Must I Write?

I've been mulling a bit over a few lines from Rainer Maria Rilke where he advises the young poet that he should become a writer only if he feels that he must. So, i've been asking myself, "must I?" At times, I feel paralyzed as a writer, unable to put pen to paper because I fear the vulnerability, or I fear the rejection of a piece not well received. As I sit at home over the holidays, though, I want nothing more than to retreat over a cup of tea and a good album and write. I want to watch movies and reflect on them. I want to muse over memories and spin them into allegory. I want to stare at a crackling fire for hours and then consider how to repaint the image with words.

In any other day and age, i'd probably have tried my hand at making a career out of writing. But that is scary, and troublesome in today's publishing world. Is the status of publishing an excuse for my own failure to step into the call of a writer further? Maybe. But maybe I should also give myself a little break.

Today, I was hit by this nugget: sometimes we must first unweave lies to find truth. In order to find our true selves, we must often first learn to recognize our false selves. And in order to discover our truest passions, we must often excavate the caverns of those that are not. Sometimes we must fully grasp the thing that we thought we wanted most deeply, only to realize that it wasn't the thing that would make us happy.

My mother has told me since I was a very young child that i've always been one who couldn't learn lessons from the advice of others. I always had to stick my finger into the pot of burning water first to believe it was boiling. I don't trust easily and when that trust is broken, it becomes even harder for me to live with arms outstretched instead of arms crossed. Things have marred me. My heart and my deepest self bear wounds from those who have hurt me. Likewise, they bear the pain from people whom I have hurt and let down through my own selfish nature and desire for control.

But, through a long and ongoing process of healing, these wounds have enabled me to become someone who can step down into the mess of others' lives and share hope. When we hear tales of hope from those who have suffered little loss, they often feel empty. I am learning that to be a writer, I must feel deeply. I must become expressive, not only of my own emotions, desires, and aspirations, but also those of my generation, and of my world. I must be able to relate, to empathize. I must feel the pain of broken communities, I must finger the wound of lost loved ones, I must shoulder the load of unmet expectations.

I am not alone in this, but the journey is necessary in order to become the kind of person who resonates as a storyteller. What this set of reflections means for me, I don't quite know, but for now it is better for me to write than to remain mute.

A New Adventure

And so it is

I cross the precipice

to what has always been waiting for me

for too long I was simply scared to jump

then one day,

I realized that there was no other way...

Image: Meredith Horton

I am finally beginning to take hold of the fact that I am on a new adventure. It's a way of life that doesn't have the path so clearly marked as before-connect with this person, attend this event, show up at this gathering and you're guaranteed success. No, the way is stranger now and less predictable, but, mind you, it is often more frightening.

My life over the last several months has been a slow loosening of the reigns, letting go of the tight grip I held on my future-wanting to carve a certain path for a certain kind of person who quite honestly wasn't me. I'm still learning to let go, day by day. To let go of the cravings for city life and the type of community engagement that is good and healthy; knowing that one day I may have them again, but that they are not mine to behold. In transitioning to more of a small town way of life, I am learning of the vast treasures that can be found beyond the "Who's who of America." And the wonderful thing is, i've left the city, but who knows for how long? All I know is that now I am here, where i'm supposed to be. Although the long-term planner in me wants to know what's next, i'm learning to be content in the wait for whatever that may be. Surprisingly, and perhaps only surprising to myself, I still read the Harvard Business Review, and still keep my head in the art world in one sense or another, but all from somewhat of a distance.

There was a part of me before that thought if I left the city, that part of me would die off and I'd never be able to get it back. That wasn't true. And i'm no less equipped to have a conversation about such things as business development or strategic marketing than I was while living in the city. Most big city dwellers would never let you believe that to be true, but it really is. Meanwhile, I am more equipped to take things slow, and to feel free to say no to things that I feel in my core are not right. I am more equipped to stand up for what I believe in, because I now have the time to settle my thoughts, be at rest, and take time to truly enjoy the world around me.

