Writing About Writer's Block

Full disclaimer:  Writing about writer’s block is akin to jogging while telling someone you never go jogging.  I completely understand the absurdity of writing about writer’s block but, well, someone’s got to do it...right?  And knowing that the only way to actually get out of writer’s block is to write well...then...

Back in the ‘80’s I considered myself a novel writer.  I had already written a couple books and they were now taking up valuable box space and I had written my latest book.  This was entitled “The Hidden Heart.”  If I remember right, the plot was something like this:  Guy meets up with a girl, falls in love with her.  She breaks his heart.  Not only breaks his heart, but takes it out, spits on it, stomps on it, chews it up, spits it out, spits on it some more.  Guy, depressed, gets in an accident (I don’t know if he tried to kill himself) and screws up his face.  After going through plastic surgery he realizes that his old girlfriend would not be able to recognize him.  Knowing what he knows about her, he becomes her perfect mate and waits until she falls in love with him before he breaks up with her and breaks HER heart!  So THERE!  (or something like that)

Now, when I say “written a book” what that really means is that I typed up the book on an old typewriter.  I re-wrote it once and then it became box-filler.

When I worked at Betts Patterson & Mines, I made fast friends with a guy named Dick.  Dick was exactly the type of mentor that I needed.  An accomplished writer (he had an article published in a magazine!) and older and wiser, he was just what I was looking for.  So it was with great excitement that I handed off my book to him for feedback.  Before this I never, EVER, gave anyone my books to read.  They were happily content to fill a box.

As weeks and months went by I kept asking Dick if he had any suggestions.  His response was always the same:  “I’m reading it.”  But...uh...reading it?  It’s like 120 pages double-spaced.  It was more of a novella instead of an actual novel.  So then I do the dog-and-pony-show of hovering.  Walking by his office, finding reasons to chat for no other point than to hope he’ll say:  “Oh, I finished your book and it was WONDERFUL!!”  But those weren’t coming.

Finally, one hover too much – one moment too long talking about the weather, or whatever it was, Dick handed me back my book and said:  “Sorry, can’t finish it.”  “What?  Wait, what?  Can’t finish it?  But...why?”  He couldn’t explain at that time and he ran off to do something and I was crestfallen.  Heartbroken like the main character in the story.  Couldn’t.  Finish.  It.  Words that stung like a thousand bee stings.  Like getting hit in the head with a board filled with a thousand bee stingers.  Like my head is in a board hitting machine filled with a thousand angry bees – okay, you get the point.

It wasn’t until a few weeks (months?) later when I finally had Dick over to my apartment and he nicely explained to me that he couldn’t read my book not because of its subject matter but because I was just a terrible writer.  Oh, that made me feel better....wait...what?   You see Dick, first and foremost, is an editor and all he wanted to do was edit my book – not read it.  I would write “Ya” instead of “Yeah” and many other grammatical and structural errors.  He could not put his editing hat aside and just enjoy the book...he couldn’t look beyond the crap that I had put on the page.

At least now I had an answer.  I also now had full on writer’s block.

I don’t know how long it lasted, but it was a while before I felt inspired enough to put pen to paper.  Fingers to keyboard.  I went through a complete “re-thought” as to why I wanted to be a writer, what was pushing me, where was I going, what was the point.  A soul searching, career humbling, shake out the pan of gold and see if anything is left, process.  And I came to the one conclusion I always come to when it comes to writing:  I write because I have to write.  I know of nothing else.

Possibly, in this process, I finally learned that maybe novels weren’t my thing and how about I try screenwriting instead.  VIOLA!  20 screenplays, 15 years screenwriting teacher, options, film made, etc. I think I chose correctly.

A number of years ago I had come up with a script idea.  Tooling around in my friend Troy’s car we were talking about Troy’s job of being the stage manager of a theme park princess show.  He mentioned some of the issues he has to go through, some of the personalities involved and I laughed and said:  “There’s a script there.”  I inserted that into my brain matter and moved on.

