Operator, give me Jesus on the line

This morning it was so cute watching G. shouting at the breakfast table,

"God, if you can hear me...would you like to sleep in my bed with me tonight?

Pause.

"Because you can if you want to!"

It was less cute when, after a few seconds, she said, "Oh. No answer. I guess you don't exist."

What happened to the "simple faith of a child" everyone talks about?

Why do some children see angels around their beds, feel divine hugs, and hear God whispering love in their ears, and others don't?

To be googled, or not to be googled?

I'm reading Gabrielle Roy's novel The Road Past Altamont. I've barely begun, but so far I'm most intrigued by the translator's introduction. Joyce Marshall writes that Roy believes:

"artistic talent is less a gift than a tyranny. In Street of Riches she depicts the artist as a lonely figure, constantly left behind, constantly running to catch up and show what he has found. The Hidden Mountain uses the image of the pursuit and the death of a caribou as symbol for the artist's life in which he is at the same time hunter and hunted, pursuer and pursued. Now she adds a further qualification, slave - or at least, servant - one who is not free even to keep his own thoughts for himself since they belong, in part at least, to others."

The lonely figure running to catch up. The servant. I'm not sure I get the hunted caribou part. If the artist is always left behind, how can one say she is pursued? But the servant part rings true. I've often felt like I wasn't free to keep my thoughts to myself. (Even when others disagreed quite strongly!) I'm not always comfortable with so many people reading about my life in magazines and blogs, but I want my words to encourage people. When I find the right ones I want to share them.

But with how many people? Right now my blog doesn't show up on any search engines. People find it through word of mouth. I've lost my hit counter so I have no idea how many, but it's a small group who leave comments.

I'd like my writing to generate more income, but I could only do with major traffic. (I tried posting ads here and after one year I'd earned 7 cents!)

Do I want to give up my privacy? Do I want the guy who had a crush on me at camp twenty years ago reading this? (Yes, I know who you are!)

Speaking in tongues

This summer my husband and I celebrated our 15th anniversary. Tony and I met at Providence College in 1991. My second year, we led the Communications committee together; I was the school paper editor, he the poster designer. I soon became interested in helping create posters, and Tony started hanging out more in the library. Thus began what the drama professor called "communications collaboration."

Our first year of dating was therefore, creative, playful, and highly entertaining. The intervening years have introduced some darker colours to the mix: unemployment, miscarriage, depression, and parenting stress. And the most exciting things we paint now are baseboards. But we take stubborn pride in sticking together, knowing that, while the mischievous smirks and longing glances are fewer and farther between, we're still the same editor/painter team that fell in love under the glowing light of the microfiche and first kissed amid the heady smell of tempura.

In Acedia and Me: A marriage, monks and a writer's life, Kathleen Norris cites a recent study that "monitored the daily habits of couples in order to determine what produced good and stable marriages." It revealed that "only one activity made a consistent different, and that was the embracing of one's spouse at the beginning and end of each day."

"Most surprising to Paul Bosch, who wrote an article about the study, was that 'it didn't seem to matter whether or not in that moment the partners were fully engaged or even sincere. Just a perfunctory peck on the cheek was enough to make a difference in the quality of the relationship.' Bosch concluded that this 'should not surprise churchgoers. Whatever you do repeatedly has the power to shape you, has the power to make you over into different person.'"

Norris comments, "So there...Let's hear it for insincere, hurried kisses, and prayers made with a yawn. I may be dwelling on the fact that my feet hurt, or nursing some petty slight. As for the words that I am dutifully saying - 'Love you' or 'Dear God' - I might as well be speaking in tongues, and maybe I am...Every day and every night, whether I 'get it' or not, these 'meaningless' words and actions signify more than I know."

Here's to many more years of hurried kisses!

Old colour photos by Ted Yee. Black and white wedding photo by Rudolf Klassen.

The devil I know

Last week I was in a frenzy to prepare a sermon, create a course outline, and arrange an interview. This week I don't even feel like opening a doc file. Someone once described me as a "rabbit driving stick shift." I'm either racing ahead or lurching to a stop and hiding in the grass. I used to think I was crazy; I've realized, no: I'm just a writer!

I've begun reading famous writers' thoughts on their careers. (Why didn't I do this sooner?) It's so good to know, for example, that Annie Dillard writes one page a day and says that's success. Or that she sees the thought that her work in progress is terrible or the thought that it is wonderful as mosquitoes to be swatted. But the biggest revelation came about the writing life came from Kathleen Norris:

"I am both an extrovert and an introvert, energized by other people, even crowds of people, but also content to keep to myself for days on end...My energy levels are set on high or low: I can happily juggle any number of activities or do very little. At my most sluggish, I experience a mild agoraphobia, which makes it hard for me to meet outside obligations, even to shop for bread or a quart of milk."

Oh boy, does that ever sound familiar! I'm not sure if writing attracts extremists, or drives sane people to extremes, but there you have it: they go together like long ears and cottontails. It makes sense: you go from the stress of the deadline to the exhaustion that follows, from the elation of being published to worrying whether you'll ever have another story idea as good as the last one. Write and cut, write and lose to a computer crash. One page forward, ten pages back. Up. Down. Up.

"Were I to approach an abba or amma asking for a 'word' to help me cope with the assaults of acedia [despair] on my soul," writes Norris, "I would likely be reminded that if I am especially susceptible to acedia, it is because I harbor within myself the virtue of zeal. That comes as a relief. It helps explain the extremism that lies beneath my more or less sane facade."

There's something freeing about making peace with your internal yo-yo. On the other hand, God may have something slightly less jerky in mind for my life:

Norris says, "One of my mantras is a plea from Psalm 51: 'Put a steadfast spirit within me.' I pray it, but I must admit that I don't always mean it. Would a more steadfast spirit deaden me somehow, or dampen the writer in me? This up-and-down, unsteadfast person is who I am; this is the devil I know."

We prefer the devil we know to the one we don't. But, when you think about it, there's only one of him; both devils are the same guy, and I prefer door number three. I've had the same fear of dampening the writer in me, but like Norris, I have to say a steadfast spirit sounds really good.

"To Edmund Bergler, the twentieth-century analyst who coined the term 'writer's block,' and once remarked that he had 'never seen a "normal'' writer,'" Norris says, "I can honestly reply: That's all right. I am not certain I have ever seen a 'normal' psychoanalyst."

I have no idea what sort of transmission their inner animal drives...but I'll bet the upholstery is nicer.

(Photo: Rabbit in the Dryer by Tim Moore)