years during which California became the promised land and later the place whose customs, attitudes, and values shaped the world.

Now that I can return to real life in the present, I'm realizing once again a reason I write novels. For the past few months, life has been treacherous. This past week was the most distressing. When I'm doing chores, driving, trying to sleep, taking care of Zoe, pursuing anything but writing, my mind whirls, besieged by questions and concerns.

A while back, my friend Mark told me he planned to start writing again once he'd worked out some family and financial issues. He said he couldn't write with all that on his mind. I said, most writers I know, if they waited for respites from such issues, would never finish a book.

One solid piece of wisdom I've picked up: as long as we're thinking about ourselves and our concerns, we're in grave danger of becoming distressed and unhappy. When we turn to thinking about other people, we rise above that distress and at least have a chance to feel joyful.

Similarly, writing takes us out of ourselves. I've gone to live in 1926 with a bunch of fascinating characters. The present, with all its fears, worries and dilemmas, couldn't reach me there.