Books, Writing, and Such

Hello, I'm Dick Foth, and I'd like to welcome you to known stories to make sense of it all. These stories are what I call walking books, real-life people, different places, different ages, different cultures, and I want to have some conversations with them across disciplines and generations and cultures in order to encourage a kind of knowing fresh lenses through which to see the world. One of those lenses will be Scripture, or more specifically, Jesus of Nazareth, whose life, I believe, changed the course of the history of the world. So thanks for listening in. Great to have you with us. Well here we are, and I am sitting with my friend Mark Vatterson by a lake in southern Virginia. Good morning, Mark. Good morning. And it's about seven o'clock, and you can hear the ambient sounds of crickets and cicadas and birds in the background. So it's a little different ambient sound than a Capitol Hill in the sea. Most mornings I wake up and it's garbage trucks and sirens. Exactly. And car alarms. Yes. I'd rather be alarmed by the sounds of birds. Yes. So you're not a Virginia guy. You're not a DC guy. You are a Minnesota guy, historically. Where were you born in Minnesota? It was born at Swedish hospital. It doesn't exist anymore. Actually, not far to locate it, not far from North Central University, about two blocks from there in Minneapolis, and grew up in a little town called New Hope, and our whole extended family lived there. My grandfather was the first municipal judge of Fridley, Minnesota, taught at the University of Minnesota, and taught for one year at Northwestern when Billy Graham was the president. So we have deep roots in Minnesota. Most of the blood coursing through my veins is Swedish, even though I don't know that I look Swedish. That's my roots. Well, and just for those who are listening, this is not Northwestern University, and Chicago, the Billy was a small religious college back in the day, right? Yep. That's great. But you left Minnesota when? We moved when I was in the second grade, just one state over to Wisconsin, and that's where I got a little bit of cheese in my blood, and then from there, in the sixth grade, moved down to the Chicago area, and so I really say I grew up in Chicago. I mean, those were the formative years, and moved there about about the same time that Michael Jordan was drafted by the Bulls. There you go. And so I like deep dish pizza. I don't miss the weather in the winter. No, but you like the Bulls and you have this anomaly where you like the Green Bay Packers. Is that correct? It is, and to even make it stranger, I like the Vikings too. No one can understand how I can like both of those teams, and you know what I tell them? Yes. And to anybody who has more than two children, do you love them both? Well, there you go. There you go. That is good. So your your journey with Jesus, when did that start? Yeah. Well, you know, I grew up early memories of going to church, a covenant church. So your church, yeah, yeah, you know. But the moment for me was my parents took me and my brother to see a film. I think at a church downtown Minneapolis, I would have been about five years old. It was a Billy Graham film called The Hiding Place. Oh yeah. And in retrospect, I'm thinking, well, what were my parents thinking, taking a movie about the Holocaust, you know, five years old. But after that movie, I asked my mom if I could ask Jesus into my heart. Oh goodness. And she tucked me into bed that night, and that was a moment. That was a defining moment for me. And so, as you know, one of my life goals is to make a movie. And I think part of that is because when you've been impacted in a certain way, let's say by the medium of a movie, then I think you naturally want to flip that and do the same thing for someone else. And so, that was the beginning of a journey. And in reality, though, Dick, I would say that really for the first 19 years, it was more about me inviting Jesus to follow me. Sure. And then it kind of flipped it. How that don't? Well, let me just make a comment about The Hiding Place. You know, that's for those who don't know, it's a story of a woman and her family, her extended family. Her name was Corrie Ten Boom. She lived outside Amsterdam in a village area called Harlem. And the family believed that Jews were gods chosen people and they hid them during the Holocaust. She ended up going to Ravensbrook, getting out on the surface by a clerical error and became a well-known speaker, Corrie Ten Boom. And last year, or two years ago, we have this thing where we take our 13-year-old grandchildren somewhere in the world and use retirement money until our kids, you know, you don't get this, we're taking our grandkids somewhere. And this one, Hope, Clemens from Eugene, Oregon, had read Anne Frank's book, The Diary of Anne Frank's. She wanted to go there. We also went to Harlem and her favorite place was going to that watch shop and going upstairs and seeing the closet where they hid these folks. And it was a powerful time. And Corrie Ten Boom actually died in the United States. And my mother is buried in Fairview, I think it's Fairview Cemetery in Santa Ana, California. And her body lies a hundred feet or so from where Corrie Ten was. Really? Isn't that something? That is something. You know, one of my favorite Corrie Ten Boom stories is when she spoke, she would sometimes like look down and people couldn't figure out what she was doing, but she was needle-point. She was like knitting something together and she would hold it up, but the side with all the jumble of threads. And you know, essentially say that this is what life looks like from our vantage point. And then she would flip it over and show the design. And that's cool. You know, from God's perspective, this is what it looks like. And you know, I've often thought like how in the world does God use a woman named Corrie Ten Boom who, you know, experiences tremendous suffering and loss to somehow reach a boy in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I mean, that's just only in the sovereignty of God. