Tag: The Bible

Blog/

What do you want for your life?

There’s something exciting about a new beginning, something which encapsulates the tenderness of youth, something which holds promise and therefore, refreshes and invigorates the spirit.

No wonder the New Year marks a time when so many of us make resolutions, particularly ones around weight loss and wealth acquisition and so on. The trouble with this, however, is that as the year matures, the resolutions mature as well, feel a bit yesterday, if you will. In short, they don’t materialise.

Admittedly, I have never been big on the hype and pressure around making New Year’s resolutions, not because I am a kill joy contrary to some belief, but because I tend to be more of a realist than an idealist.

Ideally it sounds great to kick all the bad habits I have acquired throughout the year in January, but can I really do it? Unlikely! Over the years, I have taken a tip from the story of creation. For nearly five years now, I have enjoyed a daily reading called the Bible In One Year (BIOY) with commentary by Nicky Gumbel, vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton where I happen to belong as member, and though I love reading most Bible stories, the first ones are amazingly uplifting and refreshing.

I say that because when God created humankind in particular, He was clear about what He wanted for us and when it didn’t quite go to plan, He had a strategy to get things back on track—my take on the things, not Nicky’s or sound theology, so do bear with.

It is sort of like new parents deciding what they want for their baby’s life, not only from day to day, but from month to month and from year to year and setting goals to achieve their dreams and desires, not waiting for the last hour to decide. Certainly, along the way, things fall to the wayside and sometimes don’t go as planned but they don’t leave it to the pulse of the moment, New Year’s Eve or Day, to resolve, to make adjustments, to get back on track.

They think about health and wealth, hopefully not obsessively, throughout the year and often use a new beginning such as the New Year or a birthday to reflect, to assess, to celebrate, to launch the next phase in life.

I have found this approach hugely gratifying in both my personal and professional life. From a personal standpoint, it’s all about well-being with the underlying question to do with what do I want for myself? And that which I can control, I stay in the driver’s seat as much as possible. I run, I train, I keep good company and eat well most of the time and when I don’t, well, I reflect, assess and get on with the next phase. And that which I don’t control, I pray about it and try to give it the perspective that it deserves, which is a good segue to what’s on the agenda professionally.

Same underlying question—what do I want for UIO in 2019? Naturally, I would have pondered this question long before these fresh few days in January and am delighted to say that there is so much brewing for UIO in 2019, all to do with the well-being of teen girls throughout the world.

Later this year, we launch a new campaign to do with reclaiming the teen girl space.  Exciting, yeah! And lots of other good things on the horizon with a view to help carve a better quality of life for our girls. So watch this space and keep listening to our podcasts, which all offer opportunities to reflect, to assess, to celebrate, to launch the next phase in your life. Meanwhile, wishing you all that you want for your life in 2019. Happy New Year!

On Life/

An Essay on Writing from the Deep

You write in order to change the world … if you alter, even a millimetre, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.’ James Baldwin

When I wrote The Barrenness, I hoped to start a worldwide conversation on the topic of being childfree and childless. I chose fiction not only because I love the genre, but also because I wanted the story to be any and every person’s story, not just mine. I have been delighted with all the attention around the subject, from the media and like-minded writers. Today, I get far more Google Alerts on the topic than I did six years ago. I have even participated in some research on the issue.

Writers write for a number of reasons: to entertain; to seek resolution; to change the world; to start conversations. Malcolm Gladwell, in his mid-October Goodreads chat, cited the last as a motivating factor for writing his best-selling books.

In writing my second novel, The Blindsided Prophet, I’d venture to say that my purpose was closer to Baldwin’s. I didn’t imagine that I could change the entire world, but my goal was to change the way readers think about their beliefs and values — their religion, if you will — at a deeper level. After all, believing something religiously is a cornerstone for any society, and has a profound effect on everyday living.

A few years ago, after supper at a writers’ conference, I had the ear of Jacob Ross, a brilliant and celebrated Afro-Caribbean writer, who is also my mentor. I must have been rambling about a novel I had written with church people at the centre, when Jacob popped the question: Are you deeply religious?

