Sunday, May 23, 2010

Facebook, Twitter and the Meaning of Life























I was pondering why I was feeling discouraged about my relationship with Evangelicalism . . . once again. I think it was multifactorial, however, one key one was my latest rejection by a literally agent for my manuscript Butterflies in the Belfry, Serpents in the Cellar. This will be sixth rejection and was probably my last try. I think the book has come to its demise.

The first five agents appeared secular in their orientation. I had carefully screened them as appearing to be interested in my type of work . . . but apparently they were not.

If you don’t know how this works (and I think most here do) you really can’t get a book published these days unless you have an agent. To get an agent, you have to win them over with a two-paragraph pitch. So, years of hard work and thought come down to about six to eight carefully worded sentences.

The previous rejections came quickly (within a week) and were obviously “form” e-mails . . . but polite. “Thank you so much for considering our agency. We are sorry but we are not accepting manuscripts of your type right now.”

Then I decided to try a self-proclaimed Christian agent. But he wasn’t over the top with a fundamentalist view of the universe. He had actually represented some controversial topics and had been a writer at Christianity Today. But his rejection came late (after a month) and with a twist of cruelty I had not seen before. “There is no way I would want to represent you.” So what the hell does that mean? It really leaves you wondering.

I’ve said before, and I think most writers (dare I call myself one) and artists in general would much rather have someone look carefully at their work and give strong, specific criticism than to have someone scowl and run away by the very mention of it. It leaves us confused and dangling.

Okay, putting that aside, I was thinking about a much broader topic . . . very broad . . . and that is the proverbial meaning to life.

I’ve said before that I think you can boil down all human behavior to two general areas. First of course are biological needs. Those are clear but can be complicated. I say complicated because in history I’m sure wars have started over simple biological needs . . . often a King in one country wanting to have sex with someone . . . whom he can only win via war. But of course food (or lack of) can drive a nation to war or even water. That was just one small part of the French Revolution (which I’ve been thinking about recently).

But the other major player is simply our deep desire to have value. That is the prime mover in virtually all that we do. This is why there are city block after city block of lines of people waiting in queue for one chance in a million (literally) of being America’s Idol. Getting on TV is sufficient for some, even if it makes them look like a fool. But this is why we have Facebook and Twitter too. Facebook has been in the news of late (including the cover of the last Time magazine) because of privacy issues so I was thinking about it more than usual.

I was not familiar with Facebook until December 09, when I joined to see photos of my first grand child, Oliver. But immediately I had all these friends tying into my network of people. I hardly go to Facebook except—still—to see photos of my grand son. But I was surprised how so many people are posting, almost on the hour. “I ate a PB and J sandwich and it was so good.”

Now, before I say too much, I will be the first to admit that this very blog is not more than a mouse’s eyebrow removed from that same narcissistic exercise. So, like always, I include myself in my commentary. But I’m still not saying this is a bad thing. While most of what we do is based on that primal desire to have value, this does not mean we should stop doing it. However, we should know why we do these things and we should know that they never accomplish their purpose . . . making us feel of significance.

I’ve mentioned before that more than 90% of the motivation of doing humanitarian work comes from this same place. I’ve been there several times. I’ve seen American doctors being very rude to the nationals that they have come to help and they would put a patient in jeopardy in order to get a better photo for their humanitarian trophies. I have my photographic trophies on my office wall as well. I don’t think I would put a patient in jeopardy to get a good shot . . . at least I hope not. And I was just using that as an example of the extreme to make a point. But with all that said, we still SHOULD do humanitarian work. We still should go to Facebook and Twitter as well if we want . . . or blog.

Besides knowing why we do what we do (and getting away from the Christian concept of “I am doing this out of pure motives”), we should also strive to know that we have tremendous value (that is intrinsic value) because God made us. The Gospel is all about value being added by an act of grace. So we don’t have to be America’s idol, a great humanitarian, great mother, great father or great writer to have value.

