“I’m Not Reading That”

You may have noticed my deep religious roots in my writing. Honestly, early on, I tried to keep my writing as religiously light as possible. It wasn’t any sort of embarrassment of my religion or out of a desire to hide my religiousness, it was simply because I didn’t want to create any sort of barriers to whatever I was writing about.

Writing can be such a challenge because the number of people that actually spend quality time reading has dropped, and even those that still read need certain measures met to be drawn in. As a writer, it’s my task to create an engaging enough tale to occupy my readers and keep them wanting more. There is, however, a fine line between parading and propaganda.

As a writer, I feel like my job is to make a parade float. I’m given a theme that I wish to present with bright flowing colors and large bold letter banners. Mixed along the float are enthusiastic characters that throw handfuls of candy to the crowd. Each child watches anxiously as the float with all the fun characters and flowing candy approaches. The better the float, the more those watching can’t wait for you to pass by.

In an effort to create a great float, one may slowly slip into propaganda. While you have a theme to base it off of, you simply build your float based on what you believe people want to see and avoid what they don’t want to see. You have a bland color, a very normal character, and candy that people don’t love, but also don’t hate. Suddenly, you’ve created a float that won’t offend anyone, but neither does it excite anyone.

Why propaganda? Because you’ve become a slave to what you think people want or don’t what to see. You supress your own messages because it might offend or push away someone you might hope would engage with your artwork. Truth be told, I spent a lot of time in that boat. I have many people who I care deeply for that I simply don’t agree with. That’s okay.

This is all a long, winded way to say to anyone reading my blogs. They are about to make a shift. I feel a strong pull to talk more about religious themes. I have a desire to write more about Jesus and parallels of Him to our world and even to the histories of the world. For those who are intrigued and awesome, for those who are put off, I hope you can still enjoy them for what they’re meant to be. A way to connect to another person’s mind and maybe see how similar or different we can all be.