Give Away the Ending

Upside Down Rule for Writing #4

Seriously? Give away the ending? Don’t writers want to keep readers guessing? Don’t you want an amazing plot twist at the very end that no one saw coming?

OK, sure, sometimes. But giving away the ending at the very beginning can also be an effective to keep readers reading. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Jeannette Walls begins The Glass Castle, her memoir of growing up in Arizona and West Virginia, this way.

I was sitting in a taxi wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster. . . . Mom stood fifteen feet away. She had tied rags around her shoulders to keep out the spring chill and was picking through the trash while her dog, black-and-white terrier mix, played at her feet. . . . To the people walking by, she probably looked like any of the thousands of homeless people in New York City. . . .

It had been months since I laid eyes on Mom, and when she looked up, I was overcome with panic that she’d see me and call out my name, and that someone on the way to the same party with spot us together and Mom would introduce herself in my secret would be out. 

I slid down in the seat and asked the driver to turn around and take me home to Park Avenue.

In just one page I was totally hooked. How did her mother end up homeless while Walls was living on Park Avenue? Why did she have such a strong reaction to seeing her mom? Did Walls know her mom was in the same city? Had she tried to help her before?

Because I wanted to know all those answers, I devoured the 280-page book which then tells the startling story of Walls early childhood and teen years. By giving away the ending, Walls had created a compelling narrative question (also called a story question, a central dramatic question, or the narrative drive). We tell readers how the book will end, but we leave the mystery unanswered about how one could possibly get from Point A to Point B.

Recently I was with a friend who wanted to write a book about his dad. For a half hour he related various disjointed episodes and aspects of his dad’s life. Eventually he said, “I wouldn’t be a Christian today if my dad hadn’t been a drug dealer.”

I nearly jumped out of my chair and said, “That’s your first line!”

By giving away the ending, we can create compelling reading.

You kept going to the end after I gave away my point in the title of this blog, didn’t you?

And Wait . . . There’s More

When I started writing She Teaches Me Still about Phyllis Le Peau, my remarkable wife of forty-seven years, I wondered if I’d have enough for a whole book. But as I gained momentum, conducted interviews, and found her appointment calendars, her prayer journals, her ministry newsletters and more, I realized the real issue was instead what to leave out.

That’s why I have launched a companion website for the book which includes:

  • Letters and other documents mentioned in the book
  • Photos from her family
  • Phyllis’s favorites–recipes, books, movies, songs, and games (oh, how she loved games)
  • Links to the books and articles she wrote

Also there are two ways you can connect:

1. Sign the Guestbook. Please visit the website and leave a comment on the Guestbook found toward the bottom of the home page.

2. Sign up for the She Teaches Me Still Blog. Also, at the bottom of the home page, please sign up for the blog/newsletter where I’ll be offering more stories and reflections about that crazy, funny, inspiring person so many loved. I’d be glad for you to join me there too.

The offer for a gift copy of She Teaches Me Still (print book or ebook) still stands. Just write me at[email protected].

I’d be glad to send it your way.

A Gift for All

My wife of forty-seven years, Phyllis, was one of the most remarkable, memorable people you may have ever met. Of course, I’m biased, but many others said the same thing.

Take Rick Richardson of Wheaton College, for example. He said, “Phyllis was one of the most spectacular and magnificent human beings I have ever known. What a lover of God and people! What a loving woman who always believed in you and could challenge your socks off at any time!”

Many who read the stories I posted about Phyllis on Facebook over the last few years asked if I would put those in a book. While no book could contain her expansive and magnetic personality, I had to try. The result is She Teaches Me Still which has just been released in print, ebook, and audio book editions, along with a companion website (where you can read chapter 1).

As the title implies, Phyllis had a profound influence on me, more than anyone else ever has. And she still does. She was a person of energy, love, and fun. She was so secure and grounded, she could easily laugh loudly at her own mistakes and foibles. Hundreds experienced her uncanny ability to make them feel like the only person in the room.

Phyllis’s life was a gift.

