It is Virginia Woolf who is credited with the notion that for most of history anonymous was a woman. I thought of that yesterday when a friend (who is more like a mentor) was intently praising me on my writing and expressed that I should continue. Then she said, “Perhaps you should write under a pseudonym.”
That statement made me wonder. I think she felt that without my name or life connected, that I could write my story even more vulnerably— bravely, truthfully. She thinks
My Story is one that many people Feel, Live, Carry.
One of the many things I like about being with her, and at the same time frustrates me, is that I often go away from conversations without Answers—pondering hard things, wondering, asking myself questions, many questions.
She’s so Open and Free—with her time, ideas, insights, her life, that it compels me and draws me in to the freedom in which she lives life.
I know that I don’t live with that sort of freedom—not yet. I live with fear of reprisal, with sheer guilt over my Life’s Narrative so far.
I live with the Fear Beast. I live with the Guilt Monster.
Yesterday, I read from Richard Rohr that the phrase “Do not be afraid” is present in the Bible up to 365 times. It’s the most common one liner in the Bible. A command of sorts, DO NOT BE AFRAID. The imperative when the angel of the Lord told Mary, who was selected to be the mother of Jesus, Do not be afraid.
I breathe deeply, knowing. I can certainly get stuck
in the life I’ve lived so far feeling like it’s impossible to redeem it. Stuck in Fear. Stuck in the Shame Story, feeling nothing but Regret. For it’s a story of Redemption (for sure) which means mistakes, sin and regrets. But that’s not the point really, My Regret.
In Being Human and facing our humanity we aren’t disqualified from the Story of God, but rather
right in the middle of God’s Grace. I want to learn to trust Jesus’ powerful presence in My Story and believe that somehow all this serves a Greater Purpose.
I have long believed that if I could sort out how to write it down, the poems and prayers of lament in my story, then it would be Redeemed through the Telling. If I write it down. And before then, or even while that’s progressing, I want
TO BE the person Redeemed, Wholly Forgiven, compelled by Grace, driven down on my knees perpetually,
for I want to live a life worth
writing.
Logic & Imagination 