The way ideas work in my brain is like this.  Imagine four or five rabid bunnies – all cute and hopping around and foaming at the mouth.  Eventually one of those hopping bunnies starts to attack and eat the other hopping bunnies until there’s one hopping cute rabid bunny left.  And that’s how my brain works with ideas.  I have a few up there bouncing around and, eventually, one takes over.  I start thinking about that one idea, I start exploring that one idea, that one idea begins to jell into something that is actually partially cohesive and, before I know it, it’s fleshed out into something possibly usable.  “Bad Princesses” was one of those ideas.

Over the past few years, though, I had worked with co-writers.  Keith, James, Gina and others.  I hadn’t written a script ON MY OWN in over a year or so.  All my creative juices were flowing to these collaborative projects and as satisfying as these projects were, and are, I felt like I needed to go “old school” and just write this on my own.  Not talk to anyone about it, not pose questions out there, not send pages to friends for feedback.  Not even really pitch it to anyone.  I just wanted to go back to 1988 when I sat at my Amstrad computer (bought at Sears for $299 – with a printer!) and typed away.

So I did it.  I sat down and did it.  I wrote “Bad Princesses” and sent it out to all my reader friends for feedback.  And the first response I got from everyone was:  “I didn’t know you were writing this.”  Hell no you didn’t know!  That’s me.  Writing!  Ha!!  I didn’t tell no one...I went all solo on your asses.  And then, of course, the early reviews came in and they were positive but I had some work I needed to do and I understood that – so I dove back into a re-write and another re-write and it began to jell further.  I was happy with what I created.  It was, relatively, solid.  No script is ever finished and I know that all writing is re-writing but this was a happy journey.

Soon after I finished, I sent it to my manager in L.A. who promptly told me she didn’t have time to read it and to send it to her the following month.  Now with my manager, you hope that she takes the script, sees a spark in it somewhere and, of course, loves it.  Then you hope she takes the script and shops it around.  Then you hope that one of the producer she shops it to loves it.  Then you hope that they’re willing to buy it and then...and then...and then... “I’d like to thank the Academy for seeing beyond the nudity, bad language and overall trashiness that is “Bad Princesses” and finding the heart in this story.  Thank you all.”

But...she was busy.  That glory would have to wait.

Within a few months, though, it appeared she wouldn’t be able to read it.  Finally, with a trip to L.A. looming, I figured I would toss it her direction one more time.  Certainly I didn’t want to go to L.A. for a week where I could meet with producers/investors/stars and pass up that opportunity.  So with that argument in hand – I sent her the script as she said she’d give it a read.

About a week later her response to me was:  “I literally hated every word.”  SERIOUSLY?  Really...?  On page two I used the word “devoid.”  On page twenty-three I used the words “to her.”   On page sixty-five I used the word “dumbfounded” (okay, I could see why she may have hated that word).  On page ninety-five I used the word “SIREN” (I put it in ALL CAPS since it’s a sound).  But, hey, I’m taking her at her word that she LITERALLY HATED EVERY WORD.  Even the words “FADE TO BLACK” on page 115 (I would think she’d be happy to see those words).

Sigh.  Was this the Dick situation all over again?

In the mix, I decided to spend the $60 and put what I consider my “calling-card” script on Inktip.  “Search for Santa” was finally going to be unleashed on the world (this was the script that got me my manager in the first place).  This was going to be six months of glory as people would be knocking themselves over to buy my script.  To heck with her and her “literally hate” and all that.  It was time for me to step up and do my own marketing.

Six months came and went without barely a twitter or ding.  Maybe one company looked at the script and that was it.  It felt like those moments where you’re holding the PERFECT skipping rock.  The lake is calm.  The rock has the correct weight, feel, size.  It’s perfect.  No wind.  Lake is STILL calm.  You ready yourself, cock your arm back, lean down a bit to allow the release to be the right angle and you throw.  Only to see it sink in one “blomp!” and that’s it for your perfect skipping rock.  And that was it for my Santa script.

