Death By Living, By ND Wilson
Joining us today is ND Wilson, author of Death by Living: Life Is Meant to be Spent.
Silverberry: Tell us a little about yourself and how you became a writer.
N.D. Wilson: Well, I grew up with a pastor for a dad, in a house and a family that was filled with books and reading. Not only that, but the whole family always reveled in a well-turned phrase or a spectacular piece of description (usually humorous). Words were everywhere, but so was the business of living. And the two collided (always). We always treated the world around us like a piece of fiction . . . because it was (and is, although you can capitalize that F). As for writing, I knew by the time I was exiting grade school that writing was the calling for me.
Silverberry: What inspired you to write your book, Death by Living?
N.D. Wilson: The rhythms of generations. Looking back at the lives of my grandparents, around at my own immediate daily moments, and down at the round faces of my children, who will carry this now into whatever will be when I am old and broken.
Silverberry: How did you arrive at the philosophical/spiritual ideas inherent in the book?
N.D. Wilson: Lots of reading, lots of tasting the wind and looking around at the craft of our Father and meditating on His art, pondering the blessing and the curse of my own mortality, the bittersweet beauty flowing through Ecclesiastes, and experiencing the joy of dying slowly for others (my own children).
Silverberry: Why is it important to pursue life as if death is riding on our tail?
N.D. Wilson: Death isn’t riding on our tail, we are riding on his. We are running him down at a full gallop, and we will all catch him. It’s important, because no one ever regretted a life full of beauty and life and laughter. But many many men and women have regretted lives full of time wasted, or spent chasing unimportant things. There is a clock up on the scoreboard, and it is counting down. Knowing that enables us to live with an intensity (to the dregs) that we might not otherwise. Of course, I’m not talking about working double shifts so you can buy yourself a shiny car with spinning rims. I’m talking about seizing our brief moments to invest in what is really lasting . . . other people, and especially those living closest to us. There are no mere mortals. In ten thousand years, your kids will still exist. That car will be a rusty streak of sand in a desert. Rejoice in that. Spread your affection out around your kids the way God spreads out the sky above us. Surprise them with blessings and with a love that just won’t quit, the way God heaps up billions of snowflakes for them to tumble in.
Silverberry: How do we keep the reality of death in our lives from depressing us?
N.D. Wilson: By focusing on gratitude. The best way to waste a life is to fail to live it out of fear or preemptive grief simply because it will end. That man is dead already. Be grateful. Invest in what is forever and savor what is fleeting. And never forget, death is not the end. In the words of the old American spiritual: “And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on . . .”
Silverberry: What has your own experience been applying the principals in Death by Living?
N.D. Wilson: It helps me stay awake to the world, to life, and to small opportunities and gifts everywhere. It’s so easy to become numb and lazy with routine, or simply out of weariness from hard work. The principles in Death by Living are cold water to the face and a joke and a belly laugh after . . .
Silverberry: What ahead for you as a writer?
N.D. Wilson: More words! I have a novel in a series (The Empire of Bones) releasing in October, and a stand-alone novel coming in the Spring. After that, everything is tbd . . .
Silverberry: Thanks for sharing with us today! Readers can learn more about Death by Living and find your website and purchase links below.
Purchase Death by Living on Amazon
More about Death by Living:
Comparing life to a story is nothing new, but for the first time, today we have the capability of capturing our “story” in 140 characters or a filtered photo and broadcasting it to the world. Bestselling author N.D. Wilson praises today’s virtual story-telling, but adds a word of caution: “We may be in danger of missing our greater stories and their meaning in this rushed, appearances-focused, viral world.”
In his upcoming release, Death by Living: Life Is Meant to be Spent, Wilson reminds each of us that to truly live we must recognize that we are dying. Every second we create more of our past—more decisions, more breathing, more love and more loathing.
“Each of us is in the middle of a story. But for some reason, we don’t show the slightest desire to read it, let alone live it with any kind of humble self-awareness,” he says.
Death by Living is a follow-up to Wilson’s critically acclaimed Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl (June 2009), which will re-release with a new cover at the same time as Death by Living. While Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl focused on a way of seeing life, Death by Living focuses on a way of living life.
“Doing so requires that we know the chapters that led up to us, it requires that we open our eyes and consciously begin to shape those chapters coming after.”
In his uniquely poetic style, Wilson writes the stories of his grandparents, grapples with the concept of time, and inspires readers.
“Burden your moments with thankfulness,” says Wilson. “Be as empty as you can be when the clock winds down. Spend your life. And if time is a river, may you leave a wake.”
