Tag Archives: Writing

Autumn Passage

16 Monday Nov 2009

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No longer a lingering fall, the world just beyond my door is looking a little frosty.  It’s forty degrees outside, with a freeze warning issued for tomorrow.

Two weeks ago a neighbor asked, as I was up to my knees in leaves, when my raking season would be over. In the midst of working, I rarely get caught up with how many hours the work will take or when it will end.  But with his invitation to take stock, I looked up.  And with a  dense canopy still in place, I predicted I would rake through November.

I was wrong.  The paper-thin leaves were no match for last week’s strong Oklahoma winds.  They gave up their tenuous hold on life without a protest.  Seemingly overnight, the countenance of the trees has changed — and they look cold without their protective summer  covering.  Already, the best of autumn has blown away, with me keeping silent vigil at my writing desk.  Watching.  Waiting.  Writing.

My year has been enriched by time sown at this desk.   In this season of beautiful falling leaves, I realize that I am in the midst of autumn in my own life.  It is a good time to take stock and make plans for what I want to do with whatever autumn days remain, before I am forced to make provision for the winter days to come.

This time last year I prayed a wordless prayer that resulted in a rare vision; I saw myself writing something intently on my computer. Most of my writing, up to that point was done with a pencil and an inexpensive journal, except for the occasional e-mail or Christmas letter.  So this vision sent me to wonder: what could I be writing on the computer?   A year later, here I sit, and I have my youngest son to thank for this passage, shedding my paper pages in favor of this digital one.

Kyle recently asked what gift he could bring for my birthday.  “My blog is gift enough,” I replied.   Neither Kyle nor I could know what gifts this writing space would bring to my life, when he sat me down to my computer last December.  Every writer wishes to be read.   To write and not be read it to write into a black hole.  So today, I rejoice in having readers; and I rejoice every time I receive a comment.

And who could know that blog words could grow into articles for the local master gardener’s newsletter or into prayer meditation class words which appear to be growing into Advent presentation words to who knows what else they may one day grow into.  Kyle has always been a champion of my writing (as I hope I am for his.) 

It should not have surprised me then, that three weeks ago, Kyle asked me to look up.  Dropping into my life like some scary angel of old, Kyle inquired for news of my novel plans, remembering the story idea I foolishly shared with him several years ago.  But rather than take stock, I replied that I didn’t have a novel in me to birth.  

Am I’m just playing it safe?  And as I write this question, I remember another call to venture out into the publishing world, when a blog friend suggested I submit one on my pieces about Daddy for the back page of a national news magazine  — which I now confess, I’ve skirted as well.  It’s flattering of course.  But something in me tells me I’m not quite ready for this write of passage.   Who knows if I will ever feel ready?

In the autumn days of my life, I am content to write here.  I try to create a little more beauty in the world, both at and beyond this writing desk.  Beautiful writing is good, I suppose.  But good writing should not be just a beautiful string of words.  Good writing should be a passage into another world, where the reader looses sense of time and becomes lost in the story.  In good writing, the words simply disappear. 

My writing is not ready to fall from the tree, to be pressed into leaves of a book.  And with few promises to keep I will  hope for “miles to go before I sleep.”

Waking Up to ‘Yes’

15 Sunday Nov 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care

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It’s good to have another installment of Everyday God delivered.  As the old coffee commercial use to boast, it was good to the last drop.

I received.  I created.  Then I gave it all away.  The scariest part is the beginning, when I wait for ideas to come.  Then there’s the hard but satisfying labor of pulling and shaping what comes into an opening meditation (crumbs from my daily bread that set the table for the rest of the evening) and our main course, a contemplative prayer practice.  It’s interesting to note that what I once feared —  the delivery role of facilitator — is no longer scary.

But even (especially?) in a church setting, there is always some fly in the ointment.  The lovely women who attended Thursday evening’s practice session were wary of  this ‘contemplative’ label, fearful that it may have kept others from attending; yet, every one of them enjoyed the contemplative prayer experience.  After a little discussion, they asked if we could remove the ‘contemplative’ word from all future promotions.

“Sure.”  Sometimes saying ‘yes’ is easy.  So next month, I’ll just call it a women’s prayer circle.  Is this truth-in-advertising?  Who knows?  But the right answer seems to eliminate all scary words; “perfect love casts out fear.”

I received a scary but inviting word myself at the conclusion of  Thursday night’s prayer practice.   Linda, the Adult Education Coordinator at St. Luke’s, invited me to be a guest speaker at a Sunday morning Advent class.  The topic —  “Icons of Faith“.