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. You know, you've said for some years that I know more trivia than anybody. You know, I don't know if that's absolutely true, but here's a trivia piece for you. Corrie Ten Boom was the first female licensed watchmaker in Holland. That I did there. There you go. I told you something. You didn't know, batterson. Wow. That's great. Okay. You are a reader. I go to your office, which is not very large up above Ebenezer's coffee house, second and F street, Northeast in DC, about a long block from Union Station. I walk in and it's hard to find a place to sit for all the stacked books. They're not just neatly in the shelves. I got to tell you your office is a jumble of words. Is that fair? It's very fair. I ran out of shelf space a long time ago. So when did you know you were a reader? Well, you know, growing up, I wasn't. I threw high school. I mean, I don't think I read, but half a dozen books that weren't assigned for a class. And then my senior year of college, something snapped. It was actually on a basketball trip, a road trip. And I picked up an 800-page biography of Albert Einstein. Good grief. And loved it. And started reading and developed this voracious appetite to read. I think the second book was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Those two books, when you visit my office, sit in a special place. I'm trying to Carnegie. Yep. And those two books I think made me fall in love with reading and with life. And by the way, it's in that book that you know, it's Einstein who said never lose a holy curiosity. And I love the juxtaposition of those two words, holy and curiosity. And I think it's very appropriate. And I never have. So I've got science, shelf, business, shelf, you know, I'm interested in about everything. There you are. Fascinating. That's good. So you're a reader, but there are gazillion readers, but precious few writers. When did you start putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, whatever, to write things? Yeah. Two things happened when I was 22 and in seminary. One was just a distinct moment of calling that I felt like in that still small voice. God was calling me to be a voice to my generation. And I interpreted that as God calling me to write. I remember exactly where I was in the seminary chapel just pacing and praying. But then that's coupled with, and I can't remember if the assessment or aptitude assessment was before or after, but you know, in graduate school, you take this assessment that tells what you're good at, what you're not and what you should do and what you shouldn't. Bottom line is, you know, the assessment said, whatever you do, don't write. It is not a, it is not a natural gifting. Well, that's just isn't it. There goes wires, breaks and strength finders. So, you know, you know, this, but what happened is I, you know, over 13 years, I read 3,000 books. And so I read 3,000 books before I wrote one, but what I did is I think I wasn't just reading for content or to learn. I was really reverse engineering, especially the books I liked. For style? Yeah. For style and just, you know, what really impacted me as a reader and then how can I flip that and perhaps do that as a writer? Yeah. It's, it's, it's interesting to me that when we met, I think you were 26. I was 51 or two or something, maybe a little older than that. And we hadn't known each other very long. And one day you would ask me about a book that Ruth and I had written, wasn't a tremendously well written book, but it was our heart. It was called When the Giant Lies Down. And I didn't know anything about marketing or any of that kind of stuff, but you, and you said to me, I think I'm supposed to write. I want to be a writer. And knowing a little bit about how hard it was to write in my head, I said, you know, in, in my words, I said, really, well, okay, in my head, I was saying, yeah, right. So now here we are, 20 some years down the road, 20 years down the road. And there are millions of people around the world reading things you have written about everything from books on prayer to vision, to commitment, to just, you know, 15 titles. How many books now? Yeah, 15. 15 titles. And we had the privilege of penning one together called Trip Around the Sun. That was great. And Suzanne, our daughter helped frame that a bit, Ruth and my daughter. So in a day, in a day when cursive literal writing is going away in our culture. And I think to myself, how in the world a generation down the road, are we going to sign our names? Are we back to X's or what do we, you know, but, but this is just an old guy talking. What's your advice to a young person? Let's say that we have a high school or a university student listening to us today. What's what are your thoughts, your words? Just about the practice of writing. And I'll frame it this way. That's, that's the question. But when I'm with you, you're always virtually without exception, carrying a moleskin book or a journal, some kind of writing pad. And you're in conversation, you make notes. Well, and the team, the other folks on the team, I look around and they're mimicking you in that. And last year when I came to speak here in DC, I happened to sit down by your son, who was 14 or 15. And he had a pad and he was writing in it. What's all that about? You all you guys have bad memories or what's the deal? By the way, all of us have bad memories. Yes. Yes. You know, I think it's Benjamin Franklin, I think, who first said that the shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory. Oh, that's cool. You made that up right there. David's a Ben Franklin. When in doubt, it's either Ben Franklin or C.S. Lewis. Well, I really, I think it's a spirit, I think it's a biblical principle of 2 Corinthians 10, 5, that take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. The way that I take things captive is with pen and paper. And so I've journaled really since high school. Now my high school journal, all I was capturing was how many points I scored in the most recent basketball game. But, you know, that matured over the years and so in chapel, in