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After much prayer, and several consultations with my pastor-friend Advocatus di Aboli, I have decided to give up run-on sentences for Lent.  So far, so good.

As a sometime writer, I confess that my sentences can run rather long.  This is doubtless a consequence of my graduating, egregia cum laude from The Will Rogers School of Writing and Oratory.  The school's motto is "I Never Met A Word I Didn't Like."  Beyond this, though, there are a couple of other reasons for my lengthy sentences and, in my defense, I want to share them with you.

First, I am both blessed and cursed with "high idea productivity," according to certain  psychological assessments I have sought out.  (I will not share further the results of those assessments as they are far too frightening.)  This means that the ideas come so fast that I just don't have time for the interruptions that periods, commas, semi- and "full" colons require.  Excuse me but that reminds me:  I'm being taken short.
          
Back again.  See what I mean?  Truly, it's a curse.  Anyhow, as I was saying, punctuation slows down the pace of getting all those ideas down on paper.  As for having to depress the Shift key before striking a letter most writers would choose to capitalize, fuhgeddaboutit . . . which is a run-on word and not a run-on sentence (so I'm safe for now, but won't be if I append just one more clause.)

Second, some excellent authors excel partly because of their run-on sentences:  to wit, William Faulkner's 1,288 word-long whopper in Absalom! Absalom!, which I have not actually read on account of my not being able to concentrate that long because of the curse of that aforementioned high idea productivity; or the greatly more accessible but still admirably long, Faulkneresque, paragraph-length sentences in T. R. Pearson's novel A Short History of a Small Place, which, even though it is longish given its title, I have read more than once simply because it is so everlastingly, outrageously, hilarious as it reveals the everyday lunacies at the heart of every human community, and does so in a way that so powerfully invites our own gracious, loving response to its eccentric characters, that it concentrates my mind, thereby allowing it to focus solely on Pearson's ideas which are, I must admit, far superior to any I have ever had, period.

I know what you're thinking.  "Hey, that's a run-on sentence for sure!  Gotcha, you Lenten-self-denial-violator!"  Actually, the 155-word sentence above doesn't count.  That's because its very run-on nature is necessary to the artful explication of its thesis as well as for celebrating and appreciating the exemplary authors it adduces.  So go ahead and tell Advocatus on me.  I'm still faithful to my sacrificial Lenten pledge.

 As you might imagine, giving up run-on sentences is a crucifying experience to me, so I thought it might qualify as an act of penitential devotion.  When I told Advocatus about what I'm doing to give up in observance of the Lenten season, he was generous in his approval and most supportive of me.  (The fact that he has read all my previous works and all the run-on sentences they contain probably has nothing to do with his enthusiasm.)

The fact is, I have had to call upon his support already because of the resistance I am encountering within myself as I undertake this act of disciplined self-denial.  My experience is no different from yours, I'm sure.  For as soon as we say "No!" to something we're used to doing, we begin to hear from what once had been but "a still small voice" now swelling into a loud bellowing that pushes back against our good intentions with something like, "Oh yeah?  Make me!"

Advocatus helpfully reminded me that Sigmund Freud once observed, and quite accurately so, that "that which is resisted persists."  "Snark," he advised, "perhaps you should "side with your resistance" instead of resisting it.  That way you might rob it of its power over you.  It might help you make it through your forty days of self-denial." 

So, with that in mind, I will allow this petulant, resistive inner voice to express itself . . . but just this once . . . and in its own words.  Befitting this season of Lent, as an act of penitential supererogation I will do this even though it is also seeking to publicly rat me out to the publisher of one of my essays on Narcissism, an essay that previously appeared in my free e-book Last Supper Red, which is available as a download by clicking here. 

"Such a usage of 'Narcissism' would also surely serve to inflame the ire of certain lemon-sucking, needle-nosed, overly-well-compensated editors who, bowing in fundamentalist dedication before The Elements of Style, mistake the outdated, frozen-in-time grammatical and stylistic landscape presented in that map, for the territory of the exquisitely fresh, living, and precious text the author has deigned to give them; and who, committed unthinkingly to their editorial orthodoxy, prowl the halls of publishing houses like a pack of ravenous jackals pursuing their next meal, always looking for an opportunity to pounce gratuitously upon unsuspecting examples of stylistic and grammatical prey such as:  the absence of noun-verb agreements; inaccurate verb-tense; overly complex sentence structures that run on and on so as to needlessly obfuscate a meaning that could, by their exceedingly pedantic and insufficient lights, be more effectively rendered by a construction of greater economy - which, they have the temerity to proclaim, would be effectively thus rendered - were it not for the author's hapless penchant for using a superfluity of needless, repetitive, and, it must candidly be said, completely unnecessary verbiage, including, most flagrantly, adjectives;  and, finally, the excessive use of commas, which are only, after all, inserted into the sentence for the express and necessary purpose of handling participles, which would, without the comma's faithful contributions so felicitously and freely provided, certainly, and in a manner most precarious and frightening to behold, dangle."

There.  I certainly hope it feels better now that it has insinuated this 236-word run-on sentence into this particular essay.  I hope that it now quiets down, and doesn't get in the way any further of my keeping my sacrificial Lenten vow of self-denial.

By the way, if you run into Advocatus, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't point out this or the above small act of self-promotion for my book, Last Supper Red.  For some reason he thinks that sort of thing might be something good to give up for Lent.  Unaccountably, he sees it as a bit of needless and unattractive narcissism.  But then, he's a bit "old school," what with his knowing some of the Roman Emperors and all, bless his heart!