Writing A Book

Behold, I have a dream! A dream of writing a book. I would really just love that.

There are a few things that stand in my way of this dream:

1) I have no topics that I feel both competent enough in and passionate enough about to use for an entire book.

2) I lack the writing skills. This blog, however, is a testament to my efforts to change this.

3) I lack the life experience. Whether I write about my own experiences, try to impart wisdom or knowledge, or even write a fiction based on my own experiences, I doubt I will have anything worthwhile to say until I am a few decades older.

I consider myself to be a writer, but a writer must be an expert in something in order to write anything worthwhile. While there are innumerable topics a person could be an expert in, there is one topic everyone is an expert in: our own life.

But a biography about a boring life is not really worth reading.

My goal is to write a book, but my other, more important goal, is to live a life worth writing a book about. Even if a book never gets written, at least I will have lived a worthwhile, productive, adventurous life.

Who knows? Maybe when I am old I will have something to say.


God bless.

Life Competence

Last night at Bible study, Page said something along the lines of, Jesus much preferred to being around people who were honest about their lives being messed up to people who pretended like nothing was wrong in their lives. I had honestly never made that specific observation before but it's something I really like about Jesus.

Conversation continued with how the Church is supposed to be a people who are honest about their sin and shortcomings, but since we're generally not, people don't feel welcome into our clique.

And I thought, why would people want to come into a place where they knew nobody had their act together? That's no way to sell a product, so to speak. If people want to learn about how to live their life and figure out what their soul is and what to do with it, shouldn't they go to a place where they feel people are competent in those areas?

For example, as a musician, I would hate to walk into an orchestra where everyone is frankly really bad musicians, and not only that but really open and honest about it. I would think that these people are a bunch of clowns and don't take their music seriously or professionally. It would seem to me that they weren't trying to improve. I probably wouldn't stick around. Who wants a church like that? I would find another orchestra where people had their act together, where the conductor was the only one to point out others' mistakes and everyone else just quietly improved their skills in the practice room, where no one else could judge them.

But then I thought of something I am definitely interested in but much, much less competent in: ultimate frisbee.

One of the biggest reasons I don't make any efforts to even go to pick-up games is because I'm so intimidated by others' skill and so afraid of their judgment of my lack of it. Sports can be kind of unforgiving because of how competitive people get, and even if I don't get directly hollered at for making an error, other players will subtly start avoiding me.

But what if there was an ultimate team where everyone sucked as much as I did and that was okay? What if there was a team where I got gentle pats on the back when I made an error and everyone threw the frisbee to me all the more in hopes of improving my skills? Where everyone else was working to improve their skills as well but happily admitted their many shortcomings? Is that a team I would join? ABSOLUTELY.

So that's how it clicked for me. People who are interested in ultimate frisbee but suck at it feel comfortable learning around other people that suck. And people who are interested in playing in an orchestra but don't know one note from the next are going to be much more comfortable around people who aren't naturally talented musicians either. And people interested in figuring out their lives and souls but don't know where to start are going to be much more interested in walking into a church where everyone else is trying to figure it all out too. No one is competent in the area of life. No one. There are only those who feign competence.


God bless.

Comparison of Three Books

Yesterday I finished "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller, and before that I read "A Walk Across America" by Peter Jenkins and before that I read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred D. Taylor. Needless to say, I have a lot of time on my hands lately.

These three books have very little in common of course. "A Walk Across America" was definitely my favorite, followed by "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry." "Blue Like Jazz" was mediocre in my opinion. It took me awhile to get used to the fact that it was neither a novel nor a book on Christian living, but rather, a collection of seemingly thrown-together blog posts with no real continuity whatsoever and a healthy dose of ignorance and pomposity. (Is it possible for a writer to ever come across as unpompous?) But there were a few things in it that made me think, which of course I enjoy and which made it worth it.

The thing that tied these three books together for me was that they all sent a message: everybody matters.

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" told me that black people matter.
"A Walk Across America" told me that poor people matter.
"Blue Like Jazz" told me that non-Christians matter.

So I put the last book down and think, what's God trying to tell me here?

Who am I treating as though they don't matter?

I'll have to think on it.


God bless.

P.S. Next on the list is "Same Kind of Different As Me" by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. I don't know much about this book at all but maybe it will carry the same theme.

Silent Noises

I parked my car in the driveway
To the sound of my engine turning off.
I heard the sound of the car door closing.
I heard the sound of my keys,
My footsteps as I entered my kitchen.

I pulled out my dinner and listened
To the microwave whir
And the mocking beeping.

My fork clinked against the plate.
The silence was deafening.
I sighed.

I opened my computer and heard
The sound of my fingers
Banging the keys as I typed.
My mouth felt lonely and dry.

I heard the leather couch squeak
I heard my little sips of beer.
I heard the glass being set on the table.

Noiselessly, I went upstairs.
I turned on the shower.
Silently, I heard the water
Hitting the tub and my body.
I heard the pat of my wet feet
On the bathroom floor.

I heard my bed groan.
I heard my breathing as I fell asleep
Alone in a dark room.

