I think of myself as a "soft" writer - my fiction does not contain a lot of big explosions or cliff-edge, life-or-death crises. Perhaps this is because my own experience has been that many of the significant questions and monumental conflicts in life develop quietly, slowly, almost imperceptibly, just beneath the surface of everyday life.
The young widow who just learned that her deceased husband was unfaithful - she is probably not going to suit up in a leather cat suit and go all ninja all over the silver screen. But she IS going to struggle with how to process betrayal and how to practice forgiveness.
The middle-age woman who has packed more moving boxes over the years than there are fleas on a stray cat - she isn't going to build an indestructible fortress with lightning flashes from magical deep freeze hands. But she IS going to yearn for a place to call home, a place that provides security and stability in the midst of life's unpredictability.
The young mother drowning in small children - I doubt she will drive off into the sunset one evening and leave her kids behind so that she can trade motherhood for a career as an exotic dancer in Las Vegas. However, she IS going to feel the sting of sacrificing herself to serve her family, and she is going to wonder if she has value or purpose beyond changing diapers and cleaning up spilled milk.
Every one of us asks big questions every single day. Yet we do this so quietly and so frequently that we often fail to recognize the powerful significance of our seemingly small daily decisions and choices.
For most of us, life is so ordinary. Except that it's not, really. Because it is in the ordinariness of our daily lives that God quietly shows us extraordinary things.
"There are no ordinary people."
- C. S. Lewis, from The Weight of Glory
No comments:
Post a Comment