Icon?  Now there’ an scary unusual word for my mixed-Protestant ears.  But I like the topic.  Why?  Maybe it’s all those Greek Orthodox and Catholic ancestors on my father’s side coming home to roost.  Or perhaps it was hearing the thought that laid behind the “Icons of Faith” label:  Each of the lessons (mine would fall second in the series) will allow attendants to receive four personal accounts; stories that tell how a speaker’s faith journey has been influenced by one modern ‘icon’ of faith — a saint, a monk, a priest, a mystic, a whatever.

Each speaker can choose to talk about whomever they wish, with the hope it will open other’s eyes on how the Advent story continues to play out in our own lifetime, in the lives of others whose cup of time we share.  The first speaker will focus on Mother Teresa.  I’m still pondering, but already I’ve a pretty good idea of who I will talk about.

My initial reaction was to play it safe.  I left Thursday night, without offering Linda much hope of an acceptance.  But I woke up Friday morning with ‘yes’.  And before I could change my mind, I dashed off an acceptance note to Linda.

The scariest word of all is ‘yes’.  Especially when it doesn’t become ‘no’ after that eye-opening morning cup of coffee.  And who but God knows what lays in front of that ‘yes…

The Inside That Counts

14 Saturday Nov 2009

Posted by in Good Reads, Life at Home, Soul Care

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Blog_09_1114_01I keep a journal near at all times.  It’s nothing fancy, just a common composition book sold by most discount department stores.

To be sure, beautiful journals are a treasure though I find them a bit intimidating.  I pick one up and feel I’ve nothing worth recording on its gilt-edged pages; but give me a humble notebook to mumble through, and I can write about anything and everything without a care of what it looks like or how it sounds.   At best, it’s a rough diamond that may someday be taken out and polished for a wider audience.  At worse, it’s just a bit of writing practice. 

Whether its people or journals, it’s what inside that counts; isn’t that how the old expression goes? 

My journal is my camera for the world, my way to capture and collect memories, pieces of life that I don’t want to forget.  I tote it around to record life and as I do, it gives me life; where once I had little to say beyond my small introvert world, my filled pages grant me voice, a way to interact with my larger world. 

In a similar way, my gal-pal Colleen always has her camera handy.  To observe Colleen record life with her camera is art itself.  Instinctively, almost effortlessly, Colleen positions her camera in front of her eye and as natural as breathing, she captures a series of photos.  Years of practice have refined Colleen’s eye; even after countless photos, my friend cannot resist a beautiful sunset.  Colleen’s careful discerning eye sees each one as unique.  And why resist the call to create and share beauty?  Colleen doesn’t.  Every time she publishes her work at Blue Turtle Crossing, she pays homage to God and humbly invites us into her light-washed world. 

Of course, no matter how practiced we become with our tools of creation, we can never quite capture the memory we are trying to preserve.  The act of preservation shrinks the memory into manageable portions.  It may be a gorgeous photo or a lovely line of words, but it’s just a small bite of the life we’ve experienced. Yet, somehow it doesn’t matter.  We are drawn to express the inexpressible,whether our expression is in words that cast images or in images that speak words.  We know no other way.

I had the opportunity to hear Marilynne Robinson — the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gilead   —  lecture on the practice of writing.  In my journal, under the date October  5, 2007, are these five rules for a writing life that I scribbled down as Ms. Robinson was speaking:

1.  Write the book you want to read.
2.  Trust and respect the reader.
3.  Descend into self to write — discover your primary self – the beautiful, the true; it’s preparation for writing words worth saying.
4.  We know what we are by what we do.
5.  Fiction is true.  

I don’t know whether I will ever write a novel.  I don’t feel a novel ‘in me’ at the moment.  But I do my best to observe Rule #2; and Rule #3 is a work in process, what my life has been about for the last 15 months.  Robinson’s last two rules require no commentary.

Ultimately, while writing begins from within, the outside counts too, of course.  Take care of the tree — make it good –and good fruit will naturally follow.  Or to quote the Master Teacher himself, “every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.”  One way I try to care for my self is to surround myself with beautiful words.

This morning, while responding to a comment left by one who writes beautiful words herself, I found myself thinking of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet.  A gift from my spiritual director when I was stymied in my writing, I found this book of letters — now more than a century old — incredibly helpful.  In his first letter to the young poet, Rilke wastes no time in getting to the heart of the writing life:

“Go into yourself.  Search for the reason that bids you write, find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you should have to die if it were denied you to write.  This above all — ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night:  must I write?”  Delve into yourself for a deep answer.  And if it should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must”, then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.”

I keep my journal near because I must.  The cheap cardboard outside cradles my inner lines to life itself.  At times, it may even produce an occasional good fruit.