Tag Archives: Interview

The Way we Change is to Experience a Disruption. Interview with Rob Bell.

surfing

Ktizo is Greek meaning ‘to form, shape, completely change or transform’ “with the creativity of God being the epitome of these actions that inspire us to do the same.” So says Ktizo Magazine, which did a recent interview with Rob Bell. You can download the issue and read the full interview here.

Ktizo: You love to incorporate art of all varieties with your ministries. How have you come to understand the creative approach as something that works so well?

Rob Bell: What’s interesting is in the rabbinical tradition, a sacred text is like a jewel. It’s like a precious stone and when you turn it the light refracts in different ways. The way that you think about the divine is that the divine is spoken and the rest is commentary. So we’re exploring. It was never like there is a finite endpoint, if you just get there then you’re right. It’s always about the hunt, the struggle, the doubt, the sweat, the stretching.

I would say a lot of what passes for Western religious systems nowadays are actually belief affirmation systems- I come, I tithe, I give some money, I vote the right way, I show up at the right time to keep the attendance up, and then you tell me what I already believe. So if we get some wing nut in here who tells us something slightly different we have to expunge them from the system because the system works in a particular way. but the actual way that we change is we experience a disruption. We hear something that grabs us and we can’t go on in the same way.

So it’s actually a disruption, and that’s the power of art.

Ktizo: We heard that surfing is a big part of your life now and probably therapeutic in a sense, too. How is getting up on the waves influencing you?

Rob Bell: Where else are you carried across the Earth’s surface by an orbital pattern of energy moving at a speed you can actually manage to keep up with long enough for it to catch you and then you’re floating along on pure grace? It’s…it’s…there just aren’t words. If I talk any more I’ve ruined it. As the Hebrews would say there’s a Selah* right here.

* rough translations of Selah are mine: “to pause and think” or “to stop and listen”

Home by Marilynne Robinson

Home by Marilynne Robinson is the same setting from her Pulitzer Prize winning Gilead, but told from a different perspective. This time from John Ames’ good friend the Reverend Boughton’s daughter Glory. A woman who has returned to Gilead, Iowa to take care of her ailing father. Her delinquent older brother Jack soon returns home for the first time in over twenty years, to the joy as well as the sorrow of his father.

With a pace that resonates with Robinson’s first novel Housekeeping and a firm delicacy that balances hope and desolation, religion and hypocrisy, holiness and grace, Home is about a family’s search for rest and life.

Read the Newsweek interview with Marilynne Robinson here. Read the Blogcritics’ review here and the Oregonian’s review here.

Interview with Matt Rogers, Author of When Answers Aren’t Enough and Losing God

Matt Rogers is the author of When Answers Aren’t Enough (released this April by Zondervan) which is a raw meditative account of healing and searching for God after the Virginia Tech tragedy in 2006, when 33 students died. (Read my review here.) Matt works as a pastor at New Life Christian Fellowship at Virginia Tech and his second book Losing God is due out in November.

Matt took the time to sit down with me and talk about the book and his journey as a writer. Actually, we didn’t really sit down together. But if we had, this is an artistic rendition of what it might look like.

Matt Rogers and Ross Gale fake picture.

 
RC: The one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy was last week, can you tell us how the VT family is doing after a year?

MR: The anticipation leading up the anniversary was worse than the anniversary itself. I think subconsciously we were preparing ourselves for the worst and were surprised on April 16, 2008, to find we had experienced more healing in the past year than perhaps we had thought. We’re doing well.

RC: When Answers Aren’t Enough has recently been released, do you think it’s been well received?

MR: I believe so, yes. The two comments I most often get are, “I couldn’t put it down,” and, “I love how human you seem in the book.” I really aimed for raw honesty when writing the book, and I think that is what people are enjoying.

RC: In When Answers Aren’t Enough you don’t hide your emotions, at times it’s very raw. Were those passages difficult to write?

MR: Actually, writing them was therapeutic. I needed a release, a way of getting my thoughts out of my mind and on to paper. That process was helpful in working through the last year.

RC: You talk about the controversy of memorializing 33 students who died in the incident, instead of 32. Cho, the killer, being the one that you felt shouldn’t be memorialized as a victim. In the Zondervan summary of the book it says, “…33 students died in the worst massacre in modern American history.” Were you upset at all that the description seems to imply 33 student were victims?

MR: I got to approve the cover before the book went to the printer, so no, I wasn’t upset. What bothered me last April was the subtle suggestion of the 33rd stone that there is no distinction between Cho and his victims. Cho is the reason for the others’ deaths. We have to be clear about that. But no, I’m not bothered by the mere acknowledgment that at the end of the day, 33 were dead. That’s true. And since I was clear in the book about 32 versus 33, I did not have a problem with the cover copy.