college, and then now, yeah, I rarely meet with anyone that I don't have a journal and a pen handy because I forget stuff like crazy. I don't have the capacity to just remember. You remember details. I think you're this unique exception that somehow you take notes in your brain. Well, I think some of my details I make up. You got to fill in the gaps. You know, for me, those journals are pretty critical. You know, Jesus in the gospels, I think the only place we see him writing is in the sand when you have that exchange with the woman caught in the act of adultery. We could say that the father and son by the spirit wrote all of the scriptures that we have. But his close associates wrote letters and because they wrote letters, we have that, that not just the information, but the inspiration and the direction from scripture. So your ability to distill ideas into memorable phrases is, I think, not only a gift, but in a sound bite era. It fits. It matches the times we are in. As a person who's on my 76th trip around the sun, I think about distilling things. First of all, because you just can't cover the waterfront the way one used to. But because there are precious few things that make life work. So I think of distillation in that sense. But you've got dozens of what I would call succinct phrases. Share with us two or three of those. And I want to ask you some questions about it. So give us one. Yeah. Well, love people when they least expect it and least deserve it. And this is an original to me, but work like it depends on you. Pray like it depends on God. Okay. Let's come back the first. Yeah. So love people when they least expect it and least deserve it. Where did that come from? Was that from an experience? Or did that come from a scripture or both? Yeah, you know, I think it's, I think it's the woman caught in the act of adultery. This moment. Yeah. The Jesus she doesn't expect it. Because everybody else is ready to stone her. Right. And might not deserve it. I don't know according to Jewish law. She had, you know, Jesus certainly is what she did was wrong. But in a moment when she least expected it, least deserved it. Jesus steps in and essentially says you can stone her over my dead body. I mean, what an incredible moment. That will imprint you forever. And, and you know, I've had a few experiences like that with in my life that those are the things that really impact us when when someone loves us in that way. And my experience in talking to people over the years and listening and even our experience in being out on this lake in a boat with some of our colleagues, when you ask them what were defining moments in your life, virtually without exception, a moment when I received grace, if you will, especially when we were younger. I don't know if we need more grace when we're probably not. We need more grace when we're older. But the that is a, that's a profound thing when I least expect at least deserve it. Okay. And by the way, yeah. Well, since you bring up the, you know, subject to grace, when I read first at John chapter one, you know, where it says Jesus was full of grace and truth. Right. Grace means I'll love, you know, matter what truth means, I'll be honest with you, no matter what. That's cool. So, you know, I don't know where it comes from, but I tend to think about things in a parallel fashion or kind of almost a two-sided coin. So an insult from a fool is probably a compliment and a compliment from a fool is probably an insult. So it's just, it's, it's, and I see that in scripture, you know, I think you see it in the proverbs. I was going to say you'd, if we were writing scripture today and you were one of the chosen ones, you'd probably be great in the proverbs, you know. Well, probably near a little bit more wisdom would be, but yeah, yeah. The, the idea of living in kind of as a friend of mine would say in a, in a binary world where you have this juxtaposed over against that, that kind of juxtaposition of words or ideas really comes through when both in your writing and in your, and in your speaking. And anyway, it's just a great help. Any, any other particular phrases that you like, you said one other one there and I went back and sort of said, let's go back to the first one. Yeah, I mean, they're just, we have certain core values and core convictions that we say all the time, like, and well, if you stay humble and stay hungry, there's nothing God can't do in you or through you. I believe that. But, you know, I think what I've tried to do to the best of whatever ability God's given me is how can I phrase this in the most memorable way? And that's, you know, to me, the gold standard is Jesus. I mean, the parables most of them are less than 250 words, but here and once you'll remember them forever. Be capable. You know, they're, they're, they're genius. You know, faith is like a mustard seed and then, you know, boom, it just, you know, Jesus ability to communicate things in, in such a simple way. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that there's simplicity on the near side of complexity and there's simplicity on the far side of complexity. So I'm not advocating, you know, little maxims that haven't been thought through that haven't been wrestled with what I'm after is far side complexity or far side simplicity where, take 613 laws in the Old Testament. One great commandment, love God, heart soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbors yourself. I mean, unbelievable, right? Right. Yeah. There you go. Well, and he always, he always, Jesus always uses metaphors, oftentimes that are connected to nature. And, you know, and if he numbers the hair on your, hairs on your head, which for some of us is less of a chore or, or if a sparrow falls, he, he know, you know, that I don't understand how all that works. But I think as we wrap up this, this time together, I think we should you and I not use any of our words anymore for just a moment. And let's listen to some sparrows and larks and so forth in the, in the background. So I'm just going to wrap this up. Thanks for being with me, Mark. Thanks, Dick.