A couple of weeks ago I was asked to share this morning about my writing. This was somewhat bizarre to me for several reasons:
1. in my human-ness I don't really think that I really express profound thoughts
2. I just joined this community... no one even knows who I am
3. Who am I?
Like Moses babbling on and making excuses, I thought for sure Ken must have meant to ask someone else, and accidentally sent the e-mail to me.
And then he sent another e-mail (when I didn't respond to the first one).
Greg began the service with the passage from Philippians (which I used to have in my kitchen- thanks Anna)
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy- think about such things...and the God of peace will be with you."
He spoke about the subjectivity of this laundry list and how it flings open wide the doors to finding God in our everyday life. For truly things such as truth, purity, and excellence are all around us in the everyday things that we love. And there the peace of God is. So we talked about the God of creativity.
I talked this morning about how most of my writing really started in China- when I needed an outlet for all the experiences that were taking place around me. I likened my writing to the prisoners that lined the halls of the academe leading up to David- showing what the stone longs to be: a figure set free by the chisel of the artist.
Beforehand I had been asked to share about writing and read a piece that I had written. Like a good student looking for shortcuts, I combined the assignment and wrote about writing. This is what I read:
For me it's about validation: when words on a page become tangible artifacts of emotions that otherwise would be lost to the intangible time and space of the moment.
The experience happens and it's gone, but if my mind snaps a picture quick enough for my synapses to form a thought that my fingers find acceptable and noteworthy, then the ink rubs down the passing of time, however imperfect, biased, cynical, naive, or rose-colored the recollection may be.
The intangible is now tangible.
For me it's about validation. Somehow as I use these senses, longing to communicate my perception of what my fingers feel, how my tongue tastes, what my ears hear and in the great symphony of it all-- how my mind arranges and tries to make sense of it all, I find that sometimes I connect to others. Though we all want to be unique, there is also a deeper longing for understanding and commonality with our fellow man.
Though I know that you and I will never be able to see eye to eye, I want to at least be able to look at your face. And connect.
And know that even when the thoughts are not profound or politically correct or spiritual that they can still connect.
For me it's about validation. Validation that these experiences are real- by communicating them, by recording them, even if they are never seen again, I give them life. I release them from the bars within my mind and allow them a life of freedom.
For me it's about validation. That I can hear and know that I'm being heard. That even when my life is boring and mundane there is still life to write about. Finding meaning at the car wash or thinking about community while making salsa, these are not profound things, but for me it's about validation.
4 comments:
"now we see but a dim reflection, then we will see perfectly". . . remember the museum in Corinth?
you know, as a therapist (and rock star) I think that everybody is wanting to be validated. we all want someone to listen to us and say, I hear you & your life is real & it matters.
this cosmos is expansive. nobody saw that i just flossed my teeth for the first time in a while and now my gums are bleeding. but that is important, and it matters. but self-validation only goes so far.
following stefani - that's why validation in real community is so much more than self-validation (just as love for others is so beyond self-love).
glad you took the plunge!
wish i could have been there sunday morning. thanks for putting what you read here so that i could read what you have "freed" from the bars of your mind. glad that your walk has led you to DF.
It's often difficult for me to remember that all of this is God's creation and that He can be found not only in the profound, but also (and sometimes especially) in the mundane. Maybe finding God in "ordinary" tasks like making salsa and washing the car is more important than finding God in the profound. Thanks!
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