~If You Want to Write~ but Painters, Musicians & Artist in General -Take Note Too

I am reading a wonderful book called If You Want to Write A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit written and first published in 1938 by author and teacher Brenda Ueland (1891-1985).

One of her primary premises is that to be human is to be talented because everybody who is human has something to express, and everybody is original and has something important to say if he tells the truth. "But it must be from his true self and not from the self he thinks he should be." (p. 4)

She sees creative power and imagination as very tender and sensitive and usually "drummed out of people" very early in life, and so she sets out to share and encourage the possibility of being blessed by using one's creative powers. In a foot note she writes:

"Whenever I say "writing" in this book I also mean anything that you love
and want to do or to make. It may be a six-act tragedy in blank verse, it
may be dressmaking or acrobatics, or inventing a new system of double entry
book-keeping. But you must be sure that your imagination and love
are behind it, that you are not working just from grim resolution, i.e., to make
money or impress people." (p.14)

She understands any creative work where the feelings imagination and intelligence are employed to have intrinsic value. Writing teaches the writer, stretches a person. "It has done you good." (p. 15), she wrote in her succinct way.
In addition to the much she learned over the years from her students, friends and writer contemporaries, she draws greatly upon the lives and work of Chekhov, William Blake, Vincent Van Gogh and Mozart.
Even though I'm just a few chapters into this book, I've enjoyed aspects of it so much it would feel selfish not to share of its existence and I'd like to hear from others who are already familiar with Ms. Ueland's work. I had never heard of her and just stumbled upon a used copy of the 1987 second edition from Graywolf Press. I've since noticed on Amazon that it's been republished again. It seems deigned to be a classic. I'll leave you with one of her definitions of art:

"But the moment I read Van Gogh's letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love (1) and enthusiasm for something, and
in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty
in things to others, by drawing it.
1Or it can be a feeling of hate and abhorrence too. through the work of the men who have worked from love
seems to be greater than those who have worked from
hate.

Well, I'm heading back to a little music, some exercise, my reading and writing and preparing for Christmas.

