a leap in the dark

“Faith and fiction both start with a leap in the dark.” ~Buechner

A leap in the dark. I get this image, although lately I’ve been wondering if all of faith isn’t a leap in the dark—not just the start of faith.

In Fiction, it is easier for me to understand this leap in the dark. I am infatuated with the idea of writing fiction. It seems to delete all the problems of creative nonfiction—none of this fact-checking, truth debate, with the added bonus of fewer lawsuits. Fiction is made-up story.

But whenever I start to write fiction, I can’t write more than three paragraphs. Three. Sometimes four. Definitely no more than a page. It’s been a problem for years. I have pages and pages of three paragraph beginnings. Three paragraph characters, events, descriptions. All of it is from the same world that has been evolving in my head since my senior year of high school. None of it is from the same plotline.

I am three paragraphs stuck in my fiction. Anything more than that is a great gaping abyss. I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know if I want to know what happens next.

Faith is more abstract. Buechner says, “Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting. Faith is journeying through space and through time.”

If this is true, then I’ve been leaping for years into the dark, homesick space of faith. Moving toward. Sometimes I land on something solid. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of that which I have faith in, and the leap becomes more tangible—like swimming instead of leaping. Or, like Peter, walking on water. Also like Peter, I start looking around, getting distracted, and sinking. (Okay, I just went from leaping to swimming to walking to sinking… I really love mixing metaphors.)

Facing the darkness of the leap, being disappointed with the silence of God, sometimes I think I have three-paragraph faith. Like I will trust God to a point and then no further. Any myriad of things that stop the leap of faith mid-leap. Three paragraphs into the story.

What kind of faith continues the leap? What kind of courage enables the writer to create? Where is the hope for jumping more than three paragraphs?

I’m not sure. But this semester I’m reading Gandhi’s autobiography and about Mother Theresa’s doubt and continuing a study in Romans (see Romans 5:1-5). Part of the leap is moving forward, continuing toward, trusting even when not landing anywhere solid. Part of the leap is writing one more paragraph, even when you don’t trust your characters.