Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

In which Sarah Bessey Writes a Guest Post: The Genesis of a Jesus Feminist

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Jesus Feminist grew organically out of my life in Christ.

As a writer and blogger, I love to write through my life to figure out what I think and believe and dream about God, as well as the Church, marriage, motherhood, community, global issues, all of it.

So as I was writing through these intersections of women and Scripture, the kingdom of God and missional theology, freedom and justice, through my own habit of storytelling, the book simply began to grow in my heart and mind. It wasn’t born out of anger or bitterness or even a need to set the record straight about anything.

Instead Jesus Feminist took shape out of my own history as a beloved daughter, in my experiences in the Church as a woman, in my heart for justice and wholeness for God’s daughters, my passion for writing out my life, and most particularly in my adoration of Jesus and commitment to live into the Kingdom of God. All those things came together and over the course of a few years, the book began to grow.

* * *

I define feminism as the simple belief that women are people, too. At the core, feminism simply means that we champion the dignity, rights, responsibilities, and glories of women as equal in importance to those of men, and we refuse discrimination against women. That’s it. [Read more…]

The Gift of Limits. The Gift of Learning to Say No

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Here’s a striking story from The Emotionally Healthy Church by Pete Scazzero.

Rabbi Edwin Friedman tells the story of a man who had given much thought to what he wanted from life. After trying many things, succeeding at some and failing at others, he finally decided what he wanted.

One day the opportunity came for him to experience exactly the way of living that he had dreamed about. But the opportunity would be available only for a short time. It would not wait, and it would not come again.

Eager to take advantage of this open pathway, the man started on his journey. With each step, he moved faster and faster. Each time he thought about his goal, his heart beat quicker; and with each vision of what lay ahead, he found renewed vigour.

As he hurried along, he came to a bridge that crossed through the middle of a town. The bridge spanned high above a dangerous river.

After starting across the bridge, he noticed someone coming the opposite direction. The stranger seemed to be coming toward him to greet him. As the stranger grew closer, the man could discern that they didn’t know each other, but yet they looked amazingly similar. They were even dressed alike. The only difference was that the stranger had a rope wrapped many times around his waist. If stretched out, the rope would reach a length of perhaps thirty feet.

The stranger began to unwrap the rope as he walked. Just as the two men were about to meet, the stranger said, “Pardon me, would you be so kind as to hold the end of the rope for me?”
The man agreed without a thought, reached out, and took it.

“Thank you,” said the stranger. He then added, “Two hands now, and remember, hold tight.” At that point, the stranger jumped off the bridge.

The man on the bridge abruptly felt a strong pull from the now extended rope. He automatically held tight and was almost dragged over the side of the bridge.

“What are you trying to do?” he shouted to the stranger below.

“Just hold tight,” said the stranger.

This is ridiculous, the man thought. He began trying to haul the other man in. Yet it was just beyond his strength to bring the other back to safety.

Again he yelled over the edge, “Why did you do this?”

“Remember,” said the other, “If you let go, I will be lost.”

“But I cannot pull you up,” the man cried.

“I am your responsibility,” said the other.

“I did not ask for it,” the man said.

“If you let go, I am lost,” repeated the stranger.

The man began to look around for help. No one was within sight.

He began to think about his predicament. Here he was eagerly pursuing a unique opportunity, and now he was being side-tracked for who knows how long.

Maybe I can tie the rope somewhere, he thought. He examined the bridge carefully, but there was no way to get rid of his new- found burden.

So he again yelled over the edge, “What do you want?”

“Just your help,” came the answer.

“How can I help? I cannot pull you in, and there is no place to tie the rope while I find someone else who could help you.”

“Just keep hanging on,” replied the dangling man. “That will be enough.”

Fearing that his arms could not hold out much longer, he tied the rope around his waist.
“Why did you do this?” he asked again. “Don’t you see what you have done? What possible purpose could you have in mind?”

“Just remember,” said the other, “my life is in your hands.”

