Writing Isn't Always for Sharing

In the age of the blog, in which everyone can write publicly, and many many do, it is valuable to remember that not all writing is meant for sharing.

I say this without considering whether all writing should be read, though I could argue that a LOT of what is out there simply isn't worth reading.

But some writing isn't meant to be shared. Blogs are not diaries, though some people treat them as such. Blogs are not private - even when you share a URL only with your intimate inner circle, once you put something out on the internet, it can more easily be shared. Even a private email between two parties can shared and spread under wrong circumstances.

I am leading classes and workshops in Writing as a Spiritual Practice. It is tempting to tie such writing to sharing within spiritual community.

Some amazing writing may come out of these workshops - and some may be great for sharing, with community, in blogs, or even in publishing contexts.  Most of that writing will take careful editing and reworking, whether it is poetry or Torah (bible) commentary or prayer or creative fiction or memoir.

But the truth is that my understanding of writing as a spiritual practice is that it is regular writing, practiced with the purpose of developing mindfulness and discovering the self. It is important for there to be a kind of safety in this writing.

I have a "Stickie" that appears every time I open my computer, which says "No one ever has to read a word I write." I got that from someone else. That puts it all on the potential reader, though, so I have added "I don't have to share anything I write, unless I want to." And this is the part that I'm sharing with my students in Writing as a Spiritual Practice groups.

You don't have to share. Let yourself write freely. Don't expect to share it, even if you have a particular audience in mind.  You may come back and rework a piece specifically for sharing, but often enough writing prompts may lead to a kind of tohu vavohu, a world unformed and chaotic, as in the biblical beginning of time, still needing to be ordered.

You don't have to share, and if you want to share, consider the right time as well as the right venue. This not-sharing is something I practice. I found myself saying "it's time for me to put another blog post up." In reflection, I find I have written a great deal in the last couple of weeks, even reworking a few pieces. One piece at least I will share on this blog, perhaps as early as next week, but more likely not for another few weeks -- because while it is meant for sharing, it needs to be shared at the right time.

And so I leave you with this - I have written to share with you that not all writing is meant to be shared. I don't mean all the junk out there that people share that I, frankly, don't want to read. And I don't mean the things people shouldn't write that can lead to job loss (e.g. dissing your employer publicly), though that should go without saying.

I mean from my internal perspective that there are things I am not ready to share, that there are things that can be problematic for one to write because one is afraid of sharing. I am talking more about the emotional safety - if you write, feel free to write without worrying that someone is going to read your words. If you need to write it for spiritual (or emotional) reasons, but you don't ever need/want to share it - burn it. 

Writing is a valuable process in and of itself. It can produce beautiful art, informative prose, supportive literature. But it doesn't always, and it isn't always meant to.

Writing isn't always for sharing. Sometimes it's just a way of learning to understand ourselves and our world.

New Beginnings, Fresh or Rotten - Your Choice

You know that one moldy strawberry in the box? The one that's touching at least five others? What is your first thought - past the ICK - when you see that mold? Contamination!

Torah speaks of the first days of the world - of the separating of light from darkness and of water from land and air - as a time of completion. Things come into being whole and ready. The herbs and fruits are ready to eat right away, "in the beginning." Adam and Eve are not brought into this world as infants, but as wholly formed adults, walking and speaking and thinking.

Rosh Hashanah celebrates this whole world, the anniversary of that beginning. And that's where we stand now, in the autumn - with a world of abundance, beginning and approaching the harvest season.

Ripe apples and pomegranates for our Rosh Hashanah dinner tables mean that the trees - and the herbs of the field - are about to go dormant, to die their autumnal death. We are entering darkness, brought by the autumnal equinox and the hibernation of plants and animals.

Now, as we leave the light of summer and the growing season behind, we celebrate the abundance of the world Created whole, trees and fields offering up sustenance that we seek to preserve to carry us through the winter.

Now, we want to carry the best of our foods into storage - and we want to carry the best of ourselves into the new year. One moldy strawberry will contaminate the whole container; molds and rot spread. We don't want that - in our food supply, or in our selves.

So we clean out the old - we take inventory of our fruits and herbs, and we take inventory of our souls. We choose what goes into our containers carefully.

We have the opportunity to put an end to behaviors that cause rot, that fester in our relationships. We ask forgiveness, and we search our souls for ways to change our behavior, to be better people in the coming year.

If we choose our fruits well, we can make it through the darkness of winter. We will have healthy food for our bodies -- and we will have clean souls and strong relationships that will carry us through the coming year, whatever it holds for us.

Wishing you good choices, solid forgiveness, and a healthy and sweet new year.

