I don't write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don't everything feels even worse.~Lily King (From Writers and Lovers)
When a book is published, it feels like a birth. I don't remember the years of gestation--the rewrites, the monotonous edits, the labor. What I see is the beautiful brain child with all its uniqueness. A sort of falling in love. A mother bear instinct kicks in, for no other reason than the book is mine.
Writing is primarily a refuge for me, not a burden. I started writing The Light By Which We See in 2016. The manuscript sat idle for months, until in 2017 my oldest sister passed away and I was diagnosed with cancer. The majority of the manuscript was written when I underwent chemotherapy and grieved my sister's death. I discovered that when I could get to the page and write, I was transported out of the grief and despair. Writing the book became my way of escape. The page was always there for me. A retreat and steady companion. I cannot underestimate the peace and grace of God I found when I wrote during this period in my life.
You may wonder what the book is about. Surely it is the continuation of the story that began in my first book, An Ocean Away, but it is also about the role writing has played over the years. A story of the mysteries of marriage.
I invite you to take a look at the book at the Amazon store. The Light By Which We See
Surely there is no pressure to read the book. This genre may not be your cup of tea. But if it is, I would be honored for you to read it. And if you are so inclined to leave a rating at the Amazon page.
Art of any kind has a healing power. I implore you to keep writing, keep gardening, keep singing, keep painting, keep cooking. Don't put your camera in the closet. The act of creating is a gift from God as He is the great creator. He put the desire in our hearts to make beauty. He delights in our creativity. His beloved children that make things.
We no longer need to run from present time in search of the place where we think life is really happening.~Henri Nouwen
I have this nasty habit of creating expectations for my life. It's like hearing the door bell ring and the florist handing me a dozen white roses instead of red ones. "Doesn't my love know I wanted red ones, not white?" There's no way to exchange them. There's no way to send them back. I can either place them in a vase and pine for red roses or find the beauty in the white ones.
I've had this attitude since landing in a Pandemic. This is not what I anticipated. I was supposed to get red roses. I wasn't planning on having to adjust.
It's better for me to adapt, to let go. I can't hang on to the expectation that life will go back to "normal." And yearning for a place where I think "life is really happening" is a fantasy.
Just yesterday morning as I drove across the bridge to work, I became newly aware of how beautiful the city of Charleston is--this view I've been privileged to see so many days for over a decade. The boats lingered in the silvered waters like peaceful birds. The clouds were displayed in billowed waves, impaled with light. The sky streamed gold and crimson. I set my intention as I inhaled that scene to receive God's mercy, His peace, His faithfulness, remembering that His perfect love casts out fear. That COVID does not intimidate Him. That He can teach me to bury my nose in the fragrance of my white roses and enjoy their delicate snowy petals.
I know a lot about pain, about the ways in which pain is tied to loss. But I also know something less commonly understood: that change and loss travel together. We can't have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same.~Lori Gottlieb (From Maybe You Should Talk To Someone)
Change. As a world, during COVID we're all dealing with imposed revisions, and still tasked to manage everyday life.
This week I read a poem once again that we Americans all know from ninth grade English: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. (I write it here for your recollection):
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Sometimes I've thought that the road Frost decided to take was somehow "the better choice." But as I contemplate the poem now having lived a few decades, I understand that roads not taken are perhaps just as good, really. Maybe even easier. Or even better. Frost states the road he did not choose was "just as fair" and he longed to travel both.
We can't simultaneously take both roads. Though we try in this world of FOMO (fear of missing out). Perhaps the Pandemic is providing us more opportunity for interior exploration and adventure. Perhaps the mandated pause gives us increased margin to ponder change. To ponder choices. I'm asking myself some questions about divergent roads I face now...
How do I remain open to change?
Where do crossing the borders of my vulnerability take me?
Am I brave enough to make changes and risk loss of the familiar?
We never really know for sure what destinations roads not taken may have yielded. But destination is not necessairly the most crucial focal point. The heart of the matter is the journey, the pilgrimage, the assurance of God's grace and guidance along the way.
Above all, constantly echo God's intense love for one another, for love will be a canopy over a multitude of sins. Every believer has received grace gifts, so use them to serve one another as faithful stewards of the many-colored tapestry of God's grace.~I Peter 4:8,10 (The Passion Translation)
It's hard to know what to do. Seems the world just keeps getting sadder by the minute. There is a tendency to give up, give in. But somewhere deep in our hearts, we know that to remain in fear and despair is not the answer.
