Receiving A Copy of Richard Foster's
Life With God (2008)
Bill Long 7/25/08
Humorous Ruminations
Normally the last thing that comes to mind upon receiving the gift of one of Richard Foster's books is humor. It isn't that he doesn't laugh or enjoy life, but his books over the past 30 years have been been clarion calls to take the life of Christian discipleship seriously. Discipleship means discipline, and recapturing the historical spiritual disciplines has been the focus of much of his work. There is no humor in his books, at least as far as I remember.
Our paths crossed about five years ago when I was asked to be a contributor to the Spiritual Formation Bible, a project of Richard's Renovare movement. Since that time he has been focusing on what he calls the "With-God" life--the way that the Scriptures testify to the centrality of God's offer of intimacy with the divine and the history of human attempts either to embrace or reject that offer of intimacy. Richard is convinced that this "With-God" life is at the heart of the Bible.
His latest book, appropriately named Life with God, will be released under the HarperOne imprint later this year, but because of my "privileged" position as a contributor to the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible (commentaries and introductions to five or six Biblical/Deuterocanonical books), I received an early copy. After leafing through it and confirming that this was Richard's authentic voice, I found my attention drawn elsewhere--and that "elsewhere" is the focus of the rest of this essay.
My Attention "Elsewhere"
Inserted in my copy of Richard's book was a personal letter from the publisher. Actually, the guy who sent the note is known to me (let me call him "Mike") because he and I talked extensively in the past about another project. But now "Mike" is a "big guy" in the book publishing world. That delighted me, but it also made me a bit anxious. In his note to me, Mike thanked me for my contribution to the Renovare Bible , but he also left the door open for me to get in touch with him if I had some brilliant ideas of my own. And, when I thought about how almost everyone would like a book in his/her name with a "Harper" imprint, I became not only a bit desirous but also a bit anxious. You can probably understand the "desirous" part of it, but why anxious?
I began to feel anxious because my mind all-of-a-sudden went into a different mode of thinking. Instead of my normal focus on ideas and developing approaches to knowledge, I began to "calculate" on how what I was working on could be "pitched" to "Mike" so that he might "bite" on one of my ideas. Before you knew it, then, I would have Harper joyfully promoting my book. Thus, I stopped my work and began to wrack my brain for ways that I might be able to make my most recent work attractive to a publisher of Christian or religious books. Afer 20 minutes of unsuccessful labor, I decided to approach things in a humorous way. Here are some of my attempts.
Humorous Titles
I have been doing some work recently on financial responsibility of interstate motor carriers (mostly truckers). The law on this issue isn't fully settled, even though the law is clear for truckers "for hire." Truckers that drive company vehicles don't have the same level of insurance requirements as those who are independently contracted to haul goods. I am sure you didn't need to know this, but it is one thing I have been thinking about. So I cast around desperately for a title to "Christianize" what I have been doing. Here is my effort:
"Christ Behind the Wheel: A Christian Reading of the History of the Interstate Trucking Industry."
Well, I thought, maybe that one won't work. So, I went into another area I have been working on recently, the WA state receivership statute--especially as it has to do with the glut in the condominium market. So, I thought, how about a book entitled:
"Christ and the Condo Craze: What to Do When the Grim Receiver Calls..."
Again I thought that this probably wouldn't be something on which Harper would bite. So, growing more desperate, I landed on a subject that has preoccupied me recently in my counseling of a Foundation. A crucial issue these days in the Foundation world is what is known as "entity classification"--i.e., what Internal Revenue Code section your foundation falls under. Different entities have different rules that apply to them. The differences in tax treatment, for example, between a private foundation and a supporting organization for a public purpose are immense. Thus, an idea came to mind on this one, too:
"A Christian Perspective on Different Tax Treatments under the Internal Revenue Code for Supporting Organizations under 509(a)(3) and Private Foundations."
Conclusion
I looked at that topic, and saw that it also probably wouldn't engage Mike over at Harper. Growing more panicked, I thought about my love of words, and came up with a blank on how my word studies could have a "Christian" approach. Then, I focus a lot on autism and am working now on the "mercury-autism" connection. But what could I write on for this topic?
"Mercury Rising: From the Mad Hatter to Christ"?
Then, as a final ditch effort, I considered that I was trying to memorize a lot of Paradise Lost, and I thought that I might entitle a book:
"Regaining Paradise Lost"
or something like this. After all of this, however, I began to feel a little ill. I saw that I had lost my focus as a writer and was trying to see myself more as a self-marketer, a person cleverly trying to anticipate what was in someone else's mind--a mind that I really didn't know very well at all. And so I decided, instead, to write this essay, and now I am smiling again.
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