Writing as a Ministry

Chapter 3

Preface
Let me hook on to our last paragraph. Someone asked me about fiction in which we might say that God is a character, in which writers are actually doing something that has a clear Christian witness. Let me mention a few titles that have been of inspiration to me. You might want to turn to them at some future time. About 1940, Shalom Asch wrote the really great historical fiction entitled The Apostle, which is the story of the life of St. Paul as followed from Scripture account but extended from it. Several years ago, I was teaching a Sunday School class at college level on the book of Acts, and I found myself rereading The Apostle and using the ideas from that week by week as we worked through the book of Acts. I think of all of the literature that I have encountered, which is a large pile by now, the scene in which Peter and Paul encounter each other in the Manmortine prison is one of the most moving things I have ever read. Shalom Asch imagined Peter in the Manmortine prison in Rome deeply discouraged and Paul, being let down with rope into that dank prison, and the electric fire of their fellowship with God. It’s powerful.

In a quite different vein…Several years ago, I became much elated when I read a short story in The New Yorker. The New Yorker is not renowned for Christian fiction, and John Updike is not widely known as an inspirational writer. After a good bit of his writing, in which he shows carnality rampant in the suburbs and the absence of God - in fact, he indicts the church through his fiction as being inept, and that some of the mess we're in is because of ineptness in the church. But John Updike had a short story in The New Yorker entitled "Pigeon Feathers," which I would commend to your enjoyment. It depicts a young boy, perhaps thirteen, who first encounters doubt of a major sort. "Maybe God isn't real. Maybe what I've been taught is not real." And, I won't skim the plot for you - you'll want to find it for yourself - but it is a very skillful thing. Updike obviously likes it himself. It is the title story of one of his collections of short stories, Pigeon Feathers, by John Updike.

Not a fully successful book, I think, but about the same time, about 1960 or so, a professional journalist, Adella Rogers St. Johns, wrote a book that became widely talked about across the nation, Tell No Man. It was an attempt at a conversion story and it has great power, though there are things in it that any particular Christian would disagree with or wonder about in the way she worked out the plot. It is a significant piece of fiction. Tell No Man by Adella Rogers St. Johns.

I think I wouldn't need to tell most of you, but I'll mention anyway, the fictional work of C.S. Lewis is, of course, of great inspiration. The Narnia stories in which grace is at work and deity is involved in the action, and the space fiction trilogy. C.S. Lewis is reported to have said that no one else was writing what he wanted to read, so he had to write it for himself. Maybe some of the writing that you will do going out from here will be from the same category.

Then a conversation yesterday reminded me of a piece of poetry I haven't reread for some time now, but I commend it over and over again. The British poet John Masefield wrote a long poem, a short story we might say, in verse entitled "The Everlasting Mercy." Your public library would probably have a copy of the collected works of John Masefield. Masefield is reported to have said that he was taking a walk in a very dark, wooded area. He came out of that wooded area into an area of bright sunlight, and that image gave him the thought of writing a conversion story. So he introduces us to a man who is a skid-row kind of person, a really down-and-out person, morally and otherwise. He's drinking in a pub when a Quaker woman comes in to do personal witness, and she says to him an accusing and sobering comment that shakes him to the depths. The poem moves to tremendous climax - if you don't read the whole thing, the last 5 pages will, I think, put some fire in your soul.

"I did not think; I did not strive.
The deep peace burnt my me alive.
I knew the walls had broken in;
I knew that I had done with sin."

Something of that sort is his comment ... "The Everlasting Mercy" by John Masefield. Well, those are some of the kinds of things that have been of inspiration to me.

Dr. Elva McAllaster Writings
Now it's probably time to relieve the curiosity about the books I have written and some of the involvement with that. Briefly, let me sketch what God has permitted to happen in my life through books. I have to think that coming to this paragraph, that we are all unprofitable servants, and there is much more that might have been done, but here are some things that did happen.

