Newsletter

How often have we heard someone boast of their “rugged individualism?” The term was coined by President Herbert Hoover, so it’s been around for a minute. The meaning is simple, “the one is preferable over the many.” Yet throughout a single twenty-four hour day, most of us end up going along with the crowd. Neurological science has long since proven what we learned in elementary school when the teacher said, “Class, get in line.”

We all have private moral behaviors that we apply to ourselves. Yet those personal standards can be easily overwhelmed when part of a mob. What we would consider abhorrent conduct and would not tolerate in ourselves, we could justify in the relative anonymity of a crowd. In our age of skepticism and technological high-mindedness, we humans still drink in the intoxicating power brought on by the mob.

This power surge is what Eugene Peterson (author of “The Message” and other books of theology), refers to as “the ecstasy of the crowd.” His reference is to something more primal and dangerous in our human psyche than any inspired emotion or a worshipful experience shared communally.

When you gather enough people who share a single-mindedness and feel they are threatened or wronged somehow by forces not aligned with their way of thinking, then what we might never do as an individual, we would justify doing in a crowd. You find yourself on the wrong political side, or a part of the wrong religion, or rooting for the wrong sports team, and just see how quickly the marshaled power of the mob can go from hostile railing to violent action.

I suggest we seek an ecstasy of a different kind…the ecstasy of loving one’s neighbor. I suggest we engage with our fragile and frightened society and create change by means of holiness. It begins with a change of heart, but the holiness of God can do just that. The holiness of God is more powerful than any institution, any human collective or rugged individual.

A game my three siblings and I played as kids was poking one another and then making a quick exit. If a threat was even perceived by an approaching sibling, the immediate response was DON’T TOUCH ME! Today we can’t hug each other enough.

A few years ago I was asked to perform a one-man show I had developed from the Gospel of St. John for a chapel service at an organization devoted to serve the homeless population. I had agreed to do the performance months in advance, but when the day came, I regretted having said yes, and struggled to summon any enthusiasm.

On the drive to the Mission, I toyed with a number of creative excuses to get out of it at the last minute without just pulling a no-show. I even grumbled to God, “If I have to through with it, I will, but I don’t have to like it.”

Some level of joy began to seep into my heart as I performed the play, but it was hampered by the constant wheezing and coughing and sneezing and yes, snoring, that echoed in the room during the performance. It was like audible sounds of diseases cultivating in a giant Petri dish.

After the performance the chaplain asked if anyone wanted prayer. So many came forward that he asked for more staff to help with the penitents. The brokenness displayed by those who came forward began to dissolve the crust around my heart…a little.

Then came a surprise. The chaplain announced that if any of the men would like to meet me that I was happy to greet them. I’m an actor not a minister. All I saw were swarms of infections converging upon me.

I shook dozens of hands with a few chest-bumps for extra emphasis. The joy of these men at meeting me was undeniable if not reciprocated. But the sucker-punch came when the last man in line stepped forward: scraggly beard, wooly red knit hat unraveling around his scruffy face, a big smile revealing the evidence of a lengthy hiatus from the dentist chair. I extended my hand, but he swung his arms behind his back. “Don’t touch me, man,” he said. “My hands are dirty. I’m dirty.” Then he gently laid his chin on my shoulder, the one area of his body he thought clean enough for human contact, held it there for a second, and then quickly disappeared into the crowd.

I was brought low, undone by such humility and awkward kindness; a nameless man conscious of his “uncleanness” so as not to touch me any more than was necessary but needed to express his love. May I never recover from that holy and pure moment.

When I am in a reflective mood, I wonder why I became an artist. When I boil
such reflection down, it can look as simple and mundane as “I couldn’t do anything else.”
But when I elevate my leap of faith into such a vocation, it can look like a calling. I
believe I use my gifts to celebrate a passion for God that I hope flows into all that I am
and all I do.
I love the author, Chaim Potok, writer of novels such as The Chosen, My Name is
Asher Lev, and The Gift of Asher Lev. I recently read a story he told at a lecture at Johns
Hopkins University. I share it now as something that helps explain why I write.
Potok said that he wanted to be a writer at an early age, but when he was about to
go to college his mother said to him, “Chaim, I know you want to be a writer, but I have a
better idea. Why don’t you be a brain surgeon. You’ll keep a lot of people from dying;
you’ll make a lot of money.” But he said, “No, Mama. I want to be a writer.”
He came home on a school break and his mother said to him, “Chaim, I know you
want to be a writer, but listen to your mama. Be a brain surgeon. You’ll keep a lot of
people from dying; you’ll make a lot of money.” He replied, “No, Mama. I want to be a
writer.”
This same conversation was repeated so often, finally the pressure was too much
for both mother and son. “Chaim, you are wasting your time,” his mother exploded. “Be
a brain surgeon. You’ll keep a lot of people from dying and you’ll make a lot of money.”
The son exploded in response. “Mama, I don’t want to keep people from dying. I want to
show them how to live.”
I was fortunate to have parents who chose to encourage me in what I believed I
was called to do. And when Kay came into my life, she too was a believer. Even when
we went into the wilderness of those “hungry years,” she remained faithful. The journey
was long and arduous, and we began to understand what it was “to live,” to live in faith to
God and with one another.
I am forever grateful for parents who believed in me and for a wife who has stuck
with me. And I know the world is grateful that I never became a brain surgeon.