Having grown up as a Southern Baptist, I have always been a person of strong faith, and therefore, could have easily answered affirmatively. But taunted by internal and external misconceptions, I will never forget the rush of thoughts that passed through my head. On the one hand, some thoughts were loaded with a wariness of any and everything holier-than-thou, suggesting that admitting to deep religion would colour me as a writer. These were associated with being referred to as a ‘Holy Roller’ by the well-meaning grandmother of a dear friend.

And on the other hand, other thoughts were laden with feelings of inferiority. I thought of Baldwin’s play The Amen Corner, in which church people behave rather like most people, often hypocritically, though purposefully. Thus, I said ‘no’, quite firmly, and washed my hands of it … or so I thought.

Years later, I still cannot get my answer out of my head, and have long since realised that I wasn’t true to myself in answering Jacob.

Thus, the novel became The Blindsided Prophet, in which, as a writer, I have attempted to explore this basic question on some level, although not necessarily as a Christian, as I think its answer is important for anyone in the big scheme of life, regardless of religious association. And I firmly believe that faith underpins writing rather than dictates or restricts it. Writing is a gift to be used naturally.

Having said this, The Blindsided Prophet has been called ‘dark, psychological fiction’, which contains explicit language, abuse and sex scenes. Nonetheless, it is story about redemption. No matter how broken you are, you can be restored. This is God’s message to the people through the prophet, Isaiah Brown.

In the characters’ language and behaviour, we see their states of mind, as is often the case in fiction, but is equally as important in real life. Great men and women of the Bible had dark pasts. After committing murder, Moses lived in exile, until God liberated him and gave him the opportunity to liberate others: the people of Israel, who had been enslaved in Egypt for generations.

I am by no means comparing my novel to the Bible, but the point is this: the stories of the Bible are demonstrative of issues and struggles that seem larger than life.

Baylor University student and teacher, Alan Noble, in his Citizenship for Confusion blog said as much about the Bible, while writing about misunderstandings in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye: ‘… as Christians, we have a beautiful work of art filled with hard truths, ugly scenes, offensive claims, and moments of darkness at the very centre of our faith!’

In discussing this topic further with some writer friends — one is a Christian, the other is not — I was reminded of Flannery O’Connor’s views on being a Catholic author. She was clear in an article in American, in 1957, that a Christian writer’s work, like that of others, should be judged by its truthfulness and wholeness, not the writer’s faith.

O’Connor’s writing is some of the most haunting I have read, particularly the short story ‘A Good Man is hard to find’, in which an entire family is executed.

I do think she would agree that every book isn’t suitable for every audience. As for my books, they are written as adult fiction, and even so, they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but that doesn’t make them purposeless. Admittedly, The Blindsided Prophet may make some people uncomfortable. And some will reject it altogether.

When I first saw the film, Crash, I was shocked out of my comfort zone. I debated with anyone who wanted to, or who didn’t want to, about how dark and disturbing the film was. But soon, I realised that it was in discomfort that I found understanding of the situation.

I couldn’t relate to the movie personally, but having grown up as a black woman in the US, I found the husband-and-wife scene with Thandie Newton and Terrence Howard, in which he watches on helplessly while she is sexually exploited by a police officer, too close for comfort.

My discomfort was such a distraction that, initially, it coloured my ability to see the candour of the movie: the key messages it had to offer on social injustices and hidden racism.

In The Blindsided Prophet, this is a lesson for the character Mae Cook, who builds a fortress around the surface of her beliefs and values, steeped in convention and ceremony. She is challenged to look beyond the surface of those values, and to find out what it means to seek the truth in every situation, not just when it validates her beliefs.

Will this mean changing fundamentally? Not necessarily, but it will mean changing perspective on the fundamentals in order to accept true understanding. Isaiah talks about a New Covenant, meaning a different way of experiencing God, through one’s own freewill and mind.

In encountering this new way of thinking and of being, it is my hope that readers ofThe Blindsided Prophet, regardless of their religious beliefs, will explore the novel as a literary creation, rather than judging it against the writer’s faith, as they would any such theme underpinning a work of fiction.

So getting back to the question of why writers write: for all of the above reasons and many more. But ultimately, to tell a good story, often regardless of their own faith, but sometimes in their faith, or rather their beliefs.

In any case, Malcolm Gladwell talked about the importance of story above all else. My mentor couldn’t agree with him more. As for me, I absolutely love a good story, and when all is said and done, that is what I want to offer readers: a good story, as simple as that.

This is the real reason this writer writes.