There I was one day in a national bookstore chain in our town, glancing through the poetry section when this title jumped out at me. What was it? you may want to ask. There on the shelf before me was this regrettable volume: "Talking dirty to God"! Shocked that a writer would think of putting out a book of poems with such a title, equally shocked that this bookstore would carry such a thing, is putting it mildly. But it did impel some action on my part. Stuff this foul needs to be countered, was my immediate thought, whereupon my first book, "For Love of Christ" - Collected Poems" was published. And eventually carried by this bookstore chain.
Pornographic material where my books appear bothers me not a little bit. Still, if just one thing in them throws a lifeline to some poor soul somewhere in the world struggling in a sea of smut, this is enough for me.
My Sunday School teacher who was also a Christian Science practitioner once told me that a businessman, a former pupil of hers, called her and said: "Just talk to me about wholesome things! This office I'm in is so polluted with filthy conversation, I need to hear something clean for a change." People do tire of dirty talk, don't you feel?
In addition to other writing, posting much on the Internet as I do, people will ask me, how can you send out such lofty things, given what cyberspace can display? I know what they mean. The trash is pervasive. And yet, what inspires me on is this: the motivation is to bless, to offer something clean and pure, something that encourages other writers to do their best -- not scale down to the lowest level so popular these days. Further, shouldn't any follower of Christ Jesus want to do all he or she can to clean up the mental atmosphere?
And speaking of Jesus, I love this promise: "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." (John 15:3) It never fails; it never will. Those who live what our Lord and Master taught, those who stand up for God's precepts, can't help but enjoy a more refined environment. And preaching it wherever they find an opening, be a force for good in this world of ours, which heaven knows is a crying need.
