I read the news today.

Oh boy.

A faith column published in the Southeast Missourian Sunday paper. “What Joshua teaches us about facing fear without being paralyzed.” He used a Charlie Brown opener, following it with three numbered points. A tidy landing, ending with trusting the Lord despite our fears.

I read it. Twice. The third time, I started counting. Three categories of fear: tangible, conditional, unseen. Three things Joshua teaches us: realize, confess, remember. A closing line wrapping up his essay. Fear doesn’t disappear, but we can navigate through it, like Joshua did.

It puzzled me that nowhere in the column did the writer tell me what he was afraid of.

He said what I already knew: Joshua was afraid. Kind of. Joshua was Moses’ assistant, responsible for an entire nation. I bet he felt the fear of failure or worse, success. That’s the whole stock image, free-use picture. Joshua shows up in the column the way a generic photo is pasted into a brochure. It’s vaguely relevant. Gone from your mind before you’ve really looked at it.

And then there’s the writer himself. He never enters the room. Is he too scared to? He tells me fear can sap our energy. He tells me that confessing fear is the first step. He tells me fear is feedback, the body’s way of saying something important is happening. All of it may be true. But which of these costs him anything to say?

I kept waiting for a moment. The one where the writer admits he was afraid. Petrified to make a phone call. Scared his wife would see him as a weakling. Afraid the sermon he was writing was hollow, empty. Anything. One specific fear named. It would change the entire tone of his piece. Where was his courage?

It never came.

That’s why showing up is so important. For me, this is what showing up looks like.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post titled “Zero Expectations.” Here’s a piece of it:

He told me the truth yesterday. And it shocked the heck out of me.

“You know I’m using if I’m trying to defend myself and my behavior. If I’m being honest, the more argumentative I am, the more I’ve been using.”

I’ve known this participant for a while and seen him at what I thought was his best and worst. Court ordered sobriety, and he’s fought it every step of the way. Now, he’s in too deep. Go to prison and serve time or complete drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

“Tough call there, bud,” I said to him. “You made the right call. Rehab gives you more freedom. More flexibility.”

“Yeah. Like being able to smoke.”

I’m not holding this up because I’m a better writer or smarter than he is. I’m holding it up because it’s writing real life. It happened. A real man. Inside a real car. In one honest moment, brave enough to tell on himself. The fear in that exchange? You can feel it because it’s everywhere. Fear of prison, sobriety, and giving up one thing he gets to choose.

None of these are named. They don’t have to be because the reader feels it. All because that scene is real.

Hurtgen’s column has nothing like it. How could it? The form doesn’t allow him to show it. Just tell it. Three points. And a takeaway. There’s no room for a moment with one man in a Nissan Versa choosing rehab all in the name of being able to smoke.

Robert Hurtgen? He may be a good pastor. My point isn’t to fault the column, because, honestly, it wasn’t bad. Three strong points coupled with clean transitions and a closing line wrapping up the essay with a neat little red bow.

But that’s exactly why it’s troubling.

I’ve written things just like this. I know their shape. It’s so easy for a writer to reach for the three-point message on a Saturday night when the page is blank. And the deadline is looming overhead. Plus, you still have a sermon to complete. The three-point structure is the Titanic life preserver. You grab it because it’s floating in the water. You grab it because that’s what gets you through to Monday morning.

For me, faith writing isn’t supposed to be a dinghy, saving you from an icy swim. It must cost you something. What is it that you can write, if only you show up? Inside a hospital waiting room. Or at the Rhodes gas pump. Could it be that uncomfortable conversation with your ex-girlfriend you didn’t want to have? You are in the room. You are scared. Then you openly admit it.

What I’m starting to wonder is about the form itself. Has it stopped allowing for that? Does the Sunday faith column, with its word count and its deadline and its expected three points, become nothing more than a flotation device for this one kind of writing to cling to? The kind where Joshua is nothing more than a category. Where fear is feedback. Speaking of courage, where is the writer’s? Where did he say I was afraid last Tuesday, because?

I read the news today.

Oh boy.

Somewhere in Cape Girardeau, or Nashville, or wherever Robert Hurtgen sat down to write, a deadline came, and a column got filed. Joshua got pressed into service. Charlie Brown made an appearance. Three points were numbered. One reader picked up the paper and read it twice.

And I closed it, not knowing one true thing about the writer.

I don’t want to write columns like that. I don’t want to read them either. I want the writer in the room. I want a Tuesday afternoon and a phone call, and my fear. They all should be named. I want to hear a man in a Nissan Versa telling the truth about why he argues. I want one preposition to catch you off guard at Exit 95.

I want to read something real. Something that happened.

The rest?

It’s just words.