You haven't seen me blog as much as I normally do lately other than posting sermons. Writing like a crazy woman some days, I've sought to give more attention to my book long project instead of other stuff.
When I come out of my writing cave and seek to tell people what I've been up to, the number one thing people say often in a condescending tone of voice is: "That must be so healing for you" or "Writing is so therapeutic, so good for you."
And in response, I use self-control to not growl. And I really want to growl.
I realize people mean well. They're just trying to be supportive. Many can't imagine writing as honestly as I am trying to do.
But, I want to proclaim writing is not an "all about me" task. It's not something I do rooted in selfish motives. I' m not trying to throw up my emotional baggage on the world. I write because I am a writer. I write about painful things sometimes because painful things have happened to me and need to be heard. I write about joy sometimes because happy things happen to me and I want to encourage others. I write because like a painter or a carver or a sculptor, word choice is my art form. I write to practice my art. Sometimes what I produce is good art. Other times it needs to be sent back to the drafting board altogether or thrown in the trash. But it's still art. And I still must write.
If I wrote for therapy, then I should get a journal or talk to a therapist (I already do both from time to time). These things are less painful. More private. Less drafting and wasted paper.
It's burdensome task, I believe, putting your honest self out to the world, having no idea how people will respond to a story that isn't just a story to you. It's your life, and the only one you've got. Writing about your own life, I believe, can be one of the most courageous things people do.
Sure, as they say, writing can mature the soul. In writing, the pain has somewhere to go: to the paper. And, when you have to think about something long enough to find just the right word, you usually walk away with heighten self-awareness (which is never a bad thing). Healing and self-awareness are cousins. It's true.
But I don't think most writers, write because of personal sickness (though I'm sure some do, but I'm not friends with these folks). I don't think writers write so that just anyone can know their less than flattering thoughts or moments. I don't know think they write just to feel better. Writers write to connect them into what it means to be human.
And this is my point: I write because I don't know how to not write. So if you stick around, you'll have more to read in the future. And, this is what I can promise you, the stories to come will be my truth.
As many of you have heard me muse about, one of the projects I am working on in my "spare" time is writing a book. It's a memoir of sorts about experiences of grief and a look at the topic of grief from a pastoral perspective. When it will be done, who knows? But in the meantime, the project makes me smile just to think about it. I am a writer as much as I am a pastor.
However, as excited as I am about the writing process and eventually the publication, I have an equal amount of fear. I can't believe that I'm actually doing this. And I can't believe that it will ever be done. And I also can't believe that anyone will like it as much as it brings me personal pleasure to write down.
The best metaphor I have for this project is it is like running a marathon. It's one of those things that often people say they want to do or need to do, but rarely see to the finish line. It's a discipline that requires constant attention-- work that is often solitary that no one sees or affirms as you "train." It's a BHAG that seems impossible in the beginning, but gets a little easier the more you attend to it. It's a task of building discipline muscles every time you engage in it-- strength that gets you back on track in the writing direction sooner between drafts.
So, as far as I can tell right now, I'm about 1/3 of the way done of this marathon training. But, sadly, it seems I have little to show for it. Though I know what I have is more than those who haven't yet decided to show up at the start gate. At the gym where I actually work out, there's a sign on the front door which say's, "Half the battle is just showing up." I'm hoping this is true of writing too.
Writing a book, like training for the mammoth of all races can be a lonely task. For hours at a time, you slave away at your computer not quite yet to share your prose with others until it is just right. You keep working and wait for the moment when you can present your offering of "this is my story." Some people are better at the waiting than others. I am not that kind of person.
I don't love long solitary days, especially if they come back to back in a given week. I need more company than just words on a page. But commitment to completion of this project requires me to remember that sometimes I have to say no to what in the present could be a lovely invitation to a hang out with a friend for the sake of the project. If I'm doing this, I really need to do it. These moments of discernment are hard to adjust to.
