Speak What You Know

Perhaps the most basic, introductory rule you encounter in your first creative writing class is "write what you know." It's wise advice, and we really need to apply to speaking -- not just writing (what about blogging? Wouldn't that be refreshing!).

I recently found myself in another conversation about "being single" (good grief, I grow extremely weary of that topic) and who had the most authoritative air and opinions to share but....the young married girl. (More amusingly, she wanted to tell us all what her young husband thought about this whole topic, i.e. unmarried women)! Perhaps she truly has something valuable to say, but that's not the question here. The question is this: is it appropriate for her to say it? And, much to my amazement, she is deeply insulted if someone (it wasn't me this time, thankfully) points out that she isn't qualified to comment. Get over yourself, sweetie.

Here's another one that pains me: when pastors speak about music. This is a big problem because I believe that, of all people, pastors should absolutely speak about music....but they are not qualified to do so. How heartbreaking is that? Unless you know, or at least understand the level at which you know, J. S. Bach's compositions....do not presume that you can make an observation about a cantata for Lent.

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." 

-- Winston Churchill

There are qualified speakers and there are qualified listeners. These are equally good things. However, nine times out of ten, in any given situation, you should be listening. But in this age of arrogance we believe personal opinions and learned scholarship are equal. Everyone is talking, but no one is listening.

More Conversations

You would think from my conversations that I must be the most interesting person in the world! This is not the case...I simply meet some of the world's most interesting people while riding the train. These are such kind and charming things sent my way, I treasure them up.

Today an older gentleman by the name of Peregrine, who chattered a million words a minute and smelled of tobacco, asked if I was a musician. I wasn't carrying any music books with me today so I was a little startled. When I asked him how he knew he says, "Oh, I could just tell." Alright then...

Pretending

"Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be." 

                                                                                                   -- Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Pretending, play acting, exercising the imagination, are all things we're naturally good at. I mean it -- we just tend to abandon these things once we get older and more distracted. Something about "knowing better" or being "in the real world" or whatever other nonsense.

In my post The Restorative Power of Fiction I would have preferred to call it The Restorative Power of Story because, as I hope you gathered, the barriers that we tend to believe exist between storytelling and reality really aren't there.

Struggling with Struggling

Follow-up post here.

Subtitled: Young Christian Women and the "Struggle With Singleness." Written in all seriousness with my tongue firmly in my cheek.

Now here is something that always worries me when I try to talk about it...because I talk about it so badly. I don't want to point fingers, or make things overly emotional, or cause any undue distress. In the past I've been terribly misunderstood about this, and my reaction was to be blunt in an attempt to make my perspective as plain as possible. Over and over again this has only turned out, of course, to be unkind of me. Sometimes taking a hammer to drive home your point is simply not a good idea (especially with women!).

This topic keeps popping up, sometimes within the same week -- it's time to write the post and just ask in all gentleness and kindness: am I missing something here?

Here is the issue: I am finding more and more that the Christian girl from about, oh, nineteen or so starts to panic about finding a husband. This is especially true if her age mates have husbands. This girl -- and in my experience she isn't always nineteen, but sometimes twenty-three, or twenty-four, or twenty-five -- starts to go to singles events, owns some literature on the subject, and soon has a group of other single friends to buoy each other up as they "struggle" through their time of "being single" (Not my words).

Have You Had Your Lewis For Today?

"No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting it, not by giving in. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply do not know what it would have been like an hour later. 

That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it."  

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity   

Emphasis mine. 

Gentle Kindliness

It has been brought to my attention that my blog boasts far too much of myself. A superior attitude was not my intention but it seems, sadly, to have been the outcome. And I'm sorry for it.

So! I wish to propose a pact: future posts will focus solely on those many "favorite things" I enjoy and refrain from relying so heavily on my personal thoughts and/or experiences (true, a personal blog will always exhibit the personality of the writer, but I'll do my best not to draw special attention or importance to that aspect).

And so I find it necessary to ask for your patience and conclude with one last mention of myself: I am young and I am very honest -- this isn't always such a good thing. Some of the worst unkindnesses are committed in the name of honesty. I wish to replace my honesty with candor as the word was understood two hundred years ago: that is, not only to strive for frankness, openness, and sincerity but to do so with humility and gentle kindliness.

"...because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2: 4-7

Therefore!

"Be completely humble and gentle..." Ephesians 4: 2
"Be kind..." Ephesians 4:32