The poet-monk, Thomas Merton, said in his New Seeds of Contemplation:
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men—you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.
I walk in the cold. It stings and soon my cheeks grow so numb I can no longer enunciate my P's and M's. The holly shrubs are the only green thing here, and the skeleton fingers of trees reach up to the bluefrozen sky as if they pray for warmth. They will pray through the darkness of night and get none.
Behind me is my home and inside sits my computer. I recently won a blogging competition and today's bar on my web analytics is climbing to heights I've never experienced before. But I left the stats for the cold because we do not live for digits on a screen but for moments like these, alone in the woods, staring at bare trees which grasp for warmth. Aren't we all grasping?
Photo by Jenny Downing
I started coming here to meditate when those digits were single numbers that looked lonely and cold on the screen, and now I come here when they are great giants, almost crowding out my computer and my comprehension in their black weight. I come here because I must. I wouldn't be able to bear it all without these walks. My mind would snap like one of those wooden treefingers.
This is what meditation has taught me:
Gratefulness.
I am grateful for those wee little numbers and I am grateful for the giants. Who could live without gratefulness? And by live I don't mean eat, breathe, sleep, and go to the bathroom. I mean eat so that the food tastes like manna, breathe so deeply it's like your lungs fill up with cloud and you exhale it out so that it fills the room and seems to cover it all with a holy mist, and sleep as sound as a child after a trip to Disneyland. I mean to really live.
To write well you must live. You may write without living, but what kind of writing would it be? Not the kind that will change the world, that must be said in certain terms.
The Challenge
Coincidentally, though, this life I'm talking about sometimes comes to us through writing. While I had glimpses of this life before, it wasn't until I began writing that I was truly able to grasp it. Words can be woven together to form a great net to throw over life, tie it down long enough to slurp into your soul.
This is what The Write Practice is about, then. Not just learning to write but learning to live. Not just learning to weave words to get a paycheck or some internet glory, but learning to weave them into life-catching nets that can bring life to the whole world.
So my challenge to you today is this:
- Are you experiencing life? Right now. In this moment?
- Is your writing bringing life not just to you but to others?
If not, then you might need more practice.
PRACTICE
Go on a walk. Take a notebook and a pen.
Sit down on a bench or on the curb and describe what you see, what you feel, what you hear.
Write for fifteen minutes, and then come home. If you'd like, type up your practice and post it in the comments to encourage the rest of us.
Very cool. I know what I’m doing on my lunch hour now. 🙂
Nice. Let me know how it goes.
Congrats. I find one of the best ways to actually feel the air filling my lungs is to change life up. Do something different. Something new. Something harder.
Right. As a doctor, you probably already know that novelty, doing something new, actually physically changes the structure of the brain. It’s a great way to experience life anew.
Joe Bunting, you must be living well because you sure are writing well. Loved this post. Thanks!
Ha, thanks Tom!
Love that quote, Joe!
Katie
I know, isn’t it incredible?
I got out to check the bird-feeders in the back yard in my clogs, with no socks on. The sky is cloudless, and pale, like it’s been erased, bleached. The trees are bare and each branch has a shadow on one side from the late afternoon sun, the stingy sun that lies low near the horizon, hurrying away.
The frigid ground bears straw colored grass, bleached like the sky to a tint that is meager and bleak, Even the magnolias and rhododendrons usually so proud and glossy look dull. From one huge magnolia bursts a flock of grackles, frightening black birds. They move to a tree where they form menacing silhouettes on the long branches.
I check the thistle sock, shake it, dust comes out. It’s almost empty as is the suet holder. Neither has a smell, the scent molecules don’t move in the chilled air. The big feeder with sunflower seeds still holds enough for a day or two. I worry about the birds. I haven’t seen any chickadees or cardinals in a day or two. I hope they are warm, somehow, or at least not frozen.
I walk away, up the path toward the house, with the grackles silent behind my back. They are still, maybe solemn, an unusual demeanor for grackles.
I turn for a last look and see a yard empty of color, scentless, only cold, still, dead. I wonder how it felt when people didn’t have coats or shoes sometimes. I begin to shiver and run to the house.
The loose porch planks rattle and the door sticks when I pull it open. Inside I smell chicken cooking and apples. I go to the window to see the grackles again. They are leaving, floating up off branches with flutters and gusts. Their movement animates the yard for a few minutes. Then they disappear.
I feel the top of my feet burning from their exposure to the cold. My heels feel fine, I think they are too calloused to feel the winter air, at least for that little bit of time.
Hi Marianne. Thanks for practicing and for posting it! This is wonderful.
I like the idea of the bleached sky. Great image.
