Whether any of this stuff is worth trying to publish . . .
I'm thinking that this blog has about run its course. I said I'd write it for a calendar year, which ends in two and-one half months, but it's been more than a year that I've been writing about loss, and in December I'll probably move whatever I have to say over to my Advent blog anyway . . .
And now . . . I have to get on with the business of discernment about The Future, and I get it: I will have to live everything through this filter of horrifying, heartrending loss, but that doesn't mean that I can't live it, whatever "it" is, and that it will be without meaning or value.
Whatever "it" is will be different than anything I could have ever imagined when I began seminary two years ago, if only because my vantage point is so radically altered.
Truthfully, I have no idea what to do next.
I'm thinking that this blog has about run its course. I said I'd write it for a calendar year, which ends in two and-one half months, but it's been more than a year that I've been writing about loss, and in December I'll probably move whatever I have to say over to my Advent blog anyway . . .
And now . . . I have to get on with the business of discernment about The Future, and I get it: I will have to live everything through this filter of horrifying, heartrending loss, but that doesn't mean that I can't live it, whatever "it" is, and that it will be without meaning or value.
Whatever "it" is will be different than anything I could have ever imagined when I began seminary two years ago, if only because my vantage point is so radically altered.
Truthfully, I have no idea what to do next.
PS ~ Subsequent and perhaps mysteriously related thought: I have just realized that after 13.5 months my ability to remember things from one minute to the next is more or less back.
I think maybe I like it better the other way.
12 comments:
Sometimes, "normal" comes back even though you thought it couldn't...or wished it wouldn't.
GG, reading this blog has certainly opened my eyes and my heart. I am grateful to you for that.
Mich
I remember reading a book on grief which used the example of the repair of the Pieta after it was damaged by a vandal. The sculptor doing the repair looked at the piece, studied it, learned it, then repaired. The point was that God heals us slowly, and by knowing us well, but something about the analogy failed me. Then I realized the authors had the wrong piece - I would have chosen the David, which Michaelangelo carved from a block of marble that had been deeply gouged, so damaged that no one thought it could be used. That's a better image for me about how God works in all of this. The gouge is worked around, not filled in or fixed.
Peace...
You bet it is, Gannet. Think of what a gift Wolterstoff's and Lewis's books were to you and the gift that your wisdom can be to those who follow us through the dark valley....
And continuing to write or rewrite may be a blessing to you as well. I still haven't published the book about EldestDaughter taken from my journals but redoing it every couple of years played a huge part in my own journey.
Not sure what time and format would be perfect for publication of your stuff but will pray with you, if I may, for grace and guidance as to what God's Spirit would wish and your spirit would find lifegiving.
Well, I selfishly hope you keep this blog going. I guess I could skip on over to your other one, but this one just focuses on the loss, and it helps me to think in some different directions. Of course, a book would be the best of all... and if you're up to it, I vote for that.
thank you for all the words you've written.
I'm grateful for your blog and for these words. I think they would be of immense value in the form of a book.
I love your writing and your honesty. If putting it in book form is where you are led, go for it. If not, I hope you won't pressure yourself. I've had the same question, and I've started the project, but it's not been finished. There are reasons. I trust that you will know; I'm trusting the same thing...and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, either. As a stay at home mom, my job is coming to an end soon. My eldest is now the "alpha and the omega," the first and the last - at home - since Katie left earlier than anyone would have dreamed. So I am with you in the wondering. May God's guiding be clear for both of us...for all of us.
If you do put what you've written into a book I definitely want a copy ... I am blessed so much by your writing ...
Your blog, your thoughts, your words will be missed. And it, they, you are appreciated. Thank you for your insight and as painful as it is, sharing your grief with us.
I think this blog should remain here, with its comments and its links. You should find a way to archive it though.
You could make a book out of it, of course, but it would take away something only this media can portray.
The edginess of allowing eyewitnesses and prayer partners and fellow suffering mothers and fathers participate in real time fellowship with your courage and despair, your vulnerability and your strength, to weep with you, to survive with you...
That's what makes it holy ground. I don't see how the sacredness of it all could be transferred into a book.
But there is in you the material for a book. Probably several books. No doubt. Write them.
(Gerald May told me once that in order to write a book again, he had to quit blogging. His books are great. His blogging was over the top. Sadly it's lost I think.)
I could see a one person play written from it. A simple dark stage, with "you" being the character on stage, and voices from around offering the responses.
O.M.G.
Yes, I think you could do something with this material . . . but I wouldn't rush it. I think it might take a while to discover its shape and thesis.
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