My manager’s insistence that I had wasted months and, I guess, every word in the English language and the lack of response from Inktip tossed me into a writer’s block that I hadn’t seen since, well, Dick told me he couldn’t finish my book.

For me, though, writer’s block isn’t so much as a desire NOT to write or a struggle not to write – it’s more insidious than that.  It tells me that it’s okay not to write.  It rationalizes other aspects of my life.  It glosses over absurdity to tell me, reassure me, that it’s okay not to write.  Suddenly I’m not only making excuses, I’m making rationalizations:  “I don’t need to write, I’m helping Nick with his video project.”  - “I don’t need to write, I’m exploring ideas.”  - “I don’t need to write, I’m teaching.”

But then, as the rationalizations and excuses begin to pile on top of each other like bad skipping stones the depression starts to take hold.  The lack of creativity seeps into my mind and pushes whatever triumphs I’ve had in the past, whatever moments where I’ve exalted my talent, those conversations where my co-writer and I realize we’ve landed a perfect scene (only to be re-written later because, you know, it’s never perfect), and all the progress I’ve made gets tossed into the dustbin of faded memories and shoulder shrugs.  And then more excuses come into play or distractions take hold and time slips away like that stone in the water – never to come back.

As days turn into weeks and weeks into months I feel like Gollum after he’s lost his “precious” wanting to do whatever to get it back.  Friend victories (of which are on displayed on Facebook 24/7) are both praised and “liked” and encouraged, while the twinges of jealousy flitter around the edges.  The writing continues on to Mount Doom and me, closely following it but not grasping it.  I’ll insert an excuse here.  That’ll make me feel better.  I’ll toss up a rationalization here, that’ll hold me for another day or two.  Oh, look, another friend wrote a great commentary on Facebook.  Certainly I’ll view your documentary, damn it’s good.  Wow, you wrote and performed and sold copies and...I’m happy for you.  Seriously.

There comes a time, though, when I’m in the throes of writer’s block...when the voices in my head tell me that it’s okay to waste time playing “Slotomania” or “Angry Birds” or it’s just fine to not write, not explore, not read, not do anything when I finally look at all of it.  Whether it be Dick in 1988 or my manager in 2012 where I finally call BS on it all because that’s all it is.  Dick or my manager or “Slotomania” or whatever didn’t turn me away from writing...I turned me away from writing.  For whatever reason my writing journey took an extended break and I need to take the active steps to get back up on that horse, find that perfect skipping rock or rabid bunny and write again.  Just write.  Whether it’s a blog on writer’s block, or in my diary, or...whatever.

It’s all on me.  It’s all within me.  The power is mine.  No excuses.  No rationalizations.  No BS.

Fiction in Non-Fiction Movies

“Never let facts get in the way of a good story.”

I’m certain this quote was spoken by someone in the Hollywood industry.  I just can’t remember who.

I recently watched three films that are based on true stories – all to varying degrees of excellence (or lack thereof).

Argo - see, it says so right on the poster

 

The first film was “Argo” – the movie that won Best Picture for 2012.  Directed by Ben Affleck it told the true story of six Americans that hid out in the Canadian embassy until someone from the U.S. came up with a specialized plan to get them out.

Having watched some of the interviews with the real live persons, and seeing that they’re all over the blu-ray disc, I assume that the film is pretty historically accurate.  But, I’m sure, a lot of the “Hollywoodization” of the film – some close calls, conflicts, and the chase at the end to stop the plane are all fabricated so we, the audience, can get our adrenaline going and wonder what eventually will happen.  Affleck does a very good job of ramping up the conflict and it IS a good exciting piece of filmmaking, but what truth was sacrificed to create a good story.  What facts were kicked to the curb.

The second film I watched was the film “The Last King of Scotland” – another good Hollywood vehicle and award winner – this film tells the story of a young idealistic doctor who goes to Uganda to help the poor.  Next thing you know he’s hanging with the President (Idi Amin) and doing all the things that a close confidant is allowed to do:  drink, party, drink, party.  Ooopsy, though, he sleeps with one of Amin’s many wives, gets caught up in political whatnot, tries to escape, tries to escape again and finally succeeds.  This film, too, has a tense filled scene at the end as the Dr. escapes on a plane.  This precedes a scene that is so blatantly stupid that it almost ruins the film.  The scene?