I like how you personify the sun as stingy and hurrying away.
Grackles! What a wonderful word. And you almost rhyme it with black just after. Was that intentional?
“They are still, maybe solemn….” I like how you search for words here.
“I wonder how it felt when people didn’t have coats or shoes sometimes.” This sentence could be reworded. Because you’re writing in present tense, I can’t tell whether this is your voice wondering or that you sometimes do this.
I think you should cut out that last paragraph. End with the disappearing birds with the wonderful name.
So beautiful, Marianne. Thank you.
Thanks Joe. I noticed that black and grackles sounded cool but I didn’t notice it until I reread it. I do read things aloud to myself though and I like how words sound. It was incredibly cold here today so it was kind of depressing to go out to the feeders, and to not have on good shoes or gloves (the metal feeder was really cold) was pretty dumb. I do wonder about people who had to go barefoot in snow like the Russian army in World War II. I saw a newsreel about that once and it was awful. I think a lot of them lost some of their toes or even their feet. I think you’re definitely right about the last paragraph. It just doesn’t fit now that I look at it again.
That’s great. I love reading my work alound.
Those poor, Russians. I think about the Washington’s army in the revolutionary war who didn’t have proper shoes sometimes. It’s hard to imagine.
I also like the last sentence, “Then they disappear.” The scene goes from washed out color, to black and white, to empty. Nice progression!
Great idea, Joe. I spend a lot of time on my deck writing and thinking when it’s not bitterly cold. Outside sitting or running are my best thinking and creative times. That and driving in the car.
Yep. Me too.
For a few months, I would write articles for my newspaper job in the car. It was the only time I could concentrate. It was a little sketchy trying to drive with my knees with my notebook in my lap.
This is beautiful. Thanks for being so honest and so bold to dare us back into perspective. Love the photo. Love the quote. I’ve been a Thomas Merton fan for 20 years. Thank you.
Thank you Christan. I love how you put that, “dare us back into perspective.” If I did that, it’s only because I’ve been dared myself.
Glad to find another Merton fan. He’s a favorite. Have you read Richard Rohr? Everything Belongs is as good if not better than New Seeds.
I am not allowed the luxury to go to the park and write about the people I see. But I always make a point to look around me and hope that I can remember long enough until I can catch a moment to jot a few things down. Then I wonder if my writing is colored by how well, or how rotten, our excursion out has been.
I shadow my 21-month old baby as he tackles the metal ladders, following his siblings up to the highest slide, so that he can experience the thrill of heights and the exhilaration of snaking to the ground fifteen feet below. I listen to his laughter as the butterflies tickle his stomach. Then his sister herds him to the baby ladder so that he can begin his long climb to the top of the slide one more time.
My boys decide that it is time to begin digging a hole in the sand. One of them wants to make it big enough to crawl inside of it. The other wants to hide his show. Neither of them mention digging to China. But the boy playing beside them offers to share his soup that he made. It is snack time, after all.
I watch the woman beside me, wondering marveling how a mother of two boys can be neat and put together with a pair of jeans and a fitted, pea-green jacket. She looks as relieved as I feel to be out on this warm January afternoon, with supper still four hours away.
I like this. Your time outside was very different from mine. I wish it was warm here. I don’t imagine you do have time to do much writing with three children, but you do a very good job.
Having been served sand “cookies” at many a playground “restaurant,” the soup is a well-chosen detail that brings the piece to life. I got a kick out of the well put-together mother in jeans and a fitted jacket as well!
Wonderful, kinelta. This, in particular, was delightful, “The other wants to hide his shoe. Neither of them mention digging to China. But the boy playing beside them offers to share his soup that he made. It is snack time, after all.” I love the randomness and ridiculousness of it, like a surreal painting. Kids are so funny!
I love the description of the children in the sand. Just a personal preference, but I wish you would have elaborated even more about the kids playing. Maybe its just the sentimental Dad in me, but I can’t get enough of it. As we create and share here, we are all like kids playing in a sandbox. I love the joy and excitement that kids have. Not many adults have it- and I think that joy is one of the biggest voids people have. Joy is the pinnacle of life.
To breath life to your writing, indeed you have to live, to go out and feel the air, bask in the sunshine. Sometimes, it’s easy to lose yourself in solitude when writing a piece, to be so absorbed that you forget what real living is. Thank you for this enlightening post, so vivid, so apt.
Quite right. Thanks!
I sun my cheeks and my arms from my seat on the bottom step of the front deck as I watch my daughter ride her tricycle up and down the sidewalk.
The birds are a bell choir all around, their minuet interrupted only by the snore of table saw coming from an open garage a few doors down.
