It’s a lot right now. Afghanistan, Ida, COVID, voting rights, and whatever personal pain or worry is keeping you up in the night. It’s an awful lot. Are we making progress? Is progress even the goal? What about kindness, or truth, or mercy? Or just safe shelter and schooling for anyone who needs it? Do we even have what we need to start banging away at all the problems?
Anne Lamott provides what will be the start to my writing reflections today.
“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do’. And mostly, against all odds, they do.”
Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
What rusty tools are in your toolbox?
A little writing advice
Writing alone is powerful. Writing with others, even more so—at least for me. I’m not a champion journal-er, alone in my chair each morning at the same time. I’ve started and stopped more attempts at regular morning pages than I care to admit. That kind of daily discipline works for lots of writers, but not always for me. I’ve finally learned that my own spiritual practice of writing is one that doesn’t need a lot of structure. Just a good prompt, and occasionally the presence of others writing at the same time, and sometimes sharing. That’s one of the well-worn tools in my toolbox that keeps me putting words on a page, and paying attention to my life. What keeps you writing? I’d love to know.
If you want to try writing with others, I invite you to join my Fall Writing Group. We start on September 29th, and I’ve got a few spaces left.
