Advice for Christian Writers – Write the Little Gifts

Last updated on: August 1, 2021 at 6:00 pm by Brad Roth

Advice for Christian Writers – Write the Little Gifts 2021-07-31T12:15:59-05:00 Brad Roth

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A couple of years ago, I stood at the airport car rental counter to pick up my reservation. “Good news,” the agent told me. “We’re going to upgrade you!”

I tried to work up some appropriate gratitude. “Okay, thanks.”

“Your upgraded vehicle will be…” he announced, his keyboard taps providing the drum roll, “a Ford Fiesta!”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a Ford Fiesta. I got along just fine with my rented Ford Fiesta. But in my mind, rental car upgrades usually mean bigger, more powerful, and more luxurious in some way–a sports car or an SUV, something leather-lined and shiny and muscular. The car I was given was, well, none of those. I mashed the gas pedal and it lurched and wheezed asthmatically. The tailpipe gave off a menacing rattle. What exactly was I being upgraded from? Whatever it was, I did my best to receive this little gift.

I’m convinced we have to learn to write the little gifts that come to us. To write christianly is to pay attention to the working of the Spirit in our lives. Because writing is hard, we can think this means writing only the epiphanies and big insights. But most epiphanies dawn slowly. Waiting around to write until we have something big to say is like waiting for lightning to strike. People who are waiting to write aren’t usually writers.

Instead, try writing the little things. What you see: the hooded seeds of the box elder, that hen’s foot scaled in slate, the single blade of grass that curls around your damp hand as you weed in the dew. Write what you experience: breath, heart, passion as fierce as the grave, but sometimes too that dull waiting, that blunt force pushing through days like ice. Write these things, because as contemplative master Thomas Keating put it, “Daily life is a continual and increasing revelation of God” (Open Mind, Open Heart, 18). The little gifts are pinholes on eternity.

In one way, sin is a failure of imagination. Because of sin, we become flaccid observers. Our days bore us. The moments dull our eyes. There’s nothing to see here, or so we think, and so we shuffle along. Grace offers a flicker of possibilities opposite and good and beautiful. It cracks our eyes open to the giftedness of the littlest things. That’s what we have to learn to begin to write. Tell a little story.

Let me tell you a little story. Something has been crunching and shifting my spine in the night. Some unconscious worry, maybe, set loose in the vulnerability of sleep? It comes in like an evil elf anti-chiropractor and works me over. It shuffles my vertebrae like a deck of ivory cards. It wads my spine like tie-dye, rubberbands me into a clump. I wake up tight and popping, sleep wringing out of my brain in fractal patterns with too much white space.

But I know something else is afoot. It’s that child, that two-year-old son of mine who comes by night, camouflaged by shadow, and helps himself to our bed. It’s he who kickboxes my kidneys and levers my spine with his elbow. He’s the same one I push by day on his tricycle, stooped for blocks in a forbidden yogic pose.

In the morning, I swivel my feet onto the floor. I bend in runner stretches and breathe. I do a few pull-ups, and my spine pops like a campfire. My small son is still there sleeping, splayed and fearless where he nestled between my wife and I. That too is a little gift.

Previous Post

July 8, 2021

Guard Your Heart

Next Post

September 9, 2021 On Picking Raspberries Slowly

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month January 2023 November 2022 May 2022 April 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: 3 John commends Diotrephes for his hospitality and love for the brethren.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE

Books by This Author Books by Brad Roth

See All Titles »