I've been writing in journals since I was about 11 years old. The first journal I wrote in, officially, was an actual press-bound blank book provided to me by elementary school in sixth grade. Every Monday my teacher, Mr. Chebultz, wrote a quote on the board for us to copy down. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays we were to write a minimum of four complete sentences about anything. On Fridays, we would write an analysis of Monday's quote.
I've recently begun a project that requires me reading through every single one of my journals. Most of them are spiral bound 3-subject notebooks, the kind you get for school. I used to reserve 2 sections for journaling and the third section was for poetry or songs I was writing. I was meticulous about certain things, like the types of ink-pen I used, ink colors, and particularly about dating every entry. I even went so far as to question which date to write if I was writing past midnight. I didn't really feel like it counted as the next day, even though the astronomical calendar told me it technically was.
Aside from the spiral-bound books (the spirals of which are now, unfortunately, all bent up and tangled), I also have a huge stack of black-and-white composition books, with pictures or collages taped to them. I tried to make the collages fit the overall emotional, spiritual and psychological theme of my life at that time. I started this when I started my twenties.
My notebooks fill a few suitcases or plastic tupperware bins and, after moving 3 times across the country with only what I could fit in a truck, make up about 1/3 of the volume of everything I own. So this project is going to take me a long time, I think.
Today I was deciding which journal to peruse through. I want to go in chronological order, but right now that puts me at Journal #2 - age 13, Eighth Grade. That was a really emotional time for me, and I just wasn't in the mood today for anything heavy. I picked up a random purple-and-white speckled composition book from the top of a pile (I have all these journals in stacks, categorized by certain phases of my life) which had a neat photo of someone planting onions in a clay pot. I recognized that it was one that I had written in after moving to Austin, and when I opened it up I discovered that it was actually from my first summer here in 2008. I had been here for 3 months.
I have been back in Austin after leaving two years ago for about 2 1/2 months, so it struck me as interesting to find my journal from my very first Austin Life Beginnings while I am in my second round of Austin Life Beginnings, again.
I want to share this part of the journal entries from Beginnings #1. It struck a chord with me as it is basically what I am learning again, from a different angle and with a different perspective after graduating college, traveling a bunch, being engaged and un-engaged, returning to Austin and feeling somewhat like I have just come full circle back to the very same place.
Here it is...
August something, 2008 (I'm a bit less neurotic about dates nowadays):
I'm in Austin. I've been here for...3 months? Yes - 3 months and a week. I start school in less than two weeks. I don't even know what to think about that. I'm about to board a train and I have no clue where it is taking me. Actually I've been on it this whole time. I sleepwalked on board, it didn't bother to wait for me to wake up, but now maybe I'm starting to awake from a dream. I've been alone...at times lonely. At other times, comfortable. I feel a huge relief at having made a few folks' acquaintance at Mosaic. I feel relief that a place like Mosaic exists in Austin. I knew it had to, I always felt its pull on me like a magnet and it was just frustrating not knowing where to look...
...I've felt such anonymity these last 3 months. Right now I'm looking out the windows of a coffee shop. It feels like I am in a foreign place, like Jerome or some other cool city I'm just passing through. It hasn't really hit me that I live here...
...I feel so much bliss just sitting here...soaking in the moment. Cool 60s soul rock is on, the light from the windows is soft and diffused against the olive green tones of the wall and couches (it's coming in reflected off the building across the street so it is not direct light, even though it's about high noon, it feels like 10am). Man....I love life...
...I am discovering how I tell the truth - through art and writing and language and teaching....but not just through adopting every tried and true technique anyone has ever come up with for those....through discovering how I write, how I teach, how I communicate and think and articulate. Myself - my personality and thoughts and emotions and uniqueness - cannot be separate from it, if I am to really offer the kaleidoscope of humanity something that can truly reflect or transmit the light of God.
Telling the truth is the real joy. It is the real act of charity, the consummation of real love meant for all mankind. Sharing the truth is sharing this bread - the broken body of love poured out for all men.
This was what mattered. The vehicle didn't matter. Writing didn't matter, arts didn't matter, in and of themselves.
Your expertise is important only insofar as it helps the radiance of the truth be seen. Your great discipline and hard work and accomplishment do not have value themselves, they are mere byproducts of the real, secret treasure: faithfulness.
