In order to appease the less contentious side of my writing, today I want to praise a subgroup of people who don’t receive the laud they deserve. I am talking about a group of g̷e̷e̷k̷s̷ scholars that serve the writing community with great honor.
We call them f̷i̷x̷e̷r̷s̷ ̷o̷f̷ ̷b̷a̷d̷ ̷w̷r̷i̷t̷i̷n̷g “editors.” They perform the kind of work that is so needed in our cultural experiment currently saturated with cliches. The reason it’s saturated with cliches is that we have allowed the culture to communicate transformative information through txting and mms and if the shrunk version of those two words bothers you, it’s because you haven’t bought into the propaganda yet, but lots of your relatives have, which is why we need a culture that praises the right kinds of people.
Let’s take the basic pastoral task of writing a sermon–a task presumably demanded of me by parishioners virtually every Sunday. That process is sacred for a host of reasons, among them the biblical fact that sermons change lives and dispositions by the power of the Spirit. How then should that process unfold? Frankly, through the unending process of editing and e̵̶̵d̵̶̵i̵̶̵t̵̶̵i̵̶̵n̵̶̵g̵̶̵ and e̵̶̵d̵̶̵i̵̶̵t̵̶̵i̵̶̵n̵̶̵g̵̶̵. By the time a sermon is delivered on Sunday, I may have edited the entire manuscript three or four times, and one more time on early Sunday.
On occasion, I often have sent it to friends by Tuesday night so they may offer additional insights or summarize an inordinately long paragraph into two sentences. That feedback is important to create communication that is clear and concise. And speaking of c̸o̸n̸c̸i̸s̸i̸o̸n̸i̸n̸g̸ concision, writing cannot go on and on and on and on, indefinitely and forever, which is why editing and editors can fix that blunder of redundancy I just wrote.I have been writing this thing or thesis or whatever the pros call it for a better part of a year now, but really five years total, and the real task is not writing 275 pages, but editing the 275 pages. 80,000 words can simply fill up those pages or they can be a work that fills the need of academia and the church in some fruitful way. But the point is, anyone can write things, but good editors make that thing attractive to the reader.
Some people do this editing business professionally, like those in the publishing world, and others do that thing informally to use wisely that literature degree that has been dormant for 15 years and some simply like the work of making words beautiful. Either way, my deep thanks for your labors and your help to me as a writer.
I wrote in the preface to a book that the only way people find anything I write helpful is because editors have made it so. And I t̸h̸i̸n̸k̸ believe that in this new phase of American history, the world will need well-thought arguments and essays and books and posts that offer some sanity. My encouragement is to stare deep into whatever it is you are writing, edit a time or four, and post it.
