Simone Beauvoir, the brilliant philosopher and life-long partner of Jean-Paul Sartre describes in Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter her pleasure in studying philosophy.
She
found grown up, brilliant people seriously discussing the very same questions
which had intrigued her as a child. Eternity. The good life. God. Right. Wrong.
Happiness. Time. Goodness.
* * *
I find the same pleasure
in theology. It deals with the same questions which puzzled me as a child. Is
there a God? Is Christ God? Why did Christ die, and for whom? How can I be
happy? How should I live? What is the purpose of life?
* *
*
And
blogging for me only retains its fun when it has a child-like sense of play.
Taking ideas, thinking them through, recording my conclusions.
Capturing
stray bluebirds and hummingbirds of thought.
Occasionally
sharing cool and fascinating things I’ve learned-- beach glass and smooth beach
pebbles and starfish of facts.
Recording
little ideas, little insights, little delights.
Whenever
I get too ninja about it, and want to write big, significant, meaty
posts, which make people think, and get shared and retweeted, blogging takes too
long, and loses its fun. Stress enters the domain of play.
And my
life becomes slightly less pleasurable because my blog is taking too much time,
and making “real writing” impossible.
* * *
So, when
I was praying about my blog today, I heard surprising advice, but advice I have
heard before, “Lower your standards.”
Yeah!!
Because
you see, when I am trying to write flawless posts which will get widely read
and shared, my focus is on the writing, not on the giver of ideas. I am
unconsciously more focused on me-- what I, the writer, am fashioning, and on
the readers who will read it, than on what the Giver and the Inspirer is saying
and giving. There is less joy in it, more stress in it.
And
ironically, my blog may actually do more good if, instead, I ask, “So what are
you saying to me, Lord? What are you teaching me?” or even “What’s on my mind?”
And
these may be small things, but they may speak to someone I do not know.
One
aspect of a prophetic ministry is tuning in to God’s thoughts and sharing them
with others.
Can a
blog do this? I would like mine to try.
* * *
I know
that I have the most fun, and the most delight in writing when I calm down, and
tap into the stream of what God is saying to me, or even into my own inner
stream of consciousness, and then record it, be it a minuscule humble insight
or a life-changing one.
For we
need both, don’t we? Cups of coffee, glasses of cold water, snacks, and the
occasional banquet.
And
I find the most joy in blogging when being at play in
the fields of the Lord, or the fields of the blog, become one and the same.
Reminds me of a quotation from Chesterton about being careless, in the sense of not caring so much, not being so worried and willful, and about art -- how artists do art because they have to -- it burns within them and must come out -- whereas some who want to be artists spend their time and energy thinking about art and about their art and sort of talking around it.
ReplyDelete(While I see and appreciate his point, I also see how talking and thinking about things is not ALWAYS about being worried or avoiding the substance / core / essence / foundation or manufacturing art out of nothing, but can be play and a snack.)
I have certainly spent a huge amount of time thinking, talking, worrying, fretting about art, and not creating it. But as long as one is alive, one can change, thank goodness!!
ReplyDeleteSometimes I find it very easy to write when you have learnt something about God, or something has happened and you just bursting to tell people about it... I love your posts Anita, you are blessed as a blogger for a reason. It would be really cool to see a few where you have not thought so much about them, but where you are just bursting to tell people because it has just happened... They might complement the ones you think through a lot!
ReplyDeleteFunny, Louise, I consistently hear God tell me to write the little things he tells me, teaches me or shows me as they occur, and I feel they are too slight.
ReplyDeleteI guess I need to give up the idol of being a ninja blogger so to allow God to speak through my blog to anyone he wants to speak.
Because the long, meaty posts often don't work, particularly!!
Good thoughts that: take the pressure off, relieve the urgency of making world changing impact,and release me from owning the results.
ReplyDeleteStill I can't help but feel a tension between honing the craft and using it.
Thanks, Les, and welcome to my blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks to daily blogging, I have discovered that the craft gets honed in the doing of it.
My posts are so much better than they were a year or nine months ago. I guess constant practice has sharpened the writing--and made it conversational rather than literary (which is a good thing for a blog, I guess).