But I use the word “strive” because I fail at this all the time. I think us who have the anxiety tendency tend to fail at this the most . . . but I’m not sure.

But posting on Facebook is part of this endless march to find meaning and significance. Someone cares if I ate a PB and J. Someone cares if I have a thought on Christian Monist Vs Dualism. It’s all the same.

I know that I am off on a convoluted path but there is a point. I find myself in a funk, as I talked about yesterday, seemingly distant from the church (small “c”) and I even entertain, at times, of going back in—full throttle—and faking it like everyone else does. It is because I desire this significance and I have a (wrong) feeling that I could get it there.

I think that it was three years ago when I started putting my thoughts down in the Butterflies manuscript. I poured my heart into it for well over a year. It was a labor of love. I had those thoughts inside my head, like a steamship slowly coming into vision out of the midst of a dense fog. As I wrote the words down, the fog seemed to lift.

My wife Denise tells me that I should only write for myself. I think that is why she doesn’t like me writing this blog where I hang my dirty laundry out for the world to see and she doesn’t come here. I think that she may be right. Maybe, if there was a purpose in my writing it is for my own benefit.

But in the same way I thought I would go to the mission field an be this great missionary guy that someone would write books about some day (like Hudson Taylor), I may have had a grandiose idea that I could make an impact somewhere by my writing. And by having such an impact, I would be a bit more valuable.

This is where I cross paths once more with the brilliance of Solomon. When I read his writings—Ecclesiastes being my favorite—I feel that I truly am sitting at the feet of an intellectual giant. He is also a genius who I think is very misunderstood because his writings make us uncomfortable.

“All is vanity, a chasing after the wind. So what is left but to eat, drink and be merry.” How many times have I heard preachers tell us that those words came from an unrepentant Solomon? They will add that later he “shaped-up” met the Lord for real, and then realized that eating, drinking and being merry were wrong and that having a great ministry is of great worth. Not!

I think if Solomon was here he would say, “I tried out for American Idol . . . and I won. I got a platinum record . . . but still I felt of no more value. Then I devoted my life to Christ, became a missionary in China, built a chain of Christian schools across Asia, wrote three hundred best-selling books . . . yet, for nothing. I went to church every morning for fifty years, never missing a day, yet all vain . . . chasing after the wind. I started the largest ministry in the US and was the pride of James Dobson . . . yet it was all worthless. Then, I realized that I was fully valuable in God’s eyes already and these other things didn’t matter. Then I knew that sitting in Starbucks with my son, eating a cinnamon roll, drinking a mocha and being merry of heart in the bright sun . . . is as good as it gets. Know if I could only believe that once and for all.

12 comments:

Johan said...

Thank you for your blog today. It fit with something I'm going through these days.
My own book got published last march. Since then I've been feeling low. I'm waking up tired, i have trouble with low self esteem, I started to eat more and more, i'm not doing twell at my work. Kind of a post-publishing depression.
One of the things that I thought about was how this showed me that I still was dependent on me being published to give me significance. It's still that important, that now that it's out there, there's a gap in my life.
To be reminded of Ecclesiastes is good.
But there's a part in me that finds it hard to believe. Part of my evangelical/brethren upbringing that doubts whether God would really think it ok if i didn't work hard for him, if I wasn't being productive, if I just sat back and enjoyed coffee in the sun.
It's a gift of grace, as you said, it's what I'm coming back to again and again.
As for the blog, I for one hope you continue, for you are a sane (or saner) voice in the babble of voices around me.

Johan

Peter Davidson said...

Hello MJ, You have a very interesting blog here! You may also appreciate the many testimonies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at http://wetestifyofchrist.blogspot.com. God bless.

MJ said...

Johan, first of congratulations on the book.

I've heard that Olympic athletes, who have met their goals, and others have this great let-down depression afterwards because subconsciously they had this feeling that if their goal was met they would be fulfilled . . . and then they are not.

