Of Readying and Writing
Every story has its own history.
I had the recent pleasure of spending an hour at a desk—with pen and wire-bound legal pad—writing a letter to a friend. Some ink-scripting, saliva-stamping, paper-folding time later, I found myself satisfyingly dropping a white envelope into a horizontal slat opening of a post box, next to a hawker center enlivened by your mid-day crew of Singaporean uncles, knees up and all.
I had been meaning to write and post this letter for a while. Indeed, it was 128 days prior to me sitting down to write this letter that I had asked for Matthew’s address and 122 days since he had given it to me. For those of you who know me, you would know that being this late with anything is uncharacteristic of me. I’m usually a stickler for time, and absolutely hate making others wait. But it seemed that—at least in this instance— the sliver of my Kerr clan heritage chose to appear; the Kerr crest bears the Latin motto “sero sed serio,” translated it reads: “late, but in earnest.”
A curious thing happened in the writing of the letter. As the ideas of my head found their permanence on the page—heart to mind, then pen to paper—I had a moment of discovery about the nature of time and writing, and a realisation about the way of stories and their own corresponding histories. From the meditative and intimate place that is personal writing—the scripture of the soul—I wrote this to Matthew:
“Perhaps these few months of waiting have been part of the “readying” process this bit of writing requires. Afterall, each bit of writing requires it’s own “readying;” each story its own history.”
Each bit of writing its own readying; each story its own history. A fancily worded excuse for tardiness? Or something that might just might be true?
Frederick Buechner has mentioned how in writing one of his novels (I can’t find the reference, but I’m fairly sure the quotation can be found in Dale Brown’s The Book of Buechner) it felt almost as if the words of the novel had been given to him. As if they had come to him for another place beyond himself. There is sometimes this event that can take place as we write, be it letter or novel, where as we write we discover. Some might call it “inspiration,” but I prefer “discovery”—there is wisdom out there, older and wiser than me, that I certainly cannot take creative credit for. Through these events of unearthing, we discover things that seem to come from beyond us. Truths that we can’t take credit for. Realities that we have not formed ourselves, but through our own acts of formulation, we discover, and subsequently, behold. Writing about this idea to Matthew—that each bit of writing requires its own readying, and each story has its own history—felt like one of those moments of discovery. New, though the idea was, the more I read it and turned it over in my mind, the more I grasped the truth of it.
I have always assumed that the “right time” for most things is “right now.” My impatience is testament to that belief. The stress that is induced in my life by any undone tasks on a to-do list tells the same story. That’s always been the way I’ve lived my life and viewed the world. Now, while there certainly are things you would not want to wait too long to address—taxes, infections, and saying “I’m sorry”—there are things that are more than just “worth the wait,” but fundamentally different with the “wait.”
The night before I wrote the letter to Matthew, I lay in bed, and for the first time in months, read a book that I knew would be good for my soul (though the title might make you think otherwise). It was the The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner—a collection of exquisitely and kindly written reflections on Scripture. Out of all the books I could have picked, out of all the nights I could have chosen, this was the book, and this was the night. That evening I had no knowledge of when I would eventually write Matthew. It was 127 days since I had first asked for his address, 121 since he had given it to me, and one day before I would finally write him. As I later told a friend, there was an appropriateness to what I read that night that I am too aware of the way of grace to take credit for. It was necessary reading for what I was to eventually write to Matthew. Not the kind of necessary reading that you rush the night before a class, but the reading that you slowly ponder over, read and re-read. Words that you speak out loud, feeling the weight of their meaning, as they bring warmth to the cold places within you. Words that you wish you could discover for the first time over and over and over again.
Truth be told, Buechner’s words to me that night were not the words that I was looking for. Taking The Hungering Dark into bed that night was my own shot in the dark, my searching amidst my own hungering dark. I didn’t even know that they were the words to be looking for, and yet still, they were given to me. But as I wrote the letter to Matthew the next day, telling him how I had been doing, how my faith journey was, how I had seen the beauty of power and God in seasons past, I soon came to see that I was only able to write in the catharsis with which I so needed to, because of Buechner’s words the night before. That first chapter of The Hungering Dark ended with a prayer of mercy and grace I needed to hear. A prayer I needed to help me feel through season past. A prayer that I concluded my letter to Matthew with. Sometimes we don’t know what we need before we are able to do what we must do. But in profound acts of grace, God appears, and he gives us just that which we need, to do just that which we must do.
Grace-filled waiting is written into the history of the Christian story. Waiting for a family to be gathered. Waiting for a star to appear. Waiting for the defeat of Death. Waiting for a new world to come. Perhaps then it is ok to wait a little. For a child to find the path. For a morning to dawn. For a heart to settle. For a good day to come. For the writing of a letter. Not because the time the child is away from the path, the darkness of the night, the tremors of the heart, the sorrow of a day, or the tardiness of a response are in anyway pleasant, but rather because perhaps Grace had a different way for the child to reach the path, because perhaps Grace knew when the light would be most wanted, because perhaps Grace knew the heart needed to feel just a little bit more before it was soothed, and perhaps Grace wanted to give the letter-writer one final prayer before he wrote it.
And so as I share with you the history behind this story of letter writing, perhaps we might too see that, in a similar way, it was not my tardiness alone that caused this post to come so late, but also perhaps Grace’s right process of readying that this very bit of writing has so required.
Not too unlike with my letter, I think that God has his own process of readying you for all of your life’s writings, too—whether they be written with the pen of your hand, or the years of your life. Unexpected and unconventional as the readying may be, let us be well in them, waiting through them not as those “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13) but as those who know that “joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
Holy Child, whom the shepherds and the kinds and the dumb beasts adored, be born again. Wherever there in boredom, wherever there is fear of failure, wherever there is temptation too strong to resist, wherever there is bitterness of heart, come thou blessed one with healing in thy wings.
Saviour, be born in each of us who raises his face to thy face, not knowing fully who he is or who thou art, knowing only that thy love is beyond his knowing and that no other has the power to make him whole. Come, Lord Jesus, to each who longs for thee even though he has forgotten thy name. Come quickly.
Amen
The Hungering Dark, pg. 17
Lornie Road, Singapore
