Prompt #7: Who Are 3 Authors Who Have Shaped You and How?
I am a book person. I love to read. My favorite is finding a good book that sucks me in and I can spend hours… whole weekends wrapped up in a delicious story or philosophy that captures my imagination.
I also love to learn. Reading gives an insight into others’ perspectives and world views. From books to blogs to newspaper articles. When it comes to authors who have impacted me, there are no shortage of candidates to choose from.
There’s the blogger, Kris Dunn, whose blog “The HR Capitolist” taught me the backbone of everything I needed to know when I was flung into an HR position and asked to create the department from scratch. There are a multitude of authors of memes on the internet who’s astute and pointed comments help me shift the way I think — at times I can learn as much from a well stated meme as from an entire book. I think of JK Rowling who has shaped the literal hours spent in my life and captures my heart and mind every time I devote a few months to getting lost in good vs evil, courage, love, and adventure of Hogwarts world.
But there are three authors that have had such a thorough and profound impact on my life that they easily take the cake for shaping my life the most. These authors are all selected because I can point to specific moments and significant ways that the trajectory of my life was altered by their writing.
CS Lewis
Where to begin. I first encountered CS Lewis as a child when my mom read us the Chronicles of Narnia. I loved listening to these stories, they were quite entertaining.
Then in college, I had the opportunity to delve deeper into his work. I attended a public state university in the Midwest where it seemed to me that the goal of most of the professors was to help “Bible belt” kids start to think outside the box of their/our Christian upbringing. But one professor, who was Catholic and nearing retirement, offered a course dedicated exclusively to the teachings of CS Lewis. Being in an exploratory season at the time, I didn’t think twice about signing up.
We read a wonderful cross section of his work- The Weight of Glory, The Abolition of Man, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, Out of the Silent Planet, and of course The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
One sticking point I had had in trying to decide if I thought the narrative of the Bible was legitimate or not was the death and resurrection of Jesus. My question was — “why?”. Okay, I’m a “sinful person”. Okay, I need to be “saved from my sins.” But what does a person dying and raising from the dead have to do with literally anything?
Just in case you’re not familiar with the details of the Christian faith, this detail is kind of a big one. Arguably the most critical one.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe offers a beautiful analogy when Edmond betrays his family and becomes captive to the White Witch. Aslan the lion offers to swap his place which the witch happily accepts. I won’t spoil what happens next…
Studying this story in that class was pivotal in me being able to comprehend and embrace the narrative of the Bible which in turn has shaped every aspect of my life from then on.
After that class, I continued reading CS Lewis. Mere Christianity, Surprised by Hope and others have helped me further understand the Christian worldview and this understanding has been the richest blessing I’ve ever experienced. CS Lewis’s work has been one of the key voices shaping that experience.
Jerry Sittser
Mr. Sittser is not quite as famous as CS Lewis, but through his book The Will of God as a Way of Life, he may be the single author that triggered the quickest 180 degree turn around in my perspective just from reading his book. I am forever grateful.
After college, I became a teacher in hopes of ending educational inequity. I had learned about inequity caused by racism and that education was the solution to this problem and then was recruited to join a program that promised to solve that problem (white saviorism, anyone??).
Two years later, it didn’t work and I landed back at home at my parents house depressed, experiencing PTSD symptoms, and at a loss for what to do next. I took a job to tide me over until I could figure out what was next. At this point, my sister recommended I read Jerry Sittser’s book.
Jerry Sitser was a professor of my sister’s at Whitworth College. He suffered the tragic loss of his mom, his wife, and his daughter in a single day through a car accident and was left to raise his remaining three children alone. This is the perspective from which he grappled with the concept of the will of God and from which he writes his book.
I don’t want to ruin it, but to summarize, the idea I took away from this book was that God cares way less about what you do and way more about how you do it and who you choose to be as you do it. He talks about how we spend a ton of time and energy worrying and thinking about big life decisions- where should I work? Who should I marry? Which city should I live in?- when what God speaks the most about in the Bible is the importance of choosing to be an honest worker, laying down your life for your spouse or your roommate (whoever you are with), and that you remember the poor in whatever place you live.
I did not like the message of this book. I was looking for the very answers the book was saying are of secondary importance. But it was exactly what I needed to hear and shifted the way I thought about decisions and continue to think about them today. This took a load of pressure off of my compulsion to find a job “with more significance” and I was able to hear from the Lord that I should stay still so He could work out some other things in my life first.
Here I am ten years later in the same job and a TON has been worked out since.
God makes my life meaningful, fruitful, and important. Even if I fail in every dream, He will redeem my life. And I get to enjoy it with Him along the way.
Paul
Paul was one of the first Christians and wrote a lot of letters some of which are preserved in the Bible. I feel connected to Paul because I feel like he’s one of the few people in the Bible who have a similar background to me. He describes himself as, “circumcised on the eighth day (okay, I don’t relate to that part! But I was baptized as a baby), of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as for the law a pharisee, as for zeal persecuting the church, as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” (From the book of Philippians chapter 3 verse 5–7, from the Bible)
I grew up fairly privileged and was (I can now admit) a goody two shoes. This came from growing up in a church with a limited understanding of the Biblical faith perspective. I thought that if I violated one of the ten commandments, I’d go to hell. I didn’t want to go to hell so as a result worked really hard to never break a 10 commandment (or a few extra rules tacked on like not drinking alcohol or cussing). I also looked down on others who I noticed did these things and developed quite a self-righteous attitude.
By the end of college, I had mostly grown out of this perspective, but feeling the need to be a performer is a tough habit to kick.
Then I was struck by a statement Paul makes in one of his letters:
“[God] has made us ministers of a new covenant- not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (From the Second Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 3 verse 6, from the Bible)
This one verse, in the context of the rest of the narrative of the Bible, opened my eyes to see that operating in performing mode is totally missing the point of love and of the Christian faith. The ministry of the Spirit might look similar on the outside, but comes with a completely different motivation. It is something that grows and thrives and rests, not something that carries the load itself and breaks under the weight of the burden and then passes that burden on to others.
When I thought about this verse, something felt off in my life. It caused me to pause, do some self-reflection, and ended up killing off some old bad thought habits. It introduced me to a new experience of freedom.
There seems to be a common theme in the three authors that have impacted me the most. All have shaped my faith in Jesus and my worldview. The larger narratives shape the smaller details so these three stand out to me as having had the biggest impact.
As much as I love reading heavier books like the ones mentioned above, this year I’m happily enjoying fiction- Alice Walker, JK Rowling, Jane Austen, JRR Tolkien, and Catherine Adel West. Might not alter who I am in a significant way, but I’m grateful for so many wonderful people who have put pen to paper and offered perspective to me, the reader, and for the ways I’m impacted by all of them.