My first little book was a collection of poetry. Poetry had been of excitement to me. It's long out of print, so unless you find it in a library, or in a bookstore that has some out-of-print things, you'll probably not encounter it. The title, which I would certainly not now choose, was My Heart Hears Heaven's Reveille. It included poetry from my own undergraduate time and from early teaching time. I did have a strong sense of ministry in putting the thing together. It seemed to me that some of my poems said things that might be of help to someone, and I wanted to be of help to someone. Actually, I had beginner's luck, because I sent off one inquiry and got an acceptance, and that just doesn't happen in the world of poetry. But, I made an inquiry at Light and Life Press. I had written for the magazines connected with Light and Life Press. I did get acceptance.

One little interesting sideline … I don't know that this often happens in the whole publishing world, but in the process of getting it through the press, the editor actually sent to me a book of sample covers - like a sample for wallpaper kind of thing - and allowed me to choose the binding that I wanted to go on the book. That was an interesting touch of satisfaction. It has been a joy to know that it did some ministering.
I recall the delight in hearing a very splendid preacher in the state of Washington using one poem from it in a service he was giving.

We have at Greenville College a writing club for which I'm the sponsor. Students come to my house every Wednesday evening and share their writings. Just this past semester, the freshman chaplain, a very bright lad, each week would bring some bit of devotional inspiration. One evening, he picked up the book and thumbed through it, and for the next several meetings, he read to his fellow students a poem from Dr. Mac's book. And, I was pleased to know that that things I wrote as a student were still speaking to the present student generation.

My second book, also out of print, was from Moody Press. It was entitled Echoes from Intercession, a small paperbound volume. They were doing at that a time a series called Devotionals, and the background for this was a collection of things from a magazine. I was doing for the magazine, then entitled The Free Methodist, now entitled Light and Life, a series of meditations. I shipped off to an editor there once, three poems very free verse, each of which was a prayer for some particular person. A very personalized prayer. And, I gave the heading "Echoes from Intercession" to the three poems. The editor liked that title and liked the poems and encouraged more. The magazine was at that time, weekly, used much freelance material, and the editor at that time liked poetry.

Now, the same magazine is a monthly and maybe uses five poems if we're lucky in a year's time, so I would not now have that opportunity. But, I did write a series of individualized prayer poems, one for a modern Samson pursued by a modern Delilah and one for a woman on her way to Reno, a whole group. Each started with actual intercession and moved into free verse. After I had done quite a number of those, I said to myself, "Maybe there's a book here." And, Moody Press thought there was a book here, and brought them out in the devotional series.

Then, a little companion volume came along. For the same magazine, I did a series which was entitled "Pilgrim's Progress 20th Century" and each was a meditation on some step in Christian growth in my own Christian growth or experience, and very free verse meditation. When I wrote Moody Press asking whether they might be interested in doing something with that, an editor wrote and said they had far too many Pilgrim's Progress titles already to add anything else. But the title we settled on was Here and Now, with titles like "Red Bud Tree in the Gullies" or "Two Sparrows in Central Park" and so on. They were meditations.

Then came one that's currently in the news that you've been hearing about, Strettam, the fictional work which first appeared actually fifteen years ago in hard back and has now been long out of print. But at this conference last summer, I talked with a woman from Zondervan who was here, and she told me to my great joy that they were considering some titles for bringing out in paper. They had thought about several. She called me in the fall and said this may be bad news and it may be good news, which was a tantalizing thing. But her explanation then was, "If I had given paperback rights to some other publisher, it would be bad news from their point of view; if not, it would be good news from their point of view," and I had not indeed released paperback rights to someone else.