Beat-up Hero in the Duty Free Shop

 

Dr. Feelgood is trying to poison the president – when he gets found out he gets the crap kicked out of him and is dragged to a duty free gift shop in a crowded airport (crowded because there are hostages and Israelis and camera crews).  Ami comes in and tells the good Dr. that he knows about his wife, monologues for a bit, and then has his henchmen pull him on meat-hooks, I guess, to anticipate his coming execution.  How no one in the entire airport doesn’t see this happen is beyond me.

With the wife...what you didn't think you were

 gonna be found out?

 

Then, after the Dr. has been hanging around for a while, the henchmen take him down and then, uh, leave to have a drink somewhere.  I think one even says: “Oh, he ain’t goin’ nowhere.”  Which, of course, is enough time for another rival, good, Dr. to come in and make the save and get him to escape.

Actor (left) - very good.  Real Dictator (right) - very bad.

 

Forest Whitaker’s amazing performance as Idi Amin and a ripping good story keep it from not falling completely apart but I fled to my Wikipedia to find out about the doctor and find the book that he had written about his experience.  What did I find out?  Oh, there was no doctor.  Yes, the book is “kinda” based on the same story – but not a doctor – a soldier.  And the author lived in Uganda for 10 years or something and was a reporter – so I don’t doubt that the atrocities and story beats are based in fact – but I was a bit saddened to find out that there was no doctor and that whole story was made up.  Or, in essence, a combination of other stories pooled together to make one solid story.

Lastly, I watched the film “The Worlds Fastest Indian.”

One of the year's best?  I dunno...

This film is based on the true story of Herbert Monro – a New Zealander motorcycle rider who got it in his mind that he wanted to come to America and test his modified motorcycle at the salt flats in Utah.  His hope was to travel beyond the speed of 200 mph and set a new land-speed record for that type of motorcycle.  Good for him.

I was ready to rip this film to shreds until I read the Wikipedia page and then it become abundantly clear what writer/director Roger Donaldson was doing.  Still…I’m going to rip it to shreds.

Real Burt aka Bert ...I think.

 

The biggest problem I have with this film, and again, it’s based on fact…I guess…  Is that Mr. Monro’s journey is all so very simple and non complicated.  He’s also the greatest, sweetest most wonderful guy you’d ever want to meet.  SERIOUSLY.  Is only real personality “flaw” is that he pees on his lemon tree.  That’s it!  This film has so little conflict in it of any sort of weight or merit, that I swear it’s more of a Hallmark card to an old grease-monkey than an actual film.

The genuine article - Bob's Your Uncle!

Let me go through the conflicts one-by-one:

Conflict one:  Bert tests his loud motorcycle at a God-awful time in the morning.  The neighbor complains he’s going to call the cops.  That’s it.

Conflict two:  Bert has a party to raise funds for his trip, a group of “bad bikers” shows up (why, I don’t know) and challenge him to a race.  He says…Okay.

Conflict three:  They race.  Though Bert loses (he crashes).  He’s not injured in the slightest.

Conflict four:  He beds the local Social Security clerk (really with no problem – he has to wash his hands before she’ll sleep with him).

This happens A LOT in this movie.

 

Conflict five:  He has a near heart-attack.  Now, I’ll call this the BIG CONFLICT because this reoccurs throughout the film and hangs like a low cloud over everything because you want to know…is he going to have a heart attack and die?  Spoiler alert:  He doesn’t.

Conflict six:  He goes to the bank to mortgage his house to pay for the trip.  No problems there.

Conflict seven:  He sets a match to his yard to “cut the grass” nothing else catches on fire.

Conflict eight:  On his way to the ship to take him to the U.S. the bike gang shows up and…gives him money for beer (he doesn’t drink).

Conflict nine:  On the ship he has to be the cook, no one complains and, I guess, he’s a good cook.

