Great Junkyard Find

It wasn’t my doctor or psychologist, three years ago, who suggested I begin writing a journal of my “out of the box” thoughts. Instead, it came from the inspiration from one of my best friends in this world, David Patterson.  David had begun a blog entitled: Family and Friends and his weekly writing was grounded in his reflective study and thinking about timely spiritual issues. Those reflections gave rise to a spark of inspiration to begin writing down my own previously glossed over thoughts from devotional moments, walking thru the adventures of God’s Word, another fascinating book, periodical, commentary, or everyday conversations and mundane or meaningful events.

My testimony is that I have definitely noticed an increase in spiritual and mental health benefits through reflective writing. Yes, it is a wrestling match with words as I try to put my deepest thoughts into writing about whatever.  But the benefit: my mind is lifted from depression, I uncover the wisdom within my reading, observation, conversation or experience; always providing insight and fostering self-awareness. Similarly, on occasion, I will find benefits of confessional writing, where I am freed to "explore the depths of my emotional or spiritual junkyard." O yes, in my mind, writing these entries has been a helpful way to sift through the junkyard, though most effectively when I’m open to being surprised by beauty and not merely reveling in the messes.

Catching an episode of the Alaskan Bush People (History channel), where one of the boys took his date to a junkyard and made a warm fire in a van brought to mind an interesting analogy of: writing is helpful because my eye seeks the transcendent. Moments where the extraordinary is beheld in the ordinary, glimpses of clarity within the junkyard, beauty in a world of contrasts.

When Jesus stooped over the crumbled girl at his feet and wrote something in the sand, the written word spoke more powerfully than the anger of the Pharisees and well beyond the sins of the prostitute. As singer songwriter Michael Card writes of Jesus's scribbling, "It was a cup of cold water for a thirsty adulteress and an ice-cold drenching in the face to a group of angry Pharisees."  Writing, for me, has become a tool with which I learn to see myself more clearly, a catalyst for which I can learn to see thankfully beyond myself.

In the C.S. Lewis novel, Til We Have Faces, the main character, Orual, has taken mental notes throughout her life, carefully building what she refers to as her "case" against the gods. Finally choosing to put her case in writing, she describes each instance where she has been wronged. It is only after Orual has finished writing that she soberly recognizes her great mistake. To have heard herself making the complaint was to be answered, for she now sees the importance of uttering the speech at the center of one's soul. She profoundly then observes that the gods used her own pen to probe the wounds. With sharpened insight Orual explains, "Til the words can be dug out of us, why should the gods hear the babble that we think we mean?  How can they meet us face to face til we have faces?"

There is something about writing that has introduced me to myself and to the image of Another. Daring to utter the words at the center of my soul I think I have found the words leading me to my truer self. God has used my pencil to probe the wounds of life! In the intimate descriptions of life recorded in the Psalms, the writers of the Psalms express loneliness, joy, even frustration with God. "What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness?" Psalm 30:9. Yet the psalmists walk away from their words with a clearer sense of reality. And, I would add, their words have been a source of encouragement to countless lives, pointing many to wisdom, to beauty and depth, to a God enthroned on high.

Father, God, as Your Son, Jesus, stood with the girl at his feet in the middle of a group armed with stones and hatred, the Word that brought life into existence and worked the heavens with His fingers, crouched down in the sand and with His finger changed her life. Might this same Word so move me also such that my own words bring my to know myself, the good, bad and ugly, and You more intimately than ever. Amen