For personal encouragement to keep going, I often print out rough drafts of the chapters I complete and place them into a stack with the rest of the finished but unfinished project. Somehow as the pile of papers gets thicker by the week, I feel like one day this just might be a book. A real book. My real book!
Sometimes if I am desperate for some cheers, I'll post on twitter my chapter count in hopes that other writing friends know what a big deal it is to move from completion of chapter 11 to chapter 12. While it may not seem like a big deal to those on the outside, for me, that one increase in chapter completion is a testament of hours of discipline, focus and resolve to just get it done. It's much like a runner who goes from completing a 10 minute mile to a 9 minute mile. While, yes, it is just a minute, this one minute is a huge accomplishment.
So, I'll keep running (aka book writing) with my eyes on the finish line which I hope I'll get to soon-- at least sooner than never!
. . . a writer like Anne Lamott
She recently said this about writing: "I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness — and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine."
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Like Lamott these are the kinds of books I like to read, and I've been dreaming one day to write too. I want to use my writing to cut to the heart of the way things really are. I want to encourage readers to have hope. I want to touch the depth of the human experience that somehow connects us all.
For my first full-length project I've got six chapters down and who knows how many to go? And revisions after revisions after revisions to go.
This is what I promise you future readers: each time I sit down to write I will tell the truth the best I can. Such is a scary writing proposition, but I know in the end it is going to be good. The draft after draft nights will be worth it. I just know it!
God Calls You to Take Care of Yourself
I Corinthians 6:11-20
Today we begin a series of messages in this season of Epiphany all about God's calling to us.
It's the time of year that the Christian calendar asks us to do some consideration again about this life of faith that we've committed to live in. It's the time of year for us to hear from scripture again some of Jesus' hopes for our becoming as people called the Body of Christ. And, today's "God Calls You" blank inserts the words "To Take Care of Yourself."
It seems we tow a good line as leaders and faith seekers in Christian community on the topics of self-sacrifice, selflessness and extending beyond the bounds of our own natural abilities so that God can work mightily through us, but rare it seems that we ever talk about care of self.
While we are eager to talk about becoming something "more:" more loving, more giving, more serving, more faithful, it is rare that we talk about the physicality of a body from which all of the loving, giving serving and faithfulness comes or do we ever talk about our limits of care.
I don't know why this is, other than generations of doctrine and preaching and study has seemed to do a great job disconnecting the body and the soul.
Because of humankind's fall in Genesis 3, we learn we're condemned to a sentence of bodily suffering, pain. The body is bad and will die while the soul is good and will abide in the presence of God forever, if redeemed. Yet, we have forgotten that God previously said over the words of our birth that we were made in God's very own image and called "very good."
As a result of all of this confusion, we easily think us regular church going people, what's the point when it comes to our own health and well-being?
If we really need rest or a day of solitude and someone from the church calls us to do something, then the "godly" choice is always to say yes to others and to the church.
Furthermore, if we want our lives to be pleasing to God, then we've got to learn to give up beauty, give up pleasure, or even lay our own medical problems on the altar of denial, so we have time for everyone else other than us. Though we are taught all along about love and grace and all that jazz, we believe the only way God will REALLY love us is we die to self by putting ourselves last.
I remember my father saying to the children in Vacation Bible School once that "If you really want to be happy in life, you'll learn to love Jesus more than anyone else, even yourself."
As I grew older and had the ability to consider the deeper meaning of this saying I saw so regularly, I doubted the claim of "I wasn't really loving Jesus if I was loving myself."
Did Jesus never eat, sleep, take retreats or be quiet from time to time? But, Christian culture seem to teach me and my peers-- loving yourself was a bad thing. It you took a mental health or catch up on your sleep day, you just didn't talk about it.
We find our lection for this morning found smack dab in the middle of a long series of instructional teaching from Paul to the church in Corinth, a church we know that Paul helped to found and nurture in its infancy.
