Why write? Why attempt to put words on a page? What is it that drives a person to such a task that feels so isolating? What right do I have to write?

That’s is what is being addressed over at High Calling Blogs currently. A new book club has begun. A few of the High Calling Bloggers (you can see a partial list below) are blogging their way through Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.

For today’s post I am, for me taking a risk. I am posting the random writing that came out of reading through Cameron’s first chapter titled “Begin”. I set a goal of 500 words with not particular thought in mind. I wanted to put down on paper what was happening around me and within me. Thanks in advance for reading.

Here I sit in semi-darkness. Seven a.m. Thunder rolling across the sky above, rattling windows as the Chickadees, finches, tufted-titmice, song sparrows and the various other feathered friends that visit our yard each calling out their spring calls – some already going from feeder to nest to nourish the babies; others calling out, dancing, following instinctual mating rituals.

A pair of cardinals sits precariously on the feeder as the winds of the storm rock them back and forth. The male picks seed and feeds it to his mate who patiently sits next to him waiting for nourishment to be given to her.

I am writing with such randomness that someday when reread will offer, hopefully, a gem, a nugget, a spark of a word or phrase that will lead into something that sounds more coherent than the rambling I am putting down on paper right now.

Son is up. The storm woke him up an hour earlier than he should be…thankfully Daughter can sleep through most anything and is in blissful four year old dreamland right now.

Son has decided that is it is time to make “breakfast” as only he can using all the materials that are available in the playroom kitchen.

It actually does amaze me that I am able to sit here and put words down while he banters, in a voice that’s too loud, about what he is cooking for me, mom, and sister.

He is a breath of joy in my life. He is a child who seems to know none of our hurts, fears, concerns. He doesn’t worry whether you like him or not. He has a joy to life that so many in our world need.

I believe more and more each day that this beautiful fifteen year old, green-eyed, towheaded, boy is not the one with special needs. It is the rest of the world with the special needs. It is the rest of us who have lost that childlike joy that Son still retains. It is the rest of us who can’t see beyond the cover, the stereotypes, the expectations we pile on each other. It is we, I believe, who are handicapped.

He has no such expectations.

Cameron says to just start at the beginning. Write where you are. Write what you are.

I am not a Billy Collins or a Dickinson, or an Ignatow, or a Frost, Whitman, Eliot, Hopkins, or Williams (or even a Young, Barkat, Coffey. Richards, Goodyear, or Moon). I am me. I can only write about what I see. There is no one else around who views the world in the same way as I.

So I begin. I write. I fill the page with a hope and a dream.

Please visit the following bloggers and enjoy their contributions to this endeavor (if you are participating please leave your link in the comments section and I will add you to the list):

Glynn’s The Right to Write: Beginnings

LL’s Let Yourself Write

Lyla’s The Art of Taking Dictation

Monica’s Book Club: The Right to Write

Louise’s An Automatic Response

Nancy’s Let’s Write

nancy’s ready…set

Marilyn’s Book Club

Erin’s Just Writing

Cassandra’s In the Quiet

Darlene’s How God Expects Us to Run

Faith is not linear. It is, indeed, a widening of the imagination, a leap into the transcendent, a taste of the numinous, a vision of the extraordinary in the ordinary. And our coach for the leap, the glue in the link, is our Muse, the Spirit of God.¹

1. Luci Shaw “The Partnership of Art and Spirituality”

Twitterer @KMWeiland of Wordplay fame tweeted this quote recently. Being that it is from one of my favorite authors I thought it worth posting.

When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist. – Madeleine L’Engle

I enjoyed watching the spectators enjoyment as much as the actual performance. It begs the question: what have you done in four minutes (or three or five) to bring joy to another human being today?

I am in flux. I am re-thinking many of my thoughts, beliefs, and approaches to the world, my faith, by reading of scripture, and, not insignificantly, my view of culture and what it means to interact, criticize, create with my surroundings.

I am working my way through Andy Crouch’s book Culture Making. I say working because is seems as though every other page I am having to stop and underline, make a note, or just sit and let the material sink in and percolate through the recesses and crevices of my gray matter. I wasn’t planning on blogging about it until I finished but I am moved by two things: the first being the quote below in which Mr. Crouch is discussing the “furnishing” of the new Jerusalem referred to in Revelation. Second, the posting of Mark Goodyear’s interview with Mr. Crouch at High Calling Blogs (You can read the interview here:
part 1 and part 2).

If there is one book in the bible that tends to scare off many, including Christians, it is the image-laden, metaphor-filled, apocalyptic, end-of-the-world book of Revelation. Yet, Mr. Crouch has framed John’s vision within the confines (and in many ways freedom) of a culture – one created by God and created by human hands (created by the creation of the creator?). While reading I was struck by this passage:

Are we creating and cultivating things that have a chance of furnishing the new Jerusalem? Will the cultural goods we devote our lives to — the food we cook and consume, the music we purchase and practice, the movies we watch and make, the enterprises we earn our paychecks from and invest our wealth in — be identified as the glory and honor of our cultural tradition? Or will they be remembered as mediocrities at best, dead ends at worst? This is not the same as asking whether we are making “Christian” culture. “Christian” cultural artifacts will surely go through the same winnowing and judgment as “non-Christian” artifacts. Nor is this entirely a matter of who is responsible for the cultural artifacts and where their faith is placed, especially since every cultural good is a collective effort. Clearly some of the cultural goods found in the new Jerusalem will have been created and cultivated by people who may well not accept the Lamb’s invitation to substitute his righteousness for their sin. Yet the best of their work may survive. Can that be said of the goods that we are devoting our lives to?¹ (emphasis mine)

I found this paragraph to be a key to the way in which we should live – socially, emotionally, creatively, economically within our lives. Are the “things” we are involved in bringing that glory and honor to our cultural tradition as stated above? Are we living and creating in a selfless fashion that leads to excellence? Or one of selfishness ambition or vain conceit², leading to mediocrity or the dead end road?

I don’t find this to be a limited activity. I need to examine my role as husband, father, son, brother, friend, teacher, writer/poet, and whatever other place I have within the cultures I am living. Am I creating a culture of the highest good, one worthy of furnishing the new Jerusalem?

How about you?

(ok…now back to the book )

1. Culture Making pg. 171
2. Philippians 2:3

The Christmas Story from Luke 2 in Wordle Form:

Turned into some pretty nice artwork if I don’t say so myself. What do you think?
Go an create your own Wordle here.

Only artifacts that leave the solitude of their inventor’s studios and imaginations can move the horizons of possibility and become the raw material for more culture making. Until an artifact is shared it is not culture.¹

He goes on to quote Steve Jobs: “Real artists ship”

My interpretation: Eric needs to get on with things and start posting, submitting, sharing the writing he’s doing offline with the outside world.

Enough said.

1. Andy Crouch Culture-Making, pg. 40

I came across this video the other day via Presentation Zen and realized as I was watching that this would probably be a good piece for teachers (as well as administrators) to view. What do you think?