Maggi Dawn and what she’s written on the wall.

 Paul writes – Over recent months I’ve been involved peripherally in writing projects by two friends. It’s been both a privilege and a delight to have had the opportunity to be a part – albeit really as an observer - of the creative process that brings together a book. This privilege has extended, again gratefully, to film as well. I’ve been really energised by the experiences and have reflected with a great deal of gratitude on the number of writers and other creative’s that I can call friends and who are a part of my journey. They each extend and enrich my everyday and very ordinary world.  

They also indirectly challenge me to wonder if I had their discipline whether I could write a book. As Maggi says in the interview at the bottom of this post, I’m my own worst critic, and often it’s extremely difficult just to get past that inner critic and start something...

As an example I highlight good friend Maggi Dawn’s new book The Writing on the Wall: High Art, Popular Culture and the Bible (published on the 24^th June 2010) 

There are many so-called “introductions” to the Bible, but Maggi’s book is a creative attempt to help readers engage the Bible from a different range of perspectives, those derived from art (a “catch all” term that includes paintings, music, and literature) and popular culture.

In re-imagining and re-engaging the bible from these perspectives, Maggi’s book does its likely many readers a wonderful service, especially if those readers may have heard significant stories (.e.g. the Creation account, or the Fall etc) from the Bible, but never engaged or read them from within their own everyday contexts – contexts woven through with the ‘threads’ of art, literature, film and music – whether contemporary or not. 

New life is therefore breathed into the significant and important stories of the Bible, and hopefully a new readership will be brought into conversation with the narrative flow and drama of its stories, finding within its pages the invitations that all good stories offer; invitations to discover wisdom, to engage mystery, to discover grounds for new hope, to embrace the means by which new life can be experienced, and to search for new understanding in relation to what it means to be fully human and fully alive. 

Maggi is a gifted, skilled, and disciplined writer and I highly recommend all of her published essays and books, but in particular this new book (because it’s her latest). Reading it will be a fruitful experience whether you read the Bible, think you know its stories, or have never read it before. It’s the kind of adventure we all need from time-to-time, and Maggi’s book is just the kind of accompanying friend we need.  Read The Writing on the Wall – alongside Google – and the reading experience, like any good tour, will be enriched by seeing the sites as well.  

I also direct your attention to a recent written interview that another good friend Jason Clark conducted with Maggi in relation to her new book.  

Comments

[Mike]

Damn right you can write a book. You're both a good writer and the blog shows you have the discipline. And you have something to say! Go for it Paul.