A few weeks ago, I wrote in a post that our hearts had been plowed by the racial unrest in our midst. I asked my readers to write to me about what they wanted to plant in the furrowed fields of their hearts. The consensus of the response was this: I will love better. I will pray for peace and justice. I will do what God calls me to in my sphere of influence. One reader provided this beautiful metaphor: "I received this vision of a smiling God holding a huge burlap bag marked GRACE in red letters. All I had to do was snip a corner and begin planting seeds in the fertile ground."
What if we all snipped the corners of our burlap bags and began planting the seeds God has gifted us with?
At times, I don't regard my gifting as enough to do much good. The main part of my work is listening. Holding space for people in pain. Just this week, I sat, "metaphorically," with a woman in a telehealth session. Less than a year ago, her two teenage grandchildren were killed in a car accident.
She said, "I don't really want to talk about what happened, yet I do. People tell me, people that are supposed to love me, say, 'You've got to move on.' But what if I don't want to move on? What if moving on makes me forget?"
"It feels good to say aloud what you're really thinking. To get those words out in the open," I said.
"Yes!" she almost shouted through the phone. "I think the thing I want most through all this pain is to be real. I just want to be real. I don't want to have to pretend."
"Sometimes to be real can feel unsafe in our culture. People can feel afraid of our realness."
"I know," she said. "Maybe moving toward being real is something good that can come out of all this tragedy--a sort of weird paradox. Thank you for being a safe space for me," she said. "I didn't expect I'd say these things today."
I'd uttered two sentences. Perhaps my breath over the phone, another human being listening, was an echo, a bright strand threaded through the tapestry.
There's another related concept that I share: impermanence. Sometimes in their pain, people believe that the agony will last forever. But feelings are actually more like weather systems--they blow in and they blow out. Just because you feel sad this minute or this hour or this day doesn't mean you'll feel that way in ten minutes or this afternoon or next week. Everything you feel--anxiety, elation, anguish--blows in and out again.~Lori Gottlieb (From Maybe You Should Talk To Somebody)
I walk into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes, my hair sticking out in unattractive angles after a fitful night's sleep.
"How are you doing? asks my husband, Giovanni.
"Oh, I'm really sick of all the misery in the world. I'm so done," I say.
"Well," he says, "We're having burgers on the grill today." He smiles.
I smile back. "You're right. It's good to think about now, about today."
"Want to go for a walk?" Giovanni asks. "We could get out before it's too hot, then come home and shower and hunker down in the air conditioning." He smiles again.
I waver. Do I really want to coat myself with insect repellent? I'll be sweating like a maniac before we get home, even though it's not yet eight in the morning. My ambivalence hangs in the air, but before I can change my mind, I say, "Yes. Let's do it."
I'm not sure how we missed going down "Up On The Hill Road" over the years we've lived in our neighborhood. Today is our first trek on the unpaved street that lies between two luxury apartment complexes. We notice multiple structures on either side of us, clusters of tiny residential squares with screened in porches. Then suddenly, there are no more buidlings and for about a half mile we see only land covered with snarly vines and weeds blooming purple and white. Then to our left, we are struck with such an unexpected view, that we both stop in amazement. It's as if we walked through a secret doorway and found treasure. There in a sun-dappled field stands an oak tree, ivy creeping up its trunk and Spanish moss draped over its branches. The tree is massive. If it could speak, I'd imagine the ancient oak might say, "Welcome. I've been waiting for you. Tell me how you've been."
"Giovanni," I exclaim. "I never knew what was down this road. What a gorgeous oak."
"It is," he says.
We move on down to the end of "Up On The Hill Road." We find a private community dotted with houses. We can't tresspass, but marvel at the peaceful neighborhood. "I never knew this was here either," I say. It seems what lies behind the hidden door keeps delivering surprises.
One more time we walk past the old oak, staring at its beauty, absorbing the tranquility it exudes.
I hesitate, but blurt out to Giovanni as we head back, "I had really bad dreams last night. In one, I was about to be attacked by an evil guy in the parkng garage at work; in another you had gone away, and I didn't know why. When I woke up, I didn't know if you were gone or not. And when I realized it was a dream, relief washed over me." Why was I telling him something so dark when we'd just observed the beautiful tree?
Before I can sink into regret for what I've disclosed, Giovanni says, "Priscilla, it was a dream. Only a dream. And as you can see I am here."
We are home. I shower and remember with some delight that today we will feast on burgers.