I'm not a huge fan of printed sermons, especially sermon collections, but here on the cusp of another annual conference I spent some time perusing The Collected Sermons of William H. Willimon. As one might expect, this is a large book, and Willimon seems to have a lot to say. He also says it well.
Willimon is now bishop of the Alabama Conference (UM Church) but our paths crossed when I was a student at Duke Divinity (1982-1985). Willimon ended up spending 20 years as Dean of the Chapel, while also teaching courses in the Div School and serving as chaplain to the university. He also seemed to enjoy hanging out with Stanley Hauerwas, and I recall reading some years back that their collaborative effort, Resident Aliens, was the all-time best-selling book that Abingdon ever published. Back then, that was 50,000 copies--which just goes to show that a "best-seller" in the religion market is nothing like a best-seller at a major New York firm, which could be in the millions of copies.
Ah, but Bishop Will . . . I want to thank him for agreeing to write an essay for my book, The Ultimate Christian Living, which was published last year. This small collaborative effort was completed via online and phone conversation, and Willimon seems to be accessible in his episcopal role. At least he's always eager to write something. And as one of his relatives once said, "He's never had an unpublished thought."
There are enough sermons here from Willimon's two congregational appointments (yes, only two!), his years at Duke, and his episcopal addresses to keep a pastor ensconced in words for weeks. But it's not a bad read as far as books of sermons are concerned. Too bad there's not a CD. A sermon is really an auditory affair. If I had to collect my sermons, I couldn't do it. I never write them down. Willimon, on the other hand, seems to write in his sleep.
I have a "writer's closet" in my office at home. It is a dark, dank, and very frightening place. This past week I took to rummaging around in there, digging up old bones. I made some interesting finds. (See my two previous blogs.)
This closet contains pieces of my life that I have all but forgotten about. For example, I also dug up two old novels--fully completed--some 700 pages of material. I wrote both of these more than twenty years ago and I haven't got the guts to read them. As far as I'm concerned I buried these years ago and sealed them in cement.
I also discovered a stack of old stories--dozens and dozens of them. I pulled a few of these that might hold some promise with revision. Most of these stories were written on a Tandy 1000, dual 4 1/2 floppy computer and a daisy wheel printer with Pika font # 12.
I also found two guitars: an electric Ovation with dual humbuckers (a classic worth money now) and an Alvarez, thin-body acoustic with electrical hookup. I haven't played guitar for five years now, but took it up last night and by, golly, I could still rock (well, sort of). If I got my calluses back and limbered up my fingers a bit more, I'd be decent.
And finally I discovered my trove of 26,000 baseball cards, including several entire sets from the early 1990's and one unopened box of 1987 Topps (rookie year of Jose Canseco and Mark McGuire) complete with bubble gum sticks still intact inside the unopened packs. I had hoped to pass all of these along to my son, but he has no interest in baseball at all (and I have very little). These will continue to moulder in the closet for another generation. Only God knows how many Mickey Mantles and Willie Mays cards are parked inside those massive boxes.
My closet is cleaned now. No skeletons. And I even created a new niche for some of my current bones. I'm still filling those spaces with new writing. Twenty years from now, one of my descendants may find me there . . . .laid to rest.
I've made some interesting discoveries this week "digging" around in my bookshelves. I also "unearthed" another satirical piece I had written for Archae magazine back in the early 1990's, soon after I returned from an archaeological dig in Israel. I had participated in a dig at the ancient site of Beth Shemesh ("House of the Sun"), working alongside Israeli and American archaeologists and a volunteer team consisting of Americans, Germans, Canadians, Israelis, Australians and a religious smorgasbord as diverse as Jew, Christian, Muslim, and Agnostic. On the flight home, I knew I had to write something that would poke fun at the archaeological in-fighting and arguments and posturing I witnessed over small bits of pottery and fertility goddess artifacts, no less.
Although I was able to bring home a few pieces of pottery from the Israelite/Philistine era--when Beth Shemesh was a "border town" and had been at various times either Israelite or Philistine--the experience in the "Holy Land" was quite humorous, in retrospect (Sorry, I just think that way).