Paul sought to teach this gathered community-- new coverts to the way of Christ-- what living out their baptism (as we were talking about last week) would look like in the practical every day issues in a particular context.
(As an aside, this is often why, we as modern readers have a hard time with the epistle scriptures. While there is much to learn from the "big ideas" of these letters, we often reach dead ends of frustrating fundamentalism when we take the directives of Paul too literally).
In the verses previous to and after our lection we hear Paul describing his concerns for order in the church, legal matters, marriage and the process of worship.
So, with this understanding, it seems less random these verses about sexual morality and food before us today which say in verse 13: "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food" or in verse 18: "Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself."
It's like we are listening into a thousand plus year old conversation, though one-way, about food and sex morality's place in the life of faith. Paul wanted the church at Corinth to know that even as he taught much about "freedom in Christ" and the truth that being in Christ meant they were no longer bound to laws about this and that behavior-- still limits existed. "All things are lawful for me," Paul reminds them but adds, "not all things are beneficial."
It's his way of saying, in the story of Christ's grace, we are not left out of the family of God for what we do and our actions do not change the way God looks at us or thinks of us, BUT freedom in Christ has limits. The limits are meant for our good.
Like a young child who will not take instructions without their parent or caregiver answering their thousand, "Why?" questions, Paul gives the whys for his considerations for this particular community about how they partner sexually and what food they put in their mouths.
Their bodies are not bad. Their bodies are not just flesh and bones with nothing to do with their souls. Their bodies gave life and thus were a part of God's very own Self. Therefore, a call resounds to care for their bodies.
I wonder how many of us in this room made New Year's Resolutions? And, among all of you who made resolutions, I wonder how many of your stated intentions related in some way to your body or health. (Any brave souls to raise your hands?)
A recent article about our New Year's Resolution practices in one US city[i] states that the top five resolutions made this year included to:
1. Spend more time with friends and family
2. Become fit in fitness
3. Lose Weight and tame the bulge
4. Quit Smoking
5. Quit Drinking
No matter that social studies say that 80% of New Year's Resolutions fail by January 20th (that's only 5 days away in fact), there seems to be a compulsion in most of us to improve our satisfaction with our bodies and an equally strong compulsion to not.
According the National Center for Heath and Disease Control, nearly 2/3 of adults and children in the United States are overweight; nearly 1/3 are obese. And, if we single out the church going crowd the statistics are worse. A recent study by a Purdue University sociologist "found that religious participation in the United States specially, participation in the Christian denominations (for which the Baptist church was highlighted as a chief offender)-- correlates with status as overweight or obesity.[ii]
Have you been to a church dinner lately? Have you met a group of pastors lately? Though our church and its leaders might be able to say that we've cared for the sick and dying and we've given good weddings and funerals, when it comes to taking care of our own health, our own well-being, and our own mental peace, we do a really lousy job of it.
We don't really think our bodies matter that much.
I can't tell you how many times I've been at clergy gatherings where fellow colleagues have boasted of "never taking their vacation" or "working from sun up from sun down."
I can't tell you how many pastoral encounters I've had in homes when a piece of cake or pie has been shoved on me though I really keep saying, "I'm full." I can't tell you how many times the sin of gluttony has been ignored in church life as if it is ok to eat and eat and eat some more and the sin of lust has been ignored and we all know what happens when that comes out . . . We as the church global have problems with God's call to care for our bodies.
All of this talk this morning is not meant to knock those of us who in the midst of a life-long struggle with body image, time management and finding ways to love exercise (though we hate it so), but it is this text that asks us to stop and ponder what IS God's calling to our bodies again. It's our time now to ask us what God's calling to "glorify God in our bodies" looks like?
In my early years of faith, I heard a lot about salvation as the process of being made right with God.
Salvation as making a stated confession to a community of my sin, repentance and faith in God. Salvation amounted to a prayer of confession and a lifetime of service in the church, hoping to lead as many others as possible in this prayer of confession too.
