In all my writing, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, I strive to tell the truth and hope my audience comes away with some insights in addition to having a pleasurable reading experience. Early in my writing career, I was a young man who had recently found Christ and was trying to use whatever gifts I had to “shine a light,” as the Christian cliché goes. Now that I’m older, it’s more like that line out of a Bruce Cockburn song where I feel like I’m going to “kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.”

In my works there is clarity, sometimes even rawness, about the way things really are, or so I’ve been told. I’ve endured banalities, hypocrisy, excess, and downright silliness in some of my church experiences, and even more troubling, I’ve wrestled with my own frailties and failures. But I still believe. And if conflict and resolution are at the heart of good writing, I certainly have plenty to share.

More than ever, I hope that my fiction accurately portrays life rather than pushing a philosophy or agenda. In fact, one Christian reviewer of my short story collection found fault with this approach, saying, “Aside from about three of the seventeen stories, there is no mention of Christ or even religion in general. But this is a relatively small criticism overall, for this collection is an enjoyable read by an obviously talented writer.” He did understand that I was “more about telling a story than preaching a sermon,” and his remarks made me think even more about what I am doing as a writer.

My intended audience is not comprised of academics, intellectuals, movers and shakers, or church leaders. I write for those who are in the trenches of daily life, the believers, the skeptics, and the disillusioned. I write for both non-Christians and Christians, but some devoted readers of what might be called “Christian fiction” may not be pleased. One editor at a Christian publishing house said of my first novel, “You have written a piece of realistic fiction, but unfortunately, our audience prefers to put its head in the sand.” He said that, not me, and I’ll just leave it at that.

Stories are often the most engaging and effective way to present ideas because we live our very lives in a sequence; therefore, even my non-fiction tends to be rendered as a personal narrative. When stories aren’t appropriate, I lean heavily on metaphors, attempting to connect what my readers know with what they don’t, and I am careful about the order in which ideas are presented.

Perhaps it’s my teaching experience that makes me want to write the way I do because students like to have complex concepts and tasks broken down and put into linear progressions. When people are confused, they don’t even know where to start. Give them a place to begin, guide them along the way, and understanding will come.

Maybe the fact that I’m a bass player also has something to do with the way I approach both teaching and writing. As instrumentalists, we stand off to the side, listening and then playing the essence of what we hear to complement the overall sound of a group. The great jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus said, “Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”

In music, writing, and life in general, I thrive on simplicity, begrudge needless complexity, and detest pomposity. I earnestly desire authenticity and truth, and I hope my writing reflects that.