One motivation for writing was to leave something of substance for our fifteen grandchildren—when they turn fifty! If you’ve reached that “level of maturity,” you probably experienced what I did: a new desire to know more about my parents and grandparents. What was life like for them? What challenges did they face? By the time I was asking those questions, however, all of mine were all gone and most of what I wanted to know had disappeared in the mist.

I also wanted to give a gift to her friends and the rest of the family. They loved her infectious joy and the stories about her startling encounter with a motorcycle gang, a medical crisis at 30,000 feet, her lifelong ambition to adopt children, her outsized optimism in the face of a flooded basement, and the spectacular practical jokes she pulled off in nursing school.

Many also appreciated her practical wisdom in action in stories about her family, parenting, hospitality, compassion, love for Jesus, her readiness to admit mistakes and miscues.

And yes, though I’ve tried to be honest about her limitations and weaknesses (she’d want it no other way), clearly I wrote this as a love letter to the most alive person I ever met.

Because Phyllis’s life was a gift to so many, I am offering the book as my gift to you. All you have to do is send your address to [email protected] and I’ll be happy to pop it in the mail.

I would be delighted to send you a copy.

History Repeats Itself

I am one who believes history has something to teach us. But as Steve Turner said, “History repeats itself. Has to. No-one listens.”

The Iran Revolution of 1978 that brought down the Shah and elevated Khomeini was, as the subtitle of Scott Anderson’s King of Kings says so accurately, “A story of hubris, delusion, and catastrophic miscalculation.” Almost every player in this sad tale was either malicious or incompetent, and sometimes both.

Anderson interviewed many of the primary figures who are still alive, including Farah Palavi, the Shah’s queen. But he also looks back at the series of events over the last hundred years (and even 2500 years) which came to a head in 1977-79.

Delusion came from both sides. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security advisor, was so fixated on the Soviet Union that he couldn’t see the revolution had nothing to do with the Cold War.

Ebrahim Yazdi, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, was convinced Khomeini would be a savior for Iran, and ultimately became Khomeini’s first foreign minister. He so wanted to believe Khomeini would be an enlightened leader, that he refused to see or could not see the harsh figure who would slaughter thousands of Iranians. Yazdi died regretting everything.

The Shah was both autocratic and indecisive. The CIA and State Department (while giving conflicting advice to the Shah) both refused to take seriously the few people who actually knew what was going on, that the Shah was in deep trouble.

I remember the nightly reports on television, counting each day the embassy hostages were held prisoner in 1979-80. So this whole episode was not easy to relive. But it was important to do so.

Boys and Men Are in Trouble

It’s easy to slap shallow Left or Right political explanations and solutions on the struggles men are facing today. If we really want to help men and women, we have to leave the politics behind. In Of Boys and Men, Richard Reeves explains why.

  • In education: Boys underperform in school and women now earn 60% of bachelor’s degrees, a near reversal from fifty years ago.
  • In mental health: Men are three to four times more likely to die by suicide than women.
  • In the workplace: “Male jobs have been hit by a one-2 punch, of automation and free trade. Machines pose a greater threat to working men than to women for two reasons. First, the occupation’s most susceptible to automation are just more likely to employ men…. By contrast, women make up most of the workforce in relatively automation-safe occupations, such as healthcare, personal services, and education.” (21)
  • In the family: “In 2020, one in five children (21%) were living with a mother only, almost twice as many as in 1968 (11%).” (41)

While Reeves affirms the progress women have made in many areas, he contends we can and should do two things at once—help women and help men.

In fact with more and more women carrying the burden of being both primary breadwinners and primary childcare providers, often the best thing we can do for women is to help the men in their lives get decent jobs and affirm their role in the family.

One problem is that both Left and Right have gone to extremes and politicized the issue, while neither does much about it. “Far away from the front lines of the culture war, the real-world problems of boys and men go largely unaddressed” (129).

