Writing and Living

In the article Taking Pen in Hand (Christian Century, Sept. 07, 2010, pp. 22-25), Parker J. Palmer considered writing as an act of faith. He said that he wanted to be a writer when he was in his twenties. But he didn’t write much. One day he read Hemingway’s words, who said, “A writer is distinguished by the fact that he writes.” He was inspired by this statement that writing is not to get published and sell many books. Rather, a writer is to write.

“I came to understand that it’s the faithful doing of the thing, the willingness to work hard at the craft without worrying too much about outcomes, that makes you a writer. The paradox is that you are more likely to get outcomes when you let go of getting outcomes; it frees you from the ego’s grip. There is a parallel here to the faith journey: seek your life and you will lose it, lose your life and you will find it.”

Writing is part of my living. I like to think. I like to drink coffee. I like to read. I like to write. Sometimes I dream of what I really want to be in the future: A pastor? A theologian? A teacher? A writer? If a writer doesn’t have to get published and make a living out of it, I think I want to be a writer. And I can be a writer. (A bad writer is still a writer.)

“Writing is not about getting a headful of ideas lined up in an orderly fashion and then downloading them to the page; that is not writing but typing…Writing for me is a process of thinking and feeling my way into things that baffle me, discovering more about those things—and about what is inside me—at every step of the way.”

To write is to discover and create. It’s a creative process. It’s a journey. Most of the time, I have a general concept of what I’m going to write. But I don’t have a whole picture of what I am going to write. While I am writing, writing itself leads to specific words, lines, sentences, and paragraphs.  At the end of the process, I sometimes say, “I didn’t think about that. I can write this much?”

But when I want to write something with complete control of the entire process, such as knowing what to write in every paragraph, I can’t write and develop into an essay. Writing reminds me of the faith journey that I am in. When I want to have full control of my life—my surrounding, my future, my family plan, I’m overwhelmed, even paralyzed, by how much I am not in control. That makes me stop living well. I stop living because I think too much about living just like I stop writing because I am too concerned about the overall writing. Rather, when I learn to participate in life by fulfilling my daily responsibilities with gratitude, then I live. I live well, and a lengthy essay will be the outcome at the end. Writing, living, and following Christ all point to the same direction: “Seek your life and you will lose it, lose your life and you will find it.”

“The faith journey is less about making a big leap of faith than it is about putting one faithless foot in front of the other, and doing it again and again. What happens as you walk that way is sometimes transformed by grace.”