*******

Blessed Father, May the dislocation come to pass that I may lean hard upon the staff you have given me.

I bought a new cell phone recently, which has a 3.2 megapixel camera, which in my mind is a kind of precursor to a DSLR camera that I hope to get in the near future. Yes, photography is on my mind.

When I was a lad, I used to go on photo jaunts with my Aunt Ruth, who was a world traveler and an avid photographer. In fact, I remember on one occasion entering a few photos into a kind of contest sponsored by the photography club that she belonged to. No, I did not win anything, but I think I got a number of positive remarks, and more importantly some feedback. Regardless of what happened, however, I remember the thrill of seeing one of my photographs “up there” on display, for others to bear witness to. In short, thrilling.

All this said, the purpose of this post is not primarily to talk about my plans to recover a passion lost along the way. It’s about my attempt to break this brief period of blogging silence. As I have said elsewhere, I love and hate writing. When I am looking at the blank page, I hate writing because I am overwhelmed by possibilities, and I hate being overwhelmed. Once I have gotten a few words down, however, and once the meaning and rhythm of those words begin to take shape, I begin to truly enjoy writing. So, this blog is about getting a few words down, and perhaps it is about giving the bird to the critical part of myself that tends to squelch my desire to write (or do anything for that matter).

So, here it is. A picture and a few words. The picture is my two feet, connected to my crossed legs, which are connected to my seated body, on top of which is my thinking head. I am thinking about life, the human condition, and the salvation of my soul. I am also thinking about good food, good movies, good books, and some ideas I might pursue to create some good pictures, as well as the inspiration I feel when I look at good photography, hear good music, or participate in good conversation. Perhaps, in the end, my two feet just represent my need to get off butt and take a few steps. Whatever the case may be, my silence is now broken.

*******

I saw
a white bag
billowy in the wind,
like a jelly fish on
fresh lawn tumbling.
A white bag
for groceries,
discarded,
now dancing
across my lawn
alive.

At least the van had the decency to signal its impending failure, which prompted me to turn around at the edge of town, and go right back to locate a garage. Moreover, it had the decency to fight the good fight all the way till I was able to park it in the lot of that garage, a garage that was located right across the street from Chillis, which meant that the family had a relatively nice place to hang out and eat while a mechanic attempted to heal our ailing van.

Anyways, over 3000 dollars later, here we are, my family and I, on the threshold of embarking on the same journey, and I have a slight knot in my stomach, which will likely tighten when I go past that same garage, on that long strip of road right through nowhere, between here and there, where the lapping waves of the coast are calling our name. Surely this time we will make it, but just in case, if you are one who prays, I would appreciate you mentioning my name, my family, and my van, whom you can call Rocinante.

Perhaps glory and pseudo-glory will be my theme for the new year. Amidst the temptation to make new year’s resolutions, so that I can have a better life and be a better me, I will instead pray for God to show me all the ways I buy into false glory, so that I can pursue the only real glory that comes through faith and following him who made himself nothing to give everything to others.

I need to get my grade book in order. I wonder if I can look at all the legitimate responsibilities hanging over me, that rage at me like the waves and winds of a storm, and if, like Christ, I can look at them and say, “Peace! Be still” and calm them. The deal is, the biggest struggle in not my circumstances, but my immature character, my lack of discipline, and my raging emotional life. I have this nagging feeling that I am constantly living with the water up to my neck, and consequently, I have a deep desire to distract myself with whatever I can get a hold of. There must be some kind of lie spinning in my head. Cause, I can see how I am undermining myself, and sapping my energy through so much worry and stress. How not like a child I am, and yet how childish.

I am a very self-conscious person, too much for my own good. I used to think that my ability to introspect on deep levels was my super power. I knew myself more than most knew themselves. I was Kierkegaard, and other people seemed so out of touch, not aware of their motives, and the motives behind their motives. Everyone else was blissfully ignorant of how egoism and pride can stain even their best acts. But I knew, and this knowledge gave me insight into myself, others, and even into God. Of course you can’t introspect God. He is beyond us. But I knew my soul and so I thought I knew the terrain that God wanted to inhabit, and I probably thought I could give him a map to my soul.

At some point this all turned on me. What I thought was my strength became my curse. I realized that the self is an abyss, and that my plumb line would never hit bottom. I saw that the self is an unformed reality, an unstable substance, of which I could peel off layer after layer after layer and still go digging trying to find something genuine and real. Fortunately, hope came after a long period of darkness (one that I must admit has not completely lifted) when it struck me that the self is something that can only be understood in relationship. I began to think that maybe God constituted us this way, because he made us for himself, and therefore the essence of who we are as humans, and as individuals, is something deeply embedded in our relationship with him. Consequently, there is no self to discover, at least not in autonomy. Instead, the true self is discovered in God; when we pursue him we find ourselves. In the words of Jesus, when we lose our lives for his sake, we find it.

But all of this started with me being self aware of my writing. Writing can use introspection but it goes beyond it, because it is a way of getting the self out on the page and objectifying it. In writing I walk a high wire over the abyss and in some way it provides a balancing bar that keeps my feet planted. On the other hand, writing is like a net. It allows me to walk and drop a line without fear of falling in. Honestly, I’m not sure how to characterize it, but what I do know is that writing allows me to make connections that I very likely would have not made if I kept it all in my head. This is why I view writing as a gift and a prayer. This my writing riff.

Anyways, this post represents the inauguration of a new category called, “Writing Riffs.” I hope it will be the means by which I maintain the Golden Mean. In the written communication class that I teach, one of the assignments I give my students is a freewriting journal, which is an idea inspired by composition scholar Peter Elbow. Freewriting is basically putting your hand to paper and letting words flow without worry about grammar, concern about correctness, or any number of things that our inner editor tends to get hung up on that further tends to squelch our words. Elbow’s conviction was that regular practice of freewriting strengthens a writer’s natural voice, an element critical to good writing. He also felt it helped writers more successfully navigate the writing process, as it allowed a writer to separate the generative aspect from the editing aspect of writing.

To be honest, my posts for this category will not be strict freewriting. Rather, I will approximate some of the dynamics of freewriting as I attempt to bang out a new “Writing Riff”. If I am right, you will soon see more of these kinds of posts, and if I am wrong, then I will have a written testimony against me, the thought of which will hopefully inspire me, at least for the sake of saving my ego, to keep at this thing.