September 23, 2026

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my sadness at the deaths of Tim Curry, Dolly Parton, and Wendell Berry; three giant personalities in the culture of my days. Today, I write about my deep sadness at the passing of another favorite writer, Annie Dillard. Her book For the Time Being is on my Top Ten list for non-fiction books. (I have often thought it would be a great book for a book study group to explore. If there is interest, let me know.)

In the meantime… grief. I am nowhere near the perfect writer Dillard was, though I take her writing advice seriously. In her book The Writing Life, Dillard writes, “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”

And, there are times when I can get sidetracked in writing and in conversation with the banal and the trivial. I am, after all, very human. In my mind, Jesus refuses to be distracted by petty arguments, superficial rules, or surface-level concerns, and routinely redirects conversations back to eternal, heart-level truths. He sets the bar high for a life well-lived in service to humankind. Annie Dillard did as well with regard to the life of writing.

Rev. Eric