Many on both sides, for example, are science deniers. “Many conservatives deny the environmental science of climate change. But many progressives deny the neuroscience of sex differences…. For many progressives, it is now axiomatic that sex differences in any outcomes or behaviors are wholly the result of socialization. . . . But this is simply false. Men do not have a higher sex drive just because society valorizes male sexuality, even if it does. They have more testosterone. Likewise aggression… To be fair, there are some reasonable concerns about how this science will be used…. Natural differences between men and women have often been used to justify sexism. This is mostly an outdated fear. In recent years, most of the scientists identifying natural differences have, if anything, tend to do stress the superiority of women.” (111)

The solution is not, says Reeves, to turn back the clock. That ship has sailed, that train left the station, that rocket blasted off. Our economy has been restructured so dramatically in the last half century that, with few exceptions, families cannot thrive on a single income.

Reeves proposes a variety of concrete, workable changes. Here are just a few of his ideas:

  • In education: Since boys take longer than girls to develop mentally and socially, gradually shift so that boys start kindergarten a year after girls. Many parents already do this so their children will be more athletically developed (and so have a bigger chance of success) in high school and college.
  • In the workplace: With traditionally male jobs continuing to fade away, and with jobs on the rise in health, education and administrative, let’s give more emphasis to recruiting and hiring men. And all of us need to stop thinking male nurses are failed doctors or somehow effeminate.
  • In the family: We need to affirm that dads still matter especially in their roles as protectors and teachers. Research shows that fathers really come into their own when kids hit adolescence–helping them evaluate risks, navigate what it means to stand on their own feet, and give them confidence as they make their way in the world. Reforming the child support system and paid leave policies can also be key.

It’s time to quit fighting battles that no longer exist, to quit exploiting issues to score political points, and start working together to help everyone.

Planet Narnia

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the rest of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series are widely read and enjoyed. Yet some have criticized them. Tolkien didn’t like the books and found including Father Christmas to be haphazard, an odd mixing of mythologies. Others have wondered why Aslan appears more in the background of several books rather than being central as he is in the first. And what about all that violence? Is it really appropriate for children’s books?

While many have suggested unifying keys for the series that answer these critics, Michael Ward’s proposal in Planet Narnia has become widely accepted. Each of the seven books corresponds to one of the seven planets and their character, as largely understood in the medieval mind. Thus the first book emphasizes the qualities of Jupiter—joviality, kingship, generosity, restoration, and so forth.

The Last Battle, on the other hand, is keyed to Saturn (in Greek mythology, Chronos), a complex figure who Lewis mostly associated with misfortune, sternness, judgment, and sorrow. In this light it is less surprising that Lewis “kills off every single character with whom the story opens” (198). Yet Lewis uses this as an opportunity to meditate on the “divine presence in human loneliness and suffering” (203) and that all the adventures the children had gone through were only “Chapter One of the Great Story . . . in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Ward builds his thesis about the planets not just from the Narnia books themselves but from Lewis’s comments on the planets in his scholarly work, his poetry, and his other fiction (most notably, of course, his Space Trilogy).

I give Ward’s book five stars because of its groundbreaking insights, as well as the thorough and convincing way in which he supports his ideas. For those who are not academics or Lewis nerds, however, the book may seem a bit tedious. You would be excused, then, if you just read Ward’s comments on the Space Trilogy and Narnia in each chapter. The introductory and concluding chapters would also be quite worthwhile. (While I have not read Ward’s The Narnia Code, it is intended to be a shorter, less technical version of his original book.)

For all who enjoy reading and re-reading the Narnia books, Ward’s fresh observations will give greater appreciation for the depth, craftsmanship, and meaning that Lewis built into this beloved series.

Your Glory Fills the Highest Heavens

Psalm 8

Your glory fills the highest heavens.
The praise from children fills the skies,
Building up a mighty fortress
Against which nothing can arise,
Against which nothing can arise.

When I think of your whole creation,
The galaxies flung out in space,
Who are we that you should notice
And give to us your loving grace,
And give to us your loving grace?

You made us almost like the angels,
Your kingly image marks our lives.
So you crowned us as your servants
To rule with loving sacrifice,
To rule with loving sacrifice.

The grace you gave us, Lord of Heaven,
We now give to the world you made,
Earth and sea and skies above us,
To glorify you as we’ve prayed,
To glorify you as we’ve prayed.

