Cameron: Writing as a Spiritual Practice

Cameron: Writing As a Spiritual Practice

"Do not call procrastination laziness. Call it fear. Fear is what blocks an artist. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of not finishing. The fear of failure and of success. The fear of beginning at all. There is only one cure for fear. That cure is love. Use love for your artist to cure its fear. Stop yelling at yourself. Be nice. Call fear by its right name."—Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Tarcher 1995).

When I suggest to friends that they consider writing a spiritual practice, most respond they don't know how to start or have no writing talent. It is not their gift. The best antidote to this fear of writing or inadequacy as a writer is Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. Cameron suggests starting to write by rising in the morning and writing "morning pages," which she calls the "primary tool of creative recovery." These are three longhand pages of whatever comes into our mind. These reflections do not have to make "sense." Instead, writing them is intended to be a listening exercise in the morning: imagining God's hand moving through our hands as we write.

I have also experienced this exercise as a clearing or cleaning out of the garbage in my head. Fearful thoughts stay powerful when they remain in my head, but some of their power over me goes away when I put them on paper. Perhaps, in some way, I am turning them over, releasing them to God to begin the creative process.

Cameron recommends we pray for guidance every night and ask for answers. The morning pages are a process of listening for the answers as the day begins.

I often write on the inside covers of books when I start reading them. As I reread Cameron's book, I pull back her cover and observe a date twenty years ago. Memories flood in of the book group at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, with which I read The Artist's Way over one summer. I especially remember Lee Nix, the chair of my discernment committee, who was a mentor to me and an encourager of creativity. Today, there is also an Artist's Way for Retirement!

I believe it enhances the experience to read, write, and work through a book like The Artist's Way with a book study group—to go together through the book's many suggested activities and exercises.

Today, I am also reminded of how powerful writing down a date can be in the context of spiritual writing.

   Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Parker Palmer: On the Brink of Everything

Parker Palmer: On the Brink

“I’ve lost the capacity for multitasking, but I’ve rediscovered the joy of doing one thing at a time. My thinking has slowed a bit, but experience has made it deeper and richer. I’m done with big and complex projects, but more aware of the loveliness of simple things... I like being old because the view from the brink is striking, a full panorama of my life.”—Parker Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity & Getting Older (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 2018) pp. 1-2. 

Langley on the Brink of Everything

Parker Palmer takes us to the brink of an alternative life. It is a slower life where we observe and become aware of so much we missed in this world while living at a frantic pace: cardinals, dolphins, pelicans, hummingbirds, downy woodpeckers, Carolina Chickadees, the ocean, crocus, daffodils, old friends, the list goes on. Parker Palmer has so many suggestions for our new life. First, we are to consider being a mentor, knowing that we will learn as much or more from the one we mentor. Second, we are to be more observant of the world outside of us and inside our inner world.

Palmer reminds us that “violence happens when we do not know what else to do with our suffering.” We are, therefore, still called to reach out with love to those who suffer and to become acquainted with our own suffering and what we can learn from it. Parker Palmer simply asks us to welcome everything that comes into our lives, the good and bad.

Palmer quotes Rumi’s poem, “The Quest House,” reminding us that every part of our life has something to teach us. Palmer talks about how suffering breaks our hearts, but if our heart is supple instead of brittle, it breaks open and allows more love and a new life to come in. Our heart becomes supple by stretching it, taking in all of life’s little joys and taking in life’s little deaths without an anesthetic.  

Palmer believes faith allows us to live with all the contradictions of life. However, we become faithless when we are so afraid of the contradictions we pretend are not there.  

We can now become observers of our world because most of the rest of the world does not have time to observe and digest. They simply react.

He reminds us that as long as we only look for results, our tasks become smaller and smaller.

We are to be seed scatterers. Others may plant, Others water. Others reap.  

Palmer’s experience is that solitude is not being apart from others but being apart from our own self.  

Palmer reminds us of Benedict’s message of “keeping death daily before our eyes.”

In the meantime, we are to reach out and learn from the younger generation, move toward, not away from what we fear, and spend as much time as possible in the natural world.

Finally, he reminds us of how essential humor is as we age, quoting William James: “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same things moving at different speeds. Humor is common sense dancing.”

Joanna on the brink of everything

Joanna.  Joannaseibert.com  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Vulnerability

Vulnerability: Habitat for Our Humanity

“The only choice we have as we mature is how to inhabit our vulnerability…”—David Whyte.

Vulnerability. Poet David Whyte gives us one word to take with us today. Vulnerability, however, does not live alone but resides in a word community.

Intimacy. Another word that lives with vulnerability. We allow someone we trust to see and hear our inner thoughts and concerns, our highs and lows.

Humility is also a close family member of this word community. We don’t think of ourselves as any better than someone else.

Humanness whispers in the ear of vulnerability. We are to take off our mask of “perfection.” We are to admit our mistakes to others promptly and to learn from them.

Forgiveness must also be a beloved companion of

vulnerability. We are to ask for forgiveness when we have wronged others and be ready to forgive ourselves for our own mistakes.

Vulnerability, intimacy, humility, humanness, and forgiveness are five construction workers in a family business crucial for building our own Habitat for Humanity.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/