The magic of words

So I see it's been 10 months since my last visit to this blogging experiment. Really what leads me back today is just this latent desire to write and the pleasure of using words to express thoughts. I find hitting just the right combination of words that spot-on nail what I am attempting to articulate absolutely satisfying.

Really coming back today is prompted by my meeting with Mark and a passing comment I made about writing and his encouraging response. There have been a few others over the last year as well (thank you Rob, thank you Kevin). My dilemma is content. I don't want to simply prattle on in some self-absorbed treatise. And yet I'm not an expert in any particular area which is beckoning me to write on . And still there is this desire to express (suddenly I see movie clips in my head from Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Dreyfuss compelled to express Devil's Tower in whatever medium he could find, from mud to mash potatoes).

I do it in emails and email responses mainly. A couple of times there have been writings to accompany Sandi's art. Like little demitasse glasses of writing are these short pieces. But they often have contained some of the essence of what so intrigues me about writing. Namely, in the process of asking God what he would have me say, sort of abandoning my typing/writing fingers to him and having his words filter through the stained glass of my unique personality, I often end up writing words that are this weird combination of me and not me.

I confessed this to Mark at our coffee meeting. I say "confessed" because I have never really understood the feeling I often get when I go back and read my "own" words and find them ministering to me. Even to type it here seems unseemly, narcissistic even. But Mark's encouragement came in the form of assuring me that this experience has been cited by no less than C.S. Lewis and G.MacDonald, two men who I respect immensely.

Mark went on to describe that truth is truth, it is not owned by us, it is the very nature of God and given to us by him. But when we write, as Christians, seeking the guidance and blessing of our Father as to our words, we are in a position to express truth, uniquely filtered through our personality. Thus Jeremiah and Isaiah expressed the truth of God but not without their Jeremiah-ness and Isaiah-ness shining through as well. That so resonates with me. I so want to be about that. To find a way to more regularly be a sort of "river bank", (thanks Mark), that channels the revelatory water of truth mixed with my James-ness. Lord that, that is something in which I would be blessed to be fathered by you. Father me in this Lord....

The dilemma though still seems to be this content thing. I can be aware of a desire to write at certain times but it is shut down by "what to write about?". My current wiring has me as a guy who, if you put me in a room for an hour with a blank whiteboard, when you come back it will still be blank. I don't create so well ex nihilo. I do much better synthesizing pre-existing chunks of thought, rearranging, adding, deleting, further developing, responding, that sort of thing. Maybe I'm just an editor and should leave the heavy lifting of original writing to those more gifted and called? Other than my status as a child of God, do I even have a platform from which to write? Or is it all just a lot of self-deluded, self-absorbed drivel?

I guess at the very least I have this blog. It is a platform of sorts and there really are no outside expectations that it must measure up to. There is the bit about other's being able to comment but even that can be turned off as I understand it.
But what Lord would you have me write about? One subject, many little vignettes, just about my experience on this sojourn? I am willing, even desirous, but need your guidance.

Well good, this felt good. To get this up and out of me is either a start or perhaps just an end in itself...either way, this felt good. Thanks for dropping by again Santiago...don't be such a stranger.