Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew's Blog, page 16
January 5, 2016
Message from the Page: “Would you please pay attention?!”
Your primary job as an artist is to seduce other people into paying attention. You are not creating anything new; you are re-creating what already exists so that people will recognize it and deal with it. You describe activities and name states of being so that the people who witness your work will have a fuller vocabulary for their own life. You help people see what has been in front of them all along. You help them remember what has been buried so deep that they couldn’t find it on their own. You enable them to see themselves a little more clearly. –Vintia Hampton Wright, The Soul Tells a Story
During 2016 I arrived at surprising clarity about my spiritual path: I’m a contemplative, albeit one who walks her daughter to school in the morning, struggles with a perpetually cluttered house, and writes as my primary practice. To contemplate is to stand in the temple. The world with its dirty socks and hidden cruelties and winter sunrises is my temple. I stand in it when I pay attention.
My best way to listen for life’s emergence, to peel away falsehoods, to sink into experience, to reflect deeply, and name what is is to write. Diane Ackerman says that “science and art have a habit of waking us up, turning on all the lights, grabbing us by the collar and saying Would you please pay attention!” Before my work grabs anyone else it grabs me. I’m grateful for the shake-up but also at times furious, annoyed, impatient, and resistant. A big part of me doesn’t want to do the work of attending; it just wants the glory of attention for having attended.
Silly little self! That’s no way to live.
What I’m beginning to realize is that my writing will never do the job of seducing others into paying attention unless I’m vastly committed to that endeavor myself—not just when I’m sitting down to write but every other dish-washing, temper-tantrum-calming, distressed-by-newspaper-reading moment of my days. Contemplation is my central task as a writer, and as a human being.
We come alive when we pay profound and complete attention. One path into this temple is made of blank pages. Write your way in! –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
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Here’s wishing you a fruitful 2016!
Upcoming opportunities:
Are you working on a book? I’m accepting applications for my next manuscript review seminar until January 11th. Email me for more information.
Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir
Introductory workshop February 6, 2016, 9:00-noon. Drop-in classes Fridays, January 22, February 26, March 25, April 22, and May 27, 2016, 1:30 – 3:30 pm at Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality.
The Reflective Voice in Creative Nonfiction
February 13, 2016, 1:30-4:30 p.m. at The Loft Literary Center.
The Inner Life of Stories: Writing as Deep Listening
February 27, 2016, 9:00-noon at Plymouth Congregational Church.
The Inner Life of Stories: Writing as Deep Listening retreat
June 19-23, 2016 at The Christine Center in central WI.
Alone Together Writing Retreat
September 12-16, 2016 at the Madeline Island School of the Arts.
Related StoriesMarty’s Gift: Better than PublicationReading and Writing–For the Love of ItWriting and Forgiveness
December 16, 2015
Tikkun Olam
Over the past decade, my experience of church as a family of faith located in one community, one building, and one denomination, has shattered. My close association with a small urban United Methodist congregation for almost 25 years gave me a clear sense of identity and belonging. The rituals were familiar. The congregation was my gravitational center, the sun to my orbiting earth.
Contemplative prayer and my strong desire for silence have drawn me out of orbit, perhaps temporarily, perhaps not, and I’ve been grieving the loss. On a personal level church feels broken, and I’m painfully aware of the larger Church’s rapid decline. What’s happening to this institution I love?
Oddly enough, the loss has brought to mind the Jewish creation myth: At the beginning of time God’s presence filled the universe. Then God decided to make the world, but there was not enough room, so God drew in a breath—God contracted—and said, “Let there be light.” Ten holy vessels came forth filled with light. But then they broke, scattering holy sparks everywhere. God created humans to gather up the sparks, no matter where they are hidden. Many Jewish people have been sent into exile, the editors of Tikkun magazine write, so “the Jewish people will sift all the holy sparks from the four corners of the earth.”
When enough holy sparks have been gathered, the broken vessels will be restored and tikkum olam, the repair of the world, will be complete.