I was mildly startled when their advertising announced it first as a novel. It is indeed not a novel, unless one defines "novel" very, very broadly. What it is actually…I invented a small town, Strettam. Ordinary people, very ordinary people, live in that town. The seven deadly sins of medieval mythology and literature live in that town also, and each chapter is an episode in which at least one of the seven deadly sins is working on some victim. And we see the behind-the-scenes councils of these demons as they get together. Pride is working on someone in one chapter, or anger, or lust, or covetousness and as the deadly sins work on these persons, grace is also at work. I invented three preachers in the town. There's one little café in town and the preachers get together and have coffee together and talk about the people, about whom they're concerned. So, it's an interlinked sequence of episodes with the principle of studying temptation. The blurbs that are now quoted in the front of the book, indicated it has been rather widely compared with Screwtape Letters, which causes me joy, of course, to have it compared in that fashion. But, it was working on that principle of ideas.

Maybe I should mention that I think what I said about opening oneself to the stresses of life was entering in, because the previous year had been one of the most strenuous I'd ever lived so far as campus duties. I was on a very, very arduous committee that involved painful sessions relating to personalities and administration of campus encounters, and I think that plowing of my soul was part of the preparation. You'd like to know that it also went into print in Germany. die Leute von Schulda was the title given by the translators which translates approximately The People of Sinnersville, which was a delight to me to have that kind of encounter.

Next in the sequence…I had obviously done a lot of thinking about how singleness relates to the Christian life [Editor's note: Dr. Mac remained single throughout her life.]. When I sent off a book of poems or an inquiry about a book of poems, Les said "Sorry, Christian Herald Books is not into poetry. Will you do a book on singles for us?" My first response was a bit negative. I wanted to work on a writing of poetry. I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend that time in writing this kind of book, and I wasn't quite sure I wanted to open my vulnerability as much as to write that kind of book. But, I chatted with various people, and my department chairman said, "Well, if you were up for promotion, it would be different, but you're full professor anyway. If you can do something in Christian service, why not?"

So I went to work on the book, and I would have to say that I now thank God mightily and thank Les Keylock for the opportunity of working on that book. The response I've had indicates that it was indeed a gift from the Lord, in that it has moved very widely. It is not now in print--well, with a qualification. Christian Herald ceased publishing books, and it went out of availability, but the Greenville College bookstore does have access to a supply.

I could spend the rest of the time talking about responses I've had, but I want to get on to some other generalizations about fiction. Last week, I did pull out the folders of responses I've had, and it was very evident that it touched sensitive nerves for many people and gave help to many people--not just to singles. I've had many responses from many persons who have been happily married, but found it very useful in solving some problem areas in their lives, and also real problem situations.

I think one of the most urgent letters I have received to this point was from a young woman in New York City who was married, but in a very stressful marriage, and she obviously needed more counseling than I could give in correspondence. But she poured out - I think it was thirty-eight pages, handwritten - of account of her problems and circumstances. Small pages, but nonetheless. And I wrote back, and I endeavored to give her some help.

Several people have asked me if the cover is one of my nieces or something of the sort. No, it's just from a commercial encounter, but you might like to share one chuckle with me. One chapter, entitled "The Courage to Stay Single," was reprinted in a singles' magazine; and as artwork, the editor of that magazine selected a photo of a girl who must be about twenty-three - a very attractive individual - and there was no indication that it was not my photo. I think I received phone calls from five states. To my amusement, the first one came through. The man had called Greenville College and they had given the vacation address - I was with my mother at the time - and he called from Texas saying, "Would you settle an argument between my buddy and me? He thinks that photo is you, and I think you couldn't be as wise as you sound and be that young." His opening inquiry was whether I would mind telling my age. So, the rest of the time I was with mother, we had many chuckles about that circumstance.

In a more serious vein, I will mention a couple of direct responses. At Homecoming last fall, a young couple bounced up to me, graduates of maybe six years ago, and wanted me to know that they were now married because of my book. I blinked a little, and then at some length, they explained. He had gone through college joyously, but with some unsettled things in his life about self-identity and other matters. And he read the book and felt that he had done a lot of growing through it. Simultaneously, Mona was off teaching school and lonely and fighting the Lord about her singleness. She read the book and came to a new kind of Christian commitment. Then he got a new job and wanted to report that to somebody and remembered his good friend, Mona, from college and wrote her about the new job. And, on from there. So they wanted me to know that they are now joyously married because of that book.

