To write well is to think well

"To write is to think, and to write well is to think well"

- David McCullough

I read that quote this morning in an editorial penned by Peggy Noonan . Ms. Noonan is a fine example of a dying breed of truly great writers. I don’t always agree with her but I always find her work to be engaging and there are precious few people I can say that about today. When I read that quote from historian and prodigious author David McCullough, I silently (being at work) applauded. What a magnificent statement.

I don’t believe we have enough people who write well today. Scratch that. We have far too few people who write at all, much less write well. Writing is seen as onerous. Why take the time to carefully think through and flesh out an idea when you can merely send a tweet? I completely understand email as a substitute for writing a letter but we have moved culturally away from even writing long emails. My family can find out what we are doing and where we are going instantly via Facebook. I know of precious few people who can write more than a few paragraphs coherently and asking them to do so is akin to water-boarding.

I fear we have lost the ability as a society to write well. Similarly we seem to have lost the ability to think well. The two go hand in hand although I will admit that I am unsure which is the cause and which the effect. Recovering the ability to write well and think well will not happen on its own. To paraphrase literary genius Billy Crystal in a cinema tour de force, Throw Momma From The Train, “writers write”. We must encourage more people to write and more people to critically read what is written. I blog in large part to give myself a creative outlet to write and because I write, and do so publicly, my writing forces me to examine and think carefully about what I am writing. I can assure you that blogging regularly, even if a lot of it is repetitive, keeps the mind sharp and the proverbial pen as well.

We were once a land of great ideas, great thinkers and great writers. Now we are a land of poor grammar, even worse spelling and shallow thinking. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that a nation is only as great as its ideas. Most of Europe has lost its vision, the core ideas of what makes them who they are as a people. America is headed the same way thanks to an apathetic populace, a public school system designed to deliver conformity instead of education and the death throes of an unheard of affluence. The fact that we refer to Independence Day as “The Fourth of July” demonstrates that we have lost the vision of that momentous occasion. It is not about a date on a calendar, it is about a sweeping declaration that addresses the very core of what it means to be human. Yet as a society we have reduced it to fireworks and red, white and blue bunting. What a sad state of affairs but one that is entirely predictable when we have replaced “When in the Course of human events…” with Jon Stewart, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly.

This is true in the church as well as society as a whole. We have no lack of people writing about all sorts of religious stuff but little of it is of any value. Just take a gander at the offerings in a “Christian” bookstore that typically consist of comic book level writing pondering a God who is little more than a genteel grandpa who benevolently showers up with material blessings. There are still some great writers and thinkers out there, people like Albert Mohler and John Piper, but they are few and far between. While I am often critical of the overemphasis on intellectualism in some corners of the church, I would still rather have that than the cotton candy teaching that fills pulpits, podcasts and bookstores. Part of equipping Christians for ministry is equipping them to think and to write and to ponder. I yearn for God to raise up men capable of deep thinking and solid writing, men who match their writing skills with a servants heart.

Take David McCullough's words to heart and write something. Write a letter, write a poem, write anything but think when you write. You might be pleasantly surprised by what your thoughts look like when written down.