Happy Holidays to All

~~~~~

Sweet December...Burma

I thought I was posting about Sweet December and Burma on this blog...but I had actually opened a window over at Bread on the Water so I hope you'll drop in over there and read a bit about Burma...a land where many of the rights we take almost for granted are seriously compromised.
The Burmese people it has been my privilege to meet are some of the sweetest folks I've met...well go on and read what I posted earlier and maybe you will even have a word to share with me in response. I always welcome your comments.

Ageless as the Star and the Lily

In Praise of the Friendship of Books
Quotations from the writings of Oswald Chambers
(c) 2000 JPR

“Books…friends that are ever true and ever your own.” I certainly feel this way about some books and as for Oswald Chambers, the man who penned these words, I count him, through his writing, as such a friend. His days began in the year 1874 and ended in the year 1917, years before my days began. He had not himself rushed to publish, but after his death those who had known and loved him sought to preserve and share what he’d written, gathering his lectures, lesson notes, journal meditations and letters. Numerous titles were published posthumously and some remain in print.

I had made my first acquaintance with Oswald Chambers, as many people do, through the renowned collection of short readings, My Utmost for His Highest. My husband presented the slim volume to me. I had no idea what a challenge I was being given, nor what a friend I was about to meet. Morning after morning I let this man’s words encounter me, but it was not until seven years later that I discovered other writing of Oswald Chambers on the bookshelf of one of my generous friends.

Even though our homes were distant and our visits rare, my friend insisted that I borrow his entire collection of Oswald Chambers, including the 1959 out of print Oswald Chambers, His Life and Work. Knowing that I might never have my own copy of this treasure, or be able to borrow or read this book again, as I read (1996) I created a notebook of favorite passages from this work . That notebook has been tucked away on a shelf for the past four years. Tonight, I came across it and found that it is filled with quotes of a translucent nature that beg to have the light of additional sharing shine though them.

In the pages of Oswald’s biography, when I say I encountered a friend, I mean, to borrow his words, I encountered “a living mind competently expressed.” Oswald was willing to think vulnerably and strenuously. “To think is an effort; to think rightly is a great effort, and to think as a Christian ought to think is the greatest effort of a human soul,” he wrote in a paper he titled “Holy Patience.”

Stick to the Point

Oswald wrote and lived obedient to his own maxim to “stick to the point.” Listen to the pure poetry of his internal dialogue, the economy of his self-counsel, which is found scattered throughout his journal entries. “Be definite…Never lower the ideal…I refuse to worry.”

As I glimpsed how truly thinking this way could shape and energize otherwise lost time and energy of my days, I lamented. Oh the time that I have cast away in the billowing sails of the ship named “waste and worry.” My friend was ready with another word for me, “Arise and do the next thing…never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.”

And at what pace does one need to stride to keep in step with such a friend? “Unhasting, unresting…” How do two small words capture such dynamic balance?

“Unhasting,” it is a challenging word; laments about the fast pace of life these days are common. Oswald wrote of how he found it a blessed thing in life that “a man carries his kingdom on the inside, and that makes the outside lovely.” The cry of his heart was for the courage to rely on God’s provisions; redemption in Christ Jesus and wisdom of the Holy Spirit to avoid the world’s polarities of rationalism and common sense on the one hand or worry and fear on the other.

Oswald Chambers was known for urging others to recognize any experience that ought to be theirs but was not, and to promptly confess this before God and to put one’s self in the right attitude to make it one’s own. He thought of counseling and teaching as opportunity to experience holiness in human relationships. He prized “spontaneous moral originality.” He urged that organization must be seen “to be the scaffolding,” and that it not be confused with the body that erects it.

This focus on the essence and the essential is delightfully present in so many passages that may have been just the scribbles of some moment he claimed in quietude.

“The thing that comes to me just now is that children, love,straightforwardness, simplicity, are all very old,so old that there is no time about them. They are ageless and they partake of the order of the star and the lily. The busy-nesses, the importance, the worrying, and the doing-goodness are all recent and passing.”

And so is my friend, Mr. Chambers, “very old, so old that there is no time about” him. He too partakes of the “order of the star and the lily” and the order of friendship that transcends time and place and is passed down and along to us in books.

Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night"

A Common Thread

I dislike having to categorize where one day's writing goes versus another. Organizing my journal feels like splitting hairs. There's just one of me, why did I sprout twenty-two labels on this blog and why do I have two blogs? As diverse as the thoughts, feelings and happenings are that prompt me to write, there's a part of me that resists categories and acknowledging divisions. I don't like politics of any kind. For years I managed to pretend politics were of no account, but there is no realm where they do not seem to penetrate. School yard, grocery, bookstore, doctor's office, church, where can one go? Yes, even my notebooks...but I long to just spin and weave with a common thread... I say...with my own embroidery in mind.

Don't get me wrong about wanting to ignore divisions, boundaries are good things. For your visual and mental convenience, I've even started a new paragraph here, hoping to protect all of us from blurry thinking. I see boundaries in nature....niches of functional richness, spatial and temporal and seasonal variations of an environment both allow and limit what grows, and who sings or crawls in any particular place.

Gretchen Johanna at Gladsome Lights leaned on George Bernard Shaw to solve her dilemma of categories : "Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life..." wrote Shaw and so G. J., acknowledging her debt, labeled her archive of posts "Crude Classifications." That helps me, remembering that many of our divisions are but "crude."

Here is an example of the ubiquitous nature of politics: I recently read an interview of a young author, editor, publisher who among other literary efforts, compiled and edited a book of birth stories. Here she is discussing feedback she's received.

Despite the fact that I didn't have a political agenda when I edited the book, I've noticed that people do have a political response to the book. I didn't have any criteria for the essays except that I wanted each essay I selected to reach the highest literary standards. I've found Christians who like the pro-natal aspect of the book but object to the fact that I've included a couple of essays by lesbians. Natural or home birth proponents have objected to the fact that I include hospital births in the book. And hospital birth proponents have argued that the book is biased towards natural birth. Whatever. About half the births in the book are hospital births and half are natural births so I don’t see how there could be a “bias” from either side. And I included essays by Christians, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, and who knows what. I honestly didn't care about that part of it. I just wanted to show that whatever TYPE of birth a person experiences, and no matter what spiritual persuasion a person has, the process of giving birth is life-affirming (even when a baby dies, as happens with one of the birth stories in the book) and that process changes men and women in profound and measurable ways.

I take her at her word, she either didn't have an agenda or was not fully conscious of it, but either way she has set out on an up hill battle. I see her desire; she's looking for a common thread and she, not a mother herself, chose to edit a book focused on something that we each and all do in fact have in common, being birthed. Other of her ventures reveal that she is neither unaware of nor ignores the divisive facts of life; it's more like she's willing to head into the eye of the storm in hopes of transcending them.

But of course it is very political to write about anything primal because the body politic wants control and claim over anything of the essence. That is a very old story. It does no good to proclaim our innocence, even if sitting home sewing crib quilts for peace, the critics, representing a full spectrum of goodwill to skulduggery are likely to come and point out how one's underlying assumptions are revealed by every choice, by what one has deigned to include or exclude. It is out of our assumptions that our more specific and concrete beliefs arise. And our beliefs do shape our methods and if we are worth our salt, so to speak, then our methods ought to line up and bring about our goals. Not to just circle about here, but those goals, in a life of purpose should be a practical reflection of the most primary assumptions, the foundation of our being. As tempting as it is to try and ignore politics, there is a war going on.

Divisions themselves are full spectrum, ranging from positive and purposeful to destructive and profligate. Within one side, one division, other divisions often occur; while occasionally ( and happily) reunions or offers thereof, also happen.

The wires of communication are hotly lit of late with news and opinions about the the recent offer that the Roman Catholic Pope has made to priests and parishioners fleeing the Episcopal Church. While some focus on the divisions that exist between these two ( three, four ?) bodies established over the last four hundred plus years, I read one analysis that explores some of the forces in the world that these entities struggle with. Richard Fernandez describes, in Lighting of the Beacons, some of the division and competition he sees this way: "From one side, there is the religion which pretends to be a political movement — socialism/communism. From the other flank there is the political movement which pretends to be a religion — Islam. Both religions have massive amounts of money, heavy weaponry and great cultural power."

It's an impressive essay, but I won't quote more of it here because it needs to be read in its entirety to be appreciated. Fernandez receives hundreds of comments within hours of posting on his web log. Many of the comments are essays unto themselves, some quite worthy of attention.

As I said, the thoughts, feelings and happenings that prompt me to write are diverse and as tempted as I am to resist nailing things down categorically, there is a difference between splitting hairs and seeing the real fissures in the world. It's a big conversation to enter and I never do so without trepidation but I trust that ultimately, whether in the wild or the civilizations of man, not one bird is forgotten and the hairs on our heads are counted. And I aim to lean into the word found in a letter to the Romans 12:18:

In as much as it is up to you, be at peace with all men

In other words, while standing among clear distinctions, it's also up to us to find a common thread.

