The Right to Write

A book I read a while back. I think I need to revisit that one.

My brother handed me a screenwriting DVD this morning. That was a sign of his faith, and I found it extremely touching. He draws and paints and sculpts and films and plays all kinds of instruments. I sing and dance and write...and I kinda play the ukulele.

We're artists.

At this moment, however, I think I've been in hibernation for a while.

There's been a disconnect - I was telling Brandi yesterday - between me and my story. It's funny that I should say that because I'm asked to tell it over and over again. Maybe it's because I've felt that I've owned the rights to my story...maybe it's because I haven't given much credit to the God who actually authored the whole thing in the first place. Maybe it's like Brandi said...we have to find joy in telling His story first and realize how He truly is our "precious Lord".

And so the thread continues to weave through each day of my life.

Jana and her blogs - all in one day - sparked a flame within me. But it wasn't all in one day because she is who she is after 24 years of being Jana. So even if I've only known her for two years and read two months worth of entries, her whole life is helping to change mine because we're the same...yet different. It isn't, though, like she's actively doing something for me. She's making a difference simply by being faithful to who she is. I know that, and that's what inspires me.

It's something that an old friend asked of me once upon a time.

"I just need you to be you."

And then all of a sudden I couldn't be.

But now three years later, it's something that I can't run away from anymore. It hurts too much to hide from myself.

This journey that I'm on...my own personal journey is about DISCOVERY. It's a time for me to get to know God - Father, Son and Spirit - in a new way...with the heart of a child and the maturity of an adult. It's a time for me to get know myself...to accept this woman I see in the mirror with everything she is and ever has been. It's a time for me to get to know the world and the people living in it...to first try to understand who they are, where they've been, and where they dream of going.

It's a time to embrace the characters, the plots and the settings...to be challenged by the conflicts and to find hope in the resolutions.

I'd like a happy ending...not just for me but for everyone I know. It's that idealism again. Granted that life comes with suffering, it hit me tonight that I'd been camping out on Calvary long after the tomb had been emptied.

We are an Easter people. The greatest witness is to believe in the Resurrection...to have hearts full of joy...to be just like Jesus. If we were otherwise, we couldn't call ourselves Christians.

Thank you, Lord. =) Thank you for this day...for my friends...for prayer meeting tonight...for the ride home with Lyn-lyn and the resolution not to wait anymore for "something" to happen to get us going again.

There isn't any bigger "something" than You dying for our sins and rising again, only to give us the miracle of Your Presence here in this world when we receive You in the Eucharist.

Time to get up, my friends. Praise God!