In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch famously makes a statement about walking in someone else’s shoes:
“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
I’ve been thinking about this principle lately. I’ve been challenged by a book I’ve been reading, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, by Rosario Butterfield.
Many of us have read testimonies. But this one is the most in-depth, thoughtful, and challenging one I’ve ever read. A feminist lesbian professor in a university ends up a pastor’s wife. That is a long, interesting journey.
I saw how other kinds of people thought. I saw how they viewed Christians. Then, I watched as a new Christian—vulnerable in many ways—was plunged into a culture foreign to her: the Bible-belt verse-on-the-wall culture.
It was terrifying until she connected with other Christians who acknowledged that yes, just as she was, so they were also a work-in-progress, choosing to walk each day in faith.
I opened this book expecting to see how a lesbian learned the error of her ways, and instead ended up questioning my own heart. This story showed me how easily hypocrisy creeps into your life, life the tartar on your teeth—yes, time for my dentist’s appointment, again. And time to seek the Lord. “Is it I?” Search me, O Lord …
How worthwhile it was to walk in Rosario’s shoes!
I had a similar choice to make in writing The Heart of Courage, the sequel to The Shenandoah Road. In the first book, there are two main characters, and we see the world through their eyes. There’s some romance, and it is written in that style—we see the world through his eyes, then we see the situation from hers.
In Courage, I also show the world through the point of view of a Native American. You see, it’s the French and Indian War. Indian raids have terrorized the inhabitants of the Shenandoah Valley. The “savages” are doing terrible things.
But why? Turns out, they have some potent reasons, and the reader gets to experience this through my Shawnee character, Red Hawk.
Walking in someone’s shoes doesn’t mean we condone all their choices. But when we understand a person as a person, we can relate more compassionately.
My character Susanna changes in her attitude toward Indians.
At first, they are to be feared… but I won’t give any spoilers!
No one would understand. But he had to obey his conscience.
It’s 1753, and troubling news comes to Russell’s Ridge . . .
Susanna Russell longs to escape her valley home. When war breaks out, she gets her wish to study in fabulous Williamsburg. But she realizes she’s lost something important along the way. Something—and someone.
James Paxton is studying for the ministry. But when violence threatens the valley, his path becomes clouded. What is God’s will for his life? The answer is alarming—and impossible.
Red Hawk spies white surveyors near his home, a harbinger of trouble to come. Shawnee chiefs go to Philadelphia to treat for peace, but the unthinkable happens, and Red Hawk loses all he once held dear. Then he has a strange dream. What can it mean?
Lynne Tagawa is an author, editor, educator, and best of all, grandma to four. She loves to write quality fiction with solid gospel content. Her debut novel, A Twisted Strand, is contemporary romantic suspense, but she thinks she’s found her true home in historical fiction.
The Shenandoah Road (print, kindle, or audiobook)
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