Finishing a story

Hello my friends,

This weekend I was spending some time looking through some of papers and things. One of the blessed genes I received from my mother is the inability to throw anything away. As a result, I've been able to find pretty much everything I've ever written. I've always enjoyed telling stories, some of which I've tried, off and on, over the years to write down. Well, finding them this weekend became kind of a stroll through my mindset from years past and for some reason I spent the time to put much of this writing onto my computer.

In doing this I started to notice two themes that seem to thread themselves through most of the stories I've ever written. I thought I would share a couple of them with you and see if you could pick out what I was seeing (if you don't... its okay, I'm going to point them out at the end of this blog... I kind of have to, or else there would be no point this whole entry).

"I was born in the middle of the night, in the middle of the year, in the center of the decade filled with confusion from its own self-discovery; given to a mother who should have been in school and to a father that never wanted to be one. My life has seen many comings and goings, much like all the other lives that have propelled themselves through the countless traces of time; toward whatever Heaven they have envisioned. And like those others before me, with me and those to come after me, the uniqueness of my experiences and the stuff which gives them meaning is not so much in the experiences themselves, but in their singularity of having made a part of my life experiences. In my ability to share them with those people who come to make up the life that I have been given unites my stories with the history of all. This is the story I have chosen to tell. Everyone who reads the story becomes a part of it, allowing my life to become part of their own."

"I sometimes wonder why I recall the events of my life too easily. It seems to me there should be some kind of effort involved, some hidden pain or injustice to be circumvented. And yet, there it is! I think of a time in my life that comes vividly to re-assemble itself in my mind with no problem. Yet again! Another memory with no hesitation right behind the last.

Now, I do not consider myself to be super-naturally gifted in anyway. I just think of anything from my past, like the time when… yeah, that’s the one, and I can’t help but laugh as if it were the first time all over again right now.

I really don’t know why they come with such ease. Maybe I’m just more open with myself? Willing to spend more time with myself, to devolve into my experiences. Like that one right there! Man, that was a good time! Maybe that’s it? After all, a man’s understanding of himself is what he has to share with the people around him…isn’t it? If I don’t know who I am how can I show you?"

"I’ve often wanted to write in the Classic Romantic style. To paint images with words brimming over with the taste of the pictorial illusions created through the well-crafted use of the minds’ eye and my pen’s eloquence. Then could I gaze upon the grandeur of a Cathedral and bring to life the caressing sight that can only be given to the smoothest of stone masonry and the blending of glass stained to prismatic color with the gentleness of refracted light. Or to put into words the melodies of the sweet men who put forth into sacred space their voices which found purchase within the very joints and marrow of the soul. Set there to reverberate again and again as sound through these magnificent walls echoing through the edifice of my spirit. Yet, with my abilities all I can say is that these Monks sing really well for a bunch of guys in a damp and poorly lit church."

These are just three examples, but I think you should be able to start seeing my point. All of these were written when I was much younger and are prime examples of the two issues that seem to have folded themselves into the movement of my life.

What are they you ask? They look like very well thought out, introspective snippets of what we can only assume were marvelous stories!

Well, my friends... if those were your thoughts... thank you. If those weren't your thoughts... good for you!

What I noticed in these stories was that I never finished anything! What you see in this blog was everything I wrote on those story lines. I could come up with the initial idea, but never found it within myself to come up with a full story.

The other thing I noticed was that I was really self-important! Look at that stuff! There was no real introspection going on... just words drooling out of pen left agape.

I bring these up, not to poke fun at my younger self (I was actually a pretty nice person back then), but to remind us all that we've begun stories that we've never finished and, at least in my case, I'm beginning to realize more and more that the only story I will ever find fulfilling is the one I'm not writing, but allowing myself to become more and more a part of with each passing day.

Let's keep praying for each other as we journey together through this great epic that is our life in Christ.

Peace,

Fr. John