Conflict ten:  He gets to America and his visa or there’s a problem in customs but it just so happens that a guy read an article about Monro in Popular Mechanic’s magazine and so that’s good enough for him.

Conflict eleven:  He takes a cab to his hotel and the guy tells him it’s $27 or something and that makes Bert a little angry.

Conflict twelve:  A flower seller steals $10 from his wallet when he goes to buy a flower.

Conflict thirteen:  The clerk at the hotel is a transvestite black man dressed as a woman.  Bert has no problems with this whatsoever.  He’s not bothered by the race difference, he’s not bothered by the homosexual or drag queen angle of, he’s fine being seen with her out at a restaurant, etc.

Conflict fourteen:  He goes to buy a car, negotiates a better price on the car and then tweaks the car so it runs better.  And then he’s offered a job at the car dealership to fix cars and is loved by the owner.

Conflict fifteen:  He goes to customs to get his bike and the box is crushed!  NO!  Oh, the bike is fine.

Conflict sixteen:  He heads on his way to Utah and, on his way there, the trailer carrying his precious bike loses a tire and the trailer crashes!  NO!  Oh, the bike is fine.  He finds a log and uses that to replace the wheel.

Conflict seventeen:  A man comes along and not only helps him, he also feeds him, gives him native American medicine and puts a necklace around his neck for good luck.  Alas, though, he’s not able to replace the wheel.

Conflict eighteen:  In hopes of replacing the wheel he ends up on a run-down farm.  The woman owner of the farm shows him her husband’s gravesite (been dead for ten years) and then a rattlesnake ALMOST bites Bert.

Conflict nineteen:  As soon as you can say “bob’s your uncle” he’s slept with the farm woman.

Conflict twenty:  On the way to Utah he sleeps in his car by the side of the road, a cop pulls over and tells him to move along and that he “can’t do that.”  No ticket.  No confiscating the weird contraption.

Conflict twenty-one:  He gets to the salt flats and didn’t register weeks ago.  They let that pass even after saying “rules are rules” about a dozen times.

Rules are rules?  Who cares, as long as you've got 

over-acting friends like these!

Conflict twenty-two:  The inspectors say his bike is unable to run as it’s too dangerous.  They let that pass.

Conflict twenty-three:  Running out of money a nice guy pays for a hotel room for him.

Conflict twenty-four:  Veteran racer comes in and sees him taking medication for his heart and says that he’s “tried everything” to allow him to race his bike.  Says he’ll try again, even though he now knows that the guy could die at any moment.

Conflict twenty-five:   He does a “minor” test run against the officials’ wishes and they don’t punish him.

Conflict twenty-six:  The officials decide to do a run where they travel with him and even though the bike is wobbly and dangerous and he went way too fast for them – they decide for him to race for real.

Conflict twenty-seven:  He does another test run on a Nevada highway and gets pulled over by the cops.  Gets off with a warning.  No ticket.

Conflict twenty-eight:  Low on funds, people pool their money together for him (note:  This is based on fact as there’s a photo in some magazine that they recreated for the film).

Conflict twenty-nine:  It’s the final race:  Is he going to surpass 200 mph?  Is the bike going to crash?  Is he going to burn his leg up on the exhaust?  Is he going to die?  (wait, I spoiled that last one already didn’t I)  I’ll tell you this:  He crashes.  He’s fine...other than his leg being burned quite a bit.

Final crash...have a little salt in that wound?

 

There you go.  29 conflict moments, or beats, in this film that all, pretty much, get a pass.  There’s no “all is lost moment.”  There’s no point at all where I thought that the story was going to turn out differently than what was presented.  And to be honest, maybe the above is EXACTLY how it happened in real life.  I don’t know.  Maybe those are the facts and everyone was super sweet to him and he slept around and didn’t get bit by a rattlesnake and no cop gave him a ticket but by GOD, I wanted something like that to happen to him.  For goshsakes do SOMETHING to him.  Don’t make the journey so easy.

