Back before the Internet, when my two sources of interruption were the mailman and the telephone, my computer functioned like a typewriter or notebook, singular in its purpose. I like to imagine that I could focus, settling down into a project, losing myself in creation and emerging hours later, but the truth is I grasped […]
The fact that the artistic process includes emptiness says something important, I think, about creation itself. Emptiness is part of becoming.
Thank goodness there’s an adult in Gwyn’s life eyes spark at the magnificence of mathematics.But I’m also grateful to our pastor, who sees Gwyn’s cynicism about that great bearded white guy in the sky for what it is—an early and woefully simplistic understanding of (and then rejection of) holiness. Here’s hoping we can communicate to Gwyn—to anyone, to everyone—the beautiful calculus of faith.
The Calculus of Faith Read More »
That spark of inspiration in my writing that then is reflected in my reader’s eyes? I didn’t generate it; I just created a form to hold it.
Your Stories are Wiser Than You Are Read More »
We can breathe freely again, we can walk outside without guarding our steps, we can propel ourselves long distances safely, we can even comfortably, amazingly, sit! This exultation only comes from weathering winter; it’s a unique gift for having suffered the cold.
A spark of life or inspiration sounds through us into our creations and sounds through our creations into other living, breathing creations who are also sparks of life and sources of inspiration.
You, Sounding Through Me Read More »
If even my agency is a gift passed along by my family genes and my upbringing and white privilege and happenstance, then any sense that that agency is mine is an illusion.
There’s an old Taoist story about a farmer whose horse ran away. His neighbors on hearing this came to him and said, sympathetically, “Such bad luck!” “We’ll see,” the farmer replied. The next day the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “So wonderful!” the neighbors exclaimed. “We’ll see,” the farmer said. Then
Receive the Blessings of Failure Read More »
The most powerful, willful action springs from acceptance. In Minnesotan terms, we take the “bad” weather and make the best of it.
Consenting to the Cold Read More »
One of the hardest things about creative writing, as far as I’m concerned, is the pervasive sense of getting nowhere. Sure, I might have a productive morning and crank out a few thousand words, but tomorrow I’ll cut half of them, and even if I don’t I’ll likely wait years before those words see the