A pickup truck with a snowplow lifted above its front bumper splashes past on its way down the street, the water from the puddle arcing in its path like a wake behind a boat.
Wait.
This is all wrong.
The snowplow. It should be down, scraping the tar, and slanted at such an angle so as to pile yet more snow onto sidewalks that should be interred beneath so many feet of the white stuff that all the good citizens of the town gave up excavating them weeks ago, which would not have been discourteous to pedestrians because no one walks outside once the wind chill hits minus fifty.
The only birdsong I should hear should be a raven’s scream as it scans the snowscape for winterkill. All the sweet little birdies should be in places like Arkansas and Mexico.
This is January. I live Up North. If this were one freakish day out of the long dark time, I could rejoice without guilt. But it has been unseasonably warm all winter long. Though I am hundreds of miles from the rat race, from the refineries, from the urban sprawl, their carbon footprints seep into my world, and the snowmelt flows like tears down the ancient granite cheeks of the Canadian Shield.
A tiny pair of discarded mismatched mittens sits on slushy green grass, colorful like the first petals of a crocus. My daughter, now stripped down to her snow-bibs, looks up from her trike and says, “Let’s eat some watermelon.”
“Watermelon?” I ask.
“Juicy, pink watermelon,” she clarifies, paraphrasing the words from a picture book we read together last night before bed.
“There are no watermelons right now. It is winter,” I tell her. She looks disappointed, so I add, “But you’re right, that is a good idea. Why don’t we go stick the chicken in the oven instead? It’s almost time for dinner.”
On the way up to the house, I consider breaking out the grill and barbecuing the chicken instead. But there wouldn’t be time for that. It is almost 4 o’clock, and it is almost dark.
I meant to include that I love the word “bluefrozen” in your piece.
Bluefrozen.
Perfect.
Thanks Steph. I make it a practice to invent as many words as possible. Liz hates it.
You really touch on the confusion that the changing weather is having on everyone like in your piece the birds singing and your daughter wanting watermelon, and even you consider grilling the chicken outside. I think the mittens looking like crocus is a wonderful metaphor for this theme.
Nice bit of conflict here, “Wait. This is all wrong. The snowplow. It should be down…” I like the way you make something out of what could be overlooked.
And wow, what a sentence that was. I had to read very close to understand all of it. You might try to clarify just a bit.
This was beautiful though, “The only birdsong I should hear should be a raven’s scream as it scans the snowscape for winterkill.”
That last line is great too.
Single digits are warm to some of us. Go outside and place your feet firmly in the snow or on the cold concrete. Let the coolness radiate all the way through you. Breathe in that air so cold it takes your breath away. Then curl up next to the artificial fire with a fleecy blanket.
Is your pseudonym a reference to the poet?
This is beautiful, “Go outside and place your feet firmly in the snow or on the cold concrete.”
Artificial fire? Like the kind they have on the TV?
Thanks for this, ee. Gorgeous.
I stepped out of the building and into the brisk air.
The warm sun caressed my neck as I passed by tourists and dreamers.
I crossed into the downtown district and music blared out one of the many honky tonks.
I felt intimidated, a little overwhelmed. Who am I to stand out in a town full of talent?
I thought about it for a moment.
And then I thought some more.
Then I realized I can not be anyone else, I can only be me.
Nice, Jim. I like that rhetorical question, “Who am I to stand out in a town full of talent?” That last line is a bit of a truism. You might attempt to spin it in a new way. What does it mean to be you?
Yeah. I gotcha. (had to look up truism. haha) Good call!
I stepped out of the building and into the brisk air.
The warm sun caressed my neck as I passed by tourists and dreamers.
I crossed into the downtown district and music blared out one of the many honky tonks.
I felt intimidated, a little overwhelmed. Who am I to stand out in a town full of talent?
I continued to stroll along the uneven sidewalk littered with dreams.
The voices inside kept talking to me.
I can’t silence the voices, but I can ignore them.
Yeah. That’s better, I think.
I like that better. It sounds like it could be the beginning of a novel or story.
Thanks Marianne. I agree. Joe was right. That happens sometimes. 🙂
Rock on Jim!
Thanks Bob! I appreciate it 🙂
I’m going to definitely put your practice into action! Thanks for the great blog!
Do it, Tony. Hope you have fun with it.
Beautiful, Joe!
Thanks so much, August.
Haha – that sentence confuses me, too! But since I had already overshot my 15 minutes and my word processor miraculously let it pass, I decided to post away. Thanks for reading!
I don’t know why this doesn’t seem to be embedded in my comment thread. Technical difficulties, I guess!
