PUT A PENCIL IN MY HAND-Not long ago, at the place where my family goes to worship and examine what a life of faith looks like, we took some time to explore the psalms. At the conclusion of the teaching we all were invited to take a few moments and write our own psalm. Now, we had discovered that a lot of the psalms were written as a sort of crying out of the soul when God seems distant, I can readily identify with that emotion, so in a few moments, I had my own personal psalm written.
I usually do not write, anything; that quickly. I usually will jot down a few ideas, some key points I want to make, before I ever start to seriously write. This psalm was just for me though, just my own personal soul crying out to God, so in like ten or fifteen minutes, the words had flowed out of me, through my pencil and onto the paper, without a great deal of thought, just straight from my gut. I have not made up my mind as to whether I am going to share that psalm in this particular format. I have shared some personal revelations in this column or other writings of mine before but like I said, it was just my feelings doing the writing, not something to provoke thought or illicit curiosity, like most of what I write. I may share it, just like I wrote it or I may share just a line or two in this particular column or a future one, I have as yet not decided.
I did share what I wrote with our pastor and a small group of people though and somehow he convinced me and three others whom also had taken the time to pour their emotions into a piece of paper, to share what we had written with the rest of the congregation.
We each prefaced what we had written with a short discussion with our Pastor about what had brought us up to the point of writing our personal psalm and what was going on in our lives where we each had the reason to cry out to God. When it was my turn, our Pastor started off with mentioning that many of those in attendance already knew me as a writer. Rather than go down that path I decided to veer toward why that particular day and that particular exercise had left me feeling a connection with God which to be completely honest is from time to time a struggle for me. I said that I enjoyed many of the spiritual practices that we, as a group, engage in but “when you put a pencil in my hand, there is just something about that whole process that leaves me feeling connected to God!” more so than just about anything else we could engage in.
I also shared a bit of my spiritual background but there was one area I kind of skimmed over real quick and there was a reason for that. I shared that I personally had decided to give the way of Jesus another chance, around the same time as the birth of our youngest child. When I shared that, I took a quick glimpse at my family and I knew I could not share what I was contemplating divulging because I do not know if I could have made it, without my voice cracking and me just flat out “losing it.” You see I shared that I hit a crisis point just a few years after the birth of our youngest child but there was a lot going on that brought on that crisis, which I could not vocally discuss. I had been diagnosed with a serious form of cancer and given a prognosis of probably somewhere between five to seven years ( a span of time now long past and though I still have my battles, I kicked that prognosis right in the you know what; I can be a bit of a bada## when I need to be.)
At that time though, I could feel my strength quickly slipping away and work was becoming increasingly difficult and then impossible, that really does head trips to someone used to working hard all their life. At the time also, my family was very young and I firmly believed I was not going to be around to watch my son play little league or console my daughter after a breakup with some lug-headed young man. I sure did not expect to watch them get their first solos in high school band or watch them graduate or walk my baby girl down the aisle or yell at my son over his driving. I have been around long enough to see most of that happen but at the time of the mentioned crisis, I thought it was being denied to me and I grew depressed, disillusioned and to be truthful, quite angry. Reliving how betrayed I felt back then may have proved a bit too much. Doubt that God cared about me or that God even existed, began to creep in and I spent several years struggling with doubt. Since that time wonderful mentors and friends have taught me that faith and doubt can be beautiful dance partners but it was that tension between love and doubt which I wrote about. I wrote about longing to be a child of God yet doubt rendering me to walking the path of the orphan at times.
After the service I had several people come up to me to tell me that they appreciated me sharing the personal psalm I had written. There was one comment though that stuck out above all the rest. It came from a fine gentleman whom I am just beginning to get to know and consider a friend. He told me that I indeed needed to “keep a pencil in my hand” because there had been several instances where he had, along with people he knew, been deeply emotionally moved or brought to deep introspection and curiosity, by several things I have written. Now, every writer deeply appreciates being told that their writing is having an impact on peoples lives. We all write (well most of us) hoping to make some small difference in the lives of others; (One of the hidden motivators for me to keep writing is I hope in some small way to still make my family proud, even though my illness has sapped much of my strength and placed hardship on them in many ways.)
What struck me though, was I got the impression that my writing seemed to be a bit out of character to who I am the rest of the time, at least to my new friend. Actually when you “put a pencil in my hand” or I transfer words to a computerized storage system, I don't deviate that much from the character I am all the rest of the time. What I write is actually at the very core of who I am, those thoughts are going through my head, all the time, all the writing does is allow me to focus, to slow down the jumbled mess in my head, so I can share my thoughts in a more coherent form. An ability I do not often possess when I am speaking to others.
I have been called “scatterbrained” and it is true. I don't follow ideas or gain knowledge in a straight linear path. I grab ideas from all over the place, trying to constantly see the bigger picture, to see how the patterns fit together. The writing does not change my perception of the world but it does change who I am in a way, because it “completes,” it puts everything together for me.
I wrote in a previous column about how the word -perfect- in some writings does not really mean without flaw but -completeness. I am reasonably sure my children would confirm that I am a good dad but they know full well I am not a perfect one. I am absolutely sure my wife would attest to the fact that I am not a perfect spouse. I was never the perfect worker, for instance my right brain perception always struggled when it came to mechanical things but if I persevered, I could usually, eventually, get somewhat proficient at it and there were other areas where I excelled. I don't have a perfect sense of style, as my daughter often reminds me, but I think I have gotten a little better than I used to be. I may come off as a bit rude in some instances but I don't mean to be, it is just my awkwardness does not always let me give the proper response in some social situations.
It is my “scatterbrain “ which makes communicating difficult for me many times and though I am by no means a perfect writer either, it does complete me, because it is able to put the broken pieces together. To tell the truth, I kind of wish that the world was run by “scatterbrains,” for although we are often unorganized, resentful of structure and a tad forgetful, we are also the ones capable of dreaming the big dreams to see how the “kingdom” might be expanded on this earth. The “bean counters” are the organizers, the planners, they know how to get, “things” done, but they have no business being in charge of the idea department.
It is not -perfection or flawlessness which we long for or are meant for, it is “Salvation” the process which heals our brokenness, makes us whole, instead of scattered, this is -completeness.