My own, relatively comfortable exile from church has given me a very Christian glimpse of that scattered, fractured light. I’ve attended worship at a wide range of congregations and been amazed by how, despite my initial trepidation at crossing a strange threshold into an unfamiliar service, I inevitably find familiar bits of light: in heartfelt prayers, in the people I’m surprised to recognize, in the smell of coffee, in the worn and well-loved hymnals… I’ve leapt into prayer circles and contemplative retreats I know little about and found earnest welcome and admirable devotion. I’ve gathered neighbors and friends around the piano to sing Christmas carols and been surprised, and humbled, to have experienced church in my living room. Every morning for a short spell I enter a stark and daunting silence, and find hidden in the corners a nourishing light.
The church I lost isn’t lost at all; it’s everywhere. I use the word “church” because for me church is associated with care and connection and divinity, but perhaps “holy community” is a better term so long as we understand holiness in all its inclusivity and mystery. All these sparks are part of a much brighter and broader light, and we can gather it up from anywhere, everywhere, for the healing of the world.
–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
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Wishing you light and new life this holiday season!
Related StoriesBlind FaithGod of NothingMarty’s Gift: Better than Publication
December 3, 2015
The Democratic Nature of Writing
For years I’ve preached Robert Frost’s advice, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,” as my writing gospel, so last month I was taken aback in the middle of a class when I realized yet another marvelous dimension of this philosophy: If genuine, open-hearted engagement (that is, the willingness to be surprised) is the basic ingredient of the creative process, then we all, each and every one of us ordinary people who write, have the capacity to move a reader.
Some part of us knows this already. We’ve all sat through the rare memorial service when the grieving grandchild reads some rough rendering of the departed one’s life and sets the entire congregation weeping. Most everyone has received a card or email or old fashioned letter from a loved one that we’ve tucked away because it matters so much. When I taught seventh grade my struggling students always wrote the best poetry in the class because they were raw and real and not caught up trying to be someone they weren’t. The writing of ordinary people just being themselves can move us deeply.
Because I’m all caught up in learning to write well and in teaching others to write well, I often forget this. But last month’s insight sent me back to Brenda Ueland, the beloved Minneapolitan author of If You Want to Write and Strength to your Sword Arm, to whom I’m very grateful for helping me establish good priorities early on in my teaching and writing. “Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say” is the first chapter in her first book. “Interestingness” is an infection, she says. “The writer has a feeling and utters it from his true self. The reader reads it and is immediately infected. He has exactly the same feeling. This is the whole secret of enchantment, fascination.” Tears and surprise for the writer, tears and surprise for the reader.
Surprise! This is possible for all of us. Talent and skill and craft and effort will all increase the effectiveness of our writing, but the foundation for stirring a reader’s heart is profoundly and generously democratic. The key, Ueland reminds me, is telling the truth and writing from our true selves, never the self we think we should be. Therein lies the challenge, for my seventh grade poets and you holiday letter-writers and all those tweeters out there and winners of National Book Awards. Write on, and write the truth! –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
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ELIZABETH’S NEWS
Here’s wishing everyone a joyful celebration of light in the upcoming dark months! Thank you for reading these reflections now and over time. I’m so grateful for your support.
Want to stay better connected? Please join my mailing list.
Please consider giving these books to yourself or loved ones this season:
UPCOMING OFFERINGS
December 18, 1:30-3:30 PM
Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir
Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality
February 13, 2016, 1:30-4:30 PM
The Reflective Voice in Creative Nonfiction
The Loft Literary Center
June 19-23, 2016
The Inner Life of Stories: Writing as Deep Listening retreat
The Christine Center
September 12-16, 2016
Alone Together writing retreat, Madeline Island School of the Arts
Related StoriesMarty’s Gift: Better than PublicationWhy I Write, Part 2: Because it’s worthwhile.Love Matters Most: My Latest Writing Credo
November 18, 2015
Marty’s Gift: Better than Publication
Today I’m appreciating Marty, a student and client of mine, perhaps because I’m only now digesting an important lesson he taught me.