It was such a big deal that people would ask, "What was the day that you came to Christ?" And, when you appropriately answered, your salvation story was complete.
But, even as my understand of salvation began to change over the years, a class during my 3rd year of seminary, shifted my theology in a completely different direction.
Salvation was not, as Dr. Esther Acolotse, put it in pastoral care class one afternoon about a moment or a limited engagement experience. Salvation, she suggested was about become a human being-- the human being God designed each of us to be at creation. Salvation was about a journey to be made whole.
Such words lingered with me long that day after class and have stuck with me until now. That, yes, God calls us to take care of ourselves because our salvation depends on it.
But, what does this look like, you might wonder? I'm still trying to figure it out, of course, but what I've learned is that there is no way that I can act on God's calling for care of self if my schedule is out of balance.
If we try to over work or under work, if we say "yes" when we should be saying "no," we wind up cranky, drinking too much caffeine, and eventually physically ill.
But, if we remember when we look at the week ahead that it is good to care of ourselves-- the time we need to cook meals at home, the time we need to go on walks, the time we need to decompress-- as much as we say "yes" to other things, a funny thing happens.
We feel better. We might just sleep better. We enjoy my life more, and we exude the joy of being exactly the person God created us to be. And, sure there are always times in your life and mine when we need to go more than others, but afterwards we always must remember to take a step back and not let this constant rush be our norm.
The stakes are high with this calling, my friends, for you and I get into more trouble than we can ever know now if we don't live into this. Not only what we first might think-- facing life with preventable health concerns dragging us down-- but in our community relations with one another. If we are ever going to be the presence of God to one another as other callings upon our life will ask of us-- we must first start with ourselves.
After all St. Teresa of Avila once said to her community:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours.
So, what are you going to do to care for yours? AMEN
[i] Top Ten New Years Resolutions. Albrecht Powell. http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm
[ii]Mary Louise Bringle. "Eating Well: Seven Paradoxes of Plenty." http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/HealthArticleBringle.pdf
Recently I have found myself being asked more about writing. Such as: "How do I find time to do so much of it?" "How do I decide what to write about?" "Why write a blog when you don't know if anyone out there is really reading?"
I giggle a little to think that someone would ask me such questions because only in the past six months have I been able to confidently say that I am a writer as much as I am a pastor among other things. Yet, the truth of the matter is that I've been steady at the discipline of blogging since 2006-- back before it was a cool-- and have loved every minute of it. If you want to make me smile, let's have a conversation about writing.
If you want to know why I blog, check out the "About Elizabeth page." For the rest, here's my in the process of learning list for today:
1. You must write and write a lot to get better at it. Sounds un-profound, but it's true. There is no magic formula to being a writer. As much as you might have a natural inclination for words, you have to learn the craft. Blessed be the friends who read you stuff even when it is bad and don't tell you how bad it really is-- these are the people you need in your life cheering you on believing in the fact that it will get better. They'll be plenty of editors or critical blog commenters who will tell you the truth!
2. If you are going to be a writer, you need to know when is your time of day when ideas come. For me this is annoyingly the moment I put my head on my pillow at night. I lay there and my head floods with topics for new blogs or ideas for how I want to arrange the chapters of my upcoming book project. I try to fight it, telling myself to forget until morning. But, usually such a declaration doesn't work. So, I say, if creativity calls, run with it. (Just don't publish a blog after 11 pm. Most I know are usually sorry for this in the am).
3. Write with heart. Again, not profound. But often, I've found readers forgiving me for a multitude of grammar sins if they know I believe and am passionate about what I am trying to say. Especially in persuasive writing (which is what I mostly do-- sermons and op ed type pieces), readers need to know you personally care about what you describe. There's nothing worse to read, I think, than a journalistic type writer trying to give you the facts and then expecting you to care when you have no idea if the writer cares first! Caring of course don't have to explicit. People know if you do or don't implicitly.
