Archive for September, 2010
I was in graduate school working on all things education when a professor pulled me aside one afternoon and told me I was a writer. I was 38 years old. I’d grown up in a 12 x 60 in West Georgia. “I’m pretty sure I can’t even spell, much less write,” I replied.
Turns out I was right about that spelling thing, but that writing thing? Well, looks like that gentle soul of a professor had pretty good insights.
I get asked a lot for advice about writing from people who want to be writers or some who just want to be famous. In fact a cowboy stopped me outside the grocery store the other day, tipped his hat back and said, “How’s the writing going? You making any money at this?”
Now anyway you look at it, that’s a rude question. If I am getting rich off this, what business is it of his? And if I’m not, what business is it of his?
I sighed and said, “That was never the point, Cowboy. I do this because I believe I’m called to it.”
He went on to tell me that he’s planning on writing the next great Agatha Christie mystery and that he intends to get rich from writing it. I walked off shaking my head and recalling something my wise professor taught me. A lesson that has carried me during the times when I’m making money and times when I”m not (Thank you, Mr. Sponsor, for the health insurance and Starbucks). What the proferssor said was – ”Ignore all flattery and all criticisms and just keep writing.”
That was singularly the best writing advice I’ve ever received.
The reason all that comes to mind is because I overreacted to the CNN essay about teens being “Fake Christians.” And I didn’t do my homework. I should have contacted the author of the book — Miz Dean — and asked her if she said all those things that CNN reported. I could have asked her what she meant by all that.
Turns out Miz Dean has been catching a lot of heat for that article. (You can read about it over at her site .) Most of it from people who for one reason or another are disappointed in Christians, or the church. Then I come hop-skipping along and say my two cents worth, which is the point of being a commentator and southern woman.
My old professor he taught me one more thing as a writer — he said if you need to explain your point to the reader then you didn’t make it very well to begin with. You only have to take a look at the comment section to realize I did a lot of explaining this week.
Not that I think that’s bad. I think discussion is a good thing and I hope that people visiting this site feel like what they say matters, even if we are at cross-hairs with one another on the issue.
As one fella noted, it seems that Miz Dean and I are not at cross-hairs. We both are hoping for the same thing — teens who are wholly devoted to God. I came at it from an ancedotal, experiential method and she’s coming at it from a reasoned, analytical approach.
I will confess that I often feel out-of-step with the rest of the world, like maybe I’m the fake. When Anne Rice announced that she can no longer tolerate bickering Christians and thus is leaving the fellowship of the Catholic Church, I respond by recalling how the church stepped into my life when I needed it most — as a teen — and provided me with a safe haven. Some of my dearest friendships were formed during those years over car washes and hot dog suppers. I had the blessed fortune of having a wonderful youth pastor and the life-long friendship of the senior pastor, both of whom I wrote about in my memoir.
The people of Rose Hill Baptist Church stepped into the gap in my life and I will forever and always love them for that. But it is also true that today, Rose Hill is a dying church, supported primarily by the old timers who’ve been there forever. Rose Hill is located in a primarily black neighborhood and it never served the people next-door. It was always about white people driving in from other parts of the community to worship there. There were big fights about all that back in the day. So I reckon on some level Anne Rice is right — we are a cantankerous lot.
And while I have not read Miz Dean’s book, I take it from the discussion that occurred here and at her site that she’s worried about things like that — about the church losing it’s ability to mark the life of a child — the way Rose Hill folks did for me.
I, on the other hand, am not depressed by what I see in today’s youth. I am inspired by them. I think it takes more courage and more discipline to stand for Christ today than ever before. It thrills me when I see faith in action in a kid’s life. I suppose because it takes me back to such a tender place in my own life.
The one thing I am never about and never want to be about here at this site or even in my own life is being right. What I long for above all else is to live the redeemed life. The kind of life that I witnessed Pastor Smitty living, and The Marine, and The Redhead and the Giver and the Veteran. The kind of life I see in Whitney Ferrin and Jordan Foxworthy and hundreds of other kids.
I sent Miz Dean a note. I’ll tell her all this and ask her forgiveness on the phone when we speak but meanwhile I wanted to tell you. Just because a person’s got a calling on their life doesn’t give them permission to run stampede over somebody else’s life. Passion is a good thing corralled. Unleashed it can be ugly.
