Sometimes, as a writer, and probably as a human, you hit a patch of dryness where the words your chewing on feel like a great mound of cotton, hardly worth uttering. You swallow them back down with a big gulp of water and you sort through the words left in your head. You find a sentence here and a phrase there that once sounded powerful, but now it just feels sort of hollow, empty, void.
You start to feel like your saying all the same things. Like there is nothing new to draw from. Like the spring has backed up and stopped flowing. You can’t stand the sound of your own voice. The sound of your own thoughts are even louder and more troublesome.
“What deadens us most to god’s presence within us; I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought.”
- Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner
I have heard myself speaking so much lately that I need to pull back for a bit and hear others. I need that refreshing water to pour in, the kind that can only come from community and re-uniting with God’s presence within me.
Saturday night over dinner, my voice was blaring in my head. I had returned to old negative tapes of discouragement and poverty, and I was playing them with great fanfare. The problem with being a writer (an artist) is you think you always have to have something wise and life-changing to offer someone. You think you always have to have more to give then the person you’re seated across from. You get confused and think you aren’t ever to be on the receiving end. And let me tell you, this is a problem when you’re pulling “wisdom” and “hope” from a well that has run dry. All you manage to do is offer up thick mud, trying to pass it off as something of beauty. It’s a sad little day when an artist is offering up mud.
In the muddiness of my thinking that nite at dinner I managed to knock over an entire cup of ice water, dousing my family in my mess. I can not explain the immense affection I felt towards the waitress who appeared out of nowhere with a towel and a kind word.
At that moment, I realized when you’re broken and when the words sound hollow in your head, you are never more willing to see the value in others. When you are empty suddenly everyone else has something of great value to offer you and you are finally open to receiving it.
“Well sometimes the sun shines on
Other people’s houses and not mine.
Some days the clouds paint the sky all gray
And it takes away my summertime.
Somehow the sun keeps shining upon you,
While I struggle to get mine.
If there’s a light in everybody,
Send out your ray of sunshine.“
- The Sunshine Song, Jason Mraz
This week on my blog, instead of offering up mud and trying to convince you it’s beautiful, I’m going to focus on the rays of sunshine that I’m receiving from others. I’m just going to bask in the light of all those around me, which includes you, and I’m going to take some time to let the well refill and the words regain richness. So please, go ahead, shine. Never doubt that others need your light.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
In a similar situation, with our recent AT thru-hike I feel the need to continue topping that. For most it is such a once in a lifetime thing and such an amazing adventure—and it is—but I feel like I need to keep doing extraordinary things and living my life out of the boundary of ‘normal’. While on the trail I realized how much I missed normal, how much I just missed doing regular dishes and simple chores and enjoying the beauty of that.
And here I am now, not quite happy either way. How can I mix living adventurously an living quietly? Hrm.
A week of listening…now that is an awesome idea. Thanks for writing, and may your well fill to overflowing.
I’m thinking of your statement that you always feel the need to have an answer or something wise and life-changing to share. The reason I keep coming back to your blog is not to receive your answers (although helpful, challenging, encouraging), but to read your questions. Your Messy Canvas — your process — it is what is so inspiring to me. Even your mud is beautiful, because I have mud, too. It’s nice to know I’m not alone, drowning in my mud without anyone to help pull me out. I hope and pray you receive an abundance of light to shine on you this week!