New Respect for Writer's Block

All that white space in Torah, the spaces between the words, the information left out… I wonder, was it left out intentionally?  Or did the “author(s)” of Torah know that they just needed to “finish” the work and put it out there even if it wasn’t “perfect”?  

Apparently, I have writer’s block.  I was sure I posted in January, but apparently not.  Believe me, I’ve been writing up a storm!  I’ve even drafted a few blog entries, on “paper” and in my head.  I have plenty to say.

But I’m (re)discovering that writer’s block isn’t always about not writing.  Sometimes, yes, it’s the stare-at-the-page-can’t-find-a-single-word block.  Sometimes I have a lot to say, and I really want to share it, and I’ve even written it out.  But I make excuses: I don’t know if this is right for the blog, I’m not sure it’s a “finished” product, I don’t know if anyone is actually reading, or I don’t know if the “wrong” people are reading, or I do want feedback or I don’t want feedback, I’m sick, my son is on school break, I don’t have time.

At My Writing Space, created by prompt from The Artist's Way

In December, shortly before this unconscious hiatus from blogging, a rabbinic colleague recommended a book called The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron) - a workbook aimed at moving one past various creative blocks, recognizing that the creative energy in us is the way in which we created in the image of the Creator.  This is a very compelling answer to me about what Torah means that humans are created “in the image of G-d” (Genesis 1:27).

In the process of engaging with this book, I have written hundreds of pages - mostly journaling, but also drafts of two children’s books and some unpublished blog posts.  When the book asks each week if I see where I am blocked, I scoff.  “I’m not blocked,” I say, “I’m writing - I’m blogging.”  Whoops.  The only writing I have shared, however, has been work-related sermons and such.  I’ve shared the writing I had to write, not the writing that I have created as part of my personal creative energy.

I’ve used every excuse, until I became aware this week how bad the excuses really are.  And I see, after weeks of working through the book and claiming NOT to be blocked, that I actually am blocked.  Yes, I’m writing.  But I’m not sharing.

Can there be “wrong readers” on a blog, since anyone who reads the blog is self-selecting to do so?  And since I can find changes to make in any sermon, blog entry, short story, etc. that I’ve already been put out into the world, I know a finished project isn’t necessarily a perfected one.  I need to unblock, to put my work (and yes, sometimes my process) out there - blog or otherwise.  It won’t always be good, and it will have white space (intentional and not).  Let the readers read into it as they will.

More soon.  Um...I hope!

Happy Ritual Change of Year

“I’m looking forward to 2014...I’m so ready to move on.” (Anonymous) 

Yes, me too.  2013 has been a strange year, in some ways painful and in some ways freeing, definitely filled with unexpected transitions.  

But isn’t a calendar change arbitrary?  If we are so ready to move on, can’t we do it without the new year’s arrival?  Shouldn’t a new day be enough?

Sure!  Every day is a new beginning.  “Every day Creation is renewed.”  

One of the reasons I think the New Year holiday is so profound - even if our resolutions don’t last - is that it is so highly ritualized.  We prepare for (at least) a week: Facebook friends, organizations, newscasters and more count down what they see as important music, movies, events, and so forth from the past year.  We are encouraged thus to reflect on our own year, on its ups and downs, on our own successes and “failures,” and ultimately on what we would like to change in the coming year.  And then we all come together - in person or via technology - to count down the last minutes and seconds to the new year.  (But even as I write this it is already 2014 in parts of the world; I understood this early, growing up on the west coast, when the clock struck midnight in the “heart” of our country (Times Square) at 9pm.  See how arbitrary it is?)

Ritual is powerful.  Ritual awakens us - “wake up and see”! - urges us into awareness.  

We don’t have to wait for a new year.  We can ritualize our mornings.  We can wake up to a practice of prayer, reflection, renewal.  If we don’t already do something like this, we can resolve right now that in the new year we will.  Take note - it’s not just tonight as the clock strikes midnight, but:

Every day Creation is renewed: wake up and see

In the spreading light of dawn

The world and all it contains

Coming into being new and fresh,

Filled with divine goodness and love.

Every day, Creation is renewed: wake up and see.   

Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg

(Kol Haneshamah: Shabbat VeHagim)

So my resolution for 2014 is, when I feel like I am ready to move on, to leave something behind, I’m not going to look for an upcoming transition - a year or even a day.  As the saying goes, “never put off until tomorrow what can wait until the next day.”  Oh, wait - that’s the procrastinator in me.  “Never put off until tomorrow what can be done right now.”  This breath, this moment - now is the time!

Wishing you and yours many blessings in the year to come, moment by moment and day by day.  Happy New Year!