If you’re a parent raising kids up in the Lord or a person working in ministry, you’ll probably get a lot of insights out of reading Miz Dean’s book. And if it’s wrangling with issues you’re seeking. this is probably a pretty good stop along the way.
(Editor’s note: For previous post, please go to http://karenzach.com/2010/your-kid-isnt-a-real-christian/)
(Editor’s Note: The following is a piece that I wrote for Newsweek in 2005. I thought its message timely and important as we bring combat troops home from Iraq)
After her own father died in Vietnam, writer Karen Spears Zacharias learned what it was like to be a survivor of war. Zacharias detailed her own experience in a new family memoir, “After the Flag has been Folded: A Daughter Remembers the Father She Lost in Vietnam and the Mother Who Held the Family Together” (William Morrow Co.). She has also taken on a freelance counseling effort, reaching out to the children of today’s fallen servicemen and women with sympathetic letters, late-night phone calls and quiet visits to their homes. They see her as someone who truly understands–just another kid who lost her father in a faraway war. At NEWSWEEK’s request, Zacharias has written them an open letter.
Dear Sons & Daughters of Today’s Fallen:
I read your names: Zane, Tegan, Kadence, Brandon, and Esetavave. And the names of your surviving parents: Sally, Andrea, Linda, Ron, and Latisha.
Then I figure your age, to see if you are yet old enough to remember the parent you lost to war. Or if you are too young to have any memories, like so many of my friends who lost their fathers in the Vietnam War.
I was 9, old enough to have lots of good memories. Such as the way Daddy gently tossed the baseball across home plate so my older brother Frankie could swing for a base hit. Or the time he brought us kids silky soft rabbits for Easter and laughed off Mama’s protestations that our yard would soon be littered with critters. After supper I would sit on Daddy’s lap and rub the palm of my hands across the coarse stubble on his face. It’s in the quiet after supper that I recall my father best. I miss sitting on the front porch and drinking a cup of coffee, reminiscing with him about our family’s growing-up years.
We got word of Daddy’s death on a sun-scorched day in July 1966. We three kids-Frankie, 12, me, and Linda, 7-gathered around Mama, as she bent over the backend of the trailer tending to a bulldog pup.
Grandpa Harve, Mama’s stroke-disabled father, sat nearby in a lawn chair. A white-woven hat and green-lensed sunglasses shielded his eyes.
I don’t know if he was watching us or the military jeep headed up the entrance to Slaughters’ Trailer Court in Rogersville, Tenn.
I can remember endless details of that day, yet, trying with all my might, I still cannot recall the exact moment when the soldier told us that Daddy had been blown up in the battlefields of Vietnam. I hear with aching clarity the wails Frankie made as he punched the walls of that trailer and the sobs of my mama as she walked up and down the hallway, pleading, “Why me, God?”
You might be wondering the same thing: Why you? Why your parent? Why your family? It’s normal to ask, but, trust me, there isn’t an answer that will ease the ache in your gut. Or the anger and frustration that such a loss ignites. Mine was the first generation of children to have war blasted into the living room each night. And, like many of you, I lacked the tools to articulate the confusion I felt as I watched it unfold. So, I retreated to a place of woundedness and began to self-destruct. First out of fear, then anger, then sheer rebellion. At 17, desperate for male attention of any sort, I became pregnant and had an abortion. Frankie was just as confused. He tried to numb the hurt with alcohol then drugs. That only created more problems.
Once she was handed that flag Mama never spoke of Daddy. As a child I resented that. I needed to hear his name, Dave, the way I’d heard it every single day of my life until then. But I was afraid such talk would hurt Mama or Frankie or Linda. Decades passed before our family learned there was healing in talking. The friends I made at Sons & Daughters in Touch and the veterans I’ve befriended have encouraged me honor my father’s memory. They don’t ridicule my tears. They don’t prod me to find closure. I don’t miss my father less with each passing year, I’m simply more aware of all the life he’s missed. You don’t need closure.
You just need acceptance.
To find that you must remember your parent. The jokes they retold, the meals they savored, the way their arms felt upon your shoulders, or the way they smelled when they hugged you close. In other words, they way they loved and cherished you. Your parent died in an effort to bring freedom to others. Don’t misuse your own freedoms to self-destruct.
Honor James, Pamela, Orlando, Bennie, Michael-your mothers and fathers–with a life that will make them as proud of you as you are of them.
Ransom the sacred moments, so that your daddy or mama will be remembered as much for the way they lived as the way they died.
God bless you,
Karen
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