It has not been a happy two weeks.
I despise pain.
I hate being cooped up.
I used to love my couch.
Now I think it’s time we broke up.
I miss being able to walk freely. I miss being able to amble.
In the midst of this all, though, in the midst of a pity party
free for all, I have managed to rediscover two passions that I had been long
without, two passions I had ignored for so long I had forgotten that I even
missed them.
For instance, I find myself staying up late to read again. I can’t put books down even as the hours tick
away. It has been a long time since I’ve
been unable to put a book down, a long time since I’ve told myself “just one
more page,” and then went on reading another hour. I did that this past week twice, with the new
biography on Steve Jobs and with a young adult fantasy novel.
Reading and writing.
For most of my life, they were the only two hobbies I knew to list when
someone asked what I did with my free time.
And I’ve neglected both the past year and a half, mostly because I no
longer have free time.
Yesterday I wrote my first short story in years. Inspired by the Dystopian novels I read a few
weeks ago, I wrote a story about three scrappy, wounded and sometimes downright
unlikeable kids fighting to stay alive in a world decimated by plague. They were loyal to each other, to a fault and
the more I wrote about them, the more I fell in love with them.
When I write a story or a novel, I always have a beginning,
middle and end in mind. I always have a
framework. And sometimes, if I’m lucky,
something magical happens. The characters
flesh out and begin to dictate their own story.
Sometimes they know better than me.
All yesterday, I kept thanking God for giving me this story,
for giving me these characters to love.
It had been so long since I had felt that way. It had been so long since I had last written
fiction. And it was a beautiful,
beautiful thing.
In the movie, Chariots of Fire, runner Eric Liddell says
this: “I believe God made me for a
purpose, but He also made me fast. And
when I run, I feel His pleasure.”
That is how I feel when I write, when I write beautifully
and honestly, when I tell a true story even in a fictional construction. I feel God’s pleasure wash over me.
The past few years I have felt the joy of responding to the
call of God to the priesthood, but I’ve been neglecting the first gift He ever
gave me, the love of story.
And it’s taken pain and physical illness to remind me that
God calls me to do two things, to be His priest and to write beautifully for His
pleasure.
One day, I’m quite certain, those two calls will intersect
and what a glorious day that will be.
