The Sum of Me is You

It has always been a bit of a thistle-point with me that I do not play an instrument. Everyone else in my family does. Even Grace, at seven years old, can manage more one-finger tunes on the piano than I. But, like Elizabeth Bennet, I have always considered that my fault because "I would not take the trouble to practice." I sing, yes, but that is hardly the same as being able to sit down to an instrument and bring forth emotion from the keys or strings or mouth-piece. Sometimes, when I've run out of words and my heart is fair to bursting with some sorrow or concern or longing, I will run my fingers over the keys of our piano like a lisping scholar trying to fathom a Latin text, and feel hopelessly illiterate. I know a good bit of music theory from early lessons and my father has started again a music theory class for my sisters and I. I balked when the proposal came up and laughingly told Mama I have no time. When pressed as to why I was so against the idea of an hour's class a few evenings a week I told her:

"I have no room in my life for being bad at things!"

As soon as I said it, I had one of those odd, blue-moon sensations of having unintentionally said something profound. I laughed it off as a joke, but when I reviewed this comment (after the first session of theory-class) I had to acknowledge that I partly meant what I said. See, I don't like being bad at things. I am accustomed to being good at what I'm good at, trying new things, and abandoning them if I don't show prompt aptitude; this variety of pride is my downfall. A person can't live a full life if they must be good at everything. To have no room for being bad at something...is that not the same as refusing adventure? I think of the example of those people one comes across at dinner-parties now and then. At the first few moments of conversation, one thinks one has finally discovered a new and interesting acquaintance: the person is well-informed and passionate about the subject on which you are conversing and all seems bright and beautiful. Then one begins to realize that the subject is the only subject on which the other person seems capable of speaking and the slow, entrapping sensation of having met a bore creeps down one's spine. When I realized this tendency of mine to not do a thing because I wasn't immediately good at it, I knew I needed to break this habit and quickly. If the world ran by the standards to which I was holding myself, think how dull it would be:

People without fine voices would never sing.

Children would never draw pictures because they weren't real artists.

Learning an instrument would be illegal unless you were a protege and knew instinctively.

You could only ever learn the one language to which you were raised.

Poor gardeners would not be permitted to try growing seeds.

Only the true athletes would be allowed to jog or play sports.

Dancing could be done only by professionals.

And on and on the dull, drab world would go. What a place! What a hell. In fact, if you made room in your life only for the things at which you were perfect, you would be left shriveled and dead. We are imperfect in our very natures, which is why we need Christ's perfection to redeem us. If the sum of me is my talents, my achievements, my merits, I am nothing. What I need to focus on instead is who I am in God's eyes. I want to be able to say with a joyful, buoyant spirit: "The sum of me is You." This it the only identity that will last, and with this identity comes freedom. Freedom to struggle, to be broken, to fail because we have accepted at last that we are strugglers, broken, and failing mortals. Freedom to create imperfect offerings with right hearts. Christ has seen all our mess and He still chooses us, loving us in our imperfections because "in our weakness He is made strong."  I'm called to rejoice in my weaknesses, knowing they glorify my King.

Creativity is a gift of worship. Creating anything is an act of praise. God knows I can't make a single thing perfect by His standard of perfection. All that is required of me is to do my best. If my best attempt at drawing is a clumsily-sketched hand, so be it. If my best attempt at music is a fumbled rendition of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," so be it. I'll never be perfect and to deceive myself by thinking I will is madness. No one is perfect. No book I will ever write, no song I will ever sing, no landscape I will ever paint will be perfect...but if I try and dare and do, they can't help but be beautiful.

"To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality."

-John Ruskin

This quiet marriage of Heart and Mind

Sometimes I wonder...what is it that I love about writing? Why do words have such an alluring quality for me about them? Why do I even bother? Do I have any talent in this arena? Am I only stylizing myself a writer as Monte Cristo stylizes himself a Count?

And then I begin to answer the questions point by point.

Why do I love writing? Because I love the beauty of story. I love the shadowy impression of The Story that each subsequent tale bears. I love the adventure, the friendships, the romance, the nature of stories.

Why do words captivate me? Perhaps they run in my blood as they do in my head and my heart. In any case I cannot avoid loving words. Harnessing those horse-wild groups of letters and making them bear my fancy is invigorating, challenging, and wonderful.

Why do I even bother? Because I can't help Bothering. I was born to Bother with writing just as assuredly as I was born to dance and sing and make merry. "A star danced, and under that was I born." It is in my nature, and one cannot separate oneself very efficiently from personality.

Do I have any talent in this area? It wouldn't matter if I could barely string "The Man Went To The Store" together. My heart and hand bid me write and did I scrawl nothing but paltry nursery-rhymes, I could no more stop than I could now, up to my neck in numerous Projects.

Am I only stylizing myself a writer? Could I pretend to be anything else? I am not a musician, though I love music. I am not a painter, though I can wield a brush with a passable hand. I am not a dancer though my feet cannot stand still in the presence of rhythm and melody. Therefore I can only conclude that I stylize nothing. I am a writer, and that's all there is to it.

And quick as that my doubts and fears and hopes die away altogether in the great calm of knowing I am in my element with a pen and paper. I do think the Lord has given me a gift (however small) in the area of writing. All the glory must go to Him, and so though I acknowledge I am a writer, I wonder at it myself.
Me? How did this happen? Why do words bend for my pen?

It is a great mystery, is it not, this quiet marriage of heart and mind with word and deed?

Recovering From a Wounded Pen

You may recall a not-too-distant time I confessed that I had been pen-slain. If you need a refresher, you can read about it here. I suddenly felt as if I stood before a mirror and my rosy haze of being an author had been stripped away and I was staring at the blemishes in my words, the flaws in my pen, the tinny ring of my sword in the battle for inspiration. It was a sobering moment, that instance wherein I saw my writing for what it was...young, and inexperienced. There is a charm about it, perhaps. The charm of a peasant child who wears a wreath of daisies about her head and sings a little song while she pours tea into a cup for her doll. She little thinks the pretty daisies will wilt and come to nothing by the morning.
I will admit that my writing has not quite been the same since. Puddleby Lane became dull and uninspiring. I do not think it changed at all, but my perception of it changed. I saw that it was a simple, countrified story. And beside some other writers I could name, among them Jenny, the Penslayer herself, it had paled looked dowdy.
I have not made much headway in Puddleby Lane ever since that August morning. It is truly terrible! True, I haven't had much time for writing, having seven younger siblings, a grandmother, an older brother, and two parents to spend time with and take care of. But I have felt my writing inspiration shrink in a drought of self-doubt. It's not a good thing, this self-inflicted Writer's Block...
And so I wanted to admit that I had been fuddy-duddying along and feeling sorry for myself. Sorry that I was not a stunning author, sorry that I did not have the talent to shoot delicious prickles of delight down peoples' spines, sorry that I had the talent I do have instead of the talent I wish I had.
In the past couple of weeks though, I have begun to realize something that makes me rather ashamed of myself. Two things, actually. One, in order to be pen-slain so fiercely, I do believe I had to have thought too much of my own writing in the first place. I was in a blind trough of petty vanity, I believe.
Second, I am disowning a God-given gift when I doubt and disdain the talent He has given me. That is a sober thought indeed. God did not give me the gift He gave Jenny, or the gift He gave C.S. Lewis, or the gift He gave Jane Austen, or the gift He gave to any of you other writers. He gave me the gift it pleased Him to bestow on me. How can I refuse His gift, for if I believe the Bible, [Which I entirely do]  it is a good and perfect gift. Of course my writing can always gain a little polish, but it is what I have been given, and what I do with this gift is up to me. And so I wanted to tell you all that I here and now pledge to make the most of the gift I have.
My writing has a simplicity and charm and simple goodness about it that, at least I hope, will never go out of style. It isn't grand or glorious or even stunning. But it is cheering, I think, like a hot summer breeze blowing over a ripe wheat field. There are no ethereal lilies or dazzling star-dust about my words. But there are a few blood red poppies and a quiet green glen hidden somewhere in there. There are peasant children making daisy chains and a baby's laughter, and the singing of a fiddle beneath a weeping willow.
I guess I can sum up the lesson I've learned in a few words:
  I have not been given the talent of shaking souls, but perhaps I can touch a heart.