I sat down and wrote a piece for an archaeological magazine entitled: Biblical Archaeology in Retrospect: A Decade's Worth of Unique Finds. I provided illustrations for this piece, and the editor was so taken with my drawings, I remember he published it virtually unchanged.
My favorite section consists of a drawing of a human skeleton depicted as being discovered beside two dumbbells and clay jar containing a parchment. I wrote:
Chamber 43 at Wadi-Mudu has proved to be an enigma to the archaeologist, but most scholars have simply refused to admit the obvious. Here we find the remains of a man in his mid-forties who was a fitness fanatic, had receding gums, and had been gored by a goat in the left testicle. At the time of his death he was buried alongside his primitive dumbbells and a well-preserved parchment containing fragments from a fitness and cardiovascular manual. This important discovery has shattered our perceptions of the ancient Israelites as being a people who were out-of-shape, rotund individuals with a proclivity toward the pot belly. Evidently the fellow in Chamber 43 was a fitness buff who enjoyed working out with weights and spent the greater part of his adult life eating a low cholesterol, low sodium diet and working out to Shalom Ale chem.
I enjoy finding these published remnants from my past. I'm still looking for some love letters from my wife (these gotta be old, since she don't write them no more), and a few early stories, poems, essays, and pieces of satire.
I'm also looking for that box of Philistine pottery. If only I could remember where I buried it.
Last week, while rummaging through a pile of books, I happened upon a copy of The Rockford Review, a northern Chicago literary magazine that made its appointed rounds back in the 1990s. I had forgotten about this little humor magazine and the fact that the Review had published one of my satirical pieces on the Carl Sagan phenomenon back in the summer of 1991 (a full twenty years ago).
A quick review of the author section revealed that, at the time of the publication, I had no book credits, and my author bio consisted of various magazine credits including a newspaper column I used to write for the Noblesville Ledger entitled, "That's Life." Funny how I had forgotten these tidbits.
Although I had not yet had a book accepted for publication, I recall that I was writing ferociously when I lived in Noblesville. I also recall that many of these years were B.C. (Before Children) and that I worked horribly long hours pastorally. For a time I had a dedicated office in the parsonage, but after children, my office was relegated to a makeshift desk near the television set and I wrote books--entire books, mind you--while also wrestling screaming children on my lap and fighting off the piercing emanations of the TV set, which was just inches away from my computer (back then, a Tandy 1000 with duel 4 1/2 inch floppies and a green, monochrome monitor).
I know I wrote at least a dozen books during my six years in Noblesville, none of which were published, but I certainly learned how to navigate the writing process with a myopic concentration, closing off all distractions and sounds. At one point, I do remember mailing a gigantic stack of short stories to The New Yorker in one fell swoop (at least thirty of them) and then receiving, one afternoon, a surprise phone call from a fiction editor at the TNY offices kindly suggesting that I "send one at a time." "We can't read this many stories," she said, "but I admire your ability to whip them out. Just send us your very best work and let's see where that takes us."
I was thirty years old at the time and, looking back, I don't remember much that happened that fall other than the birth of my daughter (what a blessing!). I'm sure I don't remember I was married, but I guess I was. My wife and I must have coupled at least once during those years. (I have no idea how my son got here!)
The rest, I suppose, I have simply forgotten. That's what writing a dozen unpublished books in six years will do a human brain. (This is your brain . . . this is your brain on writing!)
Funny . . . haven't thought about these things in years.
Q: What does the well-rounded writer eat?
A: Donuts.
Today is, in fact, National Donut Day. Dunkin' Donuts will be giving away a free donut with a beverage purchase (I'll be there with bells on) and I do plan to be writing profusely here on Friday, my usual "day off". I'll enjoy my donut while I'm churning out an expected five thousand words today.
The Donut is a curious food. It is generally recognized to have been invented for the soldiers on the front lines of WWI, and hence the term "dough boys." Donuts were quick, easy, tasty, and could be served up to the troops. And if mustard gas didn't kill our boys, the donut eventually would. That's the trouble with things that taste good. They are usually not good for you.