—

Galaxy image by ENES KOÇ from Pixabay

The Christmas Exodus

Moses. Pharoah. The Red Sea. The Promised Land. And Christmas. Wait! What? How did that get in the list?

We don’t normally associate Christmas with Egypt, Passover, and manna in the wilderness, but the gospel writers did, in large ways and small.

We all know the story of how the three kings asked Herod to help them find the new king of Israel. When he realized they tricked him and didn’t come back from Bethlehem, he ordered all the baby boys in Bethlehem to be killed to be rid of any potential rival king. But Joseph had already taken Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape Herod (Matthew 2:1-18).

Even here, Matthew links Jesus’ story to Moses’ story. Moses’ life as an infant was also threatened by the king of the land, in that case Pharoah (Exodus 1:15-16). Moses likewise finds refuge from death in Egypt—ironically, in Pharoah’s own household (Exodus 2:5-10).

But Matthew is not done linking these two figures. Years later Joseph is told in a dream that it’s safe to go back because “those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead” (Matthew 2:20).

That same turn of phrase is used about Moses. As an adult he fled to Midian because Pharoah wanted to execute Moses for murdering an Egyptian soldier (Exodus 2:15). Years later God calls Moses back to Egypt to free his people from slavery. It’s safe now, God says, because “those who wanted to kill you are dead” (Exodus 4:19).

Why link Jesus to Moses? The Exodus was God’s great act of salvation for Israel when they left Egypt to find rescue, release, and safety in the Promised Land. Matthew wants us to see that Jesus will do something very similar. He will be another Moses.

Matthew continues to link Jesus to Moses and the Exodus throughout his gospel.

  • Jesus passes through the waters of baptism as Israel passed through the Red Sea (Matthew 3:13-17 and Exodus 14:29-31).
  • Jesus then goes into the wilderness for forty days of fasting like Moses (Matthew 4:1-11 and Exodus 34:28).
  • Jesus delivers new authoritative teaching from a mountain top as Moses provided the law from Mount Sinai (Matthew 5–7 and Exodus 19–20).
  • Jesus provides the people with miracle bread as Moses announced manna from God (Matthew 14:13-21 and Exodus 16:13-36).
  • And there is much more.*

The story of Moses and the Exodus gives us a deeper richer understanding of Jesus’ mission of salvation. But, Matthew tells us, Jesus is not just another Moses. He is even greater than Moses.

While Moses gave the law, Jesus fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:17). While Moses was sent to deliver Israel, Jesus came to deliver all the nations (Matthew 4:13-16; 28:18-20).

At Christmas we celebrate a miracle birth, yes. We also celebrate a new, better, more complete story of redemption out of slavery and darkness into “a great light.”

—

*See David Capes, Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2024); and Bryan Estelle, Echoes of Exodus (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018), chapters 7-8.

Image: Pixabay

Why the Christmas Story Bothered Me

The following, adapted from a December 2014 post in AndyUnedited, has become a tradition for me to post each December.

The Christmas story always bothered me.

It never made sense. No, I’m not talking about the virgin birth. Not the angels singing to shepherds. Not the star in the sky. Not the wise men.

No, it was the part about there being no room in the inn. It never made sense. Middle Eastern hospitality is legendary. Strangers, travelers, those in need—you can count on the deeply ingrained culture of showing generosity and graciousness to those who need a meal or a warm bed.

They would never, ever turn away a pregnant woman—especially a couple who were relatives visiting their ancestral home in Bethlehem. Many close and distant relations would have been living or visiting nearby to care for her. Turn them away? Send them to a barn? Never. It wouldn’t happen.

Then what did happen? In Luke 2:7, the Greek word traditionally translated as “inn” is better rendered as “guest room,” which is how the NIV puts it. Middle Eastern peasant homes were one large room though sometimes a guest room or “mother-in-law room” was attached. But since the guest room was already occupied, the owners of the house did the only sensible thing—they vacated the main house and gave it over to Mary’s and Joseph’s use.

