Cause and Effect
At the moment, I seem to be able to go for days, even weeks without the ‘ability’ to be able to put my fingers to the keyboard. There is just nothing there to ‘come out’. My mind seems to be barren and dry, what ever I use to quench its thirst, just does not seem to have the desired effect. I have tried Newspapers, short paragraphs from favourite books, but there is no inspiration at all to write. This has upset me, as I’m am going through a rather sole searching time in my life, and my wants and needs to write about my feelings and moods still will not ‘come out’. Well, perhaps today’s letter is a start.
I bumped into a good friend in Sainsbury’s the other day, “When are we going to have another Letter From The Patio Doors” she asked, “well, if truth be told”, I replied, “I have no idea”. But, she was not the first to have asked that question. So, what am I doing about writing the next letter, I thought; the answer which I did not need to hear was - NOTHING. I was doing nothing to help the situation. I pondered on how difficult it must be to “produce” what people want to see and read. No small wonder that ‘writers’ get ‘blocks’, I mussed. Could I possibly even dare to call myself a writer? What an honour that would be, to write beautiful poetry, novels and informative non-fiction, to feed peoples minds, to enable them to go away better for that ‘good read’.
My eldest was at home yesterday afternoon, “I’ll have a mug of tea and then don’t disturb me,” he ordered. It turned out that he had two hours to ‘produce’ an essay, or else he would end up with a detention. I closed the dining room door and left him to it, the required two hours passed, and the last I saw of him was running off down the street for the bus to get into town, so the required history essay could be delivered on time.
Whilst tidying the room the other day I happened upon my Lent journey book from last year; Facing Forward, it is the CAFOD/Christian Aid and DLT book. Now whether I am in the correct week of Lent, I am not to sure at the moment, but I seem to have found some thirst, which I had been looking for.
For instance, the thought for today is, “Someone, somewhere, bears the consequences of our actions, for good or for ill”
Well, it has to be a little bit of a strenuous link, but my thinking was that, every two-hour essay, every Lenten daily devotional, every sermon delivered has a consequence. I suppose even my e-letter; the action of finding the right subject and then the good Lord helping me to put all those words into the right order, might have a consequence.
Although I have moved away from Kathy Galloway’s message in the book, I have used her thought to ‘stir’ my grey cells a little.
I have revisited her devotional for today, and used especially the prayer
Prayer for today - Third Thursday in Lent.
O Christ,
Strengthen us to resist the false attraction of easy answers,
Magic fixes,
Abuses of power,
And the delusion that there is any way apart from justice in which God’s justice can be done. Amen
Well, I have gone away from the experience of writing this short letter to you, feeling that perhaps I have learnt one lesson, and that is; if I don’t want my outer grey matter to gain in numbers (I’m sure you know what I mean) I will have to look after the little grey cells inside.
Perhaps my Lent promise was not to give up something, but to promise and start something, for the positive.
God Bless and Shalom
Paul