Free From Expectation: On the Art of Writing
“Why not write about it?” I hear myself repeat on the odd occasion in therapy sessions with my students. I know there is something cathartic about the dribble of a pen across a page, the physical act of enlisting the muscular form of the hand, wrist and arm. They come back with a “I just struggle with forming the habit.”
In 2013 all the way through to 2016, I had no trouble keeping a journal of my life. I kept many journals through that time. From the weeks before my first trip to Paris, through the European continent on overnight buses and in the back rooms of Starbucks coffee shops, in the face of love (infatuation) and love lost in my semester abroad - I would write. When I returned home t felt Paris slip from my fingers slowly - I would write. When I found love for the first time and we climbed mountains together after jet setting back to Europe - I would write. And when I came back to God and my whole world turned on its head - I would write.
But now. Oh now - how much I wrestle with this concept. I have note books and diaries scattered around my home and car, and the chronological pennings of my thoughts scattered out of chronology between them. No matter what I do, there remains inconsistency. I have words swimming in my mind, but my story right now feels so blown apart and scattered itself that I cannot commit to a linear outpouring into one place. I cannot coming to words.
And so it was reading L’Arte de la Liste by Dominique Loreau that I discovered this phrase: “in the past, keeping a diary was seen almost as a moral obligation.... People think that if they don’t keep a diary, they will let a precious part of life slip through their fingers.”
I read that and thought: well, to be honest, there’s a few things going on that I’d rather not commemorate in words. No wonder I don’t wish to write. It was the words “moral obligation” that suddenly shook me: was I treating writing as a moral obligation? Only earlier this morning did someone say “you write so well.” And only days before did someone else comment “why aren’t you writing as much?” I had been feeling as though I owe my words to people. Heck, I even felt as though I needed to express my heart to a lost love in the form of words. I felt like it was my moral duty to dribble language onto a page or a screen.
No sooner did I recognise that God said to my heart: “I gave you the gift of expression through words as a gift first and foremost to YOU.”
And in that moment I felt my heart unwind totally. My moral strength does not depend on my filling of quotas. It does not depend on me strategically expressing myself. It depends on Christ and Christ alone. And how I interact with Christ is my own pleasure.
The irony of me writing this post is not lost on me but I wanted to remind everyone that our only moral obligation comes from God for God, and it is empowered and fulfilled through God. Whatever you are batting yourself over the head about because you can’t remain consistent with it - recognise it is a gift of God, for YOU.
