Written In

Dorothy Sayers, a friend to both J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, was an acclaimed poet, writer, essayist, playwright, and translator. Her book, Mind of the Maker—a work on the creative process is still a favorite book of mine.

Ms. Sayers graduated from Oxford in 1915, but at the time Oxford didn’t issue diplomas to women. She was productive, if not prolific, even writing detective novels “on the side”—as a sort of an enjoyable creative diversion.

Oxford finally gave her a diploma in 1920. Good move, Oxford.

Sayers was bright, tall, and described—diplomatically— as “not classically beautiful.” She desired love but was not particularly successful in achieving it.

Her secondary hobby as a detective-novel-writer yielded 11 novels and a smattering of short stories. Those novels starred Lord Peter Wimsey, a bright bachelor, who according to Sayer’s adjectives, had an average build with a beaked nose and vaguely foolish face. You could feel the aloof sadness coming off the pages—isolated from communal relationships, a desire for intimacy coupled with a radical inability to find it.

Being the author, Sayers introduced a woman into The Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Harriet Vane. They don’t really hit it off for quite some time, but eventually they fall for each other. They solve mysteries together.

What is Harriet Vane’s backstory? What’s her biography?

Harriet attends Oxford. She’s tall. She’s not classically beautiful. She hasn’t been lucky in love. She even writes detective stories on the side.

Dorothy Sayers had constructed a big and complex world in her novels. She had even created Lord Peter Wimsey. But she began to see his loneliness, his sadness, his incompleteness—his story.

So she rescued him. She wrote herself into the story to be a lover, friend, companion, partner. Why? She loved him.

That’s what the manger is. That’s what Christmas is. God had begun a wide and sweeping story—an epic that still begs for someone to mine its mysteries and breadth. And then the Author wrote Himself into the story.

He’s written Himself into your story, too. Out of love. He’s attached His own end to your own end. That’s comfort. That’s peace. That’s the Word made flesh.

Merry Christmas!