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On Writing, prt. 5: Progress

April 15, 2012 in MISCELLANY with 2 Comments

Update: No updates in a while because I have been off by myself writing my book. As it stands now, I have five chapters completed, 59 pages, 19,914 words. Feeling like I have found my voice, but not always able to keep it as clear as I’d like. Still, great progress on writing my sucky first draft. This weekend I’ll go to the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing and hopefully get a chance to run some of my work by a few publishers, editors, or agents. I will get critical feedback that will help me come back home and spiff it up as much as possible.

There is even a small chance that somebody might like what they see enough to make me some kind of offer right there on the spot. Hoping and praying this books finds a publisher and an audience, because I have seen the power of these ideas to help people.

Meta Me

April 14, 2012 in REFLECTIONS with 2 Comments

I noticed something tonight that is bugging me. I noticed that I rarely see people. They are all around me, and I am looking, but I don’t see them. What I see is them seeing me. I think maybe I have read this before, or heard of something like it, but I can’t remember where. All I know is that that is the essence of the “meta-self.” The metaself (“meta-me”) is not the person living out my experiences, going to my job, playing with my kids, living my life. Meta-me is the one who stands above and beyond it all — watching. Meta-me is the director of the drama I am in. “Look this way. Do this. Do that. Don’t do this. Don’t say that.” Meta-me is critical and hard to please. Meta-me hates mistakes. But most of all, meta-me hates being noticed, so meta-me never walks onstage. Meta-me has no bullhorn or anything else to announce his presence. That little earpiece works just fine. The earpiece assures I hear everything meta-me has to say, and follow his every direction.

Meta-me saves my life. Meta-me keeps me from having to tell the truth. Without meta-me I’d have to say the following things.
1. I hope you are looking at me right now.
2. I hope you are thinking about me right now.
3. I hope you are impressed by me right now.
4. I hope I stand out vividly on the canvas of your mind against all others. Right now.
5. I hope I am the most valuable person you have ever met. Forever.

Meta-me helps me act as if I do not think those things. Meta-me helps me to act humble and self-effacing. Sometimes I’m pretty good at it, and then I’m especially pleased with myself.

Meta-me watches everything I do. I’m not sure if he likes me. And I’m not sure what’s in this for him. I know he’s not getting paid for it, at least not with money. But he spends a great deal of time telling me what to do, say, and think, and for only one reason — so that I do not have to let others know who I am. That is why when I write I am determined to be honest. When I write I try not to listen to meta-me, who says to me, “Don’t write that — what will people think of you?” Writing is my way of sitting in the director’s chair once in a while.

God I know you are there. I know you save people from all kinds of things. Save me from myself. Help me to learn what it feels like to look at someone without seeing myself back through their eyes — to just see them, to just love them, not for how loving that will make me look, but because they are Yours.

I don’t need you to kill meta-me. I just need you to put him out of business, by turning me into a person who loves selflessly, who thinks more of others than of myself, who would never consider myself better than anyone else. You have a big job to do.

Having said all this, I like who I am — today more than ever before. I’m probably still cocky sometimes, but not like before. I love better than I used to. And I can’t help it that I find it almost unbearable to really get close to people. As hard as it is to love, it’s even harder to accept love from others. Meta-me is never more bossy than when I’m around friends and people I love who, most likely, love me too.

And tomorrow I’ll probably read this and think to myself, “Dude, lighten up.”

Walking for MS

April 12, 2012 in MISCELLANY with 2 Comments

Most of my readers probably know I have multiple sclerosis.  In fact, I was diagnosed with MS 20 years ago, December 5, 1990.  1991 was the scariest year of my life and [in my best Forrest Gump voice], that’s all I have to say about that.

But here I am 20 years later doing better than I ever imagined.  I have run in a 5k recently with my teenage daughter.  I carried my three babies up the stairs to bed every night, and played on the floor with them, and have been at all their events, and rode roller coasters with them at Cedar Point.  I trained for the Crim with my wife.  I bought a cane 10 years ago but have only had to use it a couple of times.  I have lived a productive life, largely free from MS, with the exception of some significant and scary flare-ups here and there.

This morning I was reading the blog of another person who, like me, was diagnosed with MS 20 years ago and who, like me, has had very few problems.  But lately she has noticed that she is having increasing difficulty walking.  I must admit this tapped into very deep fears, and I found myself looking back over the last few months to see if I too have had problems.  So far, so good.  I mean, I have definitely noticed some extremely annoying symptoms, but nothing I can’t ignore, and nothing that is obvious to anyone but  me.  So far, so good.

