Though I am by nature one of the most scatterbrained people you’ll ever meet, I’m also someone who is “accidentally disciplined.” Throughout middle and high school, I wrote every day, mostly emo poetry, unexceptional but important because it was my mind and heart working on paper. Though I’ll admit that my writing discipline came at the unfortunate expense of any discipline I might have applied to my schoolwork, I’m still glad I learned at an early age how essential it is to visit one’s muse daily.
After I got saved and began volunteering full-time at The Cult, I abandoned my writing discipline. I still wrote - announcements for the church bulletin, clever marketing taglines for our advertising, even my pastor’s sermons when he was too lazy tired busy to do it himself - but I abandoned my muse. At the time I believed that my life had no room for anything that existed solely for the purpose of beauty. Everything had to have a divine purpose.
Thankfully, I found something that enabled me to be creative and holy: prayer. I prayed every day and in every way, and in that communion with God I found purpose AND beauty. For Christmas 1999, a friend gave me a small, spiral-bound notebook - purple, with little sheep doodled on the front - and I discovered prayer journaling. My relationship with God seemed to be unraveling at the time - mostly because my pastor accused me of being treacherous and sinful - so I clung to prayer as a way to save me, and that little notebook was a life raft. Everything I thought and felt was formed into words, altars marking my journey. Over the years that followed, I made a practice of journaling daily, and found that those hours I spent in solitude with God and my words were essential to my well-being. This is how I managed to stay sane through confusion of The Cult, and a large part of why I still love God despite the abuse I suffered. Somehow, in the bombed-out wasteland of my soul, something small and beautiful managed to take seed and grow.
After my time in The Cult ended, I still journaled, trying to make sense of all I had experienced, and separate the good lessons from the bad. I began toying with the idea of writing fiction and poetry again, but my creative voice was rusty from disuse. In October of 2004, I made the leap from paper to pixels by creating a LiveJournal. I intended it to be a place where I could hide out, where I could voice my fears and hurt under the cloak of a false identity. Each word was a release, a prayer. I wanted someone to hear me and respond, but instead of committing my thoughts to God, I was revealing them to people across the globe. At the time, it seemed God had shut up, or maybe he never existed at all, so blogging became an escape from my failed marriage and dying friendships and crisis of faith.
Over time, with the help of “virtual strangers” and many thousands of words, I healed. I stopped hiding behind a false name and started forming new friendships, on and offline. I forgave the people who had wronged me, and more importantly, I forgave myself. I realized that I didn’t know how to quit God, and so I began - cautiously - trusting him again. I also noticed a definitive change in my blogging. In the middle of the mundane and the frivolity (Hi, I went to work today, or Hi, I bought a pretty new dress today!) there was conviction. Passion. I began WRITING. One thing that helped me make that transition was National Novel Writing Month; another was LJ Idol. Both inspired me to push beyond my comfort zone in style and subject, and in the process of participating in each I saw my writing flourish and grow. And every time I posted something that came from the deepest part of my soul - whether it was a story, a poem, an essay, or a capslocked bitchfest - I felt a satisfaction that was perplexingly akin to the dreamy high I’d feel after an hour of prayer. After digging deep within myself to pull out the perfect words, I was simultaneously jazzed and mellow. I felt like wisdom was my sister and enlightenment was my homeboy. I was buzzed, and I knew I’d come back tomorrow, for MORE.
I learned, again, anew, how to meditate with words. This is why I write.
And as with prayer, writing is never only about me. Some people never share their words, but I am not one of those people. In the way that I used to reach out and take someone’s hand, saying, “Let’s pray,” I now reach out and say, “Listen, tell.” I open a window to my heart and mind, and desperately want to see through someone else’s window, too. So this is why my words are no longer bound in a notebook, because I want to start a conversation with whoever will hear and respond. This is why I blog.