Marty was born in Wyoming to a conservative Christian household in a virulently Christian community. When he came out gay, his pastor tried to straighten him out with intensive reprogramming. Because Marty was a lawyer and voracious reader, this involved years of in-depth theological study and long, difficult conversations.
Marty was also a raging alcoholic, and one day after coming out of a bar in Atlantic City he was gay-bashed almost to death. I met Marty years later, after he’d sobered up, left his law practice, recovered his faith, and begun a memoir. Being bludgeoned in the head with concrete, he’d realized, was a cakewalk compared with the theological abuse he’d suffered from this pastor and community. He wanted to write the story.
Never have I read a recovery memoir that was so ripping hilarious, emotionally astute, and theologically provocative. Marty was a fantastic writer. He worked on that tome (three volumes long!) for as long as I knew him—over a decade. It was one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever supported.
All that while he continued to be in dialogue with his pastor. Even as Marty came to terms with the hurt inflicted by this man’s beliefs, he recognized genuine concern and love in his effort. Eventually Marty responded in kind, and the mentorship transformed into a friendship albeit with extreme differences of opinion. Partway through our time working together, as his book grew more honest and polished, Marty realized the reality he was portraying would be very painful to his friend. Eventually he decided that their friendship was more valuable to him than publication.
I was disappointed. The world needed this book. I tried to change his mind, to no avail.
Marty kept writing anyway. Then he was diagnosed with brain cancer. We met for coffee after he’d gotten the news that it was terminal. I was awed by his clarity—he loved writing, he loved his project, and he was going to give a final reading. A few months later a bookstore hosted the event; dozens of people crammed between the bookshelves and laughed and cried through Marty’s stories. It was one of the best readings I’ve ever attended.
Marty’s choice to value a living friendship more than seeing his creative endeavor in print humbles me. I don’t think that pastor ever knew Marty’s sacrifice. Today, with hindsight, sacrifice seems like the wrong word. It was a gift, and Marty thrived in the giving. He’d found a broad and embracing love, which is certainly far better than any literary achievement and perhaps what this pastor wanted for him in the first place. I hope the pastor knows that love now too. –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
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NEWS
Know any great resources for Christians questioning their sexual identity or GLBTQA folks questioning their Christianity? I’m putting together a resource page for my website and would love your suggestions.
Swinging on the Garden Gate, my story of discovering divine blessing in my unique body, is still just $0.99 in ebook form! Check it out: Kindle | Smashwords | Kobo
Want to stay better connected? Please join my mailing list.
UPCOMING
November 20 & December 18, 1:30-3:30 PM
Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir
Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality
February 13, 2016, 1:30-4:30 PM
The Reflective Voice in Creative Nonfiction
The Loft Literary Center
June 19-23, 2016
The Inner Life of Stories: Writing as Deep Listening retreat
The Christine Center
September 12-16, 2016
Alone Together writing retreat, Madeline Island School of the Arts
Related StoriesReading and Writing–For the Love of ItWriting and ForgivenessIn Dialogue
November 5, 2015
Love Matters Most: My Latest Writing Credo
If you want to write, here’s the most important bit of advice I can give you: The best reason to write is for the love of it. Love is literature’s essential ingredient. If you are concerned with the quality of your writing, striving for publication or recognition, you may think this sounds simplistic. But listen to David Foster Wallace in an interview with Larry McCaffery:
I’ve gotten convinced that there’s something kind of timelessly vital and sacred about good writing. This thing doesn’t have that much to do with talent, even glittering talent… Talent’s just an instrument. It’s like having a pen that works instead of one that doesn’t. I’m not saying I’m able to work consistently out of the premise, but it seems like the big distinction between good art and so-so art lies somewhere in the art’s heart’s purpose, the agenda of the consciousness behind the text. It’s got something to do with love. With having the discipline to talk out of the part of yourself that can love instead of the part that just wants to be loved. I know this doesn’t sound hip at all… But it seems like one of the things really great fiction-writers do—from Carver to Chekhov to Flannery O’Connor, or like the Tolstoy of “The Death of Ivan Illych” or the Pynchon of Gravity’s Rainbow—is “give” the reader something. The reader walks away from the real art heavier than she came into it. Fuller. All the attention and engagement and work you need to get from the reader can’t be for your benefit; it’s got to be for hers. What’s poisonous about the cultural environment today is that it makes this so scary to try to carry out. Really good work probably comes out of a willingness to disclose yourself, open yourself up in spiritual and emotional ways that risk making you really feel something. To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I’m scared about how sappy this’ll look in print, saying this. And the effort actually to do it, not just talk about it, requires a kind of courage I don’t seem to have yet.