4. Make friends with other writers. Non-writers just don't see prose they way a writer does. My mom or my husband, for example, will read my stuff and will often comments in helpful ways, but their feedback is never as a good as that of my writing friends. Fellow writers will tell me that I had "a nice turn of phrase" or "this theme connection really made the essay work" or "I didn't start liking you as a character until half way through the chapter." Other writers speak your langauge and so you always need to stick close to them.
5. Do not be afraid of the delete button. In the beginning of my weekly writing career, especially with sermons, I was really anxious about cutting large chunks of the piece out. I had worked so hard! It was so sad to see a paragraph go that I would cut and paste it into another word document hoping to come back to it later. The funny thing is that I NEVER would need it. Sometimes the delete button can be your writing project's very best friend. Though a tear may be shed, the best thing is to just go with it. Tear the band-aid quickly though and you'll feel better for it.
And, most of all read about writing. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is one of my favorites.
Last week, while I was at the Collegeville Insitute, I got a lot of questions about my blog. Some of my colleagues there had them, but mostly to post sermons, but no one (unless I am mistaken) had a blog for the purpose of sharing personal stories, reflections or their hopes or dreams for the vocation. Suddenly, I was the blog expert on campus. Jaws dropped in awe when I said I wrote for Preacher on the Plaza a couple of times a week (how do you have that kind of time? How do you have that kind of discipline?).
Though I've been at this online publishing medium since 2006 in one form or another, I feel my practice is quite ordinary and am by no means an expert. However, not to take anything for granted, I thought it might be useful to other inspiring bloggers out there to answer some of the questions I spent some time pondering with others last week.
Why do you blog?
I blog because I enjoy writing and having other people read my work inspires me to write better and more often. It is as simple as that.
Spiritually, for me, though, the blog serves an even more personal purpose: it slows me down. If I have to sit down and write about an event or experience, I am going to think about it much more clearly and if I just zoom on through to what is next. Blogging is a way to have Sabbath like moments in my days. To the benefit of everyone around me, in writing, I might find gems in a situation I previously judged harshly or ignored. Writing regularly on this site exists as a grace of holy reflection that I wouldn't have if I was just writing in sermons, newsletter columns or even journaling alone at home. Blogging makes me accountable.
What is the purpose of blogging?
For me, as a pastor of an urban congregation with some members that I only see on Sundays, blogging is a way for us to stay connected. My congregation, through the blog, gets to hear more about the particular thoughts on my mind about the church's growing edges, the larger world and sometimes my life. It is a relationship building tool at its heart.
Even more so, often folks who are thinking of visiting Washington Plaza, read my blog first (no pressure of course) and figure out more of our leanings as a congregation and whether or not they'd fit in here.
But, there is another audience that I hope to reach through the site and that is other pastors. There's something strange about the vocation of ministry-- the ups and downs, the unusual experiences, the long hours, etc. that is it good to know that you aren't alone. I hope my writing connects with them too to either give an idea of something we've tried in congregational life here that did or didn't work, a book or text I found interesting or a conference or workshop I've found that they might want to explore too.
When do I blog?
Whenever I have time and an idea that I think I can write at least 500 or 600 words on, I post. Often my best ideas come when I am putting my head down on my pillow at night. It's annoying because I don't really want to get up and write then, but I seek to store them away in some chunk of unoccupied space of my brain and explore the topic as soon as I can.
Sometime I blog at home on my couch or in my favorite sermon writing chair. Sometimes I blog at church at my desk or on the couch where I meet with parishioners. Sometimes I blog when I'm out-of-town when I'm in a place with a WI-FI connection. Truly, the beauty of the web is that you can blog anywhere! I have found that during times away, such as my Israel adventure in January, blogging is even more useful because the people you love don't feel so far away.
