Crisis Online Magazine

2012, Another Ordinary Year in America

It is very difficult in the current highly political atmosphere of this country to somehow stay focused on children's fiction alone, and I hope you'll forgive me when I kinda step off that subject from time to time in order to comment on something else.

And I can't swear that all these things don't have everything to do with what we write for our children.  We can't just be trying to come up with new ways to brandish swords, ride unicorns into the night sky, and slay dragons.

Every writer for children has an inescapable responsibility.  Every story written for children--particularly children of faith--carries a message whether we endeavor to send one or not.  That's just the way children read books--they look for the underlying message, whether consciously or subconsciously, and take that message, whether good, bad, or ugly, and carry it with them.  That equals a responsibility for every single children's writer that we cannot shirk.  It's laid upon our backs whether we want it or not.

Aesop realized, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before the times of the iphone and the internet, that each and every story written for children must contain a moral.  Not just tell a fun story--it must also teach something.  I hold myself to that standard.  Even more than that, I see no reason why each story must only contain one moral.  Can be more than one, no?

So anything that has to do with the erosion of morals and faith should be an appropriate topic on a blog written by one who is trying to write Christian stories for children.  I must be afforded the occasional rant.  It is who I am.  It is what I do.

Many days, I find myself unable to write and unable to focus and unable to simply calm down.  It's nearly impossible, even when one 'has people.'  Try doing it with no support system whatsoever.  There are those out there struggling with depression (and what I have, I would call about 50 miles south and 45 miles west of simple 'depression') who have a support system.  They have husbands, children, friends, coworkers--even if those people don't leave themselves open for that--being there for you when you need to talk--there are people who are at least physically there for them when they're struggling.  They don't struggle alone. 

As Mickey in my story says: "That's what friends are for."  When you need to be mad, they let you be mad.  When you need to be sad, they let you be sad.  When you need to cry or rage or storm the tower, they're there for you.  Try going through this alone. 

Try being this guy...

...all alone on that bridge, absolutely terrified. Try being this guy with no people.

I googled many different words and phrases, looking for images that most closely reflected what a 'nervous breakdown' might look like.  This is the best I could find.  Most days, I feel like I'm not just in the matrix, but the only one even aware of the matrix.  Like I'm the only one who sees the elephant in the room.  That's terrifying.

Our society is both morally and sexually deranged.  It is also socially deranged.  We're disconnected.  We're fractured.  How we interact on the internet mirrors all too accurately how we interact now in real life: we treat friends like strangers and strangers like friends.  If you need comfort or support, well you need to go to a total stranger and pay them to listen to you.  We have "people for that sort of thing."  "Come back when you're happy."

We're now a culture of people incapable of emotional depth and moral response.  That's not terrifying???

So I came across that blog, above, through another blog--Orthodixie, easily my favorite program on Ancient Faith radio.  And I read that blog post at Crisis Magazine, and was again out on that bridge unable to escape my own terror.  I turn to the person next to me.  "Don't you see that?!"

And they look around, expression unchanged and not the least bit alarmed, and say "What?  See what?"

You've gotta be kidding.