With Fear And Trepidation

So I started this blog, and in some ways I am sorry that I did. I was talking with a valued friend today about it, and remarked that what weighed on me was that now I feel like I am supposed to produce something, that I need to have something to say. The reality is, I am really a pretty simple guy, and I usually feel that I don't have that much to offer. She kindly remarked that it was my mind that was intriguing, and I told her that I feared for her sanity, if such is the case.

I don't follow things like blogs very religiously. Some of you know that I don't do anything religiously. But there is one blog that I always read- Don't Eat Alone, by Milton Brasher Cunningham. I never met the man, but I relate. Tonight I read his latest column and he mentioned an article that I subsequently read, by Parker Palmer, "Taking Pen In Hand."

The author was recounting how he started writing, and how what he wrote eventually became a book. He writes.

So here's my own Zen koan: we can do things we don't think we can do if we don't think about doing them. I also learned that if you can't write a book, write a lot of essays. If you can't write an essay, write a lot of paragraphs. If you can't write a paragraph, write a line or a word. And if you can't do that on the page, write your truth with your life, which is far more important than any book.

He is definitely on to something. My whole motivation for doing this is to share that part of me that is bigger then I am - Faith in the God of change. I sure don't claim to know God, or even begin to comprehend God, at times I am not even sure what/who God is. But I want to believe (and I do believe it) that there is something big and wonderful at work in the world and in my spirit and I know that as God. And that excites me to think about, and write about, and live within.

Mr. Palmer says it well. And why believe in God if the God we believe in is so small as to be contained and controlled within our finite words and forms? The aim of our writing about faith, and of our living in faith, is to let God be God: original, wild and free, a creative impulse that drives our living and our writing but can never be contained within the limits of who we are or what we think and say and do

Maybe keeping that thought in mind will make my keeping up with this thing easier. I sure hope so.