Kintsugi Creativity

by Allen Arnold, @TheStoryofWith

We all have scars. Most are unseen. But visible or not, every scar cuts deep. Betrayal from those we trusted. Silence when we needed support. Conditional love based on our performance. It’s amazing how many ways a heart can be shattered.

And for the most part, these wounds weren’t accidental. We have an enemy whose aim is to steal, kill, and destroy - both the Story you're living and the ones you're writing. And his strikes are strategic, attacking you at your points of purpose. Which is why the areas of your life that have been the most opposed often hold clues to your unique calling.

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OFFERING HOPE

by Cynthia Ruchti

A novelist once asked, "What would you do if you didn't write novels?" answered, "I'd write short stories."

"And if you didn't write short stories?"

"I'd write one meaningful paragraphs."

"And if you couldn't write meaningful paragraphs?"

Pause. "I guess I'd write power-packed sentences. One-liners."

"And if--?"

The novelist thought hard. "I'd write one word: Hope."

Other professions might have a different answer to that series of questions. But the novelist, especially the novelist who writes Christian fiction, can condense their life's work to a single word like hope, or one similar in flavor.

Peace. Light. Joy. Faith. Power. Purpose. Meaning. Insight. Understanding. Compassion. Redemption. Wisdom.

During a recent women's event, Romans 15:13 served as a key verse encompassing their unique maple-syrup making theme--Tapping Into God. The table decorations held a trunk of a maple tree with a nail on which hung a small bucket for collecting sap. Each attendee received a small glass bottle of maple syrup. The comedy skit prior to my speaking showed every definition imaginable about tree tapping, including tapping out Morse Code, tapping a phone screen, and tap shoes.

Romans 15:13 (CEB) describes why we find that sweet source of hope by tapping into God. It reads, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in faith so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

So much is packed into that one sentence, one sentence reducing the reason we write to its beautiful, rich essence.

"May the God of HOPE fill you with all JOY and PEACE in FAITH so that you overflow with HOPE by the POWER of the Holy Spirit."

A sentence a few verses earlier reads, "May the God of ENDURANCE and ENCOURAGEMENT…" (Romans 15:5, CEB).

And that's why we write tangled mysteries with a hope-giving conclusion, nail-biting thrillers that show a soul either redeemed or suffering the consequences of actions against the ancient and still viable and inviolable rules of life itself, emotive women's fiction with hope embedded in the denouement, well-researched historicals that wrestle with hope-hungry issues we face yet today.

Because there is a God of hope. And He intends us to spread word about it through our stories, a hope that fills us and our readers with joy and peace in faith so we overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We weave stories of hope because it all comes back to that single word, and its close-knit companions.

As we approach our writing assignments these next days and weeks, might we first come to the God of hope, tapping into what He holds out to us, so that our words are the overflow of a life overwhelmed by hope.


Cynthia Ruchti is an author and speaker who tells stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark through her novels and novellas, her devotions, nonfiction, and speaking events for women and writers. Her recent releases are When the Morning Glory Blooms (novel) and Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People's Choices (nonfiction). Connect with her and keep the hope-filled conversation going at www.cynthiaruchti.com or www.facebook.com/CynthiaRuchtiReaderPage.

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Making Art

I'm speaking this week on the subject of what to do when life looks like the plot of a novel, a cheesy novel that would make an editor say, "Yeah, not believable. Try again."

"But it really happened."

Sigh. "Do you know what we editors call it when a character is faced with that many compounded disasters?"

I flipped through my mental glossary of writer terms. None seemed to fit. "No. What?"

"The Die Hard Series Syndrome."

"Pardon me?"

The editor smiled. "We also call it ridiculous."

"I thought so, too, when I was going through it."

Maybe the series of disastrous family events that started a year ago won't make it into one novel. I may have to spread them out. And I am. A speaking event or two or three. A collection of devotional thoughts. This blog post. Anecdotes for a non-fiction book.

In the September 2011 issue of "The Writer" magazine, Luke Reynolds proposed that it's becoming harder and harder not to see pain as a necessity for creating truth with words--even in writing fiction. He quoted author John Gardner (On Becoming a Novelist) as saying, "Art begins in a wound."

At twelve years old, Gardner accidentally ran over his younger brother with a tractor on their family farm. The younger boy died from the injuries. Gardner battled guilt and depression, but grew to write with a depth of empathy the untouched fail to reach.

"A writer must be able to translate pain--his own or another's--into compassion," writes Reynolds. "As soon as compassion begins, so can creation."

Turning pain into art is what God does every day with the soul that looks to Him. We couch it in different words--words like redeem, reclaim, repurpose...

