RE-Vision

“Revision” is the third step of the writing process. All of my middle school students can tell you this because they learn the Five Steps of the Writing Process in the first quarter of sixth grade, they list and define them on every semester exam from then on, and we talk about them in class all the time.

The definition they memorize for revision is to improve the writing. “Make it mo betta,” I tell them (and they snicker at my lame attempt to be cool or something, but my lameness helps it stick in their brains). Add or subtract content . . . move things around . . . pick a better word for that . . . put ideas together into sentences in a different way . . . go back to your thesis and make sure it’s clear . . . make the paper better than it was back when you were just throwing something down on the page to hand in because the Initial Draft was due tomorrow.

I also point out to them that “revision” means “RE-vision”. “Vision” is looking at something, and “re-“ means doing it again. Look at it one more time. With fresh eyes, from a different angle, using the new skills and information you learned during the entertaining lessons your brilliant English teacher just taught you in class.

I have friends who talk about how they are “deconstructing” their faith. I don’t like that term. For me, at least, it’s not accurate. I’ve decided that RE-visioning is what I’ve been doing in my spiritual walk. Off and on for the last quarter century or more, but with a bit more intensity in the last few years.

I have added ideas and subtracted ideas. Less legalism. Fewer boxes. More grace. Not so many labels. Lots of embracing. Much more love.

I have moved things around. Love comes before law. People come before rules. Listening and understanding come before preaching and condemning. A Good God comes first, before my sinful self.

I have picked better words to fit my audience. For example, rather than “That is a sin!”, I am more likely to say, “I don’t think this is God’s best for your life.” Not that those things aren’t sin . . . they may very well be, and sin is not okay. But if others out there are like me (and I suspect many are), they are inclined to stop listening the minute sin accusations start coming out of someone’s mouth. And once we stop listening, it’s over.  I’m more likely to reconsider my ways when approached with gentle concern than with direct condemnation – and then more open to hear what God has to tell me about it.

I’ve put ideas together in different ways, looking for the best subordinating conjunction to show the relationship between those ideas. Not cause and effect: “Because I have it all right, I’m right with God.” Not sequence: “After I get it all right, I can be right with God.” Not condition: “If I get it all right, I’ll be right with God.” But contrast: “Even though I will never get it all right, God has still made me right with him.” (And that last clause belongs in third person, not first. HE did it all.)

I have clarified the main point. LOVE. I need to make that my main point because it’s Jesus’ main point.

Now, before some of you start worrying about me getting deceived by the world and going liberal (because I know some of you are), please understand that I’m not revising truth. Truth is truth, whatever I think of it. I’m just adjusting my perspective so that I see truth with fresh eyes, from all angles -- and therefore see it more clearly. Even more so, I'm changing what I do about truth.

There was a year in my early adulthood when I was questioning everything about the religion I’d been raised in. But even then, I was able to point to godly men and women I’d known in my life who had staked everything on this Jesus stuff, and it worked for them. Their example was enough to convince me there had to be something there. I knew better than to scrap my "first draft" altogether. But I needed to look at it again, taking the new lessons God and life were teaching me and finding if and where they applied.

This is not a phase . . . not a period of doubt or backsliding. This is a life-long process, or at least it should be. This is what walking in Christ is supposed to look like: I keep RE-looking, keep RE-considering, keep finding things the Lord wants to RE-new. 

In my writing life, I am an incessant reviser. And from what I read in scripture, so is God. As long as I’m on this earth, he is constantly improving me, making me “mo betta”, transforming me by the RE-newing of my mind. I’m doing a new thing, he says in Isaiah . . . don’t you see it?