I have a song waiting to be sung. I have a story waiting to be told. I have a purpose waiting to be fulfilled. All of this waiting, and so little time.
Open the gates, Lord, set me to action. All that I can be still lies ahead — the gates open every day for as long as I live, and yep, I’m still breathing, I still feel my heart beating, and (ouch!) I still have knees to carry me forward and hands to do the work.
Let’s get busy, you and I, Lord, on what you put me here to do. I know as long as I keep you in sight and present, all will turn out for the good. I haven’t always remembered to do that, but when I do the results are clear.
My prayer is that I keep remembering the source of all joy, because I prefer joy.
The words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart please me this morning, but more important, I pray that they please my Lord and Redeemer. It’s not about me in the end of things, is it? We each have our decisions and choices, and to the extent they align with God’s will, we will be blessed.
I worry about so many things that I often quote Tom Petty like a mantra: “Most things I worry about never happen anyway.”
Although — I worry about how much I procrastinate. I worry that I have procrastinated most of the way to the grave.
Although — most lives end unfinished. Gone too soon. Of course, when is the right time to declare a life finished? When we euthanized Willow The Best Dog There Is™, the vet said, “Are you ready?” I lied. Of course I wasn’t ready. Death always leaves us unprepared. Denial does that.
Death is the sort of thing that happens to somebody else. You never expect it to drop by, even though it eventually visits everyone.
Mary and I went to someone close’s funeral Thursday, a sweet lady who lived to be 93. I pray I will have a chance to celebrate Mary’s 93rd birthday.
Talk like this inevitably gets me thinking about the various projects I have not yet finished. Over and over again, I have not finished what I have started, and so of course I cannot put it on the market or keep it on the market until it is sold. Mr. Heinlein is smirking at me, or perhaps he is looking on with pity in his eyes.
Somewhere there’s a character like me who has a story to tell for the ages. Will I ever scratch at my psyche deep enough to draw that character out of hiding? I feel like I will know him, or her, when I see him, or her. I think I’m waiting for the words and images to come tumbling out like Fibber McGee’s Closet and line up like dutiful ducks. It does happen sometimes, you know: I sit down to write and bang! The words are there, and I send them to the ether almost in the exact order they tumbled from my pen, and the Likes appear magically at the website and I feel validated.
But the stories — oh, the stories! — I can almost see them and touch them and feel them waiting to be told, and they are so happy that I am here, that someone out there sees and wants to tell them. And here I sit in my comfortable recliner, feet up, dreaming of the day the stories are told and people hold the books and enjoy the adventure and the lessons and the meaning, and it’s as though I’ve already finished.
Mr. Heinlein’s ghost taps me on the shoulder just then, and I can’t turn to face him. I only hear his voice, even though I can’t remember what he sounded like.
“You must finish what you start, young man,” he says, “although I see you are no young man.”
I am only a young man in the cosmic sense, where the cosmos has been there forever and I am just a passing mist. The little boy in me wells up in fear that the next person will ask, “What have you been doing all this time, young man? Have you finished what you started? Let me see.”
Fear makes it worse, of course — fear of never finishing is the prime cause of never finishing. It’s a vicious, vicious circle, and a vicious, vicious fear that circles back and leads me to write about it again.
“I am finished writing about not finishing,” I declare. “I am focused on marching forward to the finish line.”
I’m not lying when I make that declaration. I’m merely mistaken.
“Oh, please, Lord,” I pray like George Bailey on the steel bridge. “Help me finish what I start. I’m stuck on Heinlein’s second rule, and I still have three to go after that. Please, Lord, I want to finish! I want to live! I want my imaginary friends to live!”
Will it start to snow again after I pray? Will Bert and Ernie call out, “Hey George, are you OK?” Will Zuzu’s petals be waiting in my pocket?
There they are. What do you know about that? Merry Christmas.
I should save these images for a day when a story is finished and the book is released. But I’m afraid if I wait for that, the images will never see light of day.
I don’t want to finish this journal session on a downbeat, however. I love happy endings as much as the next guy. So let’s leave me joyously running through Bedford Falls proclaiming that I finished my morning journaling and grateful for another chance.
AFTERTHOUGHT: I refer above to Heinlein’s Rules and Fibber McGee’s Closet, not to mention George Bailey and Zuzu’s petals. How many readers will think, “What the bejeebers?” and how many will appreciate that I respect you enough to get the references? And if you don’t, don’t fret; use your search engine. The info is still out there for now.
Writers’ egos want to be noticed. We want to be studied. We want captive students to be assigned essays about what we meant.
Or do we? On reflection, no, I don’t want some future high school students forced to study me or find hidden meanings inside “Love God and love your neighbor.” I hope the meaning is plain enough and the reader is going through my words because she wants to.
When Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale climbed on the scaffold together and I forgot that I was reading because someone made me, when their story grabbed me by the heart and a man writing in 1849 reached across a century and seized me by the imagination, when I realized I loved Nathaniel Hawthorne of all things, my life changed. No one was more surprised or delighted than I.
When Winston Smith looked back in horror to discover he had written “Down with Big Brother” over and over again in his diary, I was frightened for him, too.
When Harry Potter carefully explained to Voldemort why it would be perfectly foolish to cast that killing spell, my eyes were opened and I braced for evil’s final defeat. It was delicious, wasn’t it?
It all began with that assignment, though: “Read The Scarlet Letter.” No one dared suggest I might like it; perhaps that was too much to hope for. You’re supposed to endure your English assignments, not be thrilled.
That is a dream — to be a class assignment in 100 years or so and touch a weary, unsuspecting student in the heart, so his mind is as enchanted as mine was when I was swept into Hawthorne’s story.
Did Nathaniel time travel? Did he see the future where I, not even 18 yet, sat hunched over his book turning pages to reach the climax? Did Hawthorne envision old me, a decade older than he ever was, remembering with goosebumps the night Dimmesdale revealed his truth?
What do we owe those who came before us, who ignited the desire to craft our own tales? What do we owe those who come after? Just this: To point the way to what inspired us, to try building our own fires in their hearts, and to give the next student that ember of “Here, now it’s your turn.”
Yes, The Scarlet Letter is one of my favorite books. You wanna make something of it? I sure do.
