I have not shied away from writing because I am too tired or overwhelmed from difficult things or even busy with good, enjoyable things. I have suppressed my voice because I am afraid of it. I am afraid that I am to rash in speaking out strongly about things. I am afraid that I am wrong. I am afraid that I am not wise enough. I am afraid of always being negative. I am afraid of not being funny or fun or light-hearted. I am afraid that I will be offensive. I am afraid that I will be seen as trite. I am afraid that I will be seen as sappy. I am afraid of rocking the boat and falling out into the realness of life.
When something is in my head, I can nurture it and it is not exposed to the criticisms of others. Once I have voiced a thought or written it down, others may think what they want and I am powerless.
What am I writing for? To keep my friends and family entertained? To put them at ease about what I am doing and who I am becoming while I am physically far away and living through a formative time in my life? I feel like I've been writing to put people at ease, not to give voice to truths in my life. I intend to be real, but then I censor myself.
Even if what I say now is not wise or entertaining or beautiful, it is what I am now. And that is fine. I need to embrace the now-ness and realize that I will look back on it and probably see how I have grown and matured. But I can't be anything different than I am now. I can't be more mature, more eloquent, wiser, or funnier.
I am also afraid of being redundant. I've been reading Martin Luther King, Jr. lately and he's redundant. At least conceptually repetitive. The crux of everything he said, whether the topic was civil rights or elimination of poverty or against the Vietnam War, was that people matter equally as children of God and only love and non-violence can achieve the peaceful family-hood for which the whole world yearns. He said this in many different ways and always used his best skills of writing and oratory to give life to the concept. But he didn't stop saying it because it had already been said. He kept repeating the root of his belief, not because it was a new concept, but because people needed the reminder.
The only things that I can write about are brokenness and beauty. They may come in different forms or have a concentrated imbalance at one time or another, but they are the root and they go hand in hand.
Because I am compassionate about the brokenness of consumerism, individualism, materialism, and other cultural addictions that contribute to the emptiness of life in myself and others - because of that, I am passionate about freedom in Christ that brings joy and wholeness through community, interdependence, simplicity, and trust that God's way brings true life. At times, yes, I am extremely weighted down by these thing. But I cannot express the joy of the light without explaining the reason why the darkness is so dark.
I apologize to myself for not always embracing the fullness of what I am processing, thinking, and feeling.
The only way that I can process the deepening understanding I have of the brokenness of myself and my relationships and the world around me - the only way I can deal with that is through opening myself to more beauty: daily prayer time becomes more tender; music becomes sweeter; worship washes me with emotion; biking in spring weather makes my spirit soar on sunlight; cuddling and talking with friends allows me to fall into their support; my simple participation in the world is opened to the beauty of a multitude of everyday things because I need to recognize that beauty in order to sustain myself.
We're reading a book on cultural addictions called Finding Our Way Home by Killian Noe, a woman pastor who started a drug-addictions recovery program here in DC through Church of the Saviour. She says, "Sometimes we hold onto various means of numbing our pain and other addictions that cripple us because the known is less terrifying than the unknown freedom we are being offered. Believe it or not, sometimes we choose to remain paralyzed in a certain area of our inner lives because we are terrified of feeling out of control and terrified of what might be expected of us if we were to become a little more free."
If I were more free to not be perfect, not be more mature that I am at the moment, not be wiser than my years, and not be more articulate than my own voice, then I might be expected to say things that rock my boat and rock other people's boats. I might be thrown out into the storm of brokenness. I might wash up on an island of beauty. I might drift aimlessly for a while. I might repeat the cycle all over again. Maybe those things are better than being confined to a small boat. Maybe.
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