Two blogs in one day? Can it be?
Might be three by the time I am finished. I have so much to say today. And for a writer, that is a very good thing.
Since I already posted about New Year's Resolutions, I thought I should share mine with you all. My most important one for 2011...
I am going to be a writer.
Yes, I know, I already call myself a writer. I do write occasionally. My friend Celeste, who is an accomplished published writer, says one is a writer always, even if one is not currently writing. I wish I could agree with that statement. But my lackadaisical inner self is slowly revolting against the freedom in her belief.
You see, I am a writer who never writes.
I want to. I dream about writing. I stress about my lack of writing, my void of words if I were to sit down and write. But most of all...here it is in all its sad truth...
I am scared and lazy when it comes to writing.
Don't judge me, please.
But something awoke the writer inside of me the other night. Jolted me out of my deep slumber of unwritingness. A remembrance of a time when I loved words more than water.
I was searching for a quote to put on my facebook page, and there was a name, a writer, tickling my memory. I did vague Google searches for her name, a writer whom I had once greatly admired. So sad, I couldn't even remember her first name. Finally, by searching a large mess of keywords relating to one of her short stories, I found her.
Flannery O'Connor.
Obscure Twentieth Century Southern female writer, never to reach the popular heights of Virginia Woolfe or Eudora Welty, but brilliant, and as great an observer of human nature as Jane Austen. I had always wanted to be a writer, but her writings made me realize I could impact my little corner of the world with my words.
I read her quotes for two hours the other night. Finally chose one and stuck it up on my facebook page.
Finding her writings was like finding myself again after a long coma. I have struggled for years wondering what kind of writer I am, what my "voice" sounds like. I have found it. It was there all along, buried with my fears and apathy.
So, I may be a writer already, one who has not yet written. Or maybe I am becoming a writer as I put down words. Who knows? All I know is that in 2011 I will write. A lot. It is in my bones, I know with all of me God created me to write. So I shall set aside my fears and laziness and work hard, even when I do not want to, even when there are no quick words ready. I have learned there are always words, one must just sometimes dig them up out of deep ground.
There it is, my huge, gigantic New Year's resolution. Pray for me as I live it out in 2011, please. And please share yours with me so I can pray and support you also. :)
Friday, December 31, 2010
New Things...
It is January 31, New Year's Eve 2010. A very cold and snowy morning here in Denver. Us Denverites have waited over 3 months for this snow, and it is gorgeous, crisp and sparkling. Perfect.
I have a lot of thoughts about New Year's. The main one is I generally don't care for it. It has always seemed strange to me, having this "new start" plopped down in the freezing cold of winter, one week after the busiest holiday of the entire year. I figured everyone needed something to distract them from the huge letdown that comes after all the Christmas build-up and planning are over...twenty minutes after all the presents are opened. At the very least, I figured New Year's was getting jipped in its holiday rights- every other holiday gets a proper build-up and plenty of time to buy silly decorations. Valentine's Day displays popped up in stores a week ago, after all.
If I were to plan a "New Year" holiday, I would put it in mid-spring, the first week of May. Plenty of tulips in bloom, and lots of warm rain and green grass. It might hit a little close to Easter some years, but that would just mean more ham biscuits at parties. Now doesn't that sound perfect, bees buzzing and baby bunnies hopping around the flowers? I can smell the honeysuckle at midnight now.
But I suppose there is a problem with this spring New Year's of mine. It shows all the rewards of the creation of another year without any of the effort. "New" implies change. And change is not all bunnies and tulips, it is hard work. And messy.
II Corinthians 5:17 says:
"Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten and everything is new."
Sounds like spring to me.
The new happens in our hearts immediately, Christ gives us a new heart instantly. But the living out of that newness is a process, driven by the choices we make each day. We surrender to Christ's leading each morning. We fall, we get back up.
Just like our New Year's resolutions. We choose to change something, to make something "new" in our lives, and then we go about the hard work to accomplish it. It might be new in our hearts immediately, just like the spring, but it must be lived out in the hard work of winter.
So maybe those calendar planners knew what they were doing after all. As you move about the next few months of winter, doing the difficult work of becoming new in some area of your life, I will be doing the same thing too. And when spring gets here, we will be new, just like the tulips and the bunnies. Just don't fall down and stay there. Choose your resolutions wisely, and then go make then happen.
Happy New Year all.
I have a lot of thoughts about New Year's. The main one is I generally don't care for it. It has always seemed strange to me, having this "new start" plopped down in the freezing cold of winter, one week after the busiest holiday of the entire year. I figured everyone needed something to distract them from the huge letdown that comes after all the Christmas build-up and planning are over...twenty minutes after all the presents are opened. At the very least, I figured New Year's was getting jipped in its holiday rights- every other holiday gets a proper build-up and plenty of time to buy silly decorations. Valentine's Day displays popped up in stores a week ago, after all.
If I were to plan a "New Year" holiday, I would put it in mid-spring, the first week of May. Plenty of tulips in bloom, and lots of warm rain and green grass. It might hit a little close to Easter some years, but that would just mean more ham biscuits at parties. Now doesn't that sound perfect, bees buzzing and baby bunnies hopping around the flowers? I can smell the honeysuckle at midnight now.
But I suppose there is a problem with this spring New Year's of mine. It shows all the rewards of the creation of another year without any of the effort. "New" implies change. And change is not all bunnies and tulips, it is hard work. And messy.
II Corinthians 5:17 says:
"Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten and everything is new."
Sounds like spring to me.
The new happens in our hearts immediately, Christ gives us a new heart instantly. But the living out of that newness is a process, driven by the choices we make each day. We surrender to Christ's leading each morning. We fall, we get back up.
Just like our New Year's resolutions. We choose to change something, to make something "new" in our lives, and then we go about the hard work to accomplish it. It might be new in our hearts immediately, just like the spring, but it must be lived out in the hard work of winter.
So maybe those calendar planners knew what they were doing after all. As you move about the next few months of winter, doing the difficult work of becoming new in some area of your life, I will be doing the same thing too. And when spring gets here, we will be new, just like the tulips and the bunnies. Just don't fall down and stay there. Choose your resolutions wisely, and then go make then happen.
Happy New Year all.
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