For over three hundred performances in multiple cities throughout the country I was privileged to share the stage with Barry Scott in Jim Reyland’s beautiful two-character play Stand. Once the lights faded at the end of each performance we embraced in a big manly hug. Barry would whisper, “I love you Chip Arnold.” And I would respond, “I love you Barry Scott.”
In those years of working together, we talked about our faith and what it meant to be broken men of God. How the shared stories of our lives were different but the same. How our faith informed our art. How our faith informed how we treat people. How, when we were together, just being in one another’s presence, we were better versions of ourselves.
The last time we spoke just days before his passing he said, “I got a story.” He was energized. His voice was a mere rasp of its former power, but the joy he felt at the moment gave him strength. “You ever hear of the Kings of Junk?” I told him no. “They came to my house today to clean out my garage. Before they were to arrive, I went out to the garage to open it up. I had to climb about three steps to get to the door to unlock it. I got to the steps and I couldn’t lift my leg to start to climb up. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t climb. I didn’t have the strength and my brain wasn’t communicating to my leg.
“I sat down and used my arms and climbed up the steps backward on my butt. But when I got to the door, I couldn’t stand up. I sat there and waited for the Kings of Junk to arrive. When they arrived the man in charge came around to the side entrance and I told him the situation. He asked what he could do for me. I told him I need to be carried into the house. So the King of the Kings of Junk wrapped his arms around me and lifted me up and he helped me back into my house.
“Once in the kitchen, the King held me. He just held me, until he gently sat me down in a chair. Then he knelt in front of me and looked into my face, really looked at me. He saw me, saw inside of me, saw the broken me, and he said, ‘Can I do anything else for you, Mr. Scott?’ I swear, Chip, it was like I looked into the face of Jesus.”
Barry and I concluded that men need to tell their own stories to one another. Men need to hear and know that they are loved by God and that they are loved by others. Men need to look other men in their eyes and ask is there anything else we can do for you? Men need to know that in weakness they have strength, in pain they have power, in sorrow they have joy, and in God they have love everlasting. That is the real story we all share.
Two years ago flights of angels welcomed Barry home. I can hear God saying to him, “I love you Barry Scott. Well done.”

My parents gave me my first Bible on my eleventh birthday in 1961 with the inscription written in my mother’s hand: “To our son with the hope that this book will serve as your guide all the days of your life. Our love and prayers will always be with you. Mother and Daddy.” It was the standard KJV translation. “If this translation was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it is good enough for us,” was the occasional argument heard among the brethren back then. It sits on my desk: dog-eared, held together with a rubber band and petrified masking tape, with the pages inside marked and worn.
Now do not be deceived. As sweet as my mother’s sentiment might be, I tested the inscribed words. Their “love” was tried and their “prayers” were many when I took a prodigal turn and remained “in the wilderness” for what, I’m sure, seemed like ages to them. I am very grateful to the faithfulness of my parents, and like the prodigal son, when I “came to my senses,” a discovery of an active, loving relationship with God and an intense thirst for Scripture came with it. A devotion to tell or retell stories from the Bible would soon follow.
All artists, whatever their art form, interpret life through a particular lens. My lens just happens to be the Scriptures. I have been asked often how I came up with the stories I have created in my historical fiction series The Song of Prophets and Kings. I usually react by quoting Isaac Newton when he was asked how he came up with the theory of gravity. His reply, “By thinking on it continually.”
Writing is really no mystery, no sleight of hand. It is hard work. It is a constant devotion to a task. It is not a sudden onset of inspiration, that is of course if you are already busy at the work of creating when inspiration appears. I have thought about these stories in this series and how I might compile them in a cohesive whole for a long time. I have invested years of labor and received generous encouragement from Kay and many others all along the way.
The third volume of the Prophets and Kings series will be released in December 2022 and is entitled The Singer of Israel. I devote this volume to the rise of David to a prominent place in the court of King Saul only to be forced to flee for his life and remain on the run for years. Stay tuned. More pre-release information will be forthcoming.