Above I wrote that it was obvious what Roger Donaldson was doing when I read the Wikipedia page.  It said that Donaldson had worked on this story for 12 years – even after making a documentary about Mr. Monro.  Well, that’s peachy, but that’s also God creating.  The character, played fine by Anthony Hopkins, is a complete endearing puppy dog of a man.  You couldn’t make him more loveable if he was carrying puppies and babies from a burning building.  He absolutely has NO FLAWS (other than peeing on a lemon tree which, according to Wikipedia, was a homage to Donaldson’s father and not something that Monro did).

A lot of these were actually Monro's - which is kind of nice that

 they put this bit of realism into the movie.

When creating characters or heroes, you MUST give them a flaw.  (Potential for having a heart-attack at any moment is not a flaw.)  Being brash and taking unnecessary risks is a flaw (Top Gun).  Unsure of yourself and what you’re capable of and struggling to succeed is a flaw (multiple films).  Even being stuck in a foreign land after making bad decisions is a flaw (Wizard of Oz).  In fact, most films are described as someone who is stuck trying to get un-stuck and therein the conflict arises.   But I never ever felt that Monro was stuck in any sort of way.  Nor does the character go through any sort of arc?  He doesn’t change throughout the story which also leaves the story flat.  He’s the same guy from frame one through frame million.

What would I do differently?  I would have him lose his bike (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure).  I would have him suffer a heart-attack.  I would have destroyed the bike and forced him to rebuild it.  I would have had him arrested.  I would have a tire blow-out and break his arm.  ANYTHING more than just:  “You can’t do it.”  30 seconds later.  “Okay you can do it.”

Again, I’m not disputing the potential facts of the story.  Again, it could have happened EXACTLY that way and wouldn’t I look like an idiot?  But there are facts here that could have been used to enhance the story beyond what it already is.  In real life Mr. Monro was divorced.  He could have talked about that.  In real life Mr. Monro had four kids.  Where?  Not a mention in the story.  What about them confronting their father about this trip.  Their concern for his health.  Even a plot point used in the story blurs the truth.  In the story Mr. Monro has a wonderful speech about his twin brother who died when a tree fell on him.  In real life Mr. Monro had a twin sister who was still-born and an older brother who died when a tree fell on him.  Is it too difficult to change the speech to an older brother?  ie:  The truth?  I guess the writer’s felt it would have more impact on him if it was a twin.  I can see that – but you could even use the real life still-born twin.

Back to the God Complex.  According to Wikipedia this film broke box office records in New Zealand so it is obvious to me that this Monro guy is a folk hero and no one wants to see their folk hero struggle.  They want to see their folk hero succeed on every level.  Who wants to see them hurt/die/suffer?  It may make a wonderful fairy-tale, but it sure as heck doesn’t make a compelling film.

There was another “fact based” film from down-under entitled “Phar Lap.”  I learned of Phar Lap from a co-worker who loved horses.  “Phar Lap” was one of the fastest horses that ever lived and it got to the point where they had to put weights on the horse just so he wouldn’t win every race.  Eventually those weights wore him down and he died.  (I can’t remember if he died on the track or what.)  My co-worker told me that when they did an autopsy on Phar Lap they found out that the horse’s heart was twice the size of a normal horse’s heart.

Australia had a hero horse, New Zealand had a hero old codger.

 

When I watched the film and it ended with the dead horse, one of the characters said:  “Wow, that horse must’ve had some heart.”  And...that was it.  Nothing about the double size.  No title screen where it said this.  Just....the end.  Go figure.  Like some weird inside Australian joke.  Where everyone who knows can nod knowingly.  But for the 90% of us out there that didn’t know – we miss out on amazing little bit of fact.

I assume this is the horse's actual heart, him being

 a hero to a nation and all...but, still, kinda gross.

 Pretty horse, but could it go 200 mph?  I doubt it.

Well, as they say:  “Never let the facts get in the way of a story.”

The Fundamentalist Tightrope

The Fundamentalist Tightrope

Disclaimer:  This blog is going to be about religion.  So if that bothers you, you don’t believe in God, don’t celebrate Lent or whatnot, feel free to skip over to my other e-mails.  Thank you.