When we look for the epicenter of pain in great books, we'll find it, there within the art. What seemed coarse or harsh or piercing is rearranged to make beauty.

The tatters, the noxious weeds, the broken pieces, the disappointments of life are the Artist's tools.

I applaud Mr. Reynolds's conclusion to his observations. It is a conclusion that gets to the core of the role of pain or distress in equipping us to write authentically and with meaning. He said, "While Gardner is right that art begins with a wound, we might add that it ends with a way forward--a crack where hope seeps in."

QUESTION FOR YOU: God is in the process of sculpting beauty from shards and difficulty in our lives. How far into the process is He with your story? Do you see the art yet? Is your experiencing being redeemed to impact someone else's story?

Cynthia Ruchti writes about finding art in the ash heap in her non-fiction from Abingdon Press--Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People's Choices. Her recent novel--When the Morning Glory Blooms--links three stories of compassion's redemptive beauty. You can learn more about her books at www.cynthiaruchti.com or www.hopethatglowsinthedark.com.

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Redemption in The Hunger Games?

I’m reading James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers again (excellent book) and flipped open to page 104 today: “The writer who understands redemption is on the border of enduring fiction.”

I read this three days after seeing The Hunger Games, a movie that disturbed me greatly—and, truth be told, still does.

I think I’m beginning to understand why the movie so bothers me: No redemption—or is there?

Literary redemption

Redemption Scene from The Shawshank Redemption

I have not read the books. I saw the movie with my wife, a children’s librarian, because I thought it would be an interesting experiment—a movie buff who hasn’t read the book watching the movie with a reader who generally doesn’t appreciate movies. Plus, it was at the bargain theatre.

From Bell’s book: “Flannery O’Connor talked about the need for a story to show ‘grace being offered.’ …  Redemption is bound up in choice. The right choice brings about redemption because the wrong choice will leave the character in a worse moral condition.”

First of all, what do I mean by redemption?

Redemption: The action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.

This includes, but is not limited to, the traditional Christian understanding of redemption: Where Jesus Christ laid down his life to save humans from their sins, and the price of those sins, eternal separation from God.

Lies and more lies

If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book—and you want to—you may want to stop reading.

Katniss and Peeta considering suicide

At the climactic moment, after being lied to by the games’ organizers that both could survive, Katniss (the book’s main character) and Peeta, a young man from her District and also a participant in the game, are faced with a horrific choice: one of them must kill the other to survive and win the game or they both must kill themselves, choosing to go out on their own terms.

There is no redemption—no way to save or be saved from sin, error, or evil. In fact, what Katniss’ gambit (pretending to be star-crossed lovers willing to commit suicide) does is force the game’s organizers (who are clearly evil) to offer a faux redemption and reinstate the rule change that two participants from the same District could win together. There will be repercussions for all involved.

But wait

Earlier in the movie, after finding Peeta injured and dying, and after hearing the lie that there could be two winners if they were from the same District, Katniss risks coming out into the open to retrieve the medicine Peeta needs to survive.

And even earlier, Peeta, seeing Katniss nearly starving to death and being in love with her, contrives a way to get a loaf of bread to her that saves her life. Self-sacrifice! There is redemption, then.

But Katniss doesn’t really love Peeta the way he loves her. She has another young man back in District 12 she’s in love with. But she knows the “star-crossed lovers battling against insurmountable odds to survive” is a powerful myth that will resonate with the television audience watching the game.

So her love is “ends justifies means” love—she will love Peeta if it means they have a better chance at survival.

What does it all mean?

The phrase the end justifies the means refers to the morality of an action and is based solely on the outcome of that action and not on the action itself. Example: Telling a lie that has no negative effect on anyone, and saves someone grief, is good.

But there can be no redemption in a lie. “O how terrible for those who confuse good with evil, right with wrong, light with dark, sweet with bitter.” Isaiah 5:20 (The Voice)

Think about that quote from Bell again: “Redemption is bound up in choice. The right choice brings about redemption because the wrong choice will leave the character in a worse moral condition.”

At the end of the story, all of the characters are in a worse situation than they were before—alive, but morally compromised. I walked out of the theatre, dejected and oppressed rather than encouraged and freed.

At the end of the Harry Potter movies, even the darker ones, good triumphed—often at cost, but it triumphed. That does not happen here.

What do you think? Have I missed something essential by having not read the books?

Michael Ehret loves to play with words and as editor of the ACFW Journal, he is enjoying his playground. He also plays with words as a freelance editor/writer at WritingOnTheFineLine.com, where each Tuesday he takes a writer Into The Edit, pulling back the veil on the editing process. He has edited several nonfiction books, played with words as a corporate communicator, and reported for The Indianapolis Star.

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