I’ve come to realize that the best writing is often on the back of a T-shirt.
(I understand that making that statement disqualifies me in perpetuity from penning the great American novel or any theological work with the word “Christendom” in the title, but let’s not kid ourselves, that was never going to happen anyway.)
Sometimes screen printers just get it right. Straight, simple, to the point.
T-shirt writing brilliance has never been more evident than on this rainy Sunday morning. I’m sitting at the world’s busiest Starbucks struggling to write a spiritual post built around one of my favorite Juno quotes. Predictably, it’s not going well. Trying to use the word “repartee” without sounding condescending and French (redundancy) is a tall order.
Right around paragraph three, (Actually, I was only on sentence two. I don’t know why I just lied about that.) a lady with an endearing, Sally Fields look sat down at the table in front of me. Her hair is pulled back and her sandals are impossibly yellow, but it is her T-shirt that catches my attention. On the back of her fading white tee, these words are imprinted in grey, Lucida Calligraphy font:
“For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”
Straight, simple, to the point.
A 12-second Google search tells me that this prayer will mean more to my liturgical friends than it will to me. Because I don’t speak Catholic, I come to this sentence like I do most things in life, uninformed and unencumbered.
Forgive my naiveté, but I was simply astounded by the beautiful simplicity in that one sentence. All of a sudden, 400 words about finding Jesus in a Diablo Cody-ism didn't seem so urgent. Instead, I had found him in a one-sentence synopsis of the Gospel of grace.
I guess there is something to be said for simplicity...
(continued tomorrow)
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