Now the man was perplexed. He reasoned within himself, “If I let go, all my life I will know that I let this other man die. If I stay, I risk losing my momentum toward my own long-sought-after salvation. Either way this will haunt me forever.”

As time went by, still no one came. The man became keenly aware that it was almost too late to resume his journey. If he didn’t leave immediately, he wouldn’t arrive in time.

Finally, he devised a plan. “Listen,” he explained to the man hanging below, “I think I know how to save you.” He mapped out the idea. The stranger could climb back up by wrapping the rope around him. Loop by loop, the rope would become shorter.

But the dangling man had no interest in the idea.

“I don’t think I can hang on much longer,” warned the man on the bridge.

“You must try,” appealed the stranger. “If you fail, I die.”

Suddenly a new idea struck the man on the bridge. It was different and even alien to his normal way of thinking. “I want you to listen carefully,” he said, “because I mean what I am about to say.”

The dangling man indicated that he was listening.

“I will not accept the position of choice for your life, only for my own; I hereby give back the position of choice for your own life to you.”

“What do you mean?” the other asked, afraid.

“I mean, simply, it’s up to you. You decide which way this ends. I will become the counterweight. You do the pulling and bring yourself up. I will even tug some from here.”
He unwound the rope from around his waist and braced himself to be a counterweight. He was ready to help as soon as the dangling man began to act.

“You cannot mean what you say,” the other shrieked. “You would not be so selfish. I am your responsibility. What could be so important that you would let someone die? Do not do this to me.”

After a long pause, the man on the bridge uttered slowly, “I accept your choice.” In voicing those words, he freed his hands and continued his journey over the bridge.

* * *

Ironically, the closer you come to crossing the bridge to your dreams, the more people will appear jumping off the bridge, insisting that you and only you can save them from drowning.

And it is a lie.

While as Christians we are called to love our spouse, our children, and a few others, we only have two hands and finite time and strength, and so we need to be careful about which of the many ropes tossed to us we choose to hold. Which of the many calls on our time and compassion we answer. How many coffees we serve, cakes we make, meals we deliver.

* * *

Michael Hyatt writes brilliantly about this in a post called Success and Accessibility.

He writes, “The more successful you become, the more other people will demand of your time. As a result, if you are going to maintain margin for your most important priorities, you will have to make some difficult decisions about your accessibility.

He quotes Andy Stanley, who writes,

“The harsh reality is that the more successful we are, the less accessible we become. So then we are faced with the dilemma of who gets my time and who doesn’t, when do they get it, and and how much of it do they get.”

 Hyatt continues, “Your time is a zero sum game. When you say yes to one thing, you are simultaneously saying no to something else. The more successful you get, the more difficult this becomes. You find yourself saying no to good things—worthy things—in order to say yes to your most important priorities.

 After all, from the perspective of the one asking, it is not a big request. But to agree to their requests would require a major investment of my time. Add all the requests together, and I am soon eating into the time allotted for my own projects, friends, family, and health.

Hyatt suggests

1. Acknowledge your resources are finite. This is a fact. You have 168 hours per week. No more, no less. Every time you commit to something, you are depleting your available time. Your other resources are also limited, including your attention, money, and energy.

If you ignore this, it will eventually catch up with you. You will pay a high price when that happens—perhaps an emotional breakdown, a divorce, wayward kids, a business failure, or a health crisis.

2.   Determine who needs access and who doesn’t. Not everyone needs full access to you. They may think they do, but they don’t. Therefore, you must prioritise your contacts and relationships.

Remember: once you let people in, it is hard to ask them to leave without creating misunderstanding or hurt feelings. Be intentional.”

* * *

“Hold the rope or I will drown.” The call comes to us from in many ways, and from many people.

Questions to ask: Will this person truly drown if I don’t hold the rope, or will they learn to swim? Will they drag me down, or will I pull them up? Is this person willing to change if I hold the rope, or do they want an audience for moaning and lamentation? Am I the only person who can hold the rope? Does God want me to hold the rope for this demanding person, or to cross the bridge to the destiny to which He has called me?

