Eugene Peterson, long-time pastor and writer of the popular Biblical paraphrase, The Message, offers in his book, Subversive Spirituality (1997) the following intriguing perspective:
[...] Reading a novel is among the more serious activities available to a pastor. Pastors who neglect to read novels lack seriousness, or at least one aspect of it. Read scripture, certainly; theology, of course; commentaries, diligently; and novels by all means.
"Pastors who neglect to read novels lack seriousness." Well that's an unexpected statement. It whets our appetite for more.
... Not all writers of fiction, of course, qualify as allies. There are discernments to be exercised, but a considerable number take their stand with us against the pastor-debilitating world conditions. . .
Agreed. No doubt many novels would actually be quite destructive to a pastor and his imaginative life. Peterson, though, offers a specific recommendation:
Anne Tyler provides me with eyes to see past the labels, ears to hear beneath sterotyping cliches. She creates characters in her novels that are always just a little quirky, not quite fitting into society. When I meet people like that in my parish, I am always a little impatient and try to fit them into categories that I am familiar with, so I won't have to take the extra time to get to know them. I have, after all, a lot to do. The church has programs for a variety of needs, and people are supposed to fit into the categories. Most people are so used to fitting into categories supplied by them by hospitals, schools, shopping malls, and social services that they raise no objections when the church treats them similarly. But insofar as they acquiesce, they lose capacity to realize what God is most interested in working in them: sanctity, which means becoming more your created/redeemed self, not less, not being reduced to what will fit into a program, not being depersonalized in the cause of efficiency.
Ooh, I find that really good How often we are tempted to "fit people into categories." Bad, bad, bad. But so tempting.
As I let Anne Tyler show me how character is formed, I learn to treat my parishoners with respect, with reverence even, and just as they are, not insofar as they fit into what is convenient for me and useful to the organization. When I hesitate over details that make this man odd and somewhat of an embarrassment in the coffee hour after worship, Anne Tyler trains me to take in the oddness and love him not in spite of, but because of it. These irregularities that make this woman unsuitable as a role model in our youth ministry, Anne Tyler trains me to see as occasions for the grace of our Lord, not obstructions to it.
So honest! Yes, some people do strike us as a potential embarrassment. But, that's all the more occasion to celebrate "diversity"! Ha.
All good novelists do this for us, develop characters in ways that show us this person unlike any other before or after, and that the human condition is capable of endless variations, and that each variation is a marvel. But Anne Tyler, for me, is the contemporary master: her unforgettable characterizations of Morgan's Passing, of Macon in The Accidental Tourist, of Maggie in Breathing Lessons, have been a major source of energy and identifying, without condescension and without ridicule, characters that keep showing up in my congregation. She gets me to know them by name and not by label. She gets me to say their names in such a way that they realize they are precious, just as they are, in God's sight, and have a place in salvation that no one else will ever occupy.
Well said. Peterson offers us a program and a strategy to correct our narrowness and lack of vision and imagination:
Whenever I find myself getting irritated and impatient with some sinner who doesn't fit in, I reach for another novel by Anne Tyler and sign up for retraining in character recognition and personal naming.
When I first came across the Peterson piece noted above, it struck me as valuable and important. Then just the other day a friend's email offered a link to another article that likewise celebrates novels. I recommend reading Jonathan Gottschall, "Why fiction is good for you." (HT: JC)