Bonhoeffer Part II and Meeting Eric Metaxas in Seattle

(No one can borrow this book now.) (The obligatory bad iPhone picture – Dick Staub & Eric Metaxas)

As I may have gushed before, the book “Bonhoeffer” impressed me on many levels. When I saw on the Facebook of Eric Metaxas (I did that so I wouldn't have to make his name possessive) that he was coming to Seattle I thought maybe I should go hear him. I say “maybe” because I’m three and a half hours away from there. But hey, he was coming from New York. And he’s alive. I have two friends in particular who understand these things. We can talk for hours and hours about dead authors, so this decision took about two seconds. It was too great a chance to miss – an author of this caliber, alive and breathing. We had to go.

There were only a couple of complications. The main one for me being that December 5th was the Monday of finals week. And not just any finals week, but my second term of graduate school – an experience like a writing boot camp or an intellectual gang initiation. I was drowning in theories and real responsibilities and facing an eight page final paper in Spanish, plus a German final. Crazy? Absolutely, but it was so worth it!

As we arrived, about a block away from the church a woman crossed the street in front of my car. It was getting dark, but I could see she was carrying a copy of Bonhoeffer. When she got to the sidewalk she broke into a run towards the church. She must have been a kindred spirit!

Hearing Eric Metaxas speak was worth every mile we drove. I love souvenirs, but it wasn’t about the autograph. When you read his bio, Eric Metaxas sounds larger than life. I don’t know if that’s what affected my thinking, but it a bit of a shock to see that he was not ten feet tall. Although he is hilariously adept at sarcasm, he was friendly and so kind when we introduced ourselves. The audio of the night is archived at the Kindlings Muse site. I had assumed that popping out books like Bonhoeffer and Amazing Grace was an easy thing for him, but listening to his story changed my perspective. He spent a lot of time drifting and floundering. Sometimes he felt mediocre, which sounds weird, but he was serious. He had dark times. Once he wrote a commercial for Ex-lax. Whether the variety in his career is due to a lack of focus or to excessively versatile talents, I can’t help but envy him a little. Furthermore, instead of just admiring his work, I am inspired to imitate him and to write beyond just homework. I wrote my favorite quote of the night in my mini moleskine, "God doesn't see you as mediocre."

I'm back to school now, and probably won't be reading anything but homework and the Bible for a couple of months, so I probably won't be blogging either. Except that Peretti has a new book coming... I may lose sleep over that. I survived last term, and my grades weren't bad!