Change of Plans

Releasing control between what I'm doing and what I'm writing about + favorite reads from the week

A Girl Writing. Henriette Brown.

“The entirety of the Christian faith is an acknowledgment of our lack of control.” - Kendall Vanderslice

I am an intuitive person. Which means I am also an intuitive writer. Writing about being in my senses is proving to be rather long and laborious. Not to mention, there’s a split. While I set out to be present and engage my senses with this spiritual practice of bread making, I’m constantly aware that this will be or could be content for this week’s essay. I’d rather not cash in on what’s mine to practice and use it as product, you know? It’s as if I’m parsing out dough and still trying to control some aspect of what’s mine and what’s yours. I suppose that’s most of life, isn’t it? Relationships, marriages, friendships, parenting your kids, therapists, teachers…

So instead, I’m afraid I need to let go of the plan. You know, the six week writing plan that I said I’d do? Things are a little hot and crowded in the kitchen. My inner and outer life are very active and full. Much like the dough that I’m kneading, I see life bubbling to the top and God says that it’s good. He’s got a spot on my kitchen counter and is completely unbothered to watch over it while it rests and rises.

It’s been easy for me to write poetry during this spiritual practice. Which makes sense because poetry is intuitive. It captures feelings and moments and settles them on the reader’s skin. Depending on the temperature of the reader’s environment, their body, mind, and heart, the poem seeps in one way or another. There’s a difference between describing a moment that raptured all of your senses entirely, and reflecting that moment onto someone else.

For instance, in the novel I’m currently (slowly) reading, This is Happiness, by Niall Williams, our narrator describes this difference:

“Christy sang. I cannot tell you how startling it was. If you believe in a soul, as I do, then my soul stirred. The song was not composed by Christy, but by the alchemy of performance, you felt it was.

It seems to me the quality that makes any book, music, painting worthwhile is life, just that. Books, music, painting are not life, can never be as full, rich, complex, surprising or beautiful, but the best of them can catch an echo of that, can turn you back to look out the window, go out the door aware that you’ve been enriched, that you have been in the company of something alive that has caused you to realise once again how astonishing life is, and you leave the book, gallery or concert hall with that illumination, which feels I’m going to say holy, by which I mean human raptness.”

That’s how I want to write. I want to write things of beauty that allow you to reflect back onto your own life and realize how astonishing it all is. Pain and all. I think that will happen the more I’m in touch with my senses, but I sure as heck don’t need to tell you all about it. That’d be boring and pedantic. Anyway, we can turn to Marilynne Robinson and Hemingway to get a full feast. (Not boring at all!) But I hope it will make me a better writer as I cultivate this sensory practice. Ironically enough, its already showing me what kind of writer I want to be.

So, I’ll keep plugging along over here. Trusting that the Spirit is with me in the wilderness just as much as it is with you. Sometimes there is fire and He speaks, sometimes there is water out of a rock and sometimes there is silence. The temptation is to make a deal with God, and get Him to swap places. It’s sure fun to dance with Kate Bush in the kitchen, but sometimes I’m not sure who is the protagonist, Him or me. I guess we’ll work that out.

When there is something that bubbles to the top, I’ll share it with you. It will most likely be random and have no plan, but that’s usually how grace works.

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A meditation of the senses: 5-4-3-2-1

5 things you can see

4 things you can touch

3 things you can hear

2 things you can smell

1 thing you can taste

My younger self. An old friend. A place where I became a better baker. A green glass pitcher of water. Advertisement. // The time-worn door handle. Softness of a table cloth. Mild breeze coming in off the bay. A fresh loaf of bread. // Seagulls calling. My friend’s east coast humor. Classical radio station coming through the open door. // Salt water. Baked pastries and bread. // Blueberries smashed into lemon and sugar delighting my mouth.

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Some favorite reads from the week

• Rich Villodas
  on silence and justice.

Silence and Justice

• John Blase
  and his moving birthday salute to writer, Annie Dillard. Someone who I can’t wait to read more of because, I too, can’t stop thinking about God. But she writes and wrestles in a way that is so visceral, I know she will be a good teacher, just as she’s been for so many others.

  Holy The Form

• This poem by Jan Richardson: Beloved is where we begin

• A worker with World Relief on people of faith willing to be “misunderstood, even scorned, for the sake of the Kingdom of God.”

Beautiful Colors

• Joey Goodall writing this for Mockingbird. How great is it really if we find Jesus so relatable?

  “I don’t need a Jesus I can relate to on the level of my imperfections, I have literally everyone else for that.”