Strange Humility
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.
Receive the Blessings of Failure
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
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Consenting to the Cold
The most powerful, willful action springs from acceptance. In Minnesotan terms, we take the “bad” weather and make the best of it.
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Faith & Writing
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
Bowing to What Is
If we’re willing to be changed and if we’re willing to make change, we come alive. Why? Because life is change.
All My Relations
All these relatives contributed to my life. Their stories exert an influence on my story. When I become conscious of them, when I welcome their being into mine, I become them, too, at least in part. An important dimension of myself is returned to me.
Shouting to the Heavens
Dillard is more radical than I supposed—radical, that is, in the original sense of “forming the root.” She understands creativity to work at a metaphysical level, transforming the basic stuff of the universe.
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Practice, Practice, Practice
What Emily and I want for Gwyn is all that practice teaches: How with every new piece we’re a beginner, how repetition builds skill, how persistence pays off, how talent amounts to nothing without hard work, how to foster a work ethic, how to make mistakes and keep going, how over time and effort what seems impossible becomes possible. How any discipline (music, science, language, faith) opens into ever greater possibilities the deeper we go. How real transformation only happens with practice. How practice becomes the whole point.
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Adding to the Universe’s Order
What I find remarkable about Wallace’s story is how he saw creative potential within a relationship comprised of rejections.
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Stories in the Genes
My ancestors are with me, in me. Their stories are my story, and somehow this is comforting. I’m not alone. I’m living out our story—and it’s so big, surely it’s holy.
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