my fav christian ojisan writers... and a bit more

I thought about doing something like this when I was compiling Masha 1-10 last year. after all it really shouldn't be only the gd looking insightful Asian ojisan (XD) and his songs which deserve mentions here~  *giggle*

The Professor's Death Song by James Calvin Schaap

In this life one has many loves at first sight: people, books, dresses etc. This story was one. Like the many other LAFSs, I prob cannot explain why it was so, except that it was the right story for me at the right time. reading it any earlier, i may have been shocked, not coped, and unsympathetic, reading it any later, i may have developed a tolerance to such brokenness and it would have failed to stir much emotion in me.

but it came when it came, during one of the summer wkend cover shift mornings. i was alone in the student computer lab, expecting things to be quiet at least for the first couple of hours, listening to BENI's mou nido to.

In some mysterious ways, it managed to permanently change something for me and my Christian values.

The story was so beautifully written, even to this day I feel i am not able to describe the beauty of it. after all i really have not had enough experiences of life or even lived enough days to even vaguely identify with either the author or the subject matter.
...but end of the day, the weight of human brokenness, painted in full honesty in a sympathetic light- ...is universal,  and all that is needed to stir the soul.

This, however, is not all the story about my appreciation for the professor's story. There is a sequel.

as I obsessively loved the professor story, i kept an eye out for the same author's books. Last year I found Honest to God: Psalms for Scribblers, Scrawlers, and Sketchers and read it with great relish.

The surprise came with the last chapter of the book. It was a different story, but the subject matter was the same--the professor.
also beautifully written, and sympathetic, but in it, the professor was not "the professor" but "the sex offender".

i thought much about the two different stories afterwards, about the nuances in difference, and how differently one felt towards the professor from the two different accounts written by the very same author.

it made me muse at the Lord's timing. I wondered if i read the story of the professor as "the sex offender" first, and then came across The Professor's Death Song, whether I really would be touched by the idea of brokenness to such an extent, realizing the subject matter was the same?
and would i have become a fan of my most fav Christian ojisan writer? if i read what he wrote, in the "right" order?

the musing also came at a most needed time. I have always been a slow warmer, but in recent years bits of my madness came out to play more under the sunlight.
I became scared of people, and there was an increasing sense of acopia, in socialization.

there is too much irony in this madness of mine, but the process of getting to know my fav writer's words and stories was probably the Lord's own comforting words whispering and intervening in this madness:
--that no matter how uncomfortable the cross-sectional can be, I should trust there is a longitudinal for everything, and try my best to stick around for the longitudinal to unfold...
--and more often than not, I would be pleasantly surprised.

There are many more good stories by Prof James Schaap at Stuff in the Basement. Every post is beautiful like a piece of red velvet cake. i know i have been consciously and/or subconsciously attempting to model after his writing style, but maybe its all a bit too much for my ESLness.

I can't be greedy and eat all the cakes, but staring at them behind the counters, is still awesome.