John Gardner concurred: “Great art celebrates life’s potential, offering a vision unmistakably and unsentimentally rooted in love.” These men are considered renegades because humans (and especially artists) want to attribute accomplishment to talent or effort or intelligence—qualities we can wrap our minds around. Love, on the other hand, is a great mystery. We have no idea how love works, especially within the creation of art.
Nonetheless, I believe that if we writers can center ourselves in our love—for the subject matter, for the writing process, for the language, for the readers—then we’ve got it made. The practice of exercising love brings us joy. It changes us, always for the better. The effort of loving through the literary craft makes art. If we fall short of making art or if we make art that no one recognizes, the world is still unquestionably better for it. Love is never wasted. –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
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A reader recently wrote this to me in an email: “Hannah, Delivered is quite possibly the most emotionally satisfying novel I have ever read.” Wow! I feel so grateful my work gets to be part of this woman’s life. Hannah, Delivered the ebook is on sale for $0.99 through Sunday.
Amazon Kindle
Barnes & Noble Nook
iBook
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David Foster Wallace, from an interview with Larry McCaffery, “The Review of Contemporary Fiction,” Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2.
John Gardner, On Moral Fiction 83.
Related StoriesReading and Writing–For the Love of ItWriting and ForgivenessBroken & Beautiful: How the Light Gets In
October 21, 2015
$0.99 sale: HANNAH, DELIVERED
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Hannah-Delivere...
Barnes & Noble Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hanna...
iBook: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/hann...
October 19, 2015
Containing Land & Spirit
Phew! Emily and I have just completed a major landscaping project, building a retaining wall along the south and east sides of our property, putting in two rain gardens, leveling the soil where our old garage stood, and planting grass seed. After an entire year of chaos, the garden finally feels settled. The work that remains (stone paths, trellises, more planting) is ornamental.
When I look at all this change through practical lenses, most of it seems unnecessary. Our yard was fine beforehand. Sure, the grass sloped a bit toward the south and there were awkward mounds of soil surrounding the location of our old garage, but otherwise our property was snug and lovely. Seen with an eye toward resources, though, we had serious problems. Rainwater that fell on our property streamed down into our neighbor’s basement. Or it poured off our roof into the alley, where it joined other runoff from our pesticide-using neighbors and flowed directly into Lake Hiawatha (now so polluted the beach has been closed), into Minnehaha Creek and down the Mississippi, where it contributed to the environmental disaster of the Gulf of Mexico. Erosion where we plant our vegetables sent our excellent black dirt down the hill. The slope on the south side made planting difficult so we had some wasted, weedy space. Our single-bin compost system languished.
All our work has been about containing and supporting this bit of urban land’s gifts. Now we hold onto our rich soil and use our rainwater. Now we have a three-bin compost system so our leaves and clippings and food scraps will feed the garden, and therefore us. Now we’re using sunlight to the best advantage for our fruit trees and vegetables. And early next year, after the trellises go up, we’ll have the privacy we need to sit, contemplate, and be nourished by this little corner of earth.