As I was reading this woman’s blog, I scrolled down to the comments section and read where one of her friends was encouraging her by saying, “I’ll continue to walk in the MS walk with you to help you raise money to treat your disease.”  I got to thinking about how intentionally uninvolved I have been with MS-related causes.  The course of my MS has been mild enough to allow me to live months at a time without hardly thinking about it at all.  Given that in 1990 and ‘91 I figured that by now I’d have been in a wheelchair for years, I have determined to simply not think about MS as long as it is possible to not think about MS.

Isn’t that in some ways what separates people who have chronic illnesses from people who don’t?  People who don’t have chronic illnesses are free to take their health for granted in most ways.  They are free of the burden of wondering what will happen next, and whether their current flare-up will get worse or stay the same, and how far this one is going to spiral down, and whether and how much functioning they will recover if it does get better.  I got to wondering what I’d do if tomorrow a flare-up started that got worse and worse until I did end up in a wheelchair, or maybe blind, or suffered some other type of permanent disability.  I realized the first thing I’d do is start trying to raise money for MS.  It’s no wonder that people without MS don’t get involved in finding a cure for it.  I’ve had MS for 20 years and I’ve never been involved, nor have I ever given a single dollar to fight the very disease that one day just might start to catch up with me.

This has to change.  Now is the time I can do the MS-Walk to raise money to cure the disease.  Now is the time I can do this simply because I am part of a unique group of people – people with multiple sclerosis – many of whom can no longer walk, much less run, exercise aggressively, and work three jobs like I do.  I have focused so long on the blessing of not having to think about MS that I have not enjoyed the blessing of being in a position to help do something about it while I still can.

There are many diseases and they all suck.  But MS is my disease.  It’s a natural way I can reach out and do a little good for other people who are suffering.  My MS may never get any worse, and I hope it doesn’t, but we all need to find a group of people to serve.

So I’m going to walk in the MS walk this year.  I’m thinking of the one in Traverse City in June.  As a pastor I’m weary of coming across like I am using my position to raise money for my pet cause, so I will probably not talk much about it in public.  On the other hand, if you think you might be interested in supporting me in any way, keep an eye on this blog and I will be posting more definite information once I get signed up.  Heck, even if you only give $1, it’s $1 more than I’ve given in 20 years of actually having MS!

That’s about to change.

On Writing, prt. 4: Finding Your Voice

April 12, 2012 in MISCELLANY with 2 Comments

After my “crash” experience yesterday I realized my problem was really about finding my voice. I determined to just focus on writing my sucky first draft and leave it at that. This allowed me to squeeze out of self-consciousness and settle into “my voice.” I assume most people reading these posts are writers on some level, but a “voice” is a writer’s way of writing. Everyone speaks with a certain voice that is unique to them. But writers have to craft their writing voices, and this can be difficult. I do know blogging regularly over the past few years has helped me begin to settle into a voice. Not a moment I have spent on blogging has been wasted. If you want to be a writer, start writing. Start a blog, and then post regularly. Don’t let anything get in the way. Not even working on your first book. ;-)

Lesson: Adjust expectations. While I don’t want an agent or editor to see crap on the page, the first thing is there must be something on the page. Get something on the page, even if it’s crap. Chances are, when you settle into just getting something on the page, you will free yourself from your perfectionism and be much happier with what you are writing. As you learn to do this, you will find your voice. I only wrote six pages of my second chapter yesterday. It took me all day. But what I wrote was good, and I knew it. I found my voice. I especially know this because my wife cried when she read it. She cried because she recognized what had been missing in my previous work: ME.

Questions: Do you have a dream? Are you pursuing it? If not, why? If you are, are you keeping your expectations reasonable? What struggles are you having and how are you moving through them?

On Writing, prt. 3: Frustration and Anger

April 11, 2012 in MISCELLANY with 2 Comments

So the anxiety of this morning has turned to anger and frustration. The words won’t come out and, when they do, they feel awkward and strained. I know what I want to say but I do not know how to say it. I believe I am in this place as a direct result of reading back over everything this morning and hating it. I keep hearing that same voice that I hated this morning in what I write today and I am now self-conscious. This keeps me from accepting the words that are presenting themselves to me today and causes me to wrestle with new ways of saying what I haven’t even discovered I want to say yet.

The solution? Keep writing. And not only this, but keep writing down whatever comes to me. It is a first draft and, as Anne Lamott has observed, “first drafts always suck.” Perhaps I need to adjust my attitude. I need to stop thinking about writing this awesome book and just settle into writing a sucky first draft. Then perhaps I won’t be as angry and frustrated with myself when I write something that seems to suck.

Lesson: I cannot write a great book. What I can do is write a sucky first draft. In fact I’ll bet I can write the suckiest first draft that has ever been written.

Whew. I feel so much better now.

Back to it.

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