If I am thinking of blogging, what advice would you give?
Beginning a blog is a commitment. You are only as good as your last post. So, if blogging is something you want to try ask yourself: "Do I have the personal discipline to keep this up?" If you are a sporadic writer or you are the type of person who regularly starts and stops new things, maybe blogging is not for you.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't write-- for there are other forums that could be perfect for your style, feature articles from time to time, for example-- but that you just shouldn't blog. There is nothing that makes me as sad to find a blog that is well-written and interesting only to find that it is rarely updated. In the online world of constant movement, you have to keep up or move out.
Get a theme and stick with it. Decide what you are going to write about and stay on that course. I'm not a great example of this because I seem to write about all sorts of things . . . But, I'm told that if you want larger amounts of web traffic and regular readers, pick one thing you want to write about and stick with it. For example, do you want to share about your experimenting with recipes? Do you want to detail your trips as a traveling journalist? Do you want to give advice to other writers? Do you want to share about what it means to parent a child with an eating disorder? It's best not to go from sharing your favorite recipe one day to a dramatic story about the death of your parent the next. You audience will be confused. Be specific and write regularly!
And, make friends who also blog. The details of how to post, where to plug-in pictures, how to change fonts, etc are often things you have to learn on your own, but it is always good to have friends who care about what you do too. It has been great to ask folks, like those on my blogroll, questions about how to make my page look more attractive and who are willing to share what they have learned about the practice as we go through it together.
What is the danger of blogging?
There's a record of your words that can and will be used against you from time-to-time. Blogging is one of the most vulnerable things I do in my ministry. But, I try to not let the fear hold me back.
I could sit around and worry all the time about how what I say this year will come back to bite me in twenty days or twenty years or more (because nothing on the internet is really ever gone), but I honestly try not to think about it. In my faith tradition, I cling to an understanding of my imperfections. I will make mistakes. I will not live up to my potential. I will make people mad with me. I will cause hurt from time to time. Yet, the larger goal remains: using any tools this day and age as given me to share the goodness of life as I've experienced in my Creator and connecting all of God's children with the love of God I've known through the church.
So, I'll keep blogging. How about you?
Any other questions? I'd love to keep sharing ideas.
When you are a child, it is ordinary to say, "I want to be like ____ when I grow up."
We watch, we imitate, and we learn by being around folks who inspire us the most. It's the tools of how we figure out who we most want to be. Though usually our first ideas have something to do with being a fireman or a police officer or wonder woman. I always wanted to be a woman who delivers the mail, though you see how that turned out.
On the first day of our sessions with Richard Lischer, he said the first steps to becoming a good writer are admiration and imitation. And for this reason, we were asked to bring to class a selection of a poem or story that was particularly moving to us and our writing style. Words like "all I wanted was to be born with a good set of lungs" or "it is like touching a dented cup" flowed around the room and we all considered the ways in which our writing could be as the prose of those we liked the best. The morning of these reading brewed over with delights of ear all around.
In our everyday lives, we've all read a book or seen a performance or heard a speech when the person who is speaking sounds exactly like someone else we know. It's familiar, but maybe too familiar. So in the end, while useful as a learning tool, imitation, it doesn't provide our world with anything new. We don't see God in any fresh wind of the Spirit sort of ways.
There comes a time when art must come from within and rest upon individual voice. Who am I? Who are you? And how through what I say, can you tell us a part?
One of the themes that has run throughout several of my conversations, especially with the other female pastors at the Insitute this week has been of how much women struggle with voice.
In a culture when so much is expected of us: wife, mother, professional, writer, friend, you name it, we are much more likely among our male colleagues to shrink back when it comes to letting our voice shine through. We take associate positions when we really want to preach. We say "ok" to youth trips for back to back weeks, even if this means neglecting our children. We don't dare voice our ambition or dreams for fruitful work because we fear it might hurt someone's feelings. I could be oversimplifying, I realize, but there's something to this voice thing that we should pay attention to.
