In Veritas Libertas

For the past several years, I've really been strugging with this whole "spiritual walk" thing we Christians aspire to. I'm discovering that I care less and less about the church (as an organization) and about the legalistic (and decidedly biased) fringe aspects of the Bible. Instead, my mind and heart have been caught up in a desire to know God for who he (though I dislike the idea of putting God inside the box of gender) is. I want to know God as GOD - not who pastors, teachers, and other Christians try to paint him as. I don't want levitical interpretations of divinity. I don't want a faith that glosses over doubt and fear without ever really addressing either. I don't want a life so wrapped up in looking and acting perfect that no room is left for grace. I WANT SOMETHING REAL.

Maybe I'm a little too akin to Thomas for my own good, but I want to see and experience God for myself: not have him spoonfed to me. I think all too often the church, pastors, and even sincere and well-meaning Christians take the Bible WAY out of context and misinterpret what it represents. THey cover up the doubts and inconsistencies in the Bible with a spiritual heal-all: faith. "Well, I might not understand, but I'm trusting that there's a reason for all of this..."

No. There is no reason for the injustice that occurs in the Bible, for the atrocities that are committed in the name of God (who may or may not have ordered said atrocities). I think we give far too much credit to the original writers of the Bible. We assume them to be these saintly, holy, and flawless people who for x amount of time completely surrendered their lives to write down an "accurate" account of God's presence on this earth and the actions of his people. What we forget, though, is that history is written by the winners and that these people were just that: people. They had hopes, fears, strengths, weaknesses, and sins just like the rest of us. Oh, and that prickly little thing called free-will, which opens up a whole 'nother kettle of worms interms of Biblical interpretation...

. If the Bible is flawed, can God still be good? Can you still believe in God/Jesus when there may be inconsistencies/injustices in his work? What about the whole gender issue? Is God really a "he"? What about women's roles in faith and in society? What about homosexuals? What about cursing or offensive language? Alcohol? Is it okay to trust your own conscience over what you've read/been taught by a pastor? All things that I will probably rant about in future blogs. That's all for now. Let the games begin.

A Novel Concept

*Insert shudder here*
God preserve me from such a fate. Remember boys and girls: friends don't let friends write fanfiction. Upon all that is holy and worthy of reading, PLEASE spare the world. There's enough of that dribble out there already; write your own stories.

On that note, in the absence of the ability to create anything remotely resembling poetry, I've taken to tinkering with a side project of mine: a YA novel. I tend to write stories with sci-fi/fantasy themes, largely because such stories were my literary bread and butter growing up, but I'm trying desperately to come up with something that isn't completely cliche. Granted, such a statement is probably cliche in and of itself, but that's nevertheless what I'm striving for.

As much as I love the genre, there are so many sterotypical elements that occur in any given YA fantasy novel. Ex: Young hero/heroine who is an orphan who suffers terribly at the hands of his/her guardians. He/she is really an alien or a fairy and has been "kept in the dark" about his/her heritage. He/she encounters some "magical" portal that takes him/her to another world(Thank-you, Kristin Nelson, from the Nelson Literary Agency, for your blog on THAT issue.^-^)

My goal, essentially, is to - within reason - turn every staple of the YA fantasy genre on its head. Well, maybe not every staple...I rather like a few of them. (Insert sinfully delicious villian here. Mmmm.)

The idea, though, is that readers typically expect certain conventions to be in place when they read a fantasy novel: there is a hero, a quest, and a villian to be vanquished. My question - the concept I'd love to toy with - is simply this: what happens when your hero is really a villain? When black and white aren't so wonderfully obvious? I know it's quintissential post-modernism, but I love the idea of playing with the ethics behind traditional fairy-tales. What happens when you don't instantly have magical solutions to all of your problems? When dragons are good? When knights are not? When everything you've ever known is nothing but a lie?

In the end, I suppose most of these "inversions" have been done as well. That's the trouble with writing: there's really nothing original left. Those who write masterpieces only do so because they've developed the skill to hide who they subconconciously get their ideas from. Our only hope, as writers, is that our versions of the age old stories will be uniquely compelling when told from our perspectives.

Incipit

I feel like something big is looming on the horizon: something life-changing and irrevocable. I've got so many changes coming up in my life, some of which have already been set in motion. I graduate this December with a BA in English. I will be out of school and in the "adult" world hunting for a way to support myself and a place to rest my head at night. This is, God willing, my last summer at home with my family. I love them, but it's become abundantly clear that I need to be on my own. I really just don't fit there anymore.

Then there's the subject of grad schools: where will I go, when will I go, what can I afford, what degree will I choose? The list is endless. For all of my professor's insistence that my poetry is "powerful" and that I will be published and giving readings one day, I'm really not certain that I'm all that good. I like my work, but what I like and readers like can be two different things. I'm supposed to have fifty plus poems for my portfolio; I've only got a dozen or so that are worth anything and time is running out. Not to mention the fact that a seemingly insurmountable wall of writer's block is barring my poetic progress...and has apparently made me anal about alliteration...

Regardless, all of these things boil down to one simple fact: my life is about to change. Change has always both excited and frightened me. I tend to be a security oriented peson so, consequently, I'm not crazy about huge changes in what I'm comfortable with. At the same time, though, I know change is necessary for growth...insert dramatic sigh...
Maybe that's why I created this blog: to catalogue the change. Here, at least, I have the safety of anonymity to protect me as I finally allow myself to be honest about what I feel. No pretty facades. No masques. Just me. And maybe, by just being me, I'll somehow manage to get through this crazy little thing we call life. We'll see.