The change is subtle but significant. How can we contain rather than squander the gifts we’re showered with? How can we nurture our gifts so they thrive? My garden teaches me that holding back can support abundance, and that gathering in can support generosity. These days I’m making similar emotional changes, setting boundaries around the practices that bring me the most nourishment and letting go of what gets in the way. On the surface the shifts might seem minor. Underneath they really matter. I’m learning to contain my energy and interests and talents, to focus and feed them for the sake of setting my roots deep—and then flourishing. –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
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NEWS
Once again I’m happy to offer the ebook edition of Hannah, Delivered for $0.99 for a limited time. Enjoy! Here are the direct links:
And here’s what’s coming on my calendar:
October 31, 9-12 a.m.: Revision Revolution workshop, The Loft Literary Center.
November 20, December 18, 1:30-3:30 p.m.: Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir drop in classes, Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality.
June 26-29, 2016: The Inner Life of Stories: Writing as Deep Listening retreat at The Christine Center.
September 12-16, 2016: Alone Together writing retreat at the Madeline Island School of the Arts.
Related StoriesIn DialogueRampant GenerosityReading and Writing–For the Love of It
October 1, 2015
Reading and Writing–For the Love of It
John Gardner writes that we read for “the pleasure of exercising our capacity to love.” Having been an English major, I find this idea slightly challenging. Don’t we also read to see the world from others’ eyes or to learn about history or as a social critique or to have our beliefs turned on their heads? Don’t we read to be entertained? To escape?
But when I think back to my first and best experiences of reading (in grade school, when I spent summers on the back porch with my nose in some Newbery Award winning novel and my whole being transported to worlds more contained and extravagant than my own), they were saturated with love. And if I’m honest, all my lofty academic reasons for pursuing an English major were cover-up for a plain old love of reading.
What Gardner is saying is slightly different, though: We read for the pleasure of exercising our capacity to love. We love loving, and reading lets us practice this—reading helps us get better at this. Whoa! There’s plenty of scientific studies that prove reading fiction makes us more empathetic—that it exercises our relational capacities just as effectively as real life. It logically follows that reading makes us better able to love. Is it possible that beneath all our conscious explanations for reading lies this love affair between our hearts and love itself?
All this makes me wonder whether we write for the same reason. As a writing coach I constant meet people who want to write but don’t know how to get started, or who keep a journal but are paralyzed by the idea of writing for an audience, or who have lost their sense of direction deep in the drafting of a book. Is it possible that the pleasure of exercising love is our path out of these dark woods?
David Foster Wallace thinks so:
It seems like the big distinction between good art and so-so art lies somewhere in the art’s heart’s purpose, the agenda of the consciousness behind the text. It’s got something to do with love. With having the discipline to talk out of the part of yourself that can love instead of the part that just wants to be loved.
The work of releasing our ego’s needs in favor of the fine gift of loving, according to Wallace, is fundamental to the creation of art. The implications are marvelous. The not-yet writer with an itch to create can learn to love the sounding board of the receptive blank page. The private journal-writer can learn to love rather than fear her reader. The author adrift in the middle of a larger project can set aside his or her agenda for the sake of loving—and serving—the subject itself.
Perhaps we writers love to write because we love loving, and we intuit that writing exercises this capacity. If so, can anything be more worthy?
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Elizabeth’s news:
The Saturday launch of Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir at Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality was a great success, thanks to a marvelous group of writers. Even if you didn’t make it, you’re still welcome to dig into the monthly drop-in classes on October 16, November 20, December 18, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Want to learn why I’m crazy about revision? Join me the morning of October 31 for a Revision Revolution workshop at The Loft Literary Center.
Oh, Baby! True Stories About Conception, Adoption, Surrogacy, Pregnancy, Labor, and Love hits the bookshelves on October 5th. In it you’ll find my essay about my daughter’s birth and her generous, strong birth parents. Check out this great review in Publisher’s Weekly.
