Sunday Reflections March 04, 2012

Well, this week has seen a few changes to the page, and maybe in me a little too. I hope the overall tweeking I have done to the content has not scared you away. There will be more Bible Study, but I am "discovering my voice" as a writer (thanks Jeff Goins) and I never know what is going to come of that. 


This week I feel like there were so many things different that I am almost a little embarrassed to talk about them. For one thing, I was extremely personal this week. First I shared my prayer for this blog. Then to give you a little something extra I added a post on the Names of God where we examined who God is. 


Then we looked at God's love manifested through Dream's and Plans. I know this is something that God has been showing me on a very personal level, so I cannot seem to do anything BUT share it. Then to make up for being so personal, I wanted to do a character study on Mary and Martha and still somehow, that boiled down to God completing His plans in us. Told you it was on my mind. 


Now we get to the REALLY different. This Writer's Manifesto was actually going to be just a writing exercise for me but after I was done I really felt like there was some truth there for anyone, and felt compelled to share it. It also was a declaration of what I am, what God has made me, how He is using me and it built me up in ways I did not expect. This blog is named "A Year in the Spiritual Life" and as of tomorrow I will have written this blog for only two months. (I know it seems longer....sorry bout that) In that two months there has been so much growth in me, and changes, internally and outwardly. I am so stoked to see what God will do next. 


Now, as I mentioned before, this week has been different, and this post: The Gardener and the Sapling  was perhaps one of the biggest differences there has been so far. This short story, or modern parable, was actually based on a story I first made up when I was only 15 for my little brother, Aaron, who was four at the time. I have always loved it, as he did when he was small, and when I was completely blocked on what to write, this was the only thing that dropped in my spirit. Since I had never written it down before, I was concerned it may not turn out well, but overall, I think it was pretty good. The scary thing for me was hitting the publish button and sharing it with you guys, because it is such a personal story for me. 


Weirder still was yesterday's post Psalms 151- My song. First of all, you may not realize this, but there are only 150 chapters in the book of Psalms. I was attempting to be cheeky with the title but I am not sure if anyone got my sense of humor... it is a little wacky I know. This was a new song I felt God was giving to me and I wanted to share it with you. This new song was something that I wrote, re-wrote, and one day, may re-write again, because I always want to reach for better, though perfection this side of Heaven is impossible. The sentiment in the song comes from my desire to do all I can to express my love for my Father and worship Him in all the ways He deserves. But I am no dancer, and I am not a great singer. It is a good thing God sees the thoughts and intentions of the heart, because there,  in the deepness of my heart and the loony places in my head I dance like Melanie Moore or Sasha Mallory of So You Think You Can Dance fame. 


This week also saw five more countries visiting the blog, bringing the total to 54. They are Barbados, Indonesia, Syria, Lebanon, Brunei Darussalam, and Argentina. Welcome to the readers in those countries and hope that they are blessed by what they find here, though I am not sure how well my humor translates to all these different languages. I am not sure it translates in English most of the time. 


This week did open up some wonderful opportunities and soon I will be writing a guest blog on http://www.alanknox.net/. That will be coming on March 19 as it stands now and I am very excited about it. I will of course link that for all of you when it happens. 


So that is the week, like I said, I feel a little awkward about it, because it is all so new and different than I thought this blog was supposed to be. This is a stretching time for me, so when you think of me, please pray: I need it. I am always praying for you. 


Be blessed and be a blessing and remember that stretch is a verb. 

This Writer's Manifesto

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

I write. 

I have to tell you it has not been an easy trip. I have had a lot of discouragement and encouragement throughout the years, by various people in critical moments in my life that are forever crystalized in my brain. 


Like Mrs. Longfellow, my eighth grade Literary Arts teacher who after reading and grading one of my papers told me I should be an actress and speak someone else’s words, because I was no writer. 


Ouch. 


Mr. Chaney, a man who was a long-term substitute for my English teacher in ninth grade turned that around when he held me after class one day.

Typically I was only held after class because I had been a royal pain in the rear, snarky child that I was, and I thought I was in trouble. When he pulled out my paper on Romeo and Juliet, he said I had talent, and he felt I would be good at UIL Ready Writing. 


This blew my mind, but it was a moment I will never forget. Someone saw something in me: something good, something worth developing, something I thought was dross, but was really un-mined gold.  

Not Everyone Got It

When I came home and told my dad, who wrote (rather good) poetry in college, what Mr. Chaney had said, he was surprised and told me so. Daddy had always followed the philosophy that if you were not well spoken you could not be a good writer. Since I was fifteen, and a typical teenager who used too much slang, I can understand his point now, but then I was devastated. 


In my brain I heard you aren’t smart enough, you aren’t really talented, this was a fluke and you know that Mr. Chaney is a weirdo anyway. Rather unfair to Mr. Chaney and the beginning of a battle I have even now with insecurities about writing, which make me want to quit on a regular basis.

Besides any insecurity I may have, the other facet of writing that I find both extremely challenging and rewarding is its honesty. When done right, honest moments and honest words capture images that translate into memorable literary pictures in a reader’s mind. Once, I wrote about my favorite place in the world, more specifically I wrote about leaving it.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

“I learned the roads to home by driving away from it, with my father at the wheel and my step-mother resting her socked feet on the dash. The front window held the impression of her foot in fog; whether from the smell or the heat, I don’t know. Pressing my face against my door window, I watched the pine trees thin out and the road speed up, as we drove out of the hills into the flat emotionally barren world of the gulf coast of Texas.” 

These very honest sentences written by a then 17 year old version of me were met by praise for their imagery by Mrs. Henkies, my 11^th grade English teacher, but were met by hostility at home because they offended my parents. I have since learned why writers say we write what we know, because what we know is honest, what we know is both a gold mine and a landfill, what we know is organic.

So What Does That Mean? 

Am I a good writer? I do not think so. I am no Hemmingway, I am not Frost. I will not capture the attention of the world by writing about sparkling vampires in fields of flowers, but I am a writer. I write what I know.

I have known pain and I have known health. 


I have known heartache and I have known joy. 


I have known desperation and I have known peace. 


I have been lost, and I have been found. 


I write what I know. I write about life, I write about family, I write about emotions, I write about Jesus, because I know Him. 

So I will write, and I will act, Mrs. Longfellow. I will act out other writers’ words from the Bible, and I will write about those acts. I will write about the struggle of writing and I will remember that without the struggle the triumph would not mean as much. I am a writer. I write.

What are you?