Thank you for what you are doing here Joe! Your daily thoughts are very inspiring to me. One of these days I’ll post something.
First of all, please tell me that’s not a pen name, because you would have the coolest author name ever. And why not post something today?
That was beautiful Joe!
Thanks!
Ah, Good post Joe!
I can feel the cold wind cut through the noise and bring a little peace into your heart.
I laughed for a good minute at Thomas Merton’s quote. I’ve got the book.
Me too, I’ve literally got to get out everyday and touch the earth for my good mental health.
I sit under a huge live oak almost every day and write for at least an hour.
The jest of my writing today is summed up in the killer quote of Einstein:
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Albert Einstein
It’s about the Disciplines of Inworking ie Planning vs Outworking ie Living out our core Passion.
It’s too long to post here, but I can say with Einstein, You my friend are honoring the gift.
God Bless Your Passionate Heart!
“I sit under a huge live oak almost every day and write for at least an hour.” That sounds wonderful.
Thanks for this, Bob.
Joe, your Thomas Merton quote really caught my attention. Merton is a favorite of mine. This is an inspirational post, what all writers need from time to time, especially at the beginning of a new year. Keep up the good work at The Write Practice.
Thanks, Sherrey. 🙂
Not cold out, but I still can’t go far. I’ve lost the gift of being able to hike or climb or walk more than a block or two on a good day. I lean on two canes and examine the only garden I have left, the one I have resisted letting go. I crush a leaf and inhale the pungent fresh scent of dark green curly parsley. It grows contentedly in a big pot and ignores the recent cold—cold here being relative, barely producing frost in places around us. Here close to the river, changes in temp are calmed somewhat. It’s nice to be near a river, even when we’re not close enough to see it. An Osprey flies over, white underside flashing in the sun, heading for the river, illustrating my point.
I wanting to talk about letting go, to say something good about it, because there are a myriad of good things, but this minute I feel the empty space a little too dearly.
At first I bargained with God, “Give me back my walking and I’ll never chose to stay in bed instead of going for a walk,” He knew it wasn’t true and I prove it by staying in bed instead of swimming this morning. All these little steps down the pathway to oblivion.
This doesn’t seem very encouraging. I meant to be grateful and notice the beautiful surroundings, and I have, honestly I have, but knowing that things can be taken away so easily sometimes makes them too precious to consider.
I’m sitting in McDonalds, facing the main road that runs through Longwood Florida. Cars in bunches breeze by in both directions. Actually, it’s an assortment of cars, vans, pick-up trucks, box trucks and eighteen wheelers. Although, since it’s Sunday, the big rigs are few and far between.
Across the street is a grocery store that’s being renovated. Bare metal ribs along the front of the small shopping center, above the sidewalk. Even though it’s Sunday, men are working, putting some sort of black backing on those bare metal ribs. The orange armed cherry picker with two men standing in it’s basket really stands out against the black background behind that’s been erected already.
To my right are two tables. The right most table has three senior citizen ladies sitting at it, drinking from coffee McDonalds coffee cups. I’m not sure they’re drinking coffee, but whatever it is, it had steam rising from the cup opening. The three ladies are dressed as if they are going to or from church. They look distinguished with white hair, glasses, sweaters covering blouses and non-descript jewelry. It’s struck me as odd that all three of them are wearing silver jewelry, instead of gold or something more eclectic like beads.
The other table is occupied by a late-middle aged couple. The man is wearing a purple shirt with a maroon sleeveless sweater, black slacks and tassled shoes. The lady with him has on black slacks, a unbuttoned purple cardigan and mottled blue-green blouse. Her blonde hair frames her face and accentuates her smile. Neither of them has any evident jewelry, not even watches.
People seated behind me are talking today’s dinner. They speak with Hispanic accents, which are frequent in this area of Longwood. The man seems to be recovering from some sort of cold as he occasionally with clear his throat or blow his nose. They’ve agreed on baked chicken with ‘Mom’s dressing’ and changed subjects to picking oranges on the backyard trees this afternoon.
A young man, probably late high school or early college age, is walking down the sidewalk across the street. He’s wearing a large back pack, burgundy shirt and blue jeans. One of his pant legs goes all the way down to cover the top of his footwear. However, the other pant leg is stuck at the top of his high topped black foot wear. He’s too far away for me to tell whether he’s wearing hiking boots, black athletic shoes or something else. He looks odd with his pant leg like that, but yet he looks comfortable in his gait and his head is constantly moving from side to side as he takes in his ever changing surroundings. He’s not a hurry, but yet he walks with purpose.
This post spoke to me so much as a writer. The above quote by Thomas Merton is what writing should be; to write because you have something to say, not in order to say something.