Editorial: Writer’s Block
I found it! The famous wall that frequent writers talk about – the wall that keeps all good ideas from making their way from my brain to the page. My parents are lobbing comments about local happenings across the house, and yet, I am uninspired. Is writer’s block the kind of wall that one can march around for seven days, trusting that it will fall down?
It’s not that nothing has happened. Goodness, Canadian smoke has barraged the north and record-breaking heat is cooking the south even as I write. I’ve been to two district conferences for my home denomination in the last month (within the same three days, actually). My existence involves bouncing from lifeguarding to office work to mentored ministry at a church an hour away. So, perhaps the issue is not that nothing has happened, but that so much has happened, and I haven’t had time to reflect on it.
I’ve had the occasional idea of what to write. However, ideas alone aren’t good enough – they need to have enough integrity to hang together in a coherent whole. After all, I’m sure no one wants to read random ramblings on things that make no sense and don’t ultimately matter.
I wonder how much integrity Western Christianity has in reality. Do we possess only great ideas about faith that don’t hang together with matching rhetoric and action? Is there a disconnect between what our churches claim to be and what they, in fact, are? Perhaps we’re suffering from a sort of “faith block” without realizing it.
A lot has happened in our culture in recent years. Indeed, so much has happened that we haven’t had time to reflect on it theologically. But we must. It is not enough to say, “This is our church’s position on X.” We also need to be asking, “What do I do when I encounter a person who believes Y, even though I know Z is the biblical position?”
Just like in writing, having the right ideas is not enough. Perhaps part of our mission as the church is to articulate those ideas in a way that allows our parishioners to be the hands and feet of Christ in a culture where Market is god and morality in speech and action has been thrown out the window. We don’t need more random ramblings. What we need is the compelling gospel of Jesus Christ at the core of our words and deeds like never before.
Our Creator can inspire His church anew. He can help us overcome faith block. The same God who saved us is already doing His redeeming work all around us. May the God of all wisdom and compassion empower us to work alongside Him in the church and the world.
This article is by Julia Hotchkiss, Alumni Office Student Worker.
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