I’ve been on-again-off-again reading this great book on writing called, A Syllable of Water: Twenty Writers of Faith Reflect on Their Art. It’s a compilation of faith-based writers from across the genres, each taking a particular theme and sharing his or her insights and expertise. I appreciate the way you can pick it up and put it down, and I also really enjoy all the different voices of experience and wisdom.
Reading about other writers’ processes is one of my loves. I am always interested in hearing how other people are inspired, how they approach the craft, how their pieces begin and develop, and what gets them through the blocks and self-doubt.
I just read an essay by Richard Foster, and it has been one of my favorites in the collection so far. His piece is titled, “Made Visible and Plain: On Spiritual Writing.”
I was inspired by the following:
“Spiritual writing is formational. Always. It is meant to get inside us, to deal with the whole person—body and mind and will and spirit and heart and soul. It is good if our readers come away knowing more; it is imperative that they come away being more. Knowing truth is good; becoming truth is better.”
“It pains me to say this, but most writing today—even if it is on spiritual themes—is not spiritual writing. It is not spiritual writing because it does not drill down deep into life.”
Foster goes on to recommend reading Augustine, Teresa of Avila, C.S. Lewis, and Kathleen Norris (I hope to start Cloister Walk sometime soon). What other writers have been spiritual writers to you?
For me, Anne Lamott (all of her non-fiction), Kathleen Norris (Acedia and Me), Barbara Brown Taylor (Leaving Church), Phyllis Tickle (The Shaping of a Life), Eugene Peterson, even Mary Karr comes to mind. I love reading writers who bring you through the side-door and show you truth and beauty by letting you come upon it.
What is “spiritual writing” to you? Do you think any of the new generation of Christian writers are pulling it off or is this kind of writing reserved for seasoned souls?
