“It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy…strength for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience.”
These are two different translations of Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, which I heard reflected on yesterday at church, and would have written about last night had there not been pressing business. This is the strength I am trying so hard now to gain and bolster within me, but it can be very hard…and oddly enough, it is the very successes I have in life which make it so difficult. Finding an apartment and securing an availability posting at a temp agency only remind me sometimes that I still do not have a permanent assignment and a living wage. And as I make more and more wise decisions and consider my position and myself with an increasingly critical and well-judging eye, my heart sometimes looks back to my past and sighs with thoughts of my folly, or more accurately, what I THINK was my folly. Taking classes at Emerson I never fully enjoyed to earn a degree which I ultimately wanted no part of…not taking more courses which would have helped me build a career…paying far too much for an apartment in Burbank where I did my best screenwriting but suffered under the dual woes of scabies and loneliness. There are times when I believe that for someone whom others consider intelligent, I have done far too many foolish things worthy of no one’s respect.
But then little things happen, like reading fifty chapters of Trollope in a day or writing two or three really good job applications and knowing that my work ethic is as fine-tuned and eager as ever. Reading a fantastic article by Nigel Bignall which sums up all the reasons I want to be a writer of non-fiction (http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/3156/full). Spending half an hour on the phone with Daddy as he listens to what I have to say and shares the wisdom of his fifty-six years with a son who is always and evermore ready to listen, or a little less but equally crucial time with the S.O. And listening to the words of God and saying my prayers.
My exercising gives me a strong body. My faith gives me a strong, patient spirit. The former shall pass away, but the latter I will never stop cultivating until I die.
OTHER MAGNIFICENCE
Four 1-0 wins in a row after a match where it looked like everyone wanted to kill each other. A little sad for the Netherlands, but it was a hell of a fun ride. Though the commentary hit an all-time low: “Beyond the gates open only to World Cup champions is still a never-never land for the Netherlands.” If only the S.O. had been there…
Both the Quarterly Gentleman and Anthony Trollope agree: Rome in July is no fun.
And why do I want to write non-fiction, asks the person who doesn’t have time to take a gander at my links? Well, Rev. Nigel Biggar of Oxford writes that the gift of the humanities is to one, introduce us to foreign worlds from other times which give us “the benefit of distance from our own world, and thereby the freedom to ask questions of it that we could never otherwise have conceived. In foreign worlds, past and present, they see and love and do things differently. And in reflecting upon that difference, it might occur to us from time to time that they see and love and do things better.” Two, by fostering our critical thinking, they instill within us truth, humility, and charity, and allow us to make better decisions. My first of what will hopefully be many books will touch on a way of thinking devised in a now foreign world which I believe carries a strong, strong message for a fractured world of today. And to put this truth in writing as no one else can is for me a true vocation.
And congratulations to the Wolverine and the Russian Warrior Princess for their successful journey!
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