Where is that essay?

[dhunt]

Will someone please tell me where that essay is (I don't know the title), written, I think, by a DT editor, on writing as a vocation?

[katycarl]

Sounds like me or Eleanor:

dappledthings.org/peterpaul07/essay02.php

or

dappledthings.org/le09/essay02.php

[dhunt]

Thank you.

[dhunt]

Now I've read them, thanks very much indeed. You must stow that someplace safe, Katy dear; it's valuable.

Every once in a while, a blanket, on which are placed all the pieces and parts of our lives, gets tossed up in the air. Sometimes this happens as the result of some event--graduation, falling in love, the discovery of a serious or terminal illness, a surprising pregnancy, a religious conversion experience, the death of a spouse--to name a few. It may also happen as the seeming-sudden culmination of a long-seething discontent that had not even been recognized as such before--or, maybe, as my Aunt Edna said, "just plain boredom."

The reflex at such a point is to grab control, to restore order. Wrong. There are times when we must stand back and allow form to arise out of chaos, with no attempt to impose our own, often desperate, will on things. This requires attentive patience. Control freaks have a hard time with it, but there's a reason behind some of our tired old conventions. There's a reason one shouldn't re-marry or even think about it for a minimum of one year after a spouse has died, for example. It's always a mistake. Just so with other things. Don't change careers, move away, none of that. Be still. Wait. It's not a time to speak, but to listen.

Long-seething discontent has recently revealed that how I live has been a consequence of where I live, and that where I live must now be determined by how I live. The blanket is, at present, in the air. When the how-I-live piece finds its place on the blanket, the where-I-live piece will follow. Its priority is newly absolute, and it must be the deciding factor of everything else. It may even turn out that I remain here--with only changes, perhaps, in priorities or perspectives. I don't know. But the essay was / is an important piece of things.

[firefolk]

Keep an eye out for Snoopy.

[dhunt]

Egad.

[katycarl]

Sounds like quite a plot twist, Dena. You'll be in my prayers.

[dhunt]

Thanks, Katy. Things get sorted, slowly, if we have patience, the willingness to rely on God, and the ability to pay attention. I'm afraid these are qualities lost in these modern times, especially among women. Such things were once among their greatest strengths. They have no patience now, they rely only on themselves, and they are so much more likely to demand attention that many have forgotten how to truly give it. Merciless with themselves, they become cruel to others.

Eleanor speaks of the relationship between writing and contemplative prayer, and I have to agree that the latter is necessary to the former, even if the secular writer is unaware of it. I think that, although aggression may produce worldly success in writing, it will never produce literature. For that, one must know how to listen.

Be all that as it may, it appears that I must remain exactly where I am for now and for the immediate future, with or without my contentment. And that's where real choice comes in: I choose to be content. "I shall not want" means, literally, "I shall have." Wanting *means* not having. If one chooses to want, one is literally choosing not to have. But comprehending that requires complete reliance on the Shepherd, and like the psalmist, acceptance of a mere sheep's lowly status. I know how blessed I am to have no envy of the lion.

Your lovely essay seems to me to explore not so much what one wills, but what turns out when one turns over one's will. Whether I have a "vocation" in writing is not a decision I make. Rather, it's an assessment that may or may not be made after the fact. I'll write if he gives it to me to do, and I won't if he doesn't. I'm fine either way.

What troubled me so much, frankly, was my own reaction to flattery and to rejection. Other people's response should not determine whether I write or not; only he should have that power. I was giving what was his to other other people. If I continue to write, I'll continue as I've done: submit it for acceptance. If it's rejected, I don't go there again, but shake the dust from my feet and move on. If it's accepted and I'm flattered, well, I know where it really came from.