A Spiritual Discipline

 Well, friends.

It’s been a year.

It’s been a year since Heidi the Librarian walked into my classroom and introduced me to blackout poetry.

It’s been a year since we sat down to write our first poems together and

It’s been a year since I’ve gone a day without writing

(Minus the day that my kidney stone/abdominal infection hit).

 

I’ve written

…at home, school, the lake, and friends’ houses.

…in coffee shops, hotels, and airports.

…in Charleston, SC; Jacksonville, FL; and Waco, TX.

…fiction and non-fiction, biography and autobiography, spiritual and non-spiritual.

…through summer, autumn, winter, and spring.

…through Annie the Cat coming to live with us.

…through the bats’ return.

…through G-mama’s passing.

…in sickness and in health.

 

I’ve written over 800 poems or statements—some worth keeping, some worth throwing away, but all copiously archived in notebooks in my room:

Anne of Green Gables, The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia, Bridges of Madison County, Make Blackout Poetry, Make Blackout Poetry Activist Edition, and Redacted—all complete!

Where The Crawdads Sing and Blackout Poetry Journal in progress.

 

I’ve laughed.

I’ve cried.

I’ve struggled to find meaning.

I’ve had words jump out immediately on the page.

I’ve wanted to keep going.

I’ve wanted to give up.

 

But through it all, I’ve found strange peace—

A peace in creating,

A peace in blocking out everything else and focusing on the text anywhere from 5 to 55 minutes at a time,

A peace in having a friend walk alongside me on the journey (because Heidi is still writing, too), and

A peace in knowing that this has been, and will continue to be, my spiritual discipline for such a time as this.

 

What about you?

What has been your spiritual discipline?

What has wandered into your life and taken hold in an unexpected way?

Please share. I’d love to hear.

And I’d love to give thanks with you for all the ways God lives and moves.