“There is not a heart but has its moments of longing, yearning for something
better, nobler, holier than it knows now.”
–Henry Ward Beecher, 19th century American clergyman
Musicians play. Painters paint. Writers write.
For a long time I struggled to justify my desire to read and write because I was concerned that it might be an extravagant and acceptable means of escape from present reality. And it can be.
I’ve been asked, “How does fictional romance differ from porn?” Good question, I’m not sure I have an answer except that I don’t typically read or write “romance”. Books that I enjoy reading often include romance; after all, there’s no better lab for conflict than in triangles of great passion.
Within the pages of fiction, we can learn a great deal about oneself and humanity. We can laugh and rest and step away from it all. We can also slip into sin.
It’s a choice, I guess. I don’t write only for escape; I write because I know there is territory to be discovered and conundrums to be solved in the process of the writing itself.
It was not until recently, however, that the fuller truth of why I write, and why I mash around the topic of caring for one’s soul through writing came to light. I am finally beginning to see more clearly this passion that haunts me.
Natalie Goldberg in Old Friend from Far Away, provided my long-awaited epiphany. She said, “To write is to be in love.”
In Writing Down the Bones, Goldberg also speaks about how writing is meditative; it is our practice, “a way to help penetrate one’s life and become sane.”
Let’s dare to talk about love for a moment, shall we?
Being in love is a loss of control. Suddenly your life is dependent on the eyebrow twitch of Joe Schmo. It’s terrible—it’s thrilling. Everyone wants it.
No one says it, but writing induces that state of love. The oven shimmers, the faucet radiates…Right there, sitting with your notebook on your lap, even the factory town you drove through heading north to Denver, the town you hated and prayed no flat tire, no traffic jam would hold you there, even that place while writing about that trip, that day, that year, you caress now. You life is real. It has texture, detail. Suddenly, it springs alive (22).
Whether it be writing fiction or memoir or journaling, the very act of seeing and attending to the details is itself the miracle of art… and spiritual formation.
“Spirituality means waking up,” Anthony DeMello says in the opening line of his book, Awareness.
DeMello goes on to say that most people, without knowing it live asleep, “marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up.” They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human experience.
“Waking up is irritating,” says DeMello. “We become comfortable and complacent in our slumber. And it takes time, persistence. It comes oh, so slowly much like meditation, learning to breathe and learning to be still and to pray.”
Illness is what stirred me awake. I realized time and energy were precious commodities. I didn’t want to miss the beauty surrounding me. [“What I Will Miss When I Die”.]
Now I want to be present, attentive, reflective, to see beauty, and to worship God in all God’s glory—even as it is reflected in me. No more shrinking to fit, no more hunkering down, being stuck on survive, no more letting details blurr in a sad attempt to conserve energy; barring myself against the noise and anxiety that adrenaline junkies seem to love so much, only to find themselves exhausted and without joy.
Writing is my mountain monastery. It is my psalmic melody, my praise, compassion, my love to, and for the world; writing is my radical hospitality. It is a feast prepared with great care.
These details, the people I write about, even when I tuck them into fiction so they remain safe, are handled with doting affection. I allow them to live and be redeemed. I see them as more than we can ever see on an ordinary day. They are larger than life. They matter.
I’m just now getting it. Just now.