The next day was the same,
And so was the next.
Quiet.
Alone.
Silent noises.

Eventually,
A firecracker was lit under me.
I yelped and I ran
Until I found my place here.

Love and friendship are magical,
Shocking,
Thrilling.

Today,
silence shirks me.
I hear myself singing
At every turn.
Don't ask me how.


God bless.

Dear One

Dear one,

I'm sorry I've been ignoring you but it's really my only option. It doesn't mean I don't care, and it certainly doesn't mean I've forgotten about you. I will not and cannot forget.

Directly communicating with you is dangerous. Stirring up old emotions would only set both of us back in our quests to move on. Perhaps it's an unfair assumption that you have this same quest as me, but you ought to. Moving on is imperative.

I wonder if I ever fully will.

Our love story will never be published. Its incredible drama will never show up on a movie screen. It's a tragedy that is seared into our minds forever, but once we die, our story will die with us. But we both know how remarkable it was. Love like ours is once-in-a-lifetime, and one of my greatest struggles in my efforts to date others has been the sinking fear that my one-time chance at love is gone.

But that's a lie. We can both fall in love again. We can both live love stories with happier endings. And we should try to allow that to happen rather than constantly looking over our shoulders at the past.

Finding romantic love again is not the most important part of life, though. Finding ultimate love is. I don't know how many times I've told you but I'll tell you again: Jesus loves you.

Not only does Jesus love you; Jesus is blown away by you. He adores you and values your life more than his own. He cannot get enough of you. He pursues you relentlessly, whether you're paying attention or not. He has saved your life, literally, multiple times.

My love couldn't save you, and neither can the love of any other woman. But know that you are loved, and able to be saved.

Please listen to me because I care for you.

Reach out for help from someone if you start to feel hopeless. Do not be ashamed. Your life is worth it.


God bless.

-Maryann

P.S. Thank you for serving homeless people. I am so, so proud of you.

Comes and Goes

In the last couple months, I've learned a startlingly infantile lesson: that time passes.

My whole life I've functioned as though the past were something to shake my head and smile at, the present is infinite, and the future is nonexistent. In other words, what I want to have happen needs to happen now or it will never come to fruition. I suppose you could call that either madness or impatience.

This mentality has caused me to do a number of stupid things, such as jump into relationships that weren't meant to be had, lose sleep in January over what my summer plans would be, and fret about savings before I've even been in the work force long enough to build any sort of wealth. Because what is true now will never change so things need to be figured out immediately.

Although I'm not one to plan what I'm going to say for a presentation, what I'm going to do for the day, and what I am going to get so-and-so for their birthday, I do tend to try to plan things that really have no way of being planned, such as the ultimate destination of my career, my hypothetical future marriage, and where on this planet I want to finally sink my toes in. I'm finally recognizing the absurdity of this aimless planning. I grasp for control over things that I have no business controlling at the moment, if ever.

Lucy Schwartz's song "Time Will Tell" has been a ballad of truth for me for almost a year now but even more so recently. It was stuck in my head for almost the entire month of May as I repeated to myself the line, "Time will tell, take it slow." "Time will tell, take it slow." "Time will tell, take it slow."

Time passes. Time happens. The future comes. The present becomes the past. The answers will eventually be revealed. Events will unfold. What do I have to fear? Why do I need to rush?

Another thing that I have had to repeat to myself endlessly is "[Blank] will come and go." I'm not sure where my brain got this particular phrase but it has proved so true and so useful. Mostly I fill in the blank with a date. I was particularly stressed about May 25th, because it was "moving day" for me, a day I'd leave the life I knew and begin again elsewhere. "May 25th will come and go," I'd say to myself, and it has certainly come... and gone.

I have mentioned before that I have committed to a year of no dating. As the end of the year approaches, I am nearly gripped with fear at the prospect of falling back into my old sinful and destructive habits the moment I am "freed" from my commitment, but I am also excited to end this chapter, despite the growth and personal insight that has occurred because of it. Either way, it will be a silently momentous day for me. I have a hard time believing it will actually happen and I'll actually have to deal with walking back into the ominous world of dating.

But that date will come and go. That date will come and go. And simply knowing that time will pass comforts and reassures me.

I still hate waiting. But I have found so much wisdom in the fact that waiting eventually gets you somewhere. Waiting may last a while, but it does not last forever. How good to finally know.


God bless.

Finding home

I suppose home began in my mother
In her womb, in her arms,
Safe in her voice, her smile, her presence, her love.

Home expanded
To a building I grew up in,
A city I was raised in,
A "permanent address."

Home became my own,
A place I furnished and filled
As any proper adult should.

"Home is where the heart is,"
So home was also with my friends,
Laughing and drinking beer,
Sharing stories and crying tears.

Then I shook out the blanket
And home became
Wherever I laid my head.

I folded the blanket and put it down
Home would be
Wherever I decided it would be
And I decided on here.

But if home is ever-changing
Alongside life,
Then is its definition defeated?

Or am I an alien
To anyplace forever,
Constantly in transition
Never letting dust settle?

I wonder.

I wander.

At the end, the very very end
though, I know,
Home is where I'll be.