From Word Count Panic to the Joy of Writing
I went from counting words to writing about THE great mystery.
Writing used to be a time-sink for me. When a professor asked for a 2-page paper in college, I would freak out. I had no idea how to write that many words. Overnight? I’d need a fortnight! I knew how to fake it somewhat. I could adjust the margins on my electric Brother typewriter. I knew I could use the ample double-spaced carriage return. And if I used some big words, I could make it to two pages. Just barely.
I feel much different about it now. Writing is a time warp. Most days begin as I sit in our fourth bedroom, my office, early in the morning. I have been up for a few hours, thinking about how to finish the chapter I was working on the day before. I click open the screen and look to find where I left off. I begin.
And then hours later — I have tried to stretch a few times, maybe refilled my coffee cup — I discover that it is the afternoon. What? How did that happen?
Case in point. I had an assignment with Anglican Compass to write blog articles on how preachers can preach about specific topics related to the church year. If you don’t care about these things — like maybe you have a life or something — then a topic like this might seem boring. And it could certainly be.
But when you love preaching and you love words, it can be a joy. Exhilarating. I think of it this way: writing for me is like taking two sticks and rubbing them together, hoping to make fire. Will it come?
Writing for me is like rubbing two sticks together, hoping to make fire. Will it come?
Deep Thoughts
My topic today was the Trinity. Can you imagine? It is the most complex mystery in the world, and I had a chance to embrace it. To touch it, if only for a few hours.
And I did. I wrote about the mystifying and marvelous doctrine of the Trinity. My mind returned to my seminary classes, and I remembered how difficult it was to think about. I couldn’t figure it out. And what’s more, I didn’t know why it would be so important to be called the number one thing a Christian has to believe to be a Christian. I hate to admit it, but I am sure I thought of it the way I thought about quadratic equations in Algebra II. “Am I ever going to use this?”
Well, I was right about the equations. But I was dead wrong about the Trinity.
Thinking about the Trinity
After 40 years of ordained ministry, I must admit that the idea I rely upon daily is God as Three in One and One in Three. The God who made me, the God who saved me, and the God who stays with me are all the same God!
That concept helps me in my prayer life. It allows me to receive a sense of peace that passes understanding. I look at the world and the culture-crazy time we are in, and I have a quiet sense of being part of a much better and bigger life that God creates — the God I know as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
My blog article will come out in a few days. It was a pleasure to write. Those hours today (all five of them) were some of my week's best and most rewarding hours this week.
I thought about some things I had not considered in a long time.
- How we can delight in the mystery of a mother’s love for her children. We can’t understand it, but we accept it and honor those who have it.
- Who can honestly understand the deep motivation behind a soldier’s sacrifice? Yet, we still thank those who sacrificed their lives for others.
- We all wonder about the innate instincts of creatures of the animal kingdom without fully understanding them. (How did my dog know how to swim without a lesson?)
This is the point at the end of the Book of Proverbs. Agar, son of Jakuh (love that name), ends one aphorism with a glorious, politically incorrect observation:
“There are three things that are too amazing for me,
and four that I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a young woman.”_
— Proverbs 30:10–11
These four things are all observable truths in the world but also mysteries.
We should strive to see the goodness of embracing even things we cannot understand. There will be many more happy marriages if couples stop trying to understand or overthink each other and instead behold the mystery of the other!
Those were the things I got to think about today.
David Roseberry is the author of nine books for Christians and church leaders. See his Amazon page here.
