Because Writers, especially Christian ones, are bothered if they are writing Truth.

My book Shed Those Leaves asserts boldly, “emerge to be your true self”.

When the publisher showed me the finished product, which was classified as ‘self-help,’ I wanted to weep.

This is a world about helping yourself to all the Turkish delights*, the possibilities, the dreams, the passions. So powerful is this notion that even God is said to help those who help themselves. But those of us who have been flattened, shaken, stirred, and otherwise discombobulated by life know we can only help ourselves this far.

Yet here I am, asking my reader to be “your self”.

Recently I wrote an old professor Friend who was my pastor for the few critical years I was training for ministry to update him about a missionary whose spouse had left her because she chose to pursue another relationship. This has left broken families, both biological and spiritual, in its wake. People are angry, bewildered, troubled, burdened. I was astounded that in reply, he told me of others he knows personally and through contacts; many older, who have done just the same. These people have all gone off to be their “true selves”.

We read such stories and easily mock them for being foolish, selfish, wilful and…