A reader writes…

I admire what you’re doing with the blog and web page. I am in the early stages of a mid-life metanoia, the effect of which is to spur me, after a lifetime of dawdling, to start writing about faith in a serious way. A cradle Catholic, I spent several years as a serious atheist before a experiencing a re-conversion (which I think makes me a revert to Catholicism). I’ve thought of using “Recovering Atheist” as a theme, and focusing in a good-humored way on atheism vs. faith issues. I’d welcome any thoughts, and prayers.

Sounds good. As the writing teachers tend to say: start with what you know. Write about what interests you and your reader will be interested as well. Use old words rather than new, short words rather than long, and make it a point to use as few of them as you possibly can. As far as the specific issue of atheism, always bear in mind that there are, in the whole history of human thought, only two decent objections to the existence of God: 1. Bad things happen, so there’s no God and 2. Things work fine by themselves, so there’s no God. Everything else is padding (and there is a helluva lot of padding to atheist arguments).

Writers often start to write because they need to get an argument out of their system. That’s why I wrote my books on Sacred Tradition and the Eucharist: I was working through some issues with my Evangelical background and explaining to my Old Crowd why I did what I did. But then, having done that, I got interested in other things. If that happens to you, let it happen. Once you’ve gotten the argument with atheism out of your system, don’t feel like you have to keep gilding the lily by continuing to argue with atheists who are making the same dumb arguments for the umpteenth time. Let yourself grow and move on.

Beyond that, may God bless your work in the Vineyard through our Lord Jesus Christ!