Greetings!
Are you subscribed to any other thinkers/writers on Substack? The reason I keep mentioning this is that Substack is where I am getting most of my brain food these days. So much better than the doom-scrolling that Facebook sucks me into.
I’m rewarding my paid subscribers with something really cool. I’ve added a section here on Substack called “Let Me Read to You.” I’m recording Under the Banner of the Mormon Code (a murder mystery) and A Conspiracy of Breath — my award-winning historical novel. What do I mean by reading aloud? You may even hear the pages turning!
One example of the mental stimulation I get from Substack is a short article I read recently on Substack by author Joel Miller. (Don’t be afraid to click on it – it’s free and very interesting.)
In this article, Miller explores how some books start out strong and then fizzle. (My words, not his.) He says there are three reasons why.
Two have to do with the writer: 1) failure of skill and 2) failure of character (the author procrastinates and/or won’t listen to critiques of a failing work.)
Most interesting, though, is the third factor that Miller calls failure of vision.
It’s where the author has a really cool idea, one that can attract attention and get people to start reading.
But because the idea isn’t sustainable over time, the more the author tries to explain or expand the idea, the worse the book gets.
(Tell me, do you have an example of a book that sounded so interesting, maybe even started out strong, but just didn’t deliver? Reply below!)
We all know books and movies like that. But I realized that even great religious movements can follow that pattern.
Failure of Vision in Mormonism
Take Mormonism, for example. Joseph Smith was an attractive and charismatic man who enthralled people with his fantastical stories about finding hidden treasures and new exciting American-religion doctrines and even otherwise scandalous behaviors that were declared good. (Like marrying young women who were already married to your friends.)
This was a movement carried aloft by sheer personality and multi-faceted lust, kept buoyant though martyrdom, and incubated in isolation and secrecy.
Until the chain of “prophet”-personalities mellowed, the lust was outlawed, the martyrdom became irrelevant, and the Internet shone brilliant light on the secrets. The more detail, the more explanations, the worse it got.
The longer the story went on, the more bases there were to cover and the thinner and more transparent the wrapper. As Isaiah 28:20 put it: The bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.
It was a cool story that was not only too good to be true, it was too bad to sustain.
Failure of Vision in Life
I was thinking about my life.
It hardly started out as a good story, a childhood with household violence and mental illness. No wonder I loved the great story of Mormonism, my own personal safe room that was protection and sanity and order –
Until its foundations cracked wide open.
Because the stories were just, stories.
Where do we find truth? Because truth is filled with stories, but not just stories.
What is the basis of the story that you cling to? Have you ever thought about that?
I guess I’ve come to this conclusion. Either Jesus Christ rose from the dead, or He didn’t. If He didn’t, we are as the Apostle Paul said, of all people most to be pitied. But since He did rise from the dead, that means He knows truth. In fact, He said He WAS truth.
Everyone has the choice: bind yourself to that Truth. Stay on that Way. Imbibe of that Life.
(Made the wrong choices in this life-or-death matter? My favorite Turkish parable puts it: “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn around!”)
And His story, the true one, doesn’t fizzle with the telling, it becomes all the richer.
It has stood up to the searchlight of examination for over 2000 years.
And as I continue learning what has been to me up until this time a hidden history of His people – the saints I never knew about – my life gulps in that richness which becomes more satisfying with the telling.
The vision is expanding, and carrying me along in its wake. Glory to God!
Yours and His,
Latayne
PS. Do you need a deeper dive into spiritual things, especially as we approach Pascha/Easter? I’ve mined them in my book, Passion, Power, Proxy, Release. Join me in this dive?
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