In different vein, one of the most poignant responses I received was from a lawyer, a very brilliant man, whom I knew slightly. He was single again after a second painful divorce. He wrote me a note of great gratitude telling me that he seldom picked up the book without getting out a pen also because he knew the Lord was going to talk to him through that material.

Then, there is one that is currently available in any bookstore by order or otherwise, which was really outgrowth from that. After I had done the singles book, Les wrote saying, "What else could you do for us?" I had worked on a fictional narrative centering on the matter of family relationships, and that didn't move. But through our correspondence, this one came into being: When a Father is Hard to Honor. Brethren Press in Elgin, IL brought it out.

This one is a direct outgrowth from the fact that I have been a counseling kind of teacher at Seattle Pacific, a little at the University of Illinois before that when I was in grad school, and now for these years at Greenville. When you teach English, students sometimes pour things out into themes, and they sometimes come by my office, "Dr. Mac, this is my problem." And sometimes the phone rings at odd hours, and the problems emerge. I came to realize that one of the real stress points in America today is the matter of parent/child relationships and specifically--the one I wanted to focus on here--of the young man who cannot trust his father, does not believe in his father, has come to odds with his father, or something else. Again, I won't linger over responses to that, but I have been joyful at the way the Lord has been using it.

Just a few weeks ago, a young man was in my office, just stopped by to say "Hello." He'd had a class from me a couple of years ago. I said, "What does your summer hold, Tim?" And he said very thoughtfully, "The one thing I'm praying about is that we can have better relationships at home." And, he explained that he does not have a sense of comradeship or real affection with his father. I said, "Maybe you'll want to use a certain book," and told him about it. And, his eyes just went wide to know that there was a book of that sort. So, that occurred.

Oh, I should add…One of my most joyful responses thus far would be from a housewife who's approaching her golden wedding and said to me with great earnestness, "Oh, Elva, there's so much in that for wives." That gave me great joy. The editor I was working with when I worked on it after Les had left the office indicated that if I could reach the target audience, then other audiences would come along. So, that's a quick resume of books that have moved through my typewriters.

Point 22: Follow your own leading.
I think with all of the gifts and skills we're encountering in this group, we would know that for some of us, within the next decade, grace may entice us to sign contracts for books. That may not be your responsibility. It may not be your circumstance, but it may be. I'm really very hesitant to generalize in this matter of books because one person's experience does differ so greatly from another's.

Let me encourage you first of all in Thoreau's famous phrase to "March to the beat of the drum that you hear." That is, again, follow your own leading. What's right for someone else is not right for you. Let's note first then, as we start thinking about this whole matter of books, that "book" is really a very inclusive term. In a way, it is almost ridiculous to use the term "book." Go down to the local bookstore and you'll notice how "book" varies from a pamphlet of inspirational sort to something of a very ponderous size and scholarly quality. So we just have to have that in mind that when we talk about a book, we have to start thinking soon about what sort of book we're talking about and in what direction.

Point 23: Having one's ideas circulate in book form is a reason for special doxology.
If a book does come to be - I think all of those of you who have published books would affirm this with me - there is a particular kind of joy if one is allowed to be the parent to a book. If one's brainchild takes shape in book form, it is a gladness. Granted, it could be a temptation toward pride, that particular one of the seven deadly sins, but we recognize that books do have a durable quality. A book may live on in public contact long after you're not around. Books do go on the shelves of libraries. Books are preserved in more permanent form. Books can endure in interesting ways. So, there is a joy.

In that contact, let me mention a very famous sentence from John Milton in his great essay Areopagitica in which he's talking about the fact that books should be published freely. He was protesting against censorship in his own time, and he has this marvelous phrase, "A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." We write for newspapers, and that is a ministry. We write for magazines; that is a ministry. But if something goes into book form, it has a possibility of being around long after we're around and having a durable quality.

