Notes to the church

I tend to do my writing late at night. The office is good for routine communication, but it’s not ideal for creative writing.

In my early years of writing this column, the home computer was tethered to a desk in the basement, so that’s where I wrote. A ritual for getting into writing mode was to turn on Handel’s Messiah. While this oratorio is most popular at Christmas and Easter, for a while it was my background music month after month.

I don’t remember how I shifted away from that practice, but it likely had to do with leaving the desktop computer and its basement setting. I must have developed different habits when the freedom of a laptop made it possible to move around the house.

You might be surprised to learn that writing doesn’t always come easily to writers. There are indeed people whose words flow as effortlessly as breathing, but I am not one of them. I’m regularly astonished by reporters who beat the clock every day, preachers who have something to say every week, and devotional writers who produce 30 or 40 gems in a season.

Whether the writing is easy or hard, if you keep meeting deadlines year after year, eventually you will have a trove of writing. This year Brethren Press has published a selection of “From the Publisher” columns in a book called Notes to the Church. As you can see from the cover, these small essays are like paper boats sailing from my house to yours.

My heart was warmed by these words from one reader, who grew up in the Church of the Brethren but after moving now attends a different church: “The book reminds me of everything I continue to cherish about our Brethren heritage. It was like hearing from an old friend and connecting with the tradition that so shaped me and my family.”

Like this reader, I cherish the gift of heritage and identity—seeds of faith planted long ago and bearing fruit years later. Ever since meeting the Brethren, I have listened intently and learned immensely.

From Movement 38 of Messiah: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Isaiah 52:7, Romans 10:15).