~~~~~~~~

Sun After a Storm and a Writing Prompt

Water is always needed on the California Coast and we finally got some. It didn't fall straight down though...it came every which way, but we aren't complaining.

Before the Tuesday storm,

and I heard it was just the leftover of a typhoon

that Japan took the full brunt of, things were mighty tidy in the courtyard.

Only little limbs fell and the redwoods and cypress and pines got scoured by the wind and look lovely clean and much greener now.

It sure helps to have sunshine after a storm. The old house absorbed water like a wick.

After the rain, new buds bloom...

I threw open windows to the portal on the sea....

This picture I took reminds me of a writing prompt in a series of workshops I participated in...

"If I were a gate..." I will have to find that poem I wrote and post it on "Writepurpose" sometime.

But maybe, while I get back to work...one of my readers will write a poem...

just take the prompt...and off you go...

IF I WERE A GATE...

Global Consternation

Sometimes I begin to post and either I think better of it or I get interrupted...I found this lurking in the drafts dated August 2, 2009:

Journal entries gliding out easily at the end of the day are not as likely for me as capturing first thoughts in the morning light. Before the rumble of the day, before I've girded myself up for people and activities, to think and feel and release a page in one smooth uninhibited scroll is natural, like an uncoiling, a spring released. Not that most of those pages are ever written to share, but they open the doors of perception to use Huxley's coinage, and then sometimes other writing follows.

When it's quiet, and I am too, I can access the inner realm with fewer twists and turns than it takes on an average day. It's evening now, the sun has set in obscurity and it's relatively quiet. I'm hunting and pecking for "what it is..."

Under the duress of intense emotions, words at work in me flow out easily, but that's more as if something is leaping out of me, rather than I entering in to meet and shape and retrieve and carry out a gestalt of thought. Or if it is an entry to within, it's more like Alice falling down the rabbit's hole.

Wonderland is where we live. When it is wonderful, as it often is close to home...I wonder and marvel. But of course we also live in a great wide world and in larger realms, trouble brews and many mad hatters would pour us a cup. And it isn't just that there's no room at the table and one must move down, make room, it's that the table itself is often needed to stage a makeshift emergency room.

So it's October now, I know this thought wasn't finished; it is terrible to spell out the problem and not even lean toward something that one can do. There are so many needs out in the big world. We can pick areas and send what help we can if we can't lay our own hands directly where the pressure is needed. I know I stay pretty busy just listening to people directly in my life, being there for them as best I can, doing my job every day, taking care of our health...you know trying to cook like I know something about nutrition and taking time to exercise and then also exercising that big muscle on top of my shoulders and...well... then before I know it the sun goes down. But I can't read the paper, or the web or click past the televised sound bites and not care and not have something to do or say about what's going on...can you?

~~~~~

The Guard was Down

You have seen today's headlines...dressed as a diplomatic guard a man asks to use the toilet facilities in the lobby of the World Food Center in Pakistan. Hidden behind his vulnerable sounding request was 16 pounds of explosives. As I first read the story I am thinking in normal human terms, this person has a primal need, we all have these needs, someone took pity on him. It takes me only a moment though, as touching as my first thoughts may have been, a guard had to let him pass.

People need to eat and five people who made it their job, their focus to feed displaced and hungry people in Pakistan, have been murdered. The survivors, those workers who live on and the neighbors of the compound in the surrounding residential area in Islamabad are traumatized. Whether the guard let his guard down or was part of the plan...all human relations are challenged by such treachery.

They were feeding the displaced, those who themselves have no accommodations of their own, those who are daily hungry. To the memory of those killed, in their honor, I paraphrase from the Epistle of James: Pure religion is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction...

~~~~~~~~~