On Writing and Age Wrinkles

I love writing and I hate writing. The two feelings are constantly throwing house parties in some emotional apartment my logic is never invited to. Like opposing pistons charging wildly into the same cylinder or two bulls in the same pen. They collide with force and drama and certainty. With writing specifically, as much as God teaches me through it, it's never good enough to show anyone - and so it stays unpublished, entombed and unfinished. It is for me, catharsis and chaos in equal measure.

But maybe writing is more like life, people can forgive an imperfect word or a bad paragraph as long as there's a beauty to the whole. All of our words are like lines and wrinkles drawn into an aging face - they make us, us. Different, weak, broken, strong, but recognized and loved, not in spite of them, but because of them. It's different, how God works, how he stands with stretched arms signaling the beginning of a better story; offering strength and peace in the middle of weakness and chaos.

So our worst days become a kind of necessary punctuation. They link the elements in our stories; pauses in our prose.

And our best days are the secret and soaring poems we only tell to our favorite people.

Our stories are made beautiful because they're written with the stuff of the bad days and the dignity of the good days. And like that, maybe we're supposed to accept the imperfect words because we know that better words are coming, and sometimes, in the best times, they come quicker than we'd hoped. Or sometimes we have to dig and bleed to find them. But we always find them. And always when we need them.

Maybe we are all writers who have already been written into a story full of labored sentences and the right amount of poetry. We just need someone to read it and tell us to keep writing.

So, write it, whatever it is. Write the bad words until the good ones come. Change your life. Start your life. End your old life. Get a better job. Get a better boyfriend. Hit "publish." If we trust that the whole of the story is beautiful a one, we can't really fail. Let the worst of you become a kind of period that doesn't just end a bad sentence, it signals the beginning of a new one, a better one.

Maybe it's time to trust that the words will come. Maybe it's time to let Him write and know that they will.

Live in love and let the world know why.

I met a woman while shopping tonight. Well, by "met" I mean she checked me out and bagged my items. And by "shopping" I mean... Ok I was at Wal-Mart.

Debra was her name, I wanted to ask if she shortened it from "Deborah" - to rid herself of the baggage that comes with unnecessary consonants. "That's very phonetic of you" I wanted to say. But I didn't.

On her vest, next to "Debra" was a much more prominent pin that spelled "JESUS" in jewels. Probably Bedazzled, if I had to guess. I wondered if management ever confronted her regarding the amount of real estate it claimed on her vest. I wondered what Debra would tell them if they had. But I suppose no one would mistakenly call her Jesus instead of Debra.

I was fourth or so in line and as I studied Debra I'd hear her salutation as she finished with each customer's process. "Blessings" she'd say to one. Or "have a blessed night" to another. As my turn approached I speculated about what she'd tell me, like a man entering a doctor's office or fortune teller's....tent.

"Maybe Debra knows." - was everything I could think. "She knows I lied at work today." or "Look at this white boy, down in the ghetto looking for deals on whey protein and power steering fluid." I'd not yet spoken a word to Debra, but I was desperate for her endorsement.

The register beeped a cold digital rhythm as she processed my goods. Some car stuff, some wine I'd bought for $7.24 just to make a statement (I'd seen the same bottle sell for $30.00 a day earlier.) the aforementioned whey protein and some various necessities. They scanned through and I broke the silence.

"How's your night going?" I asked, a hint of sheepishness cracked my lips.

"It's great." She said, all teeth and smile. "I'd never complain. Did you just come from the gym?" - I had indeed, and I was ecstatic that she had sent my conversational serve back over the net.

"It's a beautiful night" she continued. "That'll be $36.42."

I'd walked in 20 minutes earlier lamenting the fact that I was entering a Wal-Mart; even more disappointed in the fact that I even live near the low-price leader. If I'm honest, I felt superior to the situation; that my lot in life was certainly higher than congregating around pregnant teens and poor families and discount groceries.

But Debra, who pinned the name of Jesus to her breast as an announcement of identity; used every opportunity to speak Love into each pregnant teen and poor family that came through her line. I don't have to visit again to know that everybody who chooses her lane will receive the same benediction. In the best way possible (through love) it confronted me with the opportunities (or opportunities I miss) each day to speak love into someone's life. Not only love, but Love - in the name of Jesus. Straight up.

That's the goal of our lives isn't it? The great commission and all of that. To live in love, and let the world know why. There's some kind of perfection in every single minute and I want to live truly and lean into these minutes like favorite poems or tall, swaying trees.

I swiped my card and entered my PIN number. Debra handed me the receipt.

"Be blessed" she told my eyes.

And I was.

On Writing

Okay. I’ll do it.

I've given myself permission to write. And it's terrifying.

And here’s my promise. I'll only write from the deep part; the true part.

I remember that old myth before it was ruined by medical shows or friends in nursing school; the old yarn that told us our blood was actually blue while in our body, and only turns red when exposed to oxygen. Writing for me is proving that myth false or else watching my blue blood become red. My skin is cold and dry so I'll have to dig into the deep veins. I'm learning life is not best lived from the deep parts.

It's only lived from the deep parts. We are orphans anywhere else.

I've had some kind of affair with writing for a few years now. Some days, I'm gifted. Some days, I wonder if maybe English was my second language. Most days, though, writing feels like owing money to God. He’s a big benevolent bill collector and upon non-payment His whispers become wails, and his chasing becomes chastising. Honestly, it feels terrible to ignore God. But it's beautiful, because it's nothing like guilt.

It feels something like being shipped off to a foreign country where the language sounds familiar, but it’s not. You get by for awhile with lots of nodding and pointing, but ultimately you’re left hungry and can’t find the bathroom. Writing has felt much this way for me. It's been both catharsis and chaos. But it’s good, and it’s important and I have to believe in it.

I guess this is how I know that God is good; that we are pursued by our desires, we are hunted by passions. To me, this begs the existence of some kind of adventurous, persistent, desiring and beautiful creator who travels unreasonable distances to display something profound, leaving us surrendered and exhausted, arrested and whole.

So this year, I will write. It feels a little like dancing and fighting at the same time, but I really hope you will read it. And while I hope it's more dancing than fighting, I have to go where the blood is.