I speculate this problem occurs because we don't want to come across as the "over powering" or "bitchy" females. We are so thankful to be where we are, that we dare not ask for more. Or, simply we just don't know what our voice is because we're afraid of what we might have to do with it, if it was finally heard. And, as the church, we are left without voices, lots of voices that we need to hear the most.
But this week, I've been learning that my writing (and my preaching for that matter) will not soar to the heavens as it could, if I don't continually keep finding and hanging onto what makes me uniquely me. If I don't recognize my voice and use it, God doesn't have even a first draft to work with.
So, what's holding you back? Speak! Write! Be!
When I grow up, I want to be a writer. How about you?
The pace of life here at Collegeville has been divine. It has included all of my favorite things: quiet, tasty food in just the right portions, beyond the surface conversation, learning from a scholar, peace-filled sleep and a room with a view of water.
In the afternoon we've gathered together as a group-- all 12 of us for a writing workshop, each day several submissions of writing for group feedback and commentary. Because I was not an English major in college, it all was a new thing for me. A fear producing exercise: to ask for feedback on a non-fiction piece about me from my well-read, well-spoken and theologically gifted new friends. The only comfort I came thinking that others just might be as terrified as I was!
In the process of the past four days, I've paid attention to many details that I normally would ignore as we have all carefully probed one another's prose for sense of tone, voice, style, flow and pace. (Who knew these things could be talked about for so long?)
As I've been living in the writing world and participating in these workshops, I've been making a list in my head all week of, "You know you've spent a week in a writing workshop if . . ." I thought it might be humorous to share a few.
I told Kevin all about what I have been learning tonight over the phone. He was not impressed (as you might not be either), but among new peers I'm smitten with these new inisghts. The tools of my craft finally have names!
It's a world I'm just learning to be a part of in an official capacity and even though the writing workshop afternoons became sweaty palm inducing at first, I'm sort of sad they are over. I've learned it is Christmas morning pleasure for writers to be around other writers who care about making their work better as much as they do. And, I'm going to continue to open as many shiny presents as long as I am here.
We talk a good talk in the church about the Christian virtue of hospitality. It has become in many circles a practice that you just can't say you aren't interested in. Sure, I welcome my neighbors in, we say. Sure, I have an extra bed at my house. Sure, you can come over for dinner. Saying these things rolls off our tongue as easily as "Jesus loves you." Yet, in our there's a Wal-Mart around the corner neighborhoods, just walk to 7-11 if you need something existence, do we really get to know our friend called hospitality? Do we really understand how to make ourselves vulnerable to one another in our giving and receiving?
If I am on an out-of-town trip to visit a friend and have a need of an item or I want a special snack, what do I do? I either leave before or during the visit to purchase from the nearest variety story what my heart desires. Or, if I don't have a car, I keep the same plan but find a ride. In both instances, it's a mostly independent activity.
This week, the pastoral life has taken me to the campus of St. John's College in Collegeville, Minnesota. It's a place housing a Benedictine monastery, a school for women and men, the famous St. John's Bible, acres and acres of well-preserved and kept land. I'm a guest at the Collegeville institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research-- an outreach program of the monetary. I'm here learning how to become a better communicator of the written word.
When I arrived yesterday after a 90 mile van ride from the Minneapolis airport, my first impression of this state new to me alongside with 11 other pastors along with a scholar in residence, Richard Lischer and a writing tutor, Sari Fordham, was: "This place is in the middle of nowhere!"
And, I didn't have a car. I felt trapped. There would be no runs to CVS for left at home essentials or late night snacks of my choice. A whole week in the middle of the land of thousand lakes? Where was the nearest Target?
But, to the staff of Collegeville Institute hospitality is no joke. If you know anything about the Benedictine order of brothers, you know they take the virtue of welcome very seriously.