Welcome to Lent!  The 40 days of prayer and reflection that people go through every year to prepare for Pascha, or Easter.  Since it’s Ash Wednesday, I figured I would talk a bit about religion today.

I’m a sinner.  I’m also human.  Those two things go hand-in-hand.  I’m human.  I try NOT to sin, occasionally I do.  Lucky for me I believe in a God of love and forgiveness, of compassion and redemption, of hope and future and change.  I believe in what I call the God of the New Testament as shown through Christ.  Many people, though, don’t believe in that God.  They believe in the God of the Old Testament.  Of rules and regulations and pillars of salt and wiped out dead children and Sodom and Gomorrah, a vengeful angry God who sits high above the clouds with his finger on the sin switch-board waiting….just waiting….and waiting….for you to fall, fail and off to hell and damnation you go.  I don’t believe in that God.

For those of you out there who do believe in that God, and the inerrant bible where not a word can be changed, and every word is true and lasting and forever and the writers were “holy scribes” placed in some sort of biblical God induced trance to transcribe words like a 2000 year old teletype machine – I fear you walk that tightrope.

You see, here’s the rub, if you believe in a God that is an angry and vengeful God but also a loving and forgiving God it’s difficult to truly grasp the fact that you’re human (and have a brain).  What ends up happening is that for people in this situation – you either behave (and have heaven and all the glory) or you don’t (and you burn in a fiery pit of hell).  There’s no “middle ground.”  There’s no “gray area.”  Thus, for many fundamentalist/literalists there’s a tightrope to be walked.  How do be fully human (and fall into sin on occasion) and how do you live in the loving presence of a loving God – who, of course, will smite you and kill you in a heart-beat if you “get out of line.”

Certainly the sacrifice of Christ bridges the human and divine, our sins are upon him who took that upon himself.  His sacrifice, his torture, brings about our redemption – but there’s still that nasty bit of a tightrope.

Now, I don’t want to get all liberal v. conservative in this blog but if you look at both the Old and New Testament I see the God of the Old Testament (lots of talk about the wealthy, lots of talk about obeying the rules and punishing sinners) as the Republican and I see Jesus of the New Testament (lots of talk about the poor and giving your money away and hanging out with sinners and breaking some of the rules) as the Democrat.  Maybe it’s the yin to the yang.  But if you truly believe that every word of the bible is inerrant and that God does not change – then the God of killing babies is also the God of love and forgiveness – it can make for some confusion.

Back to the tightrope.  If you’re on a tightrope hovering 200 feet in the air, what would make this easier (besides not being 200 feet in the air in the first place).  Maybe what would make this easier is simply a WIDER tight rope.  How about a plank.  Two, wait, 10 planks.  Well, now you have a bridge…

When I see, and hear, people who fall into this weird dichotomy of tightropeness – I often see them do what anyone would do in their situation:  Make the tightrope wider.  And how do they do that?  Simple:  Rationalization.  Re-explaining or re-figuring or re-configuring their thought process to thus make things “work” for them.

Here’s an example, and I’ll use the bible.  Revelation 7:4  “Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.”  So, okay, if we take that number literally – as people who are literalists should do…then only 144,000 go to heaven.  That seems a bit small, in world of 7 billion living people and the billions that came before us.  Of course the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that is the LITERAL number – but you go on-line and you’ll see that many experts believe this number is “SYMBOLIC.”  But…wait?  Is it literal or is it symbolic?  Tightrope expansion.  Justification and rationalization used together to create a wider tightrope so you get into heaven and not just 144,000 people…or something.