Point 24: Books do make impacts on lives.
Books do make impacts on lives. I asked you yesterday to think about the magazines you've read. Think now for a moment about the books you have read in your lifetime thus far. After you go home, try this exercise: What ten books would leave you most impoverished if the memory of them were suddenly and totally subtracted from your mind? Which ten books that you have encountered thus far have most fed your spirit, have most jolted you in your awareness? I think you might find a good exercise just to try.

I assigned myself this task last week when I was jotting these notes, and parenthesis - I have been putting things in folders much longer than last week - but nonetheless… Which ten books would I find myself most impoverished to have crossed out? Well, in case you're curious, these are the ones I jotted down in a more or less random order, but ten that have really done things within me.

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, which I was lucky enough to meet very early on in life, and it has shaped my thinking in many ways. Lewis' Mere Christianity. And, let's linger with Lewis for a minute. Screwtape Letters - it must have been subconsciously in the back of my mind when I was working on Strettam. It certainly gave me insights of many sorts, and Lewis' other little volume, The Great Divorce. Have you encountered that one yet? If not, you'll want to make a beeline for it at the nearest library. It is very, very insightful.

Dante's Divine Comedy. Sometimes I think Dante should be required reading in every seminary. He did write from the medieval point of view, but Dante was challenging his readers to think about the afterlife, to think about the nature of sin. He did write in his three sections, the Inferno (The Hell section), the Purgatorio (he did believe in purgatory as a medieval Christian), and the Paradiso. In the midst of his framework of his thought, great, great truth is woven in. Maybe someday, I'll learn Italian and read it in the original. Meanwhile, parenthesis, if you'd like to encounter that and have not yet, one of the best translations is by Dorothy Sayers, who's known to you as a writer of a wide variety of things. Probably to my way of thinking, the best translation is by John Ciardi who knew Italian as a kid at home and worked from that. Okay, that's on my personal list of great books.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Then in very different vein from the ones I've been speaking about, Streams in the Desert, edited by Mrs. Charles Cowman. When I was eleven or twelve, I didn't know that was a book for adult readers, and I used it for my own devotions and it fed my soul mightily and continues to do so. It's a devotional book, of course, but a very, very strong one. Augustine's Confessions. St. Augustine recorded in conversations with God what happened in his life. Contemporary thinking - Eugenia Price's autobiography, The Burden is Light. And the one I mentioned awhile ago, Shalom Asch, The Apostle.

Yes, books do make an impact. Yes, Augustine's Confessions. Eugenia Price, The Burden is Light. It's her autobiography telling of her conversion. And Shalom Asch, The Apostle, which is that fictional life of St. Paul that I was speaking about.

Point 25: For many Christians, writing a book or several books has been one part of their larger ministries.
For many Christians, writing a book or several books has been one part of their larger ministries. This would obviously be true for many preachers who do get books from their sermon thinking, and you think immediately of names you see in print often. Browse in the bookstore and you'll see that kind of thing. I had a student several years ago who was the wife of a missionary who was on furlough. She took the Creative Writing class as an auditor and from her experiences in the Orient came a delightful book in which she reported on the experiences of life.

Have you chanced to meet the name of Dotsey Welliver? I haven't met her yet, but I've seen reference to her books of various sorts. For quite a period of time she was primarily a housewife with little children at home, and she decided to let that lead into ministry. Her titles, which I found in Books in Print, go like this: I Need You Now, God, While the Grape Juice is Running All over the Floor and Smudgkin Elves and Other Lame Excuses. Can you imagine the family situations that might have led toward something like that? One that's currently released by Brethren Press, just released last year, Laughing Together: The Value of Humor in Family Life. Her primary task at the time of that writing was obviously housewife and mother, but the writing of books became an outcome from that circumstance.