If you feel huge anger and resentment at this rope you’ve been tossed, if God has not called you to hold this rope as your unique call in life, Fail Quickly. Let go!

P.S. They will probably learn to swim, or find the next passer-by to fling their rope to.

 

Writing with the Wind of the Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit in your Wings

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Geese

 

Wild Geese fly in a V formation. The lead goose reduces the wind resistance; the others glide, almost effortlessly, in the currents she has created.

 

During a storm, the eagle waits perched on the edge of its nest for the wind to gain sufficient velocity. Once she knows the direction in which the wind is roaring, she spreads her wings wide, and effortlessly glides into the winds of the storm.

Have you ever seen hawks or eagles soar, wings outstretched, rising without a single beat of their magnificent wings, soaring, soaring? They are soaring on thermal currents—masses of air that rise when the ground rapidly warms up. Or sometimes, obstruction currents, when wind currents are deflected by mountains, cliffs or tall buildings. The resulting updraft lifts them to high altitudes at which they glide.

* * *

 The Wild Goose was an emblem of the Holy Spirit in Celtic tradition.

And the eagle, in Scripture, is a symbol both of God, and God’s people.

Eagles never waste their energy flapping their enormous wings—they wait for, and then use thermal currents and obstruction currents to soar on the wings of the wind…

 

Flying is so much easier when we sense the direction the wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing in our lives, and in the world, and then open our wings and fly in that direction, using the energy he generates within us, and in circumstances around us.

* * *

I have been reading about “the anointing,” in R. T. Kendall’s splendid, “The Anointing.”

He writes: “The anointing is when our gift functions easily. It comes with ease. It seems natural. No working it up is needed. If one has to work it up, one has probably gone outside one’s anointing. If one goes outside one’s anointing, the result is often fatigue, that is weariness or spiritual lethargy that has been described as ‘dying inside.’”

* * *

 I find that with my writing on my blog, and indeed all writing. God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is by His nature continuously articulate, A. W. Tozer wrote. If I listen to what the Spirit is saying to me through the events of my life, record the mini-revelations or epiphanies given to me each day by the God who speaks continuously and is never silent, then blogging is quick, easy and delightful. And what’s more, it often speaks to people.

It’s when I write to grow my blog, wonder if I should write the topical posts that everyone else is writing, be strategic, capture the zeitgeist– that blogging feels heavy, a chore, work rather than play. Why? Because the wind of the Spirit is not helping me soar; I have to expend scarce energy with a mighty, exhausting flapping of wings.

There is a lightness to God’s work, an amused creativity—we get the impression He tossed off zebras, giraffes, toucans, morpho butterflies and orchids in a massive outburst of creativity. God was at play as these beautiful things came into being, step by step through the mighty forces of evolution. His work was deep play.

* * *

 In his book, Homo Ludens, or Man the Player, the Dutch historian and cultural theorist, Johan Huizinga, suggests that culture stems from humans at play, humans playing with words, or music or paint or the sketches of mighty cathedrals.

And when I record the whispers of the spirit, write in the updraft of the wild goose of the Holy Spirit, blogging is easy, light and delightful. It has a bit of the playfulness with which I imagine God made the world. I am playing in the fields of the Lord, playing with God, thinking aloud, probably making all sorts of mistakes–but there is a fun and lightness to it all.

See What God is Blessing and Join it (Bono)

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Link text
 

 I used to pray the way Bono says he did: In countless ways, big and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I’d be saying, “Look, I’ve got a new song…Would you look out [for it]. I have a family; I’m going away on tour — please look after them. I have this crazy idea. Could I have a blessing on it?”

However, Bono continues, A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. This wise man asked me to stop. He said, “Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved in what God is doing — because it’s already blessed. 

Bono decided to get involved with the poor, because, as he says, “God is always with the poor.”

