Writing Empty like an Open Hand, Pt II

David Kopp, “Writing Empty Like and Open Hand,” Pt II
Plenary address given at Just Write, writers conference at Biola University, July 28-31, 1991

(2) We are empty before God because we want to receive something precious that others miss. This is the story of the snake. It is really just a folk saying, it goes like this:

“The snake is the wisest of all creatures because it touches the earth completely.”

I think once we are empty before God we are then, candidates to receive something precious. Something that others miss. We are available then to live deeply. Experience deeply. Out of that encounter, out of that receptivity comes something precious. I think for us as writers, that’s where creativity occurs. Creativity defined as, the “intensively conscious encounter of a person with his or her world.”

Now we as Christians have the truth all lined up. I don’t know if we are really ready for encounter. Do you know what I mean? In some ways we use the truth so we don’t have to encounter. We don’t have to even encounter God. Because hey, we’ve got him down to seven points. Why struggle in the darkness with God? Why wrestle with God? Why say to God,

“I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

We’ve got him in a book. Chuck Swindoll wrote it. You wrote it. It’s a good book. It sold thousands. We hardly need God. I’m not saying anything bad about your book, about Chuck’s book. Do you hear what I am saying? We can very easily use what is good in our lives as a barrier to God. To keep him at arm’s length. To keep him in control. To use him.

When we are empty like an open hand to receive, this is what I call a tenacious receptivity. It is courage. We hold out our hand to God and say:

“God fill it. Fill it with the truth. Fill it with something new. I’m here. I’m listening.”

A chinese poet says:

“We poets struggle with non-being to force it into being. We knock upon silence for an answer in music.”

I think we should pursue God that hard. I think we should listen to God that intently. To receive. To hear what he is saying. What is it? What is it? If you’re anything like me you spend a lot of your time pacing around in your study huffing and puffing, listening. What is it? What is it? What is it? God, What is it? I’m here. I’m here.

God has made us to be questers. People have told me amazing things they do for fun. It’s what drove the scientists like James Watson, at twenty-five, to go on despite discouragement from other chemists to discover the double helix architecture of the DNA molecule. One of the greatest discoveries of our century. It’s the chemical alphabet of life. He was twenty-five. People said it couldn’t be done. He went on. He was a creative scientist at work.

The quest is what drove a thirteen-year-old boy to ask one of the most important questions that has been asked in this century.

“What would the world look like if I were riding a beam of light?”

Do you know who that was? You can probably guess. His name was Albert Einstein. That led on to his theory of relativity: In-laws.

God has made us to seek Him. God pursues us. We pursue God. That’s the way it’s meant to be. The most important thing a writer learns in a school of journalism in my opinion is not what makes a good lead, not what grammar is, not how to get a job as a reporter. It’s an attitude. It is an attitude that you go toward the conflict, not away. You go toward what you don’t know, not away. You go toward the best source, not the easy source. You go toward what is news.

So many of us retreat from those difficult things, they challenge us. That is what will enable us to give readers something that they can’t get on their own. Out of this receptivity then comes creativity. In my case, out of this receptivity God dealt with me in the issue of trust, in my life. I didn’t trust God. Trust is the hardest thing for me to do.

A snippet of my life, starting at five years old, I was sent off to boarding school. At the boarding school, a missionary boarding school, was a headmaster, who had a violent temper. He was a big man, he’d been an athlete at Wheaton College. He was not in control of his temper. He beat us with the fan belt from a car. I don’t say that to make you wince. Here’s the problem, Mr. Hess would stand up the next morning and read from Daily Light.

Now perhaps you can understand how that twisted my idea of a trustworthy God. Because the only reason I could figure out that I was at a missionary boarding school was that my mom and my dad were following him, God, with all their hearts. Where was God? When Mr. Hess was, making me bleed. Then standing up as God’s man in my life. So God brought me to this place of emptiness to receive a very basic thing, we can’t go on without in life. I would have never wanted to learn trust. I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with it. But God brought me to this place, because He wanted to give me something better than that chicken bone.