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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: The Journey

Re-thinking my Memoir

George 0 Comments

Some years ago I read Not Quite What I Was Planning. The book is a collection of six-word memoirs. It originated from a project by on-line magazine SMITH that solicited submission of peoples’ life memoir stated in six words. I recently shared that I am writing my memoir. After working on it some, I’m thinking I might settle for a six word memoir. Here are a few examples from the book:

Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears.

Born in the desert. Still thirsty.

Macular degeneration. Didn’t see that coming.

Kentucky trash heap yields unexpected flower.

Thought long and hard. Got migraine.

Thinking about my own memoir. Here is what I came up with:

I Knew. I Know. I didn’t’t

How about yours?

Writing a Memoir

George 0 Comments

Writing a memoir sounds a bit narcissistic, or, at the very least, presumptuous. Cool people write memoirs. People who are famous or think they are, write memoirs. Those realities press upon me as I entertain the idea of writing a personal memoir. One might ask, “Who do you think you are?”

Well, that is precisely the problem. I’m not famous and suffer no illusions about that. Neither am I cool, except, perhaps, to a couple of grandchildren who are not old enough to know better. 


I’m not a nobody but I am somebody. Even though today I am somebody, however insignificant or significant, in a few decades or more, I will be a nobody. In all likelihood the only evidence of my past existence will scattered ashes. A quote from Anne Lamott on my website header may be the best reason I have for writing a memoir. 

 

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”

 

In the end, the only thing I have offer is my story, for good or ill. It is my desire that my children and the generations to follow have the opportunity to know that story. It may not be a great story but there is no other story like it in all of history. 

 

 

Perhaps, writing my memoir is nothing but a desperate attempt to resist the inevitability of  anonymity? Regardless, I believe it’s worth the trip.


Failure

George 0 Comments

 

…the genius of the Gospel is that it incorporates failure into a new definition of spiritual success. This is why Jesus says that prostitutes and tax collectors are getting into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and religious elders (see Matthew 21:31).

Our success-driven culture scorns failure, powerlessness, and any form of poverty. Yet Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by praising “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3)! Just that should tell us how thoroughly we have missed the point of the Gospel. Nonviolence, weakness, and simplicity are also part of the American shadow self. We avoid the very things that Jesus praises, and we try to project a strong, secure, successful image to ourselves and the world. We reject vulnerability and seek dominance instead, and we elect leaders who falsely promise us the same.

 

One of the great surprises on the human journey is that we come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing, facing our own contradictions, and making friends with our own mistakes and failings. People who have had no inner struggles are invariably superficial and uninteresting. We tend to endure them more than appreciate them because they have little to communicate and show little curiosity. Shadow work is what I call “falling upward.” Lady Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) put it best of all: “First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall. And both are the mercy of God!” [2] God hid holiness quite well: the proud will never recognize it, and the humble will fall into it every day—not even realizing it is holiness.


Richard Rohr