I believe all Christians are called to be a blessing to the poor–though some of us (I, for instance) may have other primary vocations and callings, and we may be called to bless the poor with our money, rather than with our sweat.

* * *

Like Bono, when casting about for what to throw my energy into, I try to see which area of my life God is already blessing. Where is his activity most evident? In my case, in my growing blog, my activity on social media, and in our family business.

When we are aligned with Jesus, multiplication becomes the norm, just as Jesus fed five thousand with five loaves, and spiritually feeds millions with his broken body.

A supernatural increase which we couldn’t possibly have brought about through our own efforts: I see that as a hallmark of God’s blessing.

* * *

When we decided that Roy should resign from his career as a mathematician, at which he was successful, to manage our small publishing company, I saw a mental image of the river of God rushing and flowing into our family business. Going on in academia would almost be rowing against the stream.

And indeed, the little company has been blessed over our wildest expectations. In the beginning, when we were rushed off our feet, and hugely stressed as the company took off, Roy said wryly, “Well, you got more than you asked, or dreamed of asking!!”

I stared, a bit stunned. Yes, indeed I had. I always lingered over that verse, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, a bit sadly and not with a great deal of faith, almost as if these things were things that happened to someone else, but me, oh my imagination was so wild that God couldn’t possibly do immeasurably more than all I could ask or imagine.

 

Seriously, I remember, aged 17, singing “The dream I have today my Lord is only a shadow of your dream for me,” and thinking “Nah, my dreams are so wild, how can that be…”

 

* * *

Immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine…there is now a page with that title in my prayer journal, and I pray that, with anticipation.

It’s a good question to ask at the start of a New Year, with all that fresh energy. What is God blessing? Where is his presence and power most apparent in my life?

For me, at the moment, in blogging and writing and business, and that shall be my year’s focus.

And so I cry out like Jabez:

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. 1 Chron 4:10.

In which I will be Visiting Cambodia with Tearfund in March 2014

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I am excited to announce that I will be going to Cambodia with Tearfund in March.


tonle batie cropped

Here is my post about why I would like to visit Tonle Batie, Cambodia with Tearfund.

And here is Tearfund’s video announcement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLSm7DmfIZw&feature=youtu.be

Read Tearfund’s Press Release.

‘Bloggers can change the world, or at the least they can change the way people view the world.’ says Krish Kandiah, Executive Director of the Evangelical Alliance, Tearfund Vice President and member of the judging panel. ‘We hope these bloggers can use their skills to help many people see the country and people of Cambodia through God’s eyes.’

Please will you follow my reports on my blog from March 17th to 25th?

Thank you 🙂

 

 

Why I Run: A Guest Post by Jennifer Luitwieler

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marathon

Read on and be inspired by this guest post from Jennifer Luitwieler, pictured here running in the Pittsburgh Marathon

If it is true that every act is sacred, then running is my most perfect sacred act.

Sometimes, running is my sacrifice, where I haul all my insecurities, inhibitions, pains and frustrations to the altar and leave them there. Where I remember that to run the race efficiently, it is wisest to race unencumbered. We tend to think these things we lug around with us are precious and personal and eternal. But we are not so special, we are not unique to the experience of pain. And so, when I run, I can cut the ties on the baggage straps, sacrificing the dross for the breath of life.

Sometimes, running is my penance. I am no stranger to bad mom or bad wife moments. I have been a bad friend, a horrible listener, a disrespectful daughter or arrogant teacher. I have been the urgent and Very Important Driver behind you in traffic. Strapping on my runnings shoes is not akin to shrugging into the hair shirt, but there are days when I want to outrun the pain I may have caused others.

Sometimes, running is my joy. Believe me when I say I never saw that coming. My athletic endeavors had been restricted to required phys ed class in high school lo these many years ago. But there are days now, sometimes even consecutive days, when to run is to remember what it was like to be a child, loping free on the grass, the uncontained, irrational pