For the past seventeen months, Vicki Stilwell has been learning to live without her husband. One day Rick's heart simply stopped beating during his morning commute. His car careened across the median, then several lanes of oncoming traffic and into the ditch on the other side of the highway. He was 43 years old; their children 17 and 15. Every day since, Vicki has been carving a new life out of what remains. It's been public and private, broken and beautiful, dignified and not so dignified. When I found her reflection on Facebook, I asked her to share her story here.

  : : :
Vicki Stilwell is a high school drama teacher, a curator of Disney movie trivia, a pinch-hit social media and computer tech pro, and a walker of half marathons. Follow her on Twitter @MrsCaffeinated.

Related Post: Walking and Talking: A Tribute To An Unfinished Friendship

Dear Mike,
I chopped cabbage yesterday while Reagan chopped lettuce. I ate the fruits of our labor for lunch at 3:15 today. And I'll have more tomorrow.

They don't talk on the phone like we did to socialize, so I asked. "Have you been talking with your friends this summer?"

"What friends, Mom?"

Chop.

"You know! Grace. Maddie. Bailey. Cloe. Your friends!"

Silly girl.

While we press garlic, pinch sugar, and measure balsamic vinegar, the rest of the conversation dawns on me that every one of our daughter's close friends no longer enjoys an intact family unit.

"Do you know what it is you have, Ru?" My knife had fallen silent.



She says she knows, but she takes it for granted. I do, too. How can we not, when we take the fruit of our labors for lunch break on a Monday?

I crunch salad, and I read Reagan's text: Can we do something tonight? I am beyond bored. We didn't go to the pool. We've been every day for two weeks.

The pool. You had invited me in just yesterday. When I climbed into your floating lap, you asked when I last shaved.  I laughed. "It's goose bumps, not stubble."  You twirled us slowly in the water.

I take another bite of my salad and wonder how far into the Guatemalan mountains you are right now. You've traveled less than 12 hours. More than a week still before you return.

We are no longer the norm. We swirl in the water. We chop salad with our kids. We eat the fruit of our life mid-afternoon and look forward to having more tomorrow.



Even after 25 years, we look forward to more tomorrow.

You've traveled far today, Mike. I have too. You toward those who hunger, me toward  recognizing satisfied. Perhaps we shall both sleep well in our respective places.

Sweet dreams,
Dawn


Photo Credits: Adrian

This week I did something for only the tenth time in my life. I started a new job.

One forgets what it's like being new, knowing nothing, and having no context. I needed help and had to rely on others to guide me in accomplishing my responsibilities. In short, it was stressful, uncomfortable, and humbling.

Although I look forward to the time when I am well-trained and competent in my work, this week of ineptness on the job made me remember that this is the exact context in which we are to remain when it comes to faith.

We are to rely on Another's leadership and guidance. Not just when we're newbies (2 Corinthians 5:17), but always. There will be times when our finite context is not enough and we must trust that God knows what he's up to. In faith, we walk assured only when we are unsure, unable, and reliant upon Christ to be made perfect in our human weakness.

This week, I was grateful for positive feedback from co-managers, higher ups, and even one I manage. I'm grateful just to have co-workers, because I haven't really had them in quite some time.

And for the gift of scripture from my predecessor, who still works for the company (and is training me — thank you, God) and is my co-worker in more than one way.

I'm thankful for the reminder that sometimes it's not only okay, but preferable to be stressed, dependent, and humble.

I want to make this new job my own and add to the corporate culture and community in this new space where I will share 40 hours of life each week with a whole new subset of people. I want to bring my whole, best self to my new job and do it well for the glory of God. It will take being independent, dependent, and interdependent, and knowing when each is appropriate.

I hope to never forget that.

)

I was stunned by the gleaming wedding ring at the summit of my steering wheel. “I’m married.” The words escaped into the air, even though there was no one else in the car to hear them. I had been married eight months and should have been well-acquainted with this fact, but saying it out loud was an attempt to solidify what had not yet taken complete hold in my mind.

Life took me by surprise again when my ten-month-old slept soundly in his crib. I stood over my kitchen sink staring at a lone baby bottle, when I again stated the obvious to myself.  “There’s a baby bottle in my sink; I am a mom.” You would think that after 573 dirty diapers and half as many 2:00 am feedings, I would already know this.

That baby boy in my crib is now sixteen and about to start his first job. The results of this life change, though, I am realizing ahead of time: the beginning of the end of our family dinners.

They started when we would drag the high chair as close to the table as possible. We were determined to create a family experience of dinners around the table. Never mind that our toddler managed to get only a few morsels successfully from his tray to his mouth. Back then, clearing the table also involved mopping the floor. Conversations were limited to Mom and Dad, but it was a start.

Mike and I remember the exact night the family dinners we had envisioned began in earnest. Our third child was newly graduated from her booster seat. This meant that no one was strapped in at our table anymore, another step in the right direction.

How it started, I cannot say, probably because it began like every other meal. Adrian, now a seven-year-old and all boy, began to imitate Uncle Mickey’s habit of clearing his throat. It's just the kind of eccentricity a seven-year-old boy would be all over.  Adrian nailed the impression -- even his younger sisters recognized the similarities. We were all laughter.

We moved on to pinpointing and laughing at each other's idiosyncrasies. There was the way Noelle sucked her thumb rotated in her mouth with palm turned skyward while her other hand was plugged firmly into her belly button. As a toddler, she called it her butty-butty, and we laughed at that too. Then Noelle offered an exaggerated demonstration of her dad’s underwear waistband slapping suspender-style. Reagan was a peacock across our kitchen floor remembering the ones I had tried to feed when we stumbled upon them once in the mountains.   

While the children crumpled in laughter over their half eaten chicken and rice, Mike and I sat up tall above them and met the gleam in the other's eye. The moment had arrived, and we knew it. We were a bona fide family making a memory around our table which held a home cooked meal.

Since that first untethered meal, we have prayed, we have cried, we've helped each other, and we’ve learned together. We have discovered problems, solved some, and ignored some. We've pondered questions and celebrated good news. We've fought over whose turn it was to set the table, make the salad, read our devotion, and do the dishes.



Next week, Adrian's new job will be the first among many things that will keep one or more of our children from our family’s nightly dinners together. Small children that were once strapped into high chairs are becoming young adults who are no longer tied down. In fact, they will eventually follow heartstrings into their own adult lives. So now my hope is that the memories we have made will become the ties that bind and draw us back to the table for many more family meals together.

**This is my first piece ever accepted for print. It has never appeared on my blog. It chronicles part of our story, and as my first published piece it's doubly part of my story. It ran in the May 2012 issue of Reach Out, Columbia. I was reminded of it tonight, when we all five of us were around our table for dinner together. It's already a rare treasure in our family.




 

I don't think I'll ever know how I feel about beauty pageants.

Part of me can't believe we haven't come further in society than to parade young women across a stage and compare and compete based on beauty. Someone please tell me we no longer do this.

And fierce competition it can be, too. I know, because I interviewed Miss South Carolina and told her story that got her there and on to the Miss America pageant in a magazine cover story.

But part of beauty pageants is community service, learning to be an articulate communicator, and interviewing skills and experience. Part of it a young woman's accomplishment, intellect, and talent on display. I'm all for honoring and celebrating hard work.

In a day and age when the sexes are blurred and homosexuality is the new black, I like that my daughter was holed up in her bedroom this afternoon with two best friends putting curls in Reagan's hair, eye liner just so, and unwrapping new earrings for the occasion.

I like that she studied her interview questions and answers late into the night with her older sister who would have rather been asleep but stayed up to help Reagan. That will be a worthwhile sister memory.

And the twenty minute rides to and from the school — all 5 of them in the last 48 hours — have been full of singing Broadway songs with my girl at the top of our lungs, and short, casual conversations about the balance between competition and having fun that really weren't all that casual after all.

I told her I was proud of her for doing everything herself. No mom taking over, telling her she ought to wear a suit for the interview. It was all Reagan, every choice, every preparation. No paid make up artist or hair style. Just a girl and her friends in her room.

Part of me will be squirming tonight when my growing up girl walks gracefully across the stage in her teal gown. But part of me will be very proud, and when it's all said and done tonight, I still won't know how I feel about pageants.

I've worked out many times and many ways, but today I had a first date with Pilates.

I've committed to 90 days of P90X3 to prove to myself I can indeed do this for life. Twenty-five days down, 65 to go. Or, the first day of the rest of my life, depending on how you look at it.

Day 25 is the introduction to a new routine: Pilates.

The breathing felt a bit foolish and brought back memories of birthing classes.

Because many, many moons ago, I was delivered of three babies. They brought me unadulterated joy and totally wrecked my core. Actually, it's not entirely fair to blame it all on three babies. The gate that might have killed me is to blame as well. I was delivered from it too, and my parting gifts were a fractured pelvis and exploratory abdominal surgery which guaranteed youthful, taut ab muscles would be a thing of the past at the tender age of 11. I am not overstating, either, because I was so weak, my lower back ached for the rest of the day after I vacuumed the house. In high school.

Anyway, when Joseph Pilates came through his own mother's birth canal, I think he was taking notes for the future creation of his exercise discipline that might repair all that he he wrecked when he grew inside his mother.

That's what it felt like anyway. Like repair. Like a hint of the beginning of a second chance at the old me, the one who at least had a little pre-pregnancy core strength after the gate and the doctors got through with me.

I could feel places in me that are weak getting strong. Not a dramatic Rocky-theme-song kind of strong, but a subtle, nuanced kind of strength that rises so slowly you don't realize it's coming until it's right there in the room with you keeping you company while you Shh, Shh, Shh until you think you might hyperventilate. It's the kind of strength that keeps you from looking and feeling foolish when you look and feel foolish.

Another thing I loved? Tony Horton — who is Mr. Fitness himself — got on the floor and did the move he called the pretzel. His attempt was not pretty, and he poked a little fun at himself while he was doing it. But he did it. He put it on the video and in America's hands, his weakest move that showed him in the poorest light. He rolled his eyes and smiled silly faces at himself, knowing he looked less than stellar. He mumbled something about being better at pull ups, but he didn't quit. He said, "This must be good for me," with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

The whole thing made me feel like a winner. Pilates. Tony-Mr. Fitness-Horton secure enough in his fitness prowess to show his weakness and humbly know it wouldn't wreck his credibility as a trainer. The inspiration of humanity on display. Twenty-five consecutive days, a glimpse at a second chance, and knowing there's always the rest of your life.

They are all good, good reasons to keep going in the same direction slowly.

I learned today that the number one reason to be admitted to an assisted living facility is no longer being able to sit and stand unaided.

Well, no thank you. I choose strength and balance and flexibility and aging with poise and grace.

The winner of Spiritual Misfit is Glenda Childers.

Congratulations, Glenda. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have.

With Easter weekend upon us, I ponder anew his gift to us on the cross.

It stills my soul and quiets my mind.

I am so in awe, I don't know what to feel.

Humble. Grateful. Expectant. Stunned.

Maybe if we as Christians were more honest about our messy faith, those still searching for their faith would see themselves in us, see an underdog and a God who loves us all in spite of the mis-fit and the fall-short.




You could win a free copy of Michelle’s book. I’m giving away Spiritual Misfit to one brave commenter.





In community with Jennifer.

I pull into the garage and my dog and daughter meet me three steps into the kitchen. "Shhh," she whispers. "Adrian's boss is here recording." 

I hear his warm, rich tenor penetrate my disheveled house, and I melt from the beauty of the sound and from the messiness of my house.

I have a valid reason not to get further into the house than the kitchen. I don't have to face him if I don't want to, you know, because dinner has to be cooked and the morning dishes and after school snack leftovers await me in the sink and on every counter.

The kitchen alone is appalling. ...

This final installment in my series on Annie Dillard's The Writing Life is posting a day early because I have a huge surprise tomorrow that is deserving of all the attention. So come back tomorrow for the big surprise.

Also, please note the links in this piece will take you to the other posts in this series, although not necessarily in order.

 ~   ~   ~

In the final chapter of The Writing Life, Annie Dillard introduces us to Dave Rahm. He wanted to become an expert on mountains, so began studying geography. "Too pedestrian," geography proved to be a gateway drug into geology, then mountain climbing, flying, and ultimately air stunts.

It culminated in becoming a work of art in an airplane, and Dillard uses him as a metaphor for writing.

"When Rahm flew, he sat down in the middle of art, and strapped himself in. He spun it all around him. ... Rahm used the plane inexhaustibly, like a brush marking thin air. (page 110 and 96). His aerobatics stood out among the other pilots because:

• he was more daring
• he was freer
• he followed his instinct (intuition) even to potentially perilous places

He refused to settle for safe, and it left his spectators gasping and crying out, hanging on his every air-brushed word.



The best artists bravely ignore the boundaries, pushing instinctively and intuitively in the direction of beauty. "He knew the mountain by familiar love and feel...; He knew what the plane could do and what he dared to do" (page 101).

Dillard said of Rahm and his air shows, "He was pure energy and naked spirit. I thought about it for years" (page 96).

Hemingway spoke of the same thing when he said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

I want to do that. I think every writer does, but most aren’t daring enough. And it’s the one thing that sets apart brilliant from mediocre. It takes risking all, willingness to die on the page.

Lest you think I jump to dramatic conclusions, I cite the chapter's epigraph.

It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them. —Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

It's true: the most satisfying reading is bled to the page. Otherwise, the piece leaves me feeling that I wasted my time reading it.

Maybe it's time to put into practice all the writing advice I've collected and never implemented after all. Try my hand at Cameron's morning pages, Goldberg's timed writings with a constantly moving pencil. See what cowardice and bravery come. Let Hemingway get me started by writing one true sentence, the truest sentence I know.

My first attempt:
I don't know if I have "the writing life" in me—it apparently comes at a much higher price than I anticipated—but as much as I love my safety, I'm no longer willing to ever only be the one who was too scared to try. I might as well put my truest words out there and audaciously hope they linger in your thoughts for years.

Now, to find the daily courage for that sort of flying in the face of death.


If you are interested in more writing on writing, I have read these two pieces during my time with Annie Dillard that were thoroughly enjoyable.

Alexander Chee's personal essay in the Morning News called Annie Dillard and the Writing Life.
The Real Job of a Writer by Emily P, Freeman @ chatting at the sky.

See you tomorrow.

Pastor Garang from South Sudan went to the port of Mombasa, Kenya to collect a truck donated to his ministry. A church in Nebraska and an individual family worked together to provide it.

Pastor Garang used to travel by bicycle to share the gospel and start churches in his homeland.


He has retrieved the truck from the port and is in route back to South Sudan. It is a long journey on treacherous roads. There are those who would do harm along the way. He has need of money to buy fuel to go such a distance and is yet unable to pay the custom to enter South Sudan. He is unable to provide for himself all that is needed.



Yet he travels.

He travels in faith, his very life in God's hand.

All Christians should see the faith-walk as such: a long journey on a treacherous road with the potential for attack from the enemy, all while relying on God to get us safely home.

We travel faithfully when we lack every resource and provision, trust in the contribution of God's grace and the body of Christ, with only our will to commend us to go forth regardless of the conditions.

Sounds crazy, but the love of Christ compels us (2 Corinthians 5:13-14, loosely paraphrased).

Godspeed, Pastor Garang.

Solomon wrote it at the beginning of his philosophical rant: There is nothing new under the sun.

I often think the same thought when it comes to writing. By now it's all been said, and rather nicely I might add. There's no new message or even any way to improve upon the old ones. No possibility of something more artful, eloquent, intelligent or beautiful. Why bother?

On the other hand, there's the equally sad and paralyzing idea. There are a vast number of words in the English language, infinite possibilities when it comes to stringing them together that hasn't been exhausted yet. Where to begin?

Chapter Six of Annie Dillard's The Writing Life is about paddling against the tide, only to exhaust yourself and get nowhere.

"I lived on the beach with one foot in the fatal salt water and one foot on a billion grains of sand" (page 89).


You don't have to be a writer to live on Dillard's beach or row her boat. You just have to be someone who makes art. Cooking, sewing, painting, athletic competition, making music, restoring old homes, investigating crimes. No matter what you love to do, part of you wants to do something extraordinary and brilliant, but part of you is convinced there's nothing left to do. That desire to make a contribution to your field keeps you pressing onward in the face of both nothing-new-under-the-sun and the infinite sky that holds that sun.

"...the infinite assaulted the page again and required me to represent it" (page 90).

The difference between a beginner and a master is the willingness to embrace the fatal and the infinite and row anyway.

Dillard is here to tell you — and me — to not stop paddling. Eventually the tide that goes out will come in, and that which was holding you back will spur you on.

So if you are contemplating giving up, don't. Dig deeper. Paddle harder. Spend yourself working hard to go nowhere fast. The tide will eventually turn.

And old man Solomon? His philosophical rant became holy writ. So there's that.


Tell me, what motivates you to keep going when you feel like quitting?

It was the last time I was with my brother Jeff, just three months before he died in a car accident — 20 years ago now. He was driving through town on a business trip, and decided to leave early enough to stay a few days. His arrived with ladies' left-handed golf clubs in his trunk because his latest athletic conquest was golf. Jeff never met a sport he didn't love and excel at. Mike was already an avid golfer, so the three of us headed happily to the driving range that night.

With my bucket of balls, I promptly made a few gorgeous 220-yard drives straight into the swath of green polka-dotted with golf balls. Neither Jeff nor Mike could believe it. But my form was terrible, so Mike, ever the coach, began teaching me better technique. But adjusting my swing caused me to miss the ball altogether. It was an instant fun-killer. I got so aggravated that Jeff laid aside his driver and came over to talk me off the ledge. His arm around my shoulder and his gaze philosophically surmising the driving range, he told me why he loved golf so much: nobody has mastered it. Even the pros hit slices, land shots in the water and sand traps, and miss puts.
That was the reason Jeff loved golf?! A guarantee of not mastering the art? No thank you! My pink pin-striped golf clubs have hung from a peg in the garage ever since. Jeff was out of his mind.

* * *

There's an exchange that happens between a writer and a reader. It's intangible, invisible, and elusive. It's hard to describe or define, but almost everyone recognizes it when they see it. It's the reason people love to read. They pore over pages, some of them not even good, in search of another one of those elusive exchanges. Readers want beauty laid bare, life heightened, and the deepest engagement of their hearts and intellects (see Dillard, p. 72). Need I say writing is hard work?

Annie Dillard lays out the mission in chapter five of The Writing Life, should we writers choose to accept it:

• magnify and dramatize the reader's own days
• illuminate and inspire with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness
• press upon the reader's mind the world's deepest mysteries so he feels again their majesty and power

It's downright near to impossible.

She says of the writer, "This is your life. You are a Seminole alligator wrestler. Half naked, with your two bare hands, you hold and fight a sentence's head while its tail tries to knock you over" (Dillard, p. 74-75).

Put like that, I don't know what would possess me to continue in pursuit of it, the perfect sentence, and then wrestle down another. And yet I do.

"At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then—and only then—it is handed to you" (Dillard, p. 75).

I finally understand Jeff's pursuit of golf, his obsession with the seemingly impossible. What golf was to my athlete-brother, writing is to me. It's the art I will strive after for a lifetime.

To write a piece that is crafted well enough to resonate with a reader and create that ever elusive exchange? It's as exhilarating as a hole-in-one. Has to be.

Because I keep swinging my words left-handed thinking I must be out of my mind.

Guess what, y'all?

Annie Dillard's fourth chapter is five paragraphs long — shorter than my blog posts. Honestly. What a showoff.

The chapter was so short, we weren't even supposed to write a post today, but I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I had an odd chapter out. I'm not kidding. I think I'm allergic to ducks when they aren't in a row.

So, in honor of her scant five paragraphs, I offer five things I learned from chapter four:

1. Things will go wrong. Just give it a little time. And plan accordingly.
2. I sound like an insurance agent; she didn't. (which means my writing still needs work.)
3. Chapter length doesn't have to be uniform, although that's what every expert except Dillard will tell you. I think she's having trouble conforming to convention again.
4. When things go haywire, the truest you will be on display. (Do you like that person?)
5. The burning typewriter in chapter four that isn't consumed is NOT holy ground like Moses' burning bush was. But, when a writer is on fire in front of his keyboard, it does feel a little miraculous.

3.74. That was my grade point average when I graduated from college. I'm not bragging — I'm confessing.

If I had my druthers, I'd be a professional student; I love to learn. It's the very thing I learned on that first day of school when I handed Ms. Human a perfectly five-year-old self portrait, and earned my first A. It wasn't long before I had it down pat: listen carefully to the expectations, go home and follow those directions, return to class and give it all you've got, then wait for the A with confidence. 

Since my school days, I've graduated to list-making: clear expectations, measurable accomplishments, and quick, concise feedback. A list perfectly crossed off by bedtime. 3.74. That's 93.9%. It's a measure...one that means I did pretty good  well. (Bonus points for good grammar!)

The problem is, after graduation, life doesn't come with a syllabus. There are no professor, no report cards, no red numbers and letters at the top of my work deeming me excellent. The only red letters I have now measuring my deeds are the ones Jesus spoke. His commands. His encouragement. His wisdom and Holy Spirit empowerment for my tasks. His mercy and grace. 

These things aren't accolades earned for a job well done. They're gifts received with humble gratitude. I'm much better at the former, and still learning the art of the latter. Overachieving is easy. I guess that's why I keep running into my need for validation, and discovering my propensity for pridefully trying to earn it.

It's nothing more than the coward's way. It takes courage to merely accept validity, while unworthy, with humble heart and hands. We don't really want to be unworthy, do we. We don't want to have to turn to a bloody sacrifice on a cross, dressed up though we may be in our Easter finery. The cross is so desperate and despicable. Even the Father looked away.

7.34 is a lie. There is no such thing as 93.9%. Jesus paid it all, and I owe nothing. My deeds?  They'll be tried by fire and either burn or remain, one or the other, based on whether or not those deeds were painted by Christ. 



He indeed validates, but only when He increases and I decrease until He is everything and I am nothing. I know this in my head, could ace the test in a classroom. But in real life, I think I may still be failing.

What things do you do to earn favor? to feel approved?

The bad news is that if you seek anywhere else than Christ, you will have found a love idol.

Jennifer Dukes Lee has written a book to help us discover our subtle #loveidols. They can take myriad forms and take over our lives. They rob us of real freedom in Christ and bind us to our own efforts. So Jennifer is starting a Love Idol Movement to help us oust those pesky idols and remind us we are #preapproved.


That kindergarten selfie above? Well, it's a selfie, and that's the problem. I know I'll be more satisfied with the end result if I would do nothing myselfie and let God paint the portrait of me.

To join Jennifer and me and countless others determined to worship nothing and no one but the Lord, you can pre-order Love Idol: Letting Go of Your Need for Approval and Seeing Yourself Through God's Eyes here and find community in the Love Idol Movement Facebook group here.

So, come on—join us. What have you got to lose except yellow teeth, bad highlights, and leaning eerily off kilter?

Six believers stirred the baptismal waters yesterday, with so much blessing I couldn't contain it. It spills over in many ways:



~in tears and testimonies beforehand
~even the translator teared up
~the plethora of things that can lead us, unsuspecting, to Jesus
~parents whose search for their baby girl's cancer cure led to their finding sin's cure instead
~a youth pastor's "hard preaching" that reached a quiet girl's heart
~two knee surgeries that put her at the mercy of others and had her heart kneeling before the Lord
~a husband and wife  baptized together
~the hard way, that he claims is the best way, because it was his way to salvation
~a shy and downcast teenage smile that was uncontainable right before and after she went under
~the kind of joy of the Lord that erupts from us despite our attempts at composure
~a believing wife despite the obstacles and hiding of keys
~a heart surgery that leads to another kind of heart surgery: a transplant from a stone heart to a heart of flesh
~the abundant life that drips with the Holy Spirit that no towel can mop up
~being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who is
~mighty
~holy
~omnipotent
~righteous
~magnificent
~victorious
~indeed, there is none like Him
~the stirring of waters still
~swimming today in yesterday's blessings.



With Michelle today, and counting graces with Ann.

I don't think the training wheels were attached properly. Yes. I'm going with that. But whatever the reason, I kept falling off my bike with those stupid training wheels. So that muggy, mosquito-filled evening after supper, I promised Dad I would be riding on my own before dark, and begged him to take the wretched training wheels off. He grabbed a wrench and we headed out.

Back and forth he ran with me. I pedaled wildly and wobbled on two wheels; he ran awkwardly, white knuckling the back of my bike seat.

And then, of course—you know the story.

When dad felt that I was ready and while I was busy remembering to pedal and look forward at the same time as trying to stay balanced, he let go.


I was riding alone. Until I realized I was riding alone.

Then I was a 5-year-old heap of scraped knees, palms, and pride in the middle of Bannister Road.

In chapter three Annie Dillard likens the writing process to chopping wood. She learned to do that one winter to both stay warm in her writing cottage and to put off writing. We writers tend to do that—put off writing as long as possible. More on that in a minute. For Dillard, chopping wood was an exercise in frustration with little success until she found a strategy that worked.

"You aim at the chopping block, not at the wood; then you split the wood, instead of chipping it. You cannot do the job cleanly unless you treat the wood as the transparent means to an end, by aiming past it" (Dillard, p. 43).

When you're learning to ride a bike, you can ride only as long as you are looking past the bike to where you are headed.


When you look the writing process in the eye, or watch the wood instead of the chopping block or the bike instead of the horizon, you wind up with wood chips and skinned elbows and nothing on the page.

Then, true to form, Dillard spends the bulk of the chapter describing how wrong the writing process can go when you stare it down, which of course every writer will eventually do.

You become a neurotic, twitching, irrational, crazy person.

One who complicates things:
"How fondly I recall thinking, in the old days, that to write you needed paper, pen, and a lap. How appalled I was to discover that, in order to write so much as a sonnet, you need a warehouse. You can easily get so confused writing a thirty-page chapter that in order to make an outline for the second draft, you have to rent a hall" (Dillard, p. 46).

One who procrastinates:
"At once I noticed that I was writing—which, as the novelist Frederick Buechner noted, called for a break, if not a full-scale celebration. ... I wrote four or five sentences on a gamble, smoked more to stimulate the brain or stop the heart, whichever came first, and reheated a fourth mug of coffee. ... Why not adopt a baby, design a curriculum, go sailing?" (Dillard, p.50, 51).

One who much prefers distraction to actual writing:
"If only I could concentrate. I must quit. I was too young to be living at a desk. many fine people were out there living, people whose consciences permitted them to sleep at night despite their not having written a decent sentence that day, or ever" (Dillard, p. 51).

So if you think the writing life is all Hemingway and Paris, think again. Only neurotic, irrational, crazy people become writers. It's no easy task. And it surely is not romantic and glamorous. Every writing book I've read so far speaks to this issue. And boy, can we have issues.

I've come to the conclusion that writing, with practice, becomes harder.

"You are wrong if you think you can in any way take a vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins" (Dillard, p. 57).

I think the only reason I keep at it is because I did eventually learn to ride that bike.


I'm exploring The Writing Life by Annie Dillard and my own writing life on Fridays.

I, Dawn, (the girl I was then, with my few life experiences and my naïve view of the world, together with my blood relatives somewhat in tow,  my friends, my pet peeves and my penchant for fingernail polish, with my fears and unfinished business, my short-comings and my need for ducks to line up in neat rows, and the fluidity of these issues that changed who I became over time)

Take you, Mike, (the man I was head over heels for, who also changed over time, with more education, future ventures gained and lost, with your career change, your zeal, your coffee too strong for me to drink, your daring, your love of softball and your unflinching convictions)
To be my wedded (joined forevermore on legal papers and in my heart) husband.

To have and to hold (that you are mine to share with none other, you whom I keep and treasure above all else and others, to think that you gave yourself to me — how exquisite indeed),
From this day forward (that moment that was monumental, when "I do" and "I will" changed utterly everything afterward, never to be undone),

For better (celebration hospital meals in the presence of a newborn, snow in Mississippi, promotions, honesty whispered in the dark cheek to cheek, Christmas mornings, and your earlobe),
For worse (there's been an accident, you're fired, it's cancer, you'll never understand!, burned pots, stranded and left on the shoulder of the interstate in Atlanta with a van full of youth, throwing a plate, disappointments, almost running out of gas, yelling, costly mistakes),

For richer (I start Monday!, Graduation Day (x2), Disney, automatic transmission and a sun roof, we got the house!, it's a boy followed by a few girls),
For poorer (dorm life, praying to find stray coins behind the back seat of the car for gas money, you're fired, Hudson's Salvage Center, U Haul, Disney),

In sickness (he's in ICU and may not make it through the night, lost in a strange city frantically seeking the hospital parking garage, all night prayer vigils that God will spare him  for the sake of a 10 month old, following an ambulance, hospital stink, both of us between the bed rails)
And in health (laps at the seminary campus, around Laurel High School track, and while the toddler watched from the storm door, P90X together in the garage — Bring it!, Jenny Craig, a kitchen cabinet full of whole food supplements),

To love and to cherish (toes that find each other in sleep, speaking volumes without a word, inside jokes like "good morning!", holding hands for no reason in the car)
Til death do us part (only one lifetime?)

And hereto I pledge (as in yes and amen) you my faithfulness (endless dirty dishes and laundry piles notwithstanding).

This is what I vowed (and what I now know those vows meant, and what I would do all over again given half a chance.)

One plus one equals one (plus God's beautiful, infinite possibilities).

I read  Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird and learned how to listen to the accursed radio station of static random thoughts running through the writer's head while she's trying to write. Lamott describes the process so effectively, she taught me how to do it, rather than how not to.

Mary Demuth swears by the BOC (Butt On Chair) method of writing, regardless of whether the writing muse shows up or not. I rarely do this.

Stephen King's On Writing suggests setting a daily time requirement or a daily word count. He also says to have a book with you at all times and read while you're waiting in the checkout lane. I fail at this too.

Julia Cameron swears by morning pages. I love the idea. Really, I do, but I've yet to try it. She says to use pen and paper, except I can't make a pen crank out 90 words a minute, nor erase as seamlessly as a backspace key. Even important greeting card sentiments from me are composed on the computer, then copied in my penmanship on the card itself. Pathetic, I know.

So I fell in love with Annie Dillard in chapter two of The Writing Life. She’s having as much trouble taking her own writing advice as I do.

She says to find a simple writing space that’s solely devoted to writing and free of distraction. But the entire chapter is a description in minute detail of every beautiful thing going on around her, both inside and outside her writing room. 

"If I craned my head, I could see a grassy playing field below. One afternoon I peered around at the field and saw a softball game. Since I happened to have my fielder's glove with me in my study, I thought it would be the generous thing to join the game. ... They could not all play ball ... . It was slightly better than no softball, so I played with them every day..."

I love her, and maybe there's hope for me.



I used to write at our desktop in the piano room after the kids finished their homeschooling or were in bed. I've migrated to a laptop at the kitchen counter with a barstool. It has become my makeshift desk. It’s continually littered with bills, school permission slips, and a stack of various books. My Christmas cards are still in that stack. My bible, latest publication deadline, and more than one To Do list is never far away.

I have plunked my writing life in the eye of my storm. And despite the unheeded writing advice and the writing space carved out of the epicenter of my life, I manage to actually get some writing done.

So there's hope for me.

One day, Dillard stopped the madness. She shut the blinds in her writing nook. She drew a crude picture of the scene outside so as not to lose touch with the world completely.

Dillard finishes the earlier passage with this: "If I had possessed the skill, I would have painted, directly on the slats of the lowered blind, in meticulous colors, a trompe l'oeil mural view of all that the blinds hid. Instead, I wrote it."

She recycled her distractions as inspiration. 

Finally, writing advice I can implement.

Sometimes you just have to rebel against the hard times.

My cousin Tammy has been struggling through some of life's most difficult circumstances. She buried her mother at the end of an inspiring battle with inoperable cancer. Six months later she lost her 17-year-old son Elijah in a car accident. Two months after that, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and commenced upon eight weeks of daily treatment. The Davis family is suffering.



Tammy told me that well-meaning friends are uncomfortable with her grief and suffering, and hope to hurry her along to healing and brighter days with comments like, "It's going to get better."

The thing is, Tammy knows what she really deserves is death and that there are no promises for any earthly tomorrow to be better. She's had so many trials pile up high that I can see how it would be easy to hold your breath and brace for the next round of bad news that surely must be coming. So Tammy's clinging to her God even if tragedy stays for a lifetime. Determined, she declares, "God is enough."

I agree, but...

that God who is enough? He's also a God of redemption. And sometimes you just have to rebel against the sad times with a little bit of hope that leads to happiness.

When Jeremiah penned the oft-quoted "I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to give you a future and a hope," it wasn't pie-in-the-sky. Israel was being carted off in chains to pagan lands in her day of final defeat. Jeremiah offered hope for a brighter tomorrow to Israel in their darkest day.

When Jeremiah lamented, "His mercies are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness," he wasn't full of writing inspiration because life looked bright and hopeful. Rather, he was grieving.

But he didn't write, "We don't deserve any better than this from a holy God," although it was true. Instead, Jeremiah said, "God has a plan, and it isn't for us to grieve forever."

If God causes grief, then He will have compassion according to his abundant lovingkindness. He doesn't afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men (Lamentations 3:32-33).

Jeremiah kicked his sadness in the teeth. I doubt he felt like doing it, but he countered his grief and the loss of his nation with a longing gaze toward future times that God promised would be brighter. Those words of hope must have been hard-won. And Jeremiah didn't just speak them, he wrote them. Boldly.

And you can too. Maybe you, like Tammy and Israel, are in a season of suffering. Maybe you're struggling through sadness, hard times, the end of your marriage. Maybe your questions outnumber your answers. Maybe you're just weary of winter, or worse, it's a metaphor for layer after layer of cold, opaque, heavy, snow-silence atop the dead earth of your life.


Well, take heart. Rebel against it. Shake those cold, stiff bones and practice your high kick so you can knock out a few teeth, like Jeremiah did. God is a victor and vanquishes foes like suffering, grief, despair, and depression. Let him do it again—for you this time. Dare to believe Jeremiah's bold hope.

Put on your dancing shoes for just 3 minutes and move to the beat. Throw off the spirit of heaviness and put on the garment of hope and redemption. That's what we have to cling to in the dark, cold days of winter, in suffering and despair.

That's what a remnant of Israel did for 70 years of captivity. They lived like rebels in the face of defeat. They more than survived in less than ideal circumstances. They started businesses, opened savings accounts, married, and started families. They more than survived. They thrived.


That remnant refused to swallow what they knew they deserved. Instead, hope against hope, they brazenly clung to a God of compassion who loves to redeem. Jeremiah's untimely platitudes in the face of such suffering was received by a remnant as hope, real hope. They sank their teeth in it and nourished themselves with it.

That's quite a challenge in the face of adversity, but it can be done. When we do, it's audacious and inspiring.

So a dance party might be in order for you today. Yes, it's good and necessary to grieve, but we don't grieve as those who have no hope. We have a God whose compassion never fails and whose mercies are new every morning. And that's worth a dance party.

I think Elijah, with his heavenly perspective—which I'm jealous of, by the way—would approve of our spontaneous celebration to combat our light and temporary trials. Jeremiah would too.

Yes, we must grieve. There is a time and place for suffering, and it's not healthy to rush through it. But in light of our future, suffering's façade sneers at us with its a big toothy, overconfident, boastful grin just begging to be bashed by some hope. All you gotta do is move. Sing. Dance. Wear the garment of praise for three minutes until you are spent with celebration. Your suffering might be waiting for you at the other end of the song, but its position in your life will be diminished and its grin will be toothless.

How trusting are you of God's trustworthiness?

It sounds a little like a trick question, but there is nothing that we do in relation to God that is detached from faith. We either act in it or apart from it.

But faith doesn't come easily. It comes from God—that should be easy enough. But, although he is eager to give it freely and generously, we have to want faith before he bestows it. Sometimes we don't want faith because it's irrational and a whole lot of scary and you might even think of your own self as a wacko.

Let me explain.

When Mike felt God's clear and distinct call to ministry, he quit his full time job—the one that paid our bills, became a student again, and looked for a part time job in ministry. We then sat in our living room alone, rocking back and forth in prayer, offering our irresponsible-in-earthly-terms act of faith to God in response to his call. Even I thought we were crazy.

Faith is a little crazy and a whole lot of fear because God's plan is unpredictable.  Yet he calls us to it and equips us for it just the same.

A few examples of faith in action:

• Moses going to pharaoh with the absurd news that God wants him to let his nation's slave labor walk away.
• Abraham packing up his life and leaving on a life journey to God knows where.
• Abraham tying up his son to be sacrificed trusting that, knowing God, this will somehow end well.
• Joshua marching around a city with trumpet fanfare as a conquering strategy, trusting what God has said on the matter. "Yes, Joshua, this is the most excellent way to overtake a city," (because surely Joshua asked incredulously, "Are you quite sure, God?!")

The list could fill a book. Well, it does—66 books actually, and then some.

God has a wild imagination. If zebras and giraffes don't prove it, maybe a look at how God does what he says he will do will convince you.

• God made what looked to man like the Red Sea and, hence, a dead end a walking trail out of Egypt.
• God used the death of deity in the flesh to usher in eternal life for his fallen creation.
• God took a century-old couple and made them parents.

"Faith makes visible God's invisible arrangement," writes de Treville Bowers. Further, God's invisible arrangement can be unimaginable to us. God's doings are so outrageous, we would never see it coming in a million years.
 
But God sees it and he does immeasurably more than all we imagine—often in most unconventional ways that will delight us if we trust him.

He usually doesn't tell us his plan before he includes us in its unfolding. Getting to be a part of God's plan should be enough for us. God asks that we simply trust him, and believe that, somehow and no matter what, it's going to be glorious.


He is pleased only by what we do in our faith and finds no pleasure in us when we shrink back (Hebrews 10: 38).

But it's tempting to shrink back:

• when you're marching ridiculously around Jericho. 
• when God uses a fish to rescue your rebel self from drowning only to give you a second chance to speak his word.
• when you're rocking alone in your living room fearful and jobless.
• when you're obedient, and it looks outrageous, and people think you are a whole lot of crazy.

We must resist shrinking back in crucial moments because distrust always precedes disobedience. Eventually every minute of our life will be tried by fire in eternity for the sole purpose of proving what of our lives was accomplished by faith and what was not.

So there it is. The great big question God keeps asking through the ages. Even though he's proved himself countless times by now, and even though, regardless of that fact, we still squirm: How trusting are you of his trustworthiness?

I'm praying my answer is "Enough to do a whole lot of crazy, enough to do the ridiculous and unimaginable, enough to do unpredictable exploits for the Lord that are unmistakable, the kind that happen only when we have faith."

Amen—May it be so.