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Saturday, February 18, 2012

749 Words


     I've hardly written over the past couple months. The words just weren't there. I hate not having words because I can't stand trying to push past that barrier. So I don't.


    Maybe I wasn't totally truthful: I wrote a ton. I just didn't finish 90% of it. There's a litany of drafts on my blog dashboard and a scattering of them in my journal, but they never seemed quite right. And I can't finish something if I don't know where I'm going.

    Even now, the first sentence you read? I re-typed it 10 different ways in 3 minutes. I'll probably re-type it again before I'm done. If I ever finish.

    School breaks are lovely things for sleeping and not doing much, but horrible things for thinking. With no 8' by 11' To-Do list governing my hours, I had time for lots and lots of thoughts. So many thoughts I couldn't write them all down or trace them to completion. I began to wish I was multiple persons so I could direct each one of me to compose my ideas into neat, 750 word bundles. At the moment there are several optional endings for this post in a puzzle box in my head. It's like those horrible adventure activity books at the dentists where

 If you would like our hero to go to the jungle, turn to page 53.
 If you would like to see what happens at the volcano, turn to page 20.

I hated those because some part of me thought it was necessary to find each and every story, along with the inevitable ending, in those books. And it took forever.

   The same part of me that needed every part of the story wants just the right combination of words for everything. As funny and possibly cliche as it sounds, I would like to be a writer. I would like CS Lewis and Truman Capote to inhabit my pen (or keyboard) and change the world with my words. But I am the writer who doesn't write.

   The ever-relevant A.A. Milne said: “Pay attention to where you are going because without meaning you might get nowhere.” Going nowhere is not a biblical idea. We are commanded to run the race, fight the good fight. Neither of those are accomplished by merely sitting.

    A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. He left his servants with the instructions, "Engage in business until I come." Each was given a certain amount of money proportionate to his capabilities. The nobleman returned, calling each servant to him in turn and inspecting their profit. The last servant came to him, timidly, a small amount of cash crumpled up in a dirty handkerchief.  "Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you."  (Paraphrase of Luke 19: 11-21). 

   I have been given my own 'minas' in a sense, to invest in the kingdom. I can't bury them for fear of doing wrong or of not being good enough. There's another parable in Luke about a dishonest manager. Facing the loss of his job and the inevitable poverty that would follow, he lowered the debts of certain of his boss's clients in the hopes that when he was down and out they would return the favor. Luke says his master "commended" him- not for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness.The manager took what he had and used it well. Granted, it was to his own advantage and not his master's. Still, the general principle applies: we aren't given certain gifts/talents to just bury. We are called to be shrewd as serpents. It takes some creative thinking and probably a fair share of risk. 

   What it doesn't take is fear of exploring whatever may be around the next corner. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (1 Tim. 1:7 NKJV). Finishing this post is a bit of commitment for me. It means I actually have to follow through on the call of action that every good persuasive essay ends with. This is my own  750 -word package. A persuasive letter to stop being afraid of things and just do them. An almost-empty 2 day stretch lays ahead, a rare thing in days lost under homework and classes. Time like this is a gift: for thinking and sitting still and figuring out where to go.


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