The couple would not be alone either. When it came time for the baby to be born, Joseph would wait outside with the men while women in the community would come and assist Mary. Luke didn’t mention the community because his readers would have known that without having to be told.

Then what in the world was a manger (a feed box for animals that Luke mentions) doing inside the house?

The single, main room of such a house typically had two parts: a smaller ground floor level and a larger level raised a couple feet for cooking, eating, and sleeping. Peasants would bring their animals into the lower level of the house at night for two reasons—to keep the animals safe from thieves and to provide warmth for the family sleeping on the upper level when it was cold.

Cut into the floor of the upper level where it meets the lower level was (wait for it) a manger. A place for hay to feed the animals.*

Some years ago I was describing this to a friend, and her eyes got huge. “That’s the kind of house I grew up in!” Her family had been missionaries among peasants in Syria. You can still find such homes there today.

Yes, Jesus was not born in a palace, but neither was he born alone in a barn. He was born in a common home of the people, a home that was opened up to him through a delightful demonstration of hospitality. When we welcome into our lives both family and strangers, the needy and the self-assured, we are living the Christmas story.

For the Christmas story is not one of “no room in the inn.” Rather it is one of wondrous welcome and generosity.

—

Image credit: Ambroz from Pixabay.

*See Kenneth E. Bailey, “The Story of Jesus Birth: Luke 2:1-20” in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), pp. 25-37.

Jesus Outside Our Box (2)

Time and again, Jesus says some of the most outlandish things.

He tells the rich man to sell everything and follow him (Matthew 10:21). He tells the Syro-Phonecian woman that her request to heal her daughter was unreasonable because he came for the Jews (Mark 7:24-29). He tells the crowd they had to eat his body (John 6:34-42). These are all staggering hurdles for people to jump over.

Why put these in their path? Why not make it easier instead of harder? Why? Because he intentionally was giving each an opportunity to grow, to follow, to pursue him through difficulties.

The rich man could not get over his obstacle. The Syro-Phonecian woman got through hers. Peter had no clue what Jesus meant about eating his body but said, “Who else would we follow?” Peter gave the right (not perfect) response Jesus was looking for.

The Wisdom tradition is concerned with our process of maturing, not just with where we end up, not just with the letter of the law. While only Jesus is perfect, he does expect us to ponder, to see the direction he thinks we should be going, and to aim toward that.

As twenty-first-century people, we tend to think that the rich man had two choices. In fact, he had three. (1) He could walk away. (2) He could sell everything and follow. Or (3) he could say, “That’s a hard saying, Jesus. I’m not sure what it means or how to do it, but could I keep following you as I try to work it out?” And Jesus would have said yes.

Peter followed option three regarding eating his flesh. And Jesus said yes. That’s what Nicodemus did when Jesus told him he had to be born again. He didn’t get it but he followed,  partially, as best he could.

As children of the Enlightenment we tend to think in terms of crystal clear, black and white propositions. Something is true or it isn’t. We obey or we sin. There is no middle ground. But Jesus and the Bible understand that the world is messy, we are messy, and much is not clear cut. Jesus is not primarily looking for a pristine right answer. He wants us to engage him personally, deeply, even if incompletely. 

When he says, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it,” (Mt 10:39) we might think that we’ve got to do it completely, one way or the other, or else we fail. But that is just not the point. The point is that Jesus is showing us a direction to go. A goal to reach for. None of us is ever going to do this fully in this life. Only Jesus will. But he makes his point in an arresting manner so that it catches our attention, gets us to stop to think, and nudges us in a new direction. 

Yes, the extremes Jesus throws at us are real and true, but he knows our frame. He knows we are dust. He hits us with extremes to shake us out of our stupor, out of our habitual expectations. To get us to think again. And again. And wonder. And question. To question him, ask him, pursue him with all our doubt and failure and uncertainty. Like Peter.

Another way to say it is that in the Bible, truth is not either/or. It is both/and. Evangelicals tend to think that we can put truth in a box and now everything is set and we are good. But truth is much more complicated and more human and more Divine.

Jesus won’t fit in our box. He wants to know, “Will you follow me anyway?”

—

Image by Hans from Pixabay