You are now free. You now have permission to become what makes you most truly happy, at peace, and in love. You are now obliged to always, unceasingly be...you.
I've recently begun a project that requires me reading through every single one of my journals. Most of them are spiral bound 3-subject notebooks, the kind you get for school. I used to reserve 2 sections for journaling and the third section was for poetry or songs I was writing. I was meticulous about certain things, like the types of ink-pen I used, ink colors, and particularly about dating every entry. I even went so far as to question which date to write if I was writing past midnight. I didn't really feel like it counted as the next day, even though the astronomical calendar told me it technically was.
Aside from the spiral-bound books (the spirals of which are now, unfortunately, all bent up and tangled), I also have a huge stack of black-and-white composition books, with pictures or collages taped to them. I tried to make the collages fit the overall emotional, spiritual and psychological theme of my life at that time. I started this when I started my twenties.
My notebooks fill a few suitcases or plastic tupperware bins and, after moving 3 times across the country with only what I could fit in a truck, make up about 1/3 of the volume of everything I own. So this project is going to take me a long time, I think.
Today I was deciding which journal to peruse through. I want to go in chronological order, but right now that puts me at Journal #2 - age 13, Eighth Grade. That was a really emotional time for me, and I just wasn't in the mood today for anything heavy. I picked up a random purple-and-white speckled composition book from the top of a pile (I have all these journals in stacks, categorized by certain phases of my life) which had a neat photo of someone planting onions in a clay pot. I recognized that it was one that I had written in after moving to Austin, and when I opened it up I discovered that it was actually from my first summer here in 2008. I had been here for 3 months.
I have been back in Austin after leaving two years ago for about 2 1/2 months, so it struck me as interesting to find my journal from my very first Austin Life Beginnings while I am in my second round of Austin Life Beginnings, again.
I want to share this part of the journal entries from Beginnings #1. It struck a chord with me as it is basically what I am learning again, from a different angle and with a different perspective after graduating college, traveling a bunch, being engaged and un-engaged, returning to Austin and feeling somewhat like I have just come full circle back to the very same place.
Here it is...
August something, 2008 (I'm a bit less neurotic about dates nowadays):
I'm in Austin. I've been here for...3 months? Yes - 3 months and a week. I start school in less than two weeks. I don't even know what to think about that. I'm about to board a train and I have no clue where it is taking me. Actually I've been on it this whole time. I sleepwalked on board, it didn't bother to wait for me to wake up, but now maybe I'm starting to awake from a dream. I've been alone...at times lonely. At other times, comfortable. I feel a huge relief at having made a few folks' acquaintance at Mosaic. I feel relief that a place like Mosaic exists in Austin. I knew it had to, I always felt its pull on me like a magnet and it was just frustrating not knowing where to look...
...I've felt such anonymity these last 3 months. Right now I'm looking out the windows of a coffee shop. It feels like I am in a foreign place, like Jerome or some other cool city I'm just passing through. It hasn't really hit me that I live here...
...I feel so much bliss just sitting here...soaking in the moment. Cool 60s soul rock is on, the light from the windows is soft and diffused against the olive green tones of the wall and couches (it's coming in reflected off the building across the street so it is not direct light, even though it's about high noon, it feels like 10am). Man....I love life...
...I am discovering how I tell the truth - through art and writing and language and teaching....but not just through adopting every tried and true technique anyone has ever come up with for those....through discovering how I write, how I teach, how I communicate and think and articulate. Myself - my personality and thoughts and emotions and uniqueness - cannot be separate from it, if I am to really offer the kaleidoscope of humanity something that can truly reflect or transmit the light of God.
Telling the truth is the real joy. It is the real act of charity, the consummation of real love meant for all mankind. Sharing the truth is sharing this bread - the broken body of love poured out for all men.
This was what mattered. The vehicle didn't matter. Writing didn't matter, arts didn't matter, in and of themselves.
Your expertise is important only insofar as it helps the radiance of the truth be seen. Your great discipline and hard work and accomplishment do not have value themselves, they are mere byproducts of the real, secret treasure: faithfulness.
You are now free. You now have permission to become what makes you most truly happy, at peace, and in love. You are now obliged to always, unceasingly be...you.
1 comment:
"...they are mere byproducts of the real, secret treasure: faithfulness." Yes. Yes.
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