Writers are often encouraged to “write what you know,” which usually means delving into the past and writing about it. I recently read an essay by Parul Sehgal where he used the phrase to describe the direction of much of today’s fiction as being “…dispatched into the past, to truffle for trauma.” Some might argue that we are the sum of all our traumas given that personal trauma has become the explanation and excuse for…well, everything.

I believe there is a much broader landscape to expand upon in a literary life. We all might be better off if one’s personal stories were kept to a minimum, told sparingly, and in relation to a much bigger world than the little world we each inhabit. Yes, we all have been abused and sucker punched by life, but do we need to see it on all your social platforms?

There are those who are truly traumatized by cruel situations and malevolent circumstances that defy imagination. Treat those sufferings with care and compassion, giving the one who suffered the dignity and healing they deserve.

What I am referring to is that most of what we “truffle” up from our past does not necessarily reach a level worthy of literary examination. The showbiz world cranks out these stories by the boatload. Our social media fascination with “the next big trauma,” gives such impetus to the purveyors of entertainment.

Perhaps we think that reveling in our traumas gives us identity and thus connection to the wider world. When a person’s story of trauma is so oft repeated it threatens to become sentimentalized. With repetitive telling we begin to believe this is truly who we are as a culture or a society: this is how we choose our stories; this is how we tell our stories; this is how we interpret our stories. Throw all this into a pot and out comes a crazed shadow of what it means to be human.

The question we ask ourselves then is what became of us? Do the stories we craft that supposedly reflect who we are, are they really a grand delusion? Or are they grounded in a truth of the human need for and capacity to give love? It is impossible to insulate our lives from suffering, but we can construct stories around those moments that give real meaning to who we are and who we want to become.

To “Know Thyself” is attributed to Socrates and was inscribed on the frontispiece of the Temple of Delphi. “The unexamined life is not worth living,” is also from the great philosopher. The Socratic method in its simplest form is a dialogue between a teacher and a student. Or on a deeper level, between your soul and yourself.

We look for instruction. We look for ways of illumination. We look for guidance. We look for revelation. It is way too easy to have others tell us what clothes to wear, what food to eat, what entertainment to absorb, or to explain to us a reason for our existence on this planet; what does it mean if it means anything at all. We are a needy people and dependent on something or someone greater than ourselves to help us navigate our lives before the onset of rigor mortis.

What does it mean to be human? To have the good life? By what standards of measure to we use to know if such a life is achievable? I recently read a quote from Os Guinness’ book Fool’s Talk that says, “What Socrates called the ‘unexamined life’ that is ‘not worth living’ now seems to be the life more people have slipped into than ever before. Most people, in other words, are happily diverted, but not conscious of it.”

What are the mirrors we hold up that might give us insight and entryways into who we are or who we might become: social media? Political parties? The Kardashians?

We are so easily distracted by the shiny bauble, or drawn to the rancorous rhetoric, or give in to the desire to accumulate, to pleasure, to materialism, to power. Maybe all these mirrors reflect back are the worst representation of ourselves.

If we are seeking only what brings pleasure and there is no higher value to our life than self-satisfaction, are we not Dr. Faustus insisting that our highest good is found only in a preoccupation of ourselves? We must be careful of the bargains we make and with whom.

To know yourself is to give yourself away. Live in such a way that people’s eyes light up when they see you approach, that your tongue speaks kind words, that you slow down as you navigate through life. And from time to time, when you enter a metaphorical “wilderness,” remember it can be for the sanctification of the soul. Don’t try to avoid it, don’t seek distractions, and do not waste time railing against it. There are deeper truths ahead, and deeper meaning to knowing yourself once you emerge on the other side.

For years I have proved our family motto with my sometime slippery command of facts and history. From the everyday settings to the wider world, I have no limits when it comes to being “Often wrong, but never in doubt.” I perform such self-inflicted ignominy before audiences large and small, and have become so accustomed to those moments, that I am no longer embarrassed by them. I simply quote the family motto and take a bow.

This just proves that we all need fact checkers. My siblings, my wife, my daughters and sons-in-law, my fellow friends and artists, yea verily, many of the members of my entire community have done the honors of busting my “never in doubt” bloviations with the truth, not indulging my “alternative” facts. It always brings laughter and pleasure.

