The biggest challenge for me in writing is not at all in not knowing what to say, but in distilling my way of saying it. This has been so apparent in the crafting of my "reflection" on last weekend's scripture readings, my recent testimony at the AFACT municipal budget forum, and in any attempt to work on the novel I have been writing for several years. 15 lean and clean minutes can be agonizing when the urgency and necessity of what you are saying seems as if it is being wrenched and sifted from your mind, heart and soul in the act of writing it down. It is more like down and dirty hours for several minutes of spoken words. Maybe "digestion" is a more accurate term. Its movement, literally, is not to produce crap, but to sustain life.
The smaller challenge is to take the 15lean and just let it be what it is to be, without editing so much in my head before I type it out on the keyboard. But I will spare you what sometimes becomes a self-indulgent rant when stream of consciousness goes awry. Well, maybe not.
Writing makes room for the other, even in the privacy of journal, there is an audience. That could be any one from God to some psychotic voice. Writing is self speaking to Self, and "other" is illusion. Of course, in a world of relationship, where our autonomy and independence is prized this does not appear to be so. What writing seeks is a way to connect on some level with another--another human being, hopefully. The beautiful thoughts that each of us have, regardless of how that are expressed, should be shared in this manner--if only with another one.
A basic yearning and need in human beings is to communicate with others, evident in the the crude grunts of our ancestors to the fascinating connections we make electronically with each other. We now have myriad options to get our words, no matter how mundane, out there. What a wonderful opportunity and a sacred trust. Perhaps then, when it comes to what we give to the world, we could spend a little more time distilling our words and being careful to remember the true purpose of digestion.
