New Year “Adventures” and a Strange Gift

I have even found, by grace, a lesson in 2019’s first “adventure”: watch whence you’re drawing your strength.

You see, I am pleased with all we accomplished in 2018. April saw the release of my first poetry collection, Songs in the Gate; in July, I finished the first draft of my latest novel, The Ancient; in November, we released The Ancient and continued to promote it through the end of the year. In between, there were blogs and poems – not to mention all the other “life” stuff involved in building a new home in a new place.

2019 has a lot to live up to.

It would have been easy to run into this new year on the steam from 2018, alternately intimidated by the standards I feel I’ve set for myself and bolstered up by an entirely mistaken confidence in my own abilities. If I had jumped right back into my routine, it would have been difficult to govern the frequent swings between “I’ve got this; I’ve done all this before” and “Oh my giddy aunt, what if I can’t do it this time?”

Maybe it’s good to have a couple weeks that, in their refusal to be “normal”, nudge me back to a quiet place where I can recalibrate my compass.

As a Christian, I believe everything I do and say is – or should be – worship. Every day is an opportunity to know Jesus better and – hopefully – become more like him.

Writing is a part of that – just a part.

If it ever becomes “the main thing” – if the reason I write is so I can feel like a writer, or if I start trusting my own creativity rather than the One who gave it to me – then I am lost.

I need not be overwhelmed when the ideas flow, nor afraid when they don’t. I cannot feel vain as I regard the page full of words, and neither should I dread the blank page. Furthermore, I need not see either as foundation stones of my identity.

I am a writer, but that is only part of me.

And while I hope to write a great deal in 2019, my worth does not depend on the quantity or quality of the words I produce.

It is comforting to remember that, either way, my personhood is not at stake.

Thus, even sickness is grace, for it has inspired me to curl up once more at the feet of Him who speaks the Word, and try to go into 2019 listening. If I miss that, then I will miss everything else along with it.

It’s like Lucy says to Aslan at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when he tells her she can no longer return to Narnia:

“‘It isn’t Narnia, you know,’ sobbed Lucy. ‘It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?’”

Of course, then Aslan tells her that she shall meet him in our world, too:

“‘This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.’”

May our labor in 2019 be like Narnia, ever attuning our eyes and ears to recognize Aslan when he comes.

For now, a poem that expresses all of this better than my fumbling attempts above. (I hope.)

I’m off to take more doses of The Office. See you next week, friends.

You

You
Not the gift
Not the sweet ache
       the silent rush
       the suffusive sense of exultant wonder
But the You of whom these are but portents
    – signs, tokens, omens:
    the calling card of a gentleman.
One does not wed the photograph
    nor invite it in for tea
But keeps it, frames it, honors it:
    the treasured means to a forgotten end – 
Nay, if the end be forgotten
    not only the means, but
    all beginnings are
          lost.
Break the frame and RUN.
Tear the dream to pieces with your hands
    (use your teeth if necessary)
And cast them upon the wind
Seeds to form a treasure map
Lethal sweets redeemed into a trail
     each step a sapling
     each tree an altar
Follow the full-grown bread path
     the scattered “means”
To the end
The end in which all beginnings
    – and every middle –
        find their home.
No time to knock; I am expected
And welcomed, empty-handed
To the Source of every story
    the Fount of every tale
Eager to read and write afresh
The gift that is in
The gift that is
You.