Dr. Oliver Sacks once wrote of a panel he was on where the topic of discussion was information and communication in the twenty-first century. An internet pioneer was proud of the fact that people, including his daughter, had access to information no one could have imagined a few decades before. Sacks said that while one might be “…stocked with wide-ranging information, that was different from knowledge.” And I would add that such knowledge and information does not guarantee a gaining of wisdom.

We humans are easily bewitched. We prefer perceptions over facts and truth. Too often we gather around us only those who say what our “itching ears want to hear.” And how we humans “turn our ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

I want people around me to tell me the truth, speak truth into my heart and mind, even when it is painful to hear and perhaps more painful to correct. An ancient Hebrew proverb says it best, “Better an open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

The impermanence of life is all around us, and at the end of the day what we are left with are memories. May our memories be full of truth, truth that corresponds with reality and honest relationships, truth that provides a balm to our soul and gladness to our heart.

My paternal grandmother was a master gardener, a gift she handed down to her only child, my father. The “green fingers” or “green thumb” expression came into existence in the 1930’s and would apply to both mother and son. Their ability to grow varieties of flora or foodstuffs wherever they dug their trowel into the earth was uncanny. But planting and growing was more than a utilitarian exercise.

Just as an architect would dream of spaces of beauty, so the creative natures of my father and grandmother would design unexpected pockets of beauty spaced throughout their miniature landscapes. I say unexpected because both mother and son enjoyed the element of surprise when they rounded a corner and came upon a beautiful cluster of blooms they had planted earlier now exuberant with color and shape.

Once my parents got their children educated, employed, and married off, there was money to invest in the yard. I would drop by and find Dad in the backyard, on his hands and knees digging, planting, or harvesting, his body wet with sweat, his hands and fingers dirt caked, always eager to give me a tour and pick a bouquet for me to take home to Kay. Years ago, I cast Dad as the Gardner in a production of “The Secret Garden” for Nightingale Theatre. The show ran for two weeks at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. Perfect casting. Perfect location.

This spring as Kay and I work up our garden, and I bump into the artifacts inherited from my grandmother and my father, or as I hear the squeals of pleasure from our grandchildren running along the garden paths or playing in the fountain or chasing after the butterflies, and watch with joy as they marvel in wonder at the magic spin-wheel cups on the weather vane catching the wind and twirling through the sculpted holes or as they jump from rock to rock with an occasional misstep that draws blood and tears and requires Band-Aids and comforting words, or listen to them conversing with the statue of St. Francis, or traversing the stone border wall as if it were a balance beam, or racing their bicycles like daredevils down the ramp they have constructed from the large stone steps, I know they are storing up rich and fertile memories.

I am confident that the memories of our two daughters are chockfull of wonderful moments of time spent in their grandfather’s garden. They now have their own gardens that they lovingly tend and nurture. This is a blessing handed down to the third and fourth generation.

In the days of my youth, summer vacations were spent at the Arnold grandparent’s home in Richmond, Virginia. It was a place of magic and mystery. The two-story house built in the 1830’s, had an expansive backyard devoted to beautiful flower and lush vegetable gardens. There was a huge oak tree in the front yard, so tall that its thick leafy crown was visible for several miles in every direction.

Even holding hands and stretching out our arms, the four Arnold kids could not gird the circumference of the tree. At the base of the tree were several Civil War era cannonballs; the house served as a field post for a brief stint during that time. We played with the unexploded ordinance without ever worrying about its potential lethality.

The garden had a main path running down the middle from one end of the backyard to the other. On either side of the main path were floral gardens each with its extravagant variety of specie. At the south end was the garden house and beside it, a mound of compost. The north end opened onto a grassy square with a bordered edge of berry and butterfly shrubs; a haven for birds, squirrels, rabbits, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies.

I became a collector of butterflies and moths captured with a homemade butterfly net crafted by my grandmother with a broken broom handle, a wire hanger attached to one end, its circular shape covered in old, cut-to-fit stockings. I bagged enough species to fill several shadowbox glass frames that the grandparents displayed on the wall. Their admiration made me feel like an artist, yet one with a mildly guilty conscience for how the captives had sacrificed their lives for my exhibit.

In one corner of this grassy square was a large stone fireplace. It had a tall chimney framed on either side by giant boxwood. When we entered the north end of this space it was as if coming upon the altar of some extinct tribe. This wonderland fevered my imagination. In the reverie of creative adventures with my siblings, I did not know or care about unaffordable vacations to exotic locales.

I am not one to wax nostalgic on “the good old days.” What I now appreciate of those summer vacations was the lack of distractions, the freedom to daydream, to see beauty, to explore the natural world, and imagine new ones. Boredom and lack of distractions can be one’s friend. New worlds await.