I think it is true of many great figures in history. Like Meriweather Lewis (of Lewis and Clark) becoming very depressed after the completion of the expedition, then becoming an alcoholic . . . and then killing himself.

I've heard great wisdom that says, "if you aren't happy where you are then you will never be happy." I've struggled with that my whole life . . . being content in the place I'm in, and not holding out hope that if such and such happens (like me getting my book published) that things will finally be better.

MJ said...

Peter Davidson . . . smells like blog-spam, you know cut and paste but maybe you can correct my impressions.

Anonymous said...

Then I decided to try a self-proclaimed Christian agent. But he wasn’t over the top with a fundamentalist view of the universe. He had actually represented some controversial topics and had been a writer at Christianity Today. But his rejection came late (after a month) and with a twist of cruelty I had not seen before. “There is no way I would want to represent you.” So what the hell does that mean?

Traitor to the Christian Cause?

And if he agented you, he'd be anathema to the industry?

(I've gotten nasty rejections from dating services before I gave up completely. The nastiest and most spectacular rejections were always through the Christian (TM) Dating Services; why shouldn't Christian agents be equally nasty?)

I hope this wasn't Internet Monk's agent (Jeff Dunn, I think his name is). If not, you might want to try to contact him through Internet Monk. Or your proofreader contact(s) through the Lost Genre Guild. Over at LGG, we're also trying to swim against the grain of the Official Christian (TM) Party Line.

Leanne said...

Keep writing - maybe this particular book was not meant for public consumption, but was more of a healing/cathartic thing for you.

I wrote what started out as a memoir and then morphed into a play that was a deeply personal look at growing up in an evangelical church - some good, some not-so-good. I had grand ideas of producing it and getting interviewed on Oprah and all that jazz...

But I have come to realize that that although this particular writing venture may never bring me fame, writing it was essential to my healing process and further writing projects [I couldn't pick up anything until I got this one finished!].

Just a thought, anyway - from one disgruntled evangelical writer to another ;o).

MJ said...

HUG, no it wasn't Spencer's agent.

I think that is hard about this genre. The secular agents see it as fundamentalist crap. The Christian agents can't visualize it in a mall Christian book store along with the precious moments books and the Left Behind series.

MJ said...

Leanne, I think you are right and that is how I'm viewing it right now.

It is a little hard, and you know this well. Like a few years ago we bought this old Victorian house and I worked like a dog remodeling it over 5 years. Then we went to move and the buyer didn't even want to look inside. He wanted the prime land it was on. He gave us our asking price but he was going to bulldoze it down. I felt sick and how I had wasted my life working on it.

But, that story had an happy ending when someone bought the actual house and moved it far out into the country to a lovely site.

So it is knowing how much work you put into something that hurts . . . but then again, like you said, it serves a purpose but not the one intended.

Anonymous said...

Peter Davidson . . . smells like blog-spam, you know cut and paste but maybe you can correct my impressions. -- MJ

It was the link to the Testimony site (in word-for-word Christianese) that made me go "spammer".

Keep writing - maybe this particular book was not meant for public consumption, but was more of a healing/cathartic thing for you.

I wrote what started out as a memoir and then morphed into a play...
-- Leanne

I wrote about a dying unicorn (which gave me my commenter handle) and later a memoir about a cobra in a white dress. Both were intensely personal (the latter being VERY autobiographical), but I'd still want to see them passed around. MJ says he can't read Tale of Two Cities without thinking of my headless unicorn.

HUG, no it wasn't Spencer's agent.

Then you probably got a bad agent. I'd contact Jeff Dunn; neither of us know him, but he DID bring Internet Monk's book to fruition and yours is along the same lines. Your regular commenting on IMonk could serve as an initial introduction; you're not some unknown coming out of nowhere, you've got at least some connection.

I think that is hard about this genre. The secular agents see it as fundamentalist crap. The Christian agents can't visualize it in a mall Christian book store along with the precious moments books and the Left Behind series.

