Read Habakkuk 2:2,3
Arguably,
I’m able and enjoy sharing with you what God places weekly on my heart – i.e., articles that overlap Bible best-practices with current events and newsmakers – because of an unexpected, un-scripted personal tutoring session from Ms. Toni Morrison (1931 – August
5, 2019), from the early 1980’s.
My “Lady of the Eighties”
Soon after publishing her 1981 novel Tar Baby, Ms. Morrison came to lecture at then-Hampton Institute (now University), my alma mater where I then served as assistant PR director.
Then and there, this former English major had the dual pinch-myself luxury of arranging and hosting her series of pre-lecture media interviews.
In a break between two such interviews and before this twenty-something ego-holic had been “self-diagnosed” in his self-addiction, I opined to her my disbelief in the necessary bother of re-writing article drafts, professing instead a one-and-done posture.
Her 10 Words Changed My World
With a look akin to a loving mother seeking to aright a wayward self-righteous son, the future Nobel Literaturist and Pulitzer Prize writer offered, “Tim: you’ve gotta do the re-writes, . . . you just have to.”
Those
10 words spoken with loving care and expertise began to change me, both attitudinally and functionally.
“Then the Lord answered me and said: ‘Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end, it will speak, and it will not lie’” Habakkuk 2:2,3.
Then, 10 Years Later, . . .
Ten years later, when I became an adjunct instructor for freshman (English) composition courses at HU, I “Morrison-ized” my students on the importance of the re-drafting – why? – because Toni Morrison tutored me gently with just one simple un-scripted 10-word sentence of advice.
My sincere hope and prayer is that you are a beneficiary of the “Toni touch” on my writings and, more importantly, my life.
Ms. Toni Morrison: Rest in Peace. And thanks.
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