Yesterday sparkled. Though it had a rough start.

For the last couple of years I’ve been pursuing the writing life.  Six months ago I finally shifted completely away from paid work (an editing job that sucked away my energy) to focus full-time on writing a novel.  But like any new (or seasoned…) writer, I’ve had my share of doubts that I can actually do this, fears that in a year or two (or six or ten) of telling people I’m writing a novel, I still won’t have a thing to show for it.  When I finally admitted to myself last week that the plotline I’ve been going with needs major alterations, my fears amped up a hefty notch.

So yesterday afternoon I was asking a lot of questions.  Like WHAT DO I THINK I’M DOING TRYING TO WRITE A NOVEL? and Why exactly was it that I thought I had something to say?  I began to feel in relation to all those hip, successful (published) young writers like a child trying to claim she’s an astronaut.  “Sorry honey.  Your credentials need a little work.”

Added to my writing questions was another angle of vocational query, related to a lifelong draw toward pastoring.  This draw has been on and off, but persistent, and in the last month a kind of gong that keeps striking everywhere I go.  Lately the sound of its crash is a longing to use spoken words to draw myself and others toward greater connectedness and Life, toward the Holy, toward our own souls (which may not all be separate things).  I dream of speaking words in what I think is some kind of spiritual and/or religious context.

But there’s a problem, here, with the little matter of doing something about this urge.  The crisis of faith that I flailed through a few years ago leaves me still unclear on what I think about organized religion, let alone what I see my relationship with it being.  I’m not part of a religious community right now and I have wounds that make religious settings, for the most part, extraordinarily uncomfortable.

So I see no natural arena, at present, to test out this call.  I can’t force my self or soul to be at places they aren’t.  I can’t run, with my longing, to develop the speaking and leadership skills aching in me to develop.  I can only keep living, listening, thinking, writing, reading, interacting, sleeping, playing, dreaming…waiting, really, for more direction to come.

And in certain moments, like yesterday, this waiting can be torturous.  Like a fetch-dog kept on a leash.

There’s a meantime to be lived today, in the now, before I have anything noteworthy published, before I feel completely legitimate telling people I’m a writer, before I settle my spiritual questions or have a chance to begin considering leadership in religious settings.  There’s a meantime.  And yesterday it felt so full of restless doubts and fears and longings and frustrations that I almost wanted to scream.  “Help,” I said to the universe.  “I need help.  Please help me.”  What do I do in my meantime?

A couple of hours later I was walking into a room at Stanford where fifty or a hundred others had gathered to hear Dr. Rachel Remen give a talk on the topic of blessing.  Rachel is a gifted healer and storyteller who is also a physician specializing in the treatment of cancer.  I saw a flyer for her talk and recognized one of her books (Kitchen Table Wisdom) as one a friend of mine likes lots, and so had determined the day before to attend this evening’s talk.

The room was nearly packed when I arrived, and the empty seat I found was tucked between full ones.  “Are you saving this?” I asked a man next to it.  “Only for you,” he said.  “Well I guess I found my seat then,” I said back, smiling.  He looked like a Gypsy in a mustard-brown suit, and radiated a numinous light that initially made me uncomfortable.

“So what brings you here tonight?” I asked him.

“I was at a storytelling circle last night,” he said, “and someone there suggested I come.”

“A storytelling circle?”

“Yes.  A group of us gathers once a month to learn and practice the art of storytelling.”

Come to find out, there are storytelling circles all over our area, as well as workshops and classes and entire conferences devoted to the art.  As I listened to him tell me about all of this, something inside me went “Gong!”  Or “click” or “pop” or whatever.  And I knew I was discovering something important for the very “meantime” I had frustratingly pondered earlier in the day.

Our emcee finally started the evening off, and soon Rachel Remen was standing at the microphone, asking if we could hear her.  She’s an older woman, just beyond 70, I think, unpretentious, gentle, soft-spoken.  And her manner, her means, and her message couldn’t have been more infused with LIFE.  And love.  And feminine strength and nurture.

The gist of her message was that you are enough.  You are enough, right now, right where you’re at, with no more or less life under your belt, no more or less education or experience, no more or less knowledge about how anything does or doesn’t work, or amounts of struggle to get worked through, or qualities you’re trying to change:  you are enough to be and to receive blessing.  The world and everything in it is full of hidden wholeness – fragments that we can find and begin putting back together.  Blessing and being blessed in this wholeness-making work is something we never have to wait for more qualifications to do.

Having come from an afternoon of feeling not enough, and like my resume and skills are things shamefully lacking – hindrances to the wholeness-making work I long to be about in my life – Rachel’s words were a holy kiss.  I left along with probably every person in that room feeling loved and enough as I was, and like the greatest gift that could be given was already mine:  the ability to bless and be blessed.

I left as well with a model of a pastor I deeply want to emulate – one whose parish isn’t defined right now by a church or creed – and a model of public discourse (storytelling) for which my numinous Gypsy friend helped me see I had practical avenues for developing at my fingertips .

I feel full today.  Full with what feels like a benevolent reply to yesterday’s plea.  Full with some direction and inspiration for how to fill my meantime.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 16th, 2004 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Books and Art, Writing, Mindfulness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.