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@hope-ann, @anne-of-lothlorien, @northerner, @morreafirebird

I apologize for my lengthy absence. Prior to the 12th, I was going into crunch mode on my book, shortly before taking a much desired (and retrospectively much needed) vacation to spend with my girlfriend and her family. I am in fact still up there, but she’s expired her leave, so I’m staying one more day to get a last evening with her and her brothers, as well as to pack up before I drive home for 13 hours on the morrow.

Furthermore, I am astounded at the length of your responses. I will try to respond thoroughly to everything in this post, or die trying. (Hopefully not!)

Audrey:
My difficulty in finding how to serve God in my book contract is that it is by nature more trivial than I would like. It’s an adventure book for an RPG, and I am stymied by the compulsion to make my Christianity inoffensive in it – which is compounded by the background, which in itself is based on a sort of fantastical clandestine cold war between factions of fallen angels, some ‘good’ and trying to earn their way back to Heaven (in one case simply humbly serving while awaiting their final sentence), and most ‘evil’ or vying for dominance over Earth and Hell. Furthermore, the specific setting of my adventure is in the atheistic Soviet Union in 1986 – though that itself provides fertile grounds for closet-Christians hiding their faith from the ever watchful eye of the KGB.

Basically, I struggle to be clear with my faith in this book, whether this is an appropriate place for a dialogue on faith, and whether a dialogue on faith would be taken seriously in what is ultimately a game.

Hope,

Thank you for your counsel and camaraderie. I suppose I hadn’t thought about it in that way, that talking about darkness and personal struggles can be a burden on others. Perhaps I was being a bit egoistic in initiating this thread. My struggle was and still remains my current book contract, which as written above – is a game. And while I very much enjoy designing the game, the plot, the game mechanics, at the end of the day I wonder if any of it will be taken seriously. In such a format, is it possible that in writing my faith in will simply create opportunities for people to blaspheme via a game? And yet I must use my gift to honor God, not myself.

Anne,

Thank you for being so vulnerable and honest in your reply. While I don’t know what it’s like to be standing by while my mother’s life hangs in the balance, I can empathize with the struggle of a disabled sibling. My older brother suffered a severe attack of meningitis before I was born, when he was only two, and the illness destroyed the language centers of his brain. I have grown up with an older brother who never learned to speak, whose mind is absolutely opaque, who will never grow up himself. In the past I took comfort in the explanation that God placed him in my family to teach us all patience, but I still don’t really know the answer. All I can do is try to be a better brother than I have been.

Thank you to all of you for your encouragement and your persistence in writing even as I have been neglectful myself in my response. I don’t know if I’ll ever outgrow my cynicism or paranoia, but perhaps I can become a happier cynic.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Wong