Luke 2:15-19 – Let My Blog, or My Writer's Vanity, GO!
15 So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. 17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. 18 And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. New King James Version
"Real writers," the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik who would know characterizes, "ought to bear witness to transformation rather than pretend it hasn't happened."
Tuesday unfolded that way for me. It packed in transformation with unusual coherence within the subtle, small-scale context of one life. In accordance with Gopnik's dictum, and my own time proven experience that I will forget otherwise, I took to writing.
That there were characters involved in this compact narrative who seemed real because they were real no doubt deepened the impact of the day's events on me. I thought different sides of myself because I interacted with them.
But casting real people in one's story brings ambiguity as well as impact. Before, I've shared without permission and have suffered some memorable consequences. Before, I've removed so much texture and detail so as to protect people's identities that my writing doesn't engage. It's the tree falling in the forest that no one hears. I can see why people mix and match characteristics and write novels.
Still, I've recognized with The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging that if reading expands the heart of our intellect, writing provides the intellect with tone and definition. To avoid crossing the line into other people's privacy and prerogatives, the Lord challenged me to write for Him and myself until such time as any parties with information to protect had given consent. I'm waiting for that, and the absence of an audience is as hard on a would be writer as the actor-turned-spy in the movie Gettysburg says it is on an actor.
Since, as Bill Bryson wrote in At Home: A Short History of Private Life, "It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before,” I suppose the desire to amplify a private thrill into a public one is natural. Nevertheless, he paused before giving into that impulse is also an opportunity to reflect and commit that we live, and think, and write for God as an Audience of One.
Mary as the Holy Spirit describes her in Luke 2:15-19 gives us an encouraging example of that. She was in the middle of events more universally impactful than I will ever be. Other people who knew left, and were favored less meat events widely known. Even people who got the information secondhand were marveling. Mary's Luke 2:19 response shows that what to say and when it doesn't have to be dictated by the depth of what we feel, the culture around us, our habits, or even our temperament.
Knowing what she was a part of, knowing, as Francesca Battistelli phrased it for herself centuries later, she was already famous in her Father's eyes, she was able to hold her peace as one example for us. The Son she bore and before whom she lived at the parental example, of course, showed perfected the discipline she hinted at. Before His accusers, He opened not His mouth. Likewise, He taught His disciples, including us, that there would be a time that what He whispers, we can and must shout from the house tops.
Perhaps with that build up, when or if the publishing embargo is lifted by the student I interacted with will not seem so historic. Even so, I'm certain the reflection that must accompany appropriate disclosure is something we all think through, whether our Tuesday was a tight, shareable narrative or not.
Even as we, like Mary, hide in our hearts, wait for the Holy Spirit to bring to our remembrance, and seek His discernment in the sharing, we can act on what He is doing in us. Good Prose authors Tracy Kidder and Dick Todd confess, ""If I knew my own mind, I would not make essays. I would make decisions." Experiencing the renewing of our minds to events and encounters we may not be able to disclose until Heaven, we can live out that rarest of combinations on planet Earth, joyful decisiveness. Our actions can be our epitaph where words aren't yet available.
"Real writers," the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik who would know characterizes, "ought to bear witness to transformation rather than pretend it hasn't happened."
Tuesday unfolded that way for me. It packed in transformation with unusual coherence within the subtle, small-scale context of one life. In accordance with Gopnik's dictum, and my own time proven experience that I will forget otherwise, I took to writing.
That there were characters involved in this compact narrative who seemed real because they were real no doubt deepened the impact of the day's events on me. I thought different sides of myself because I interacted with them.
But casting real people in one's story brings ambiguity as well as impact. Before, I've shared without permission and have suffered some memorable consequences. Before, I've removed so much texture and detail so as to protect people's identities that my writing doesn't engage. It's the tree falling in the forest that no one hears. I can see why people mix and match characteristics and write novels.
Still, I've recognized with The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging that if reading expands the heart of our intellect, writing provides the intellect with tone and definition. To avoid crossing the line into other people's privacy and prerogatives, the Lord challenged me to write for Him and myself until such time as any parties with information to protect had given consent. I'm waiting for that, and the absence of an audience is as hard on a would be writer as the actor-turned-spy in the movie Gettysburg says it is on an actor.
Since, as Bill Bryson wrote in At Home: A Short History of Private Life, "It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before,” I suppose the desire to amplify a private thrill into a public one is natural. Nevertheless, he paused before giving into that impulse is also an opportunity to reflect and commit that we live, and think, and write for God as an Audience of One.
Mary as the Holy Spirit describes her in Luke 2:15-19 gives us an encouraging example of that. She was in the middle of events more universally impactful than I will ever be. Other people who knew left, and were favored less meat events widely known. Even people who got the information secondhand were marveling. Mary's Luke 2:19 response shows that what to say and when it doesn't have to be dictated by the depth of what we feel, the culture around us, our habits, or even our temperament.
Knowing what she was a part of, knowing, as Francesca Battistelli phrased it for herself centuries later, she was already famous in her Father's eyes, she was able to hold her peace as one example for us. The Son she bore and before whom she lived at the parental example, of course, showed perfected the discipline she hinted at. Before His accusers, He opened not His mouth. Likewise, He taught His disciples, including us, that there would be a time that what He whispers, we can and must shout from the house tops.
Perhaps with that build up, when or if the publishing embargo is lifted by the student I interacted with will not seem so historic. Even so, I'm certain the reflection that must accompany appropriate disclosure is something we all think through, whether our Tuesday was a tight, shareable narrative or not.
Even as we, like Mary, hide in our hearts, wait for the Holy Spirit to bring to our remembrance, and seek His discernment in the sharing, we can act on what He is doing in us. Good Prose authors Tracy Kidder and Dick Todd confess, ""If I knew my own mind, I would not make essays. I would make decisions." Experiencing the renewing of our minds to events and encounters we may not be able to disclose until Heaven, we can live out that rarest of combinations on planet Earth, joyful decisiveness. Our actions can be our epitaph where words aren't yet available.
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