Must I write?
A question that refuses answering
Before the year ended, I created a tidy little list of things to write about here in this space and send out into the world, landing in some inboxes, other feeds, all the usual places. And then I started reading my own inbox and I found my list topic for this week a little cliche and rote.
As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I was conversing with Madeleine L'Engle, well, in all honesty, she was talking through her book, Walking on Water (affiliate link, as if there were any other kind of link available in this land of interwebs). I was listening, pondering, chewing, she asked me a question. A question that had been posed to her as well. She told me as I was drifting towards dreamland to wrestle with it in the middle of the night. I found myself there awake as she had requested and so I asked, "Must I write?"
No answer came, I fell back asleep. I woke up and found that the question lingered, sticky in its unwillingness to go unanswered. I shoved it aside and picked up my companion journal for my journey with The Artist Way. I began the requested morning pages, three long hand stream of consciousness pages. I ran from the question, instead deciding to face down a monster that I had been carrying around with me since kindergarten. I know that monster probably won't go away, we've lived together too long, but I occasionally like taking a jab at it and reminding myself that I can do things, even if I don't believe in myself. That's probably a post for another day. I ran from the missive handed to me by L'Engle. I wrote my three pages, only discussing writing in passing, barely admitting that it's something I do.
Then it was time to read emails and there it was. Shawn Smucker, who somehow found his way onto my Substack feed and then into my subscription list (it was his honest prose that got him there, no mistake about that). And I opened his email. In the midst of the Christmas season, they've been dealing with the loss of an unmet desire. And the email today shouted the same question to me that L'Engle had been tapping her foot over. He warned much more clearly than she did, he stated the obvious consequence if this is not addressed. My deviation from true calling will cause me to morph and take that very skill and gift that I may or may not have received, the one that I have refused to tell myself the answer to, it may flip and turn me into a menace. How else do so many prolific trolls get born on the internet? Their innate desire to express themselves in the written word goes unanswered in creative ways and so they develop eloquent words of harm against their fellow web cruisers. And yet, the question pulses, must I write?
I refuse to know the answer. If I knew then I would need to declare it. If I became who I truly am and this is not enough for the world, I will have to accept that I am not God. And I must accept that truth. I must rely on the fact that I cannot save the world, that my words, my art, my life may bring a glimpse of God's glory but they will never substitute their way into the the crowned title of Savior of the World. If I accept that I am a writer then I must also accept that my writing is human, faulty, destined to pass away. If I admit that I must write then I have to give up hopes not of God but fully mine. Things like best seller lists and interviews on the morning talk shows because I am God's and my life is for God's glory alone and those ideas did not come from prayer but from watching the world. But if I am not required to write then I can do what I want with it, I can capitalize, monetize, popularize it to the nth degree. It does not matter if it's just some little thing that I do for personal enjoyment. I get to do what I please with it because it's just for fun, of no consequence.
If I must write, then it is who I am created to be and that gift will glorify the one who made me, even if I try to pretend it does not, it will find a way. If I must write there is consequence to how I steward my time and skill within my pursuit of words. Can I withstand the wrath of inner menace if I deny the truth of the One who created me to write? Was I created for such a thing as this? Can I stand here and do something else? Must I write? I refuse to give in to simple yes or no, instead I wrestle with the one who made me.
Even now, instead of actually answering the question for myself, I instead write for you. Telling you of the wrestling I'm in the midst of, hoping that writing about if I must be a writer is answer enough. It's not, I must accept or deny. The same is true for you. The question may not be "must I write?". It might be must I paint or bake or marry or parent or run. The world is full of beautiful gifts. Some you get to play with and others are meant to help you understand your role within this world and how the Creator speaks through you. And so I leave you with this charge to wrestle with the things, wrestle with the gifts you have received. Are they mandates of who you are or just play things to pass the time? Let's find out together.
Wrestling over here as well, questions leading to more questions. New for 2024 is choosing to seek the answers from the Author and Perfector of my faith rather than pretend I don't want/need to know which is a way of being off the hook and doing nothing.
Thanks for your kind words, Christina. I think you're writing your way to your answer.