RC: When Answers Aren’t Enough is the second book you’ve written (the first being Losing God), although, it’s the first you published. Tell us about your journey to publication.

MR: I climbed a mountain on January 1, 2006, to spend some time with God reflecting on my life and making some goals for the new year. On the trail, I realized I’d been squandering a gift God had given me, the gift of writing. That day I decided to pursue a dream I had for years, that of writing and publishing a book. Had no idea I’d publish two in the same year. The second, “Losing God,” releases in November.

RC: Can you tell us a little bit about Losing God that isn’t in the summary?

MR: That your life will be utterly incomplete unless you buy it? I’m only half-kidding. I wrote this book because I wanted to offer the solace of personal experience to people afflicted with severe depression. I know what that’s like. When going through my four years of depression, I found how-to books everywhere from authors trying to show the path to freedom. I guess they helped somewhat, but what I really wanted was just to know that someone had been through my pain and made it out the other side with their faith in tact. I wanted a story, a true story. I never found such a book, so I decided to write it.

RC: Briefly take us through the process of writing these books–from conception to revision?

MR: I start with the idea that I flesh out in a very basic outline. I don’t over do it. I don’t like rigid outlines that allow no freedom for creativity once you’ve begun writing. I know some authors like to know exactly where they’re headed. I don’t. I like to be surprised by the Spirit who I believe is carrying me along in the creative process. “Losing God” I wrote in order. I wrote “When Answers Aren’t Enough” like a movie is often filmed: out of order. I then pieced it all together afterward.

RC: What is the first thing you do when you begin a new book?

MR: Pray. I ask the Spirit to speak into the void and bring forth something fresh, unseen, as God did at the beginning of time.

RC: Where do you usually write? Do you have a special room or coffee shop?

MR: I write in my home. I need quiet. People who can write in coffee shops confound me. How do they do it? I did, however, write most of Part 1 of “When Answers Aren’t Enough” to the “Passion of the Christ” soundtrack. The mood seemed appropriate.

RC: What does a typical day look life for you?

MR: The only thing typical about my day is that there is nothing typical about it. I work with mostly college students. Their schedules are all over the place; so, therefore, is mine.

RC: Are you working on anything new right now?

MR: Nope. Just looking over the copyedited manuscript to “Losing God” and promoting “When Answers Aren’t Enough.” It’ll be a bit before I start thinking about the next book.

RC: What have you been reading lately?

MR: I just started Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood. And yesterday I picked up a copy of Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian.

RC: What are your top three favorite books?

MR: A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey.

RC: Do you ever experience self-doubts regarding your work, or struggle in a particular area such as writers block or anxiety? Please share some helpful overcoming hints that you’ve discovered.

MR: I am riddled with self-doubt as I suspect most creative people are. But I do not have a choice of whether to write. Once something has tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Write me,” I have to do so. The end result, whether good or bad, is not my business.

RC: What aspect of writing was the most difficult for you to grasp/conquer? How did you overcome it?

MR: I have a tendency to overwrite, to make a sentence grand rather than good. It took me a bit to settle down, find my voice, and just be me.

RC: Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

MR: I only wish to write books that, when I come to die, I am glad I wrote them, books I respect and am proud of. Oh, and I’d love to be able to live off my writing.

RC: How do you handle being both a pastor and a writer? Any advice for pastor/writers out there?

MR: Not sure I’ve been at it long enough to offer advice. I only know I love it and would recommend it highly.

RC: Have you had much encouragement of your writing, and if so, by whom?

MR: My editors and my agent have given me the best feedback. To hear “Good job!” from people in the business is incredibly encouraging.

RC: When you talked about the view from Philip Yancey’s window that he wrote about in Reaching For the Invisible God I became very jealous. What was it like spending time with Philip Yancey? And what did you learn from him?

MR: Philip and Janet Yancey are wonderful. No hint of fame about them at all. Very humble. And so gracious. I am deeply thankful for them welcoming me into their lives. We actually didn’t talk much book-stuff. We just talked about our lives.

RC: If you could write any kind of book (besides “spiritual growth” non-fiction) what kind of book would it be and what would it’s title be?

MR: I’d love to write children’s literature, though I have no idea what about. Or what I’d call it.

RC: If you could ask Madeleine L’Engle one question, what would it be?

MR: I wouldn’t ask her anything. I’d just sit at her feet and listen to her teach me about life.