Whose Truth?

Today I am left wondering what my "my truth is." Is there such a thing as absolute truth and if so, who can interpret it? There was a time I thought my dad had an answer for every question and a later point where I knew God was the answer, but recently the question has been asked, "Who is God." If we were to write a definition or attempt a label, it would be limiting and fraught with our own misunderstanding. 

The writers at Calvin's Faith and Writing Conference this weekend write from a passion and a tradition, while also stating that questions drive their work. Lan Samantha Chang from Iowa, stated she was an agnostic who created a catholic priest character named Bernard, whom she liked, partially because he provided a wider view. Marilyn Robinson talked about the politics of peace by seeing everyone as "created in the image of God." Jonathan Safron Foer seemed not to care about God, beyond what the stories did to inform the structure and questions within his work and life. 

Patrick Madden shared his love of the essay, noting: 

- it is a place of questions/pondering, 

- the writer and character are the same voice, 

- the words are a window into the author's soul, not pretend, not self aggrandizing

- the writer tries to live up to the person he would like to become

This is a way of thinking about the world that I love. It is living in the complexities of politics, faith, and relationships, always open to hearing others voices. 

Back to Robinson for a minutes, she was asked why she was not more raw like Flannery O'Conner and she said that this was not her experience of the world, that she could only write what was authentic to her. When a student posed the question, "Where did your idea for explaining the ten commandments come from" (referring to her book Gilead), she said that [her character], John Aims told her. 

My age old questions include, how do I listen without trying to please and gain recognition? I fear everyones misunderstandings. While Robinson spoke, I found myself dreaming up pen names like "Soni Kraft," to hide under. Marilyn focused on Not Fearing anything but God, Lan shared how she avoided her calling for thirty years until she did not want to get up in the morning for anything else. I sit somewhere in the silence of Lan and fear this moment that I put words on a page. Weighed against my cowardice is my need for liberation.  And my question, "What if I can write something that matters to another human being."

I believe that God gave me himself and so I have to write our story down. My question, "What is my truth," leads to helping my character defy my smallness, to fight for something more beautiful and more painful then what I can see from my fogged windows . 

Losing My Guts

This week I lost my journal. It was somewhere and then it went missing and I looked and forgot about it and am now wondering what was inside the cover. If it was in my hands I would never bother to look through its tattered pages, but now I feel lost, like I have a dream that is vanishing before my eyes. It tends to have unfiltered emotions, real guts working through through my intestines or liver and hopefully exiting my brain, never to return.

I am heading to a writing Conference tomorrow and keep thinking things like,
Can I get runs in?
Will I know anyone or choose to be social? Will my interactions be real or fake?
Do I have to network and who would I even target?
Am I a serious writer? Do I have a story to tell and any work to share?
How can I go to every talk and not miss the best of what is there?
Would I be better served in a cabin in the woods for three days with my notebook and pen?
How can I leave my kids and what do people think of me for doing it?
Will my kids resent or forget me (will I lose them?)?

So I doubt my ability to choose to fight, over my instinct to curl up and hide. On Sunday I started my 10K in the pouring rain. In the pain of running the first 100 yards, do I kept trying to decide if I should shut down or push harder. And for what? For myself to know I can run fast? For others to say, wow, she is fast or slow? I  really want silence. I want a moment to run without all the effort to avoid judgement. A moment with the guts of my lost journal, where I can run any pace, scribble gibberish and enjoy myself.