At some point along the line, I equated small town living with naiveté, and that it is not. There is a richer, more engaging way of life to be found in the places of stillness and even those of loneliness. Initially, when I moved away from DC, a part of me felt that leaving was the worst mistake I could ever make. Some people even told me it was career suicide. I think that they were wrong; wrong because who I am makes the kind of woman I am at work, or the kind of woman I am amongst a group of friends. What I do to earn my bread, and how I spend my working hours (whether for pay or otherwise), does not make me who I am. Who I am is rooted in that tender, warm, intimate part of myself that is truly a gift, that part of myself that is willing to let go for now because it knows that there is more to come one day in the cloudy future. It is the part of myself that was, quite honestly, crushed by living in the big city. Some are able to stay in touch with that inner self and still live in places like DC. I was not. Maybe another city, another day, but not that city, not in the way I engaged it before.

This is all somehow too intimate, and yet somehow exactly what I feel like sharing with those friends, family, acquaintances and strangers who browse my blog. Why?, you might ask. Well, here's why: because this is the core of who I am as a writer-a young woman who is in process (and will always be in process) wrestling through things and coming to a place where she can truly rejoice in the blessings that surround her and live into the identity that was uniquely made for her. And that, truly, is what we all want and crave-to be enabled to live fully the way we were intended to live, to live as ones walking through the flames of death with a bright glimmer in our eyes as we catch glances of what is still to come.

I'm starting a new book soon. It is by a woman named Luci Shaw. She was a good friend of one of my favorite authors, Madeline L'Engle. Thanks to a wonderful bookstore in Pennsylvania called Hearts & Minds, I am well on my way to another literary adventure that will continue opening me to the possibilities both within and surrounding me. Here's a clipping from an interview with Shaw that I recently read through, perhaps some of you will enjoy it:¹

Mars Hill: You mentioned that prosaic statements only present half the story. How does art speak of who God is in a way that the more prosaic style or propositional truth can't?

LS: Propositional truth is a valid way of trying to abbreviate or summarize something. A proposition states a truth, but very often it needs images, metaphors, to flesh it out, to make it real. In a sermon there can be an exposition of Scripture that sounds very plausible and true, but it's not appealing until the preacher uses an illustration to bring that truth to life for us. And very often it's an illustration out of experience. So I think we need both; we need both the left brain and the right brain. We need the rational, the linear thought, otherwise we could go out of control completely. But we also need that leap of the imagination that connects two images together. And we need, as Christians, to be "whole brained people," who don't despise either the left brain or the right brain and allow the two to work together. Personality wise, we tend to be one or the other. One of my own goals in life is to develop my rational side, which in me tends to be underdeveloped. Then there are other people, engineers and mathematicians, who are extremely rational; they may have a hunger and thirst for the imaginative side. My son John is a doctor and a scientist, who has degrees in Tropical Medicine and Public Health, and he's also a wonderful poet. He's one of the best poets I know. I love to see both these streams of understanding and process going on.

I am a writer, and I am finally starting to accept and rejoice in it, instead of pretending like it's something I do "on the side." That phrase "on the side" is really misleading anyways, because what does it mean? Does it mean that the thing you do that barely pays for anything is less important than that thing that pays the mortgage? Hardly so. But that is often what we call it. And whatever that "on the side" thing may be, it is often the very thing that brings us some of the most joy in our day-to-day lives. So, saying it is a secondary thing is hardly the case. First I am a writer. Then I am something else. I'm beginning to think that way. Anyhow, these are all some disjointed, unedited thoughts based loosely on Shaw's writing; and yet, if you look closely, they're incredibly, wonderfully connected. Dig further, you never know what you might find.

¹

"Christianity and The Arts: Imagination Redeemed to Impact the World, A Dialogue with Luci Shaw." Mars Hill Review, 1995, 2, 106-118. See http://www.leaderu.com/marshill/mhr02/shaw1.html