That is the reason the Lost Genre Guild was formed; what we write is "Too Christian for the mainstream and not Christian (TM) enough for the CBA." Unfortunately for you, LGG specializes in imaginative fiction, but we did find you a proofreader/editor -- maybe we can find you an agent/publisher/distributor as well.

Headless Unicorn Guy

Johan said...

Those were wise words. And I recognize the struggle. All those 'shoulds', the measuring stick I measure myself with ...
The thing with deriving significance from these accomplishments is that as soon as they are accomplished, they're in the past, and they seem to have no significance for who I am in THIS moment. That's why I know (in my mind) that Jesus was right when he said that we should not worry for tomorrow, but instead live in the present trusting God and His kingdom (like the flowers and the birds). The past is history (literally) and the future is only an imagination. What matters is that God loves me now, as I am now, in all my insecurities, ambiguities and 'post book blues'. It's only for moments that I grab that truth, though.
IN the mean time I've learned that there is such a thing as a 'post-book blues' for authors, and your examples of athletes et cetera reinforce the point.
I will make it a goal to relax and enjoy the moments, sitting in the sun with a latte works for me too!

Johan

P.S. I read your manuscript that you posted on the blog and found it touchin, engaging and convicting. It would be a sad state for the christian community if your voice would be lost. I read that Jeff Dunne would work on publishing opportunities for the Imonk community, so I second HUG's advice.

Anonymous said...

I posted a comment before, I am largely someone who lost faith in God and the church for some of the issues you have covered in this overall blog. I've read and thought, "Man he's spot on.." over the past year. Thank you...I learned that I am not alone in my thoughts or experiences.

One of the things I felt sick about within the church was watching how much 'serving God' became a competition and a way to seek attention. Over the 10 years I was there I heard so many prayers and praises for people going into the pastorate, ministries such as Campus Crusade or missions abroad. I grew weary over time of hearing one set of people bask in the light of works for what they were doing. When I would see someone being prayed for before leaving to Asia, Africa, whatever...I would think to myself, why don't we do that for all people? Why don't we pray for the auto technician at the local Nissan dealership who feels he is doing what God wants him to do? Why don't we pray for the Christian who accepted a job as a personal banker at Wells Fargo? And give him a loving and supportive send off like we do someone going to Tanzania? Why don't we pray for the doctor who is starting a new job as a ER Physician?

I realized that there was too much of a facade. The grace that was touched upon in this blog entry really doesn't exist in the church. It was part of the reason why I distanced myself from the church and God; because I saw that it was unhealthy. I'm more lonely now but its nice to be away from the "what did you do for God today crowd."

Anonymous said...

One of the things I felt sick about within the church was watching how much 'serving God' became a competition and a way to seek attention.

i.e. Spiritual One-Upmanship. Who Saved The Most Souls (TM)?

Over the 10 years I was there I heard so many prayers and praises for people going into the pastorate, ministries such as Campus Crusade or missions abroad.

Don't you know the only things that count for God are Pastor (preferably Celebrity Televangelist), Missionary (preferably getting "martyred" in some Third World hellhole), or Celebrity P&W Singer?

It's a CELEBRITY Cult like Brittney, Lindsay, or Paris, just with a Christian coat of paint. And they like it that way.

Me, I'm just a nobody. An ex-kid genius who's never been wrapped all that tight, longstanding F&SF fan who's now trying to write the stuff.

Why don't we pray for the auto technician at the local Nissan dealership who feels he is doing what God wants him to do? Why don't we pray for the Christian who accepted a job as a personal banker at Wells Fargo? And give him a loving and supportive send off like we do someone going to Tanzania? Why don't we pray for the doctor who is starting a new job as a ER Physician?

Because they don't count. The "someone going to Tanzania" is a CELEBRITY, and all the others you mentioned (like you, me, and Christian Monist) are Nobodies.

Headless Unicorn Guy