Point 26: For some people, writing books has become a primary Christian ministry.
As we think about the world today, the Christians seen today, would that be fairly obvious? I just mentioned Eugenia Price. She had a great ministry in speaking after her conversion and gave talks all across the country. Eventually, the Lord tapped her on the shoulder, and she felt that writing books was to be her primary ministry. She cancelled other work and settled down to writing of books.

Another who has had a primary ministry in writing books who would probably come to mind is Ann Kiemel. Have you read some of Ann Kiemel's inspirational things? She has done speaking also, but writing has been a primary experience. And Harold Ivan Smith would come to mind. I don't know how many of you would have encountered the books of Harold Ivan Smith. He first came to national attention in 1978 when he released under a penname, the account of his divorce. He wrote as Jason Towner to protect his former wife and the book was entitled Jason Loves Jane, but They Got a Divorce. And, he told with a great deal of candor what had happened in his own life, the blindnesses in him and the stupidities in him that he now feels led to the divorce.

Just to say further, Harold Ivan Smith has had tremendous ministry since that time with a special responsibility in writing for singles. He is immensely prolific. I can't quite believe the way he turns things out. But, I was thinking about this. I went over to our library, and found seven of his books listed presently in Books in Print. He was the one who finished the Pricilla and Aquila book of Lois Henderson. When Lois Henderson died, and someone was needed to finish the book, he completed Pricilla and Aquila, and he has been very, very prolific. Again, he would be an example of one for whom writing is a primary ministry.

Should we add C.S. Lewis? That would be obvious. For Lewis, though he had many other ministries, writing was a very primary one.

Point 27: Sometimes a book will emerge from the author's willingness to be vulnerable, to be candid, to be self-disclosing.
I just mentioned Jason Towner. He was willing to be more vulnerable than many people would ever be in telling about those awkwardnesses in himself which led to the catastrophe of divorce. Do you happen to know Madeline L'Engle's little book The Summer of the Great Grandmother? Her own mother was nearing death, senile, not the woman she had known as mother, but she recorded with love and candor what it meant to be caring for an aged parent. Madeline L'Engle - she's the one who's written so many books of imaginative fiction for young teens or that general sort - wrote The Summer of the Great Grandmother. She tells about a particular summer in her life when she was with her family and her mother was present.

In the same general grouping, you think of C.S. Lewis and his book A Grief Observed when his wife had died and he recounted, first writing under a penname protecting his vulnerability, the utter devastation of his life. I've always wished since first reading that Lewis had kept his journals going a little longer. He records in A Grief Observed the utter pain of the first weeks of his bereavement. But, that kind of thing may occur.

Point 28: A book may immerge from the author's desire to help one person.
Just for quick illustration, think of the letters of St. Paul and his desire to help young Timothy or his concern about Philemon.

Point 29: Some books need to be written as a ministry to yourself or for limited circulation, but do not need to be published.
Are you chewing that as you go home? Some books need to be written for thinking things through, for self-experience. Recently, a friend sent me a little book she had compiled about her brother. She is a friend who is now free to do some things of that sort. Her brother was a missionary. She was writing actually for her nephews and nieces. Her book - I don't know how many she had printed, it's a little pamphlet kind of thing - but, it's a tremendous value for herself, for her family, not for publication. One of my students brought to "Scriblerus," our writing club, a little booklet she had written as a teaching aid. It's a book for children. She had done her own sketches. She may sometime work with a publisher and let the thing go into print, but it has thus far been a value to herself and for her purposes. I thought at this point of a manuscript I worked hard on one summer several years ago. It didn't go on into print, but it was a kind of background in clarifying my own thinking that was helpful in some things that did later go into print.

Point 30: We do not need to know to whom we're ministering nor how.
We can trust with our Lord what he does with what he leads us to do. We can rejoice, as I noted before, when we do get an echo of how something has been helpful to someone, but it isn't our assignment to know that fact.

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Last updated: March 20, 2002