 Oliver "Ollie" North

 

Jerry Falwell

I thought about this years ago with Oliver North had lied to the U.S. Government about running guns.  Say what you will about Oliver North (I personally believe he was/is a dork) – but the truth came out that he was a lying sack of crap.  Soon after, though, Jerry Falwell of the fundamentalist/literalist Liberty University was praising Mr. North – raising money for him and I thought… “Wait just a goldurn minute!  Isn’t this the guy who was lying and perjuring himself?”  Now, call me crazy, but the last time I checked lying was a sin – punishable by death.  You know, one of those silly 10 commandment thingys.  And here was MR. LIBERTY UNIVERSITY HIMSELF standing up there and calling Oliver North a hero.  Uh, what about God and those rules and hell and damnation?  How does one rationalize or justify one’s actions (and thus make the tightrope wider)?  Simply by explaining themselves?  But does that make it right?

A lot has been made recently about gay rights and you betcha the fundamentalist/literalists community is all up in arms about it and they will trot out time, and time, and TIME AGAIN passages in Leviticus that says that “man should not lie with another man.”  But a perfect example of the tightrope conundrum was found on a photo that was going around on the internet (and hopefully I was able to find it).

So...one should be followed and the other not?

In the photo a person has had the quote from Leviticus about men laying with other men tattooed on their arm.  And, of course, someone pointed out that later in Leviticus it says that people should not have their bodies inked or adorned in any way.  Oh snap!  But, I’m sure, if you brought this up to this guy that believes so very strongly in the bible that he’s WILLING TO TATTOO himself a scripture verse he’s got every possible rationalization or justification as to why it’s against God’s holy law for a man to sleep with another man while it’s NOT against God’s law to get a tattoo.  How, possibly, can one justify that?  Last I checked all these laws seemed about the same in ruleness.  But, then again, I’m not walking the tightrope.

Reverend Billy Graham

 

Billy Graham used to do a Q&A column in the newspaper and people would write him letters about whatever was affecting them and he’d respond back.  Someone once wrote to him about gays and homosexuality and ol’ Rev. Graham didn’t back down and called it a sin but then he went one step further:  “Isn’t gossiping a sin?  Isn’t lying a sin?  Isn’t bearing false witness a sin?”  What he did was take this person’s concern about “the gays” and turned it around on them to explain that there are all sorts of sins out there – not just someone being gay.  I, personally, do not believe that being gay is a sin – but I agree with Rev. Graham’s overall point.  We sin all the time, in all sorts of ways, but somehow we’re able to justify it and rationalize it so we don’t fry in the pits of Hades.

I think what bothers me the most about the people who walk this tightrope and widen it out through rationalizations and justifications and explanations is that they simply don’t OWN it.  As for the guy who had the tattoo.  Just OWN that you don’t like gay people because if you truly believe that the bible says it’s a sin – then you must truly believe that tattooing is a sin and have them all removed (and not eat shellfish).  Jerry Falwell – if you truly believe that Oliver North is a hero – just OWN that he lied, tell the world that he lied, call it out as the sin that it is.  Don’t hide behind, don’t justify it, don’t rationalize it.  If you sin, own it.  Don’t say the “devil made you do it” or “I had a lapse in judgment” just say it:  “I’m human.  I did it.  I made a mistake – I’ll try not to do it again.”

I know I’m human.  I know that I sin.  I know that I have forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice.  I fall, I get up again, I try again, I learn, I do better, I fall down, I slip back, I move forward.  I’m real.   That’s me.  I don’t need the bible to tell me this.  I’m as human as anyone.  I certainly don’t believe that when I sin I’m going to hell and that when I do good I’m going to heaven.  I’m ultimately washed by the blood of Christ.

Billy Idol (not Reverend)

Rock-and-Roll artist Billy Idol, not really known for his spiritual depth, wrote a song called “Heroin” presumably about his addiction to the drug.  In the song there is a refrain:  “Jesus died for somebody’s sins…but not mine.”

When people walk that tightrope.  When it’s soooooo tight and the stumbles to the hell side happen (as they will) on a frequent basis, too many people believe too strongly that they are unforgivable.  Unredeemable.  And many truly believe that refrain that Jesus died for somebody’s sins…but not mine.

For this Lent, understand your humanness.  Understand your reality.  Understand that you will succeed and you will fail and understand that you will ultimately grow and hopefully be a more honest, open, real human being.