Have you ever considered The Spiritual Life as an Editorial Process?
Al Hsu, an editor (and author) for InterVarsity Press, skillfully explores The Spiritual Life as an Editorial Process in Chapter 5 of the recently published A Spiritual Life: Perspectives from Poets, Prophets, and Preachers (Allan Hugh Cole Jr., ed. Westminster John Knox Press. 2011). As I’ve spent the past several months considering The Incarnational Stream/Tradition, I particularly appreciated Hsu’s section entitled The Practice of Incarnational Remembrance. He begins by asserting:
One of the most valuable aspects of the publishing process is that it is an act of cultural production, or what Andy Crouch calls “culture making.” Writing creates artifacts. Publishing takes the abstract ideas of an author’s mind and puts them into print in a physical, tangible object. This process preserves someone’s insight and anchors it in space and time. The physical artifact of the book also makes an author’s ideas portable and transferable to others (40).
In addition to the value of “culture making,” Hsu’s reflections on guiding others through the writing process, capturing midnight thoughts, daily journaling, understanding life as an unfolding story nestled in God’s grand narrative, and the communal nature of writing “struck a chord.” Love his illustrations/metaphors.
A Few Questions drawn from my reading of The Spiritual Life as an Editorial Process
- Do you have a writing/publishing mentor and/or serve as a writing/publishing mentor?
- Do you ever wake up at night with a thought which must be written down before it is forgotten or troll through old data files, journals, writings to remember (or to be inspired)?
- How have you come to understand the themes and developing plotlines of your life in relationship to God’s grand narrative (e.g., Loving God in the Flesh in the Real World, One more day)? [Read more…] about The Spiritual Life as an Editorial Process