That's why I combine donuts and aerobics. I'm getting ready, even as I write this, to hit the gym. I'll burn roughly enough calories to offset the donut I'll be eating immediately afterwards. It's a ritual. And eaten like this, the donut is, indeed, the breakfast of champions. (NOT Wheaties!)
And finally, every writer needs to know the proper spelling. Is it "Donut" or "Doughnut"?
I prefer the former . . . but most dictionaries list the latter. My dictionary doesn't have a donut entry, however. I ate that page some time ago.
Generally, writers (of books) get paid twice a year. Most publishers cut royalty checks to cover sales over a six month period . . . and can usually, by contract, keep said royalties for three months or so before actually transferring from the publisher's account to the writer's. Naturally, any writer who is expecting to live a well-rounded life, or to have financial security, or maintain a hope in eating had better have a "long-range" plan AND learn to how to gum a celery stick.
Because of this semi-annual paycheck, writers tend to huddle in pathetic little masses. You can recognize them because of their droopy-eyes (no sleep) and their penchant for sympathy. You'll find them standing in a line at Wendy's asking questions like: "What have you got to eat for under a dollar?" Book writers also wear the same underwear day after day and usually have wretched sex lives. Their spouses are typically even more pathetic. They drive old cars. They drink water in restaurants. They bite their nails down to the quick and vacation by setting up a tent in the front yard. Some writers stick their heads into ovens. Others threaten to leave book writing behind and go into marketing or advertising. The real losers move to Indiana and write on seventeen year old Compaq computers and store their work on floppy disks. They eat licorice.
Last month, when publishers were finally sending out royalty checks for the half year, I found myself talking to two other authors. One of these pathetic souls (even more pathetic than ME) lamented his royalty check with a half chuckle and a joke.
"If you don't mind my asking," I said, "How much did you earn in royalties these past six months?"
"I got a check for $20," he said.
"Buy yourself a milkshake," I told him. "You deserve it." I meant it.
"That's some reward for writing a book, huh?" he lamented.
Indeed. Small potatoes. Little nuts. Which always leads me back to the question my wife has been asking me for the past twenty-seven years . . . "Why do you even bother?"
Hey, it's a dirty, lonely, freakin' job that somebody has to do. I figure, one of these days I'll find something larger than a potato in my mailbox. Those publishers have to pay out some day. And the last time I checked, potatoes can multiply.
Last month a friend of mine admitted shock and awe when she received my handwritten letter. When I asked why she was surprised she said, "No one writes handwritten letters anymore. Everything is email, Facebook, or cardboard sentiment these days."
I had not considered this, but she's right. I receive few handwritten letters anymore. But still, I write them. I write to editors and to others who work in the publishing industry also. I've learned that a writer can actually stand out from the crowd a bit by writing a handwritten note. After all, most correspondence these days is electronic, and the Tweet has become such a standard expression for many people, editors are shocked when they receive something longer and personal. Any twit can tweet, and most can't spell.
I learned how to write letters when I was in North Carolina. My week was framed by writing lengthy love letters to Becky, who was still at Purdue, and for some reason, she's saved a lot of these letters and says she cherishes them. Why I'll never know.
My love letters now aren't quite so passionate . . . it's more difficult to write about the treats after you know all the tricks. But when Becky finishes her evening classes next week, I'll probably drop her a handwritten line praising her resiliency, her hard work, and her ability to get by on four hours of sleep each day. I'll also buy her a rose or two and will personally hand-select her favorite variety of Hamburger Helper for dinner that evening. But by God she'd better cook it. I'll write a letter to this effect and describe the renewed passion I have for discovering her in a new frame of mind, and how I am just itching to go away with her for a day so we can read some books. I'll take a photo of myself in posing trunks and try to get a tan so I won't look like a pasty poodle. I'll describe my idea of a perfect day, focusing primarily on the weather, with a few other ideas thrown into the mix that might involve canola oil and licorice whips.
Handwritten letters are important when a couple wants to understand each other and renew their passion.
And if this doesn't work . . . I'll just send her a text message.