Related StoriesWriting and ForgivenessMoral writing? Uncool, but bring it on!Broken & Beautiful: How the Light Gets In
September 15, 2015
Coming Alive
Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self by Richard RohrMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I can’t remember the last time I finished a book, thought to myself, “I will never be the same again,” and began rereading to figure out why. Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond did this to me.
What changed? Rohr reframed the story of Jesus—the Christian story—as an invitation for human transformation. Writing this makes it sound obvious, but the real implications are huge, for Christians and everyone who has to live in our pseudo-Christian culture.
To Rohr, birth, death, and resurrection aren’t just events that happened to Jesus. They’re a path humans travel. Christians tend to believe this literally: We’re born (as bits of incarnated Spirit), we live, we die, we go to heaven. What Rohr did for me was frame this path figuratively, as a spiritual journey bringing us ever nearer to our best and truest selves—if we participate with intention. We can die to that which stands in the way of life. We can let go of what’s false and experience the “revelation of our True Selves”—Rohr’s interpretation of resurrection. The False Self—who we are on the surface—sees in parts, hierarchies, and only in reference to itself. The True Self—who we are at our core—sees in wholeness and communion; it shows itself when we’re deeply silent or in love.
None of this has anything to do with what we believe or don’t believe. It’s the way the world works. Our job is to die to falsehood and be born in truth.
The great gift of Christianity’s teaching is divine incarnation, the union of holiness and matter. Jesus is divine and human—sure; Christians say this all the time—but to Rohr the risen Christ is emblematic of, or rather is, our True Self, our essential nature, what’s possible for you and me when we’re fully conscious. In the paradoxical way of our world works, this union is what we long for and it already exists. We know endless life when we know love. We shamelessly, beautifully, want more and more love. This longing for love is divinity in us, aching to come alive.
I won’t ever see the faith of my upbringing the same. And I’m deeply grateful.
--Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
View all my reviews
Coming Alive
I can’t remember the last time I finished a book, thought to myself, “I will never be the same again,” and began rereading to figure out why. Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond did this to me.
What changed? Rohr reframed the story of Jesus—the Christian story—as an invitation for human transformation. Writing this makes it sound obvious, but the real implications are huge, for Christians and everyone who has to live in our pseudo-Christian culture.
To Rohr, birth, death, and resurrection aren’t just events that happened to Jesus. They’re a path humans travel. Christians tend to believe this literally: We’re born (as bits of incarnated Spirit), we live, we die, we go to heaven. What Rohr did for me was frame this path figuratively, as a spiritual journey bringing us ever nearer to our best and truest selves—if we participate with intention. We can die to that which stands in the way of life. We can let go of what’s false and experience the “revelation of our True Selves”—Rohr’s interpretation of resurrection. The False Self—who we are on the surface—sees in parts, hierarchies, and only in reference to itself. The True Self—who we are at our core—sees in wholeness and communion; it shows itself when we’re deeply silent or in love.
None of this has anything to do with what we believe or don’t believe. It’s the way the world works. Our job is to die to falsehood and be born in truth.
The great gift of Christianity’s teaching is divine incarnation, the union of holiness and matter. Jesus is divine and human—sure; Christians say this all the time—but to Rohr the risen Christ is emblematic of, or rather is, our True Self, our essential nature, what’s possible for you and me when we’re fully conscious. In the paradoxical way of our world works, this union is what we long for and it already exists. We know endless life when we know love. We shamelessly, beautifully, want more and more love. This longing for love is divinity in us, aching to come alive.
I won’t ever see the faith of my upbringing the same. And I’m deeply grateful.
–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
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I’m back in the teaching saddle! Check out my fall writing classes:
September 26, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.: Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir, Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality.
October 16, November 20, December 18, 1:30-3:30 p.m.: Spiritual Memoir drop-in classes.
October 31, 9-12 a.m.: Revision Revolution workshop, The Loft Literary Center.
