Almost as soon as I began looking for a “tagline” in connection with my fiction writing, this phrase came to me. A tagline is like a motto. So what do I mean by “Faith in Walking Shoes”?
I don’t mean anything complicated. Though I majored in Bible at a well-known Christian college, I am not a theologian. I simply believe that our faith needs to be real and something we live out in our daily lives.
My faith means everything to me, and faith means a great deal to the key characters in my novel. I don’t preach any sermons in it, and at this point, I reference only one Scripture. My characters with a lifetime of faith provide spiritual guidance to those who do not have it. My main character is one who went through the motions of faith but never made it truly her own.
In the development of the story, I made an effort to achieve a delicate balance. It has turned out to be more like a challenging tight rope. I want it to be clear to my Christian friends that it is indeed a Christian book, but I want to do that without filling it with Christian jargon. I want my non-Christian friends to be able to read it without feeling as if they have stepped into a strange and unfamiliar world. I even dare to hope they will enjoy it enough that it will whet their appetites for more.
That’s a big order, and only time will tell to what degree I succeed. Meanwhile, I will continue to make every effort to live out my own faith in the walking shoes of my daily life.
The phrase about the stepping stones and road blocks, under the title at the top of this page, was born a decade before the tagline about walking shoes. I am pleased with the way they go together.
5 comments:
Great new blog, Esther! Thanks for sharing this.
Blessings,
Marcie Gribbin
http://marciegribbin.blogspot.com/
Congratulations for taking this step! I look forward to reading your weekly posts.
Esther, I just activated an ACFW membership, and saw a familiar name. Are you the same Esther who ministered with WBT and SIL in Colombia in the 60's and 70's? I was there from mid 80's to mid 90's, and your name was mentioned often enough that I recognize it. My own Blogger page shows up at caperswithcarroll.blogspot. It's a small world, but the LMLite community seems to transcend time and space.
When I was growing up there was a song we sang in our Christian school called "Do you know, O Christian, you're a sermon in shoes?" so your Faith in Walking Shoes has me singing that song.
Keep blogging! It took me a while to find my niche here, but I finally did, and it splintered into two blogs.
I'm one of your ACFW co-members. Good start!
Thank you, each one, for your comments. Now that I have taken the plunge, I'm excited about the journey. I spent my whole walk today mulling over what I want my next post to be about (too many to choose from).Yes, Brian, I am the Esther you remember from LML. You can find my e-mail on the ACFW member Directory if you want to chat more about it.
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