Before I had too much time to worry about my non-existent toothpaste, we were informed during Monday night orientation of the commissary open to us free of charge. Everything we might need by way of personal products could be found. If we didn't see what we needed, we were instructed to let the staff know so that they could find it for us. Then, we were told about the kitchen, fully stocked with every kind of juice, soda, cereal, snack that you could even imagine. And, if there was a particular food that would make us particularly happy, we'd find a tablet on the refrigerator to make our request. They promised to have it to us within 24 hours.
Sometimes I think, we city folk, busy folk, "I'll take care of me" folk, aren't able to allow the wells of hospitality's waters to seep in bless our days because we think we have no need of such. Modern life's love of self-sufficiency have put us all in auto pilot.
I'm glad to be spending a week in here where every morning when I can drink the Almond Milk I requested for my cereal then brush my teeth with the toothpaste I did not buy, so to remember God's gift of welcome. It's a gift I can't buy or earn. Being at Collegeville is teaching me how to recieve.
*As we returned back to the sanctuary this morning after our Sabbatical period in the Plaza room. It was good to mark the occasion with this litany I wrote:
As we gather together again in this room, we say how much God has blessed us with this beautiful worship space.
We thank you God for our sanctuary.
As we gather together in this room, we are thankful for the ways in which God has been present with us while we’ve been on Sabbatical in the Plaza room.
We thank you God for being in our midst in new ways.
As we gather together in this room, our hearts are full of joy for all of the moments of connection to the Holy that we’ve had here: weddings, baptisms, tears in prayer, and sharing the Lord’s Supper around the Table.
We thank you God for being in our midst in the years you’ve given us in this space.
As we gather together in this room, we declare that your spirit is present wherever 2 or 3 are gathered in your name and so a future journey with you awaits us.
We thank you God for all that you will show us in the worship hour ahead and pray this day that we might be present to joyfully receive!
There's a truth about myself that I'm coming to believe little by little each day. I am a writer. I think like a writer. And even though I need to permanently hire an editor (anyone want the job?), there are rhythms about my life which always go back to my need to write.
Recently while on vacation, I began to make a list of the things that would bring me most joy, that were essential to my being every day. (A practice I highly recommend). One of the non negotiables on the list was writing. I must write in some form or another every day. There's no getting around this. It is who I am.
Though of course, I haven't actually followed through with the "everyday" pace quite yet, it is something that I am working towards with great hopes for what this kind of discipline will mean in my life.
One of the greatest inspirational statements about writing came when I recently read Stanley Haurwas' theological memoir, Hannah's Child. As Haurwas continued to write and wondered about what purpose it served, he said writing was a way to make friends they he didn't know he had. And such has and I hope will continue to be the case for me.
The thing is for me and writing is that I think about it all the time. I go to bed with ideas of blogs or articles to start. I wake up with ideas. I think of ideas when I'm in my car. I feel clogged up if I haven't written in a long time. It is just something I must do.
Last fall, I was one of the presenters at the DC Baptist Convention's annual meeting. The topic was social networking and the church. Since I was the only panelist with a blog, I was charged with explaining about its usefulness in pastoral ministry. It was funny to explain the meaning of a blog to folks mostly in their 60s and 70s, many of whom had a fear of the Internet altogether. Yet, for those who got why a blog could be useful-- knowing that it gives an instant connection between the pastor and the congregation-- were still puzzled why I did such a thing.
"How do you have the time to keep up such a practice? Doesn't that take up too much time?" This I was asked over and over again. Yet, my response was simple, "It's something that I love and would do anyway."
If your "thing" isn't writing, it is something else . . . something that drives your creativity, something that makes you happy when you do it, something that you really want to get better at so that your craft can be shared with a larger audience.
I believe we all function in as the best people God has made us to be when we live into those talents that stir in us great joy. I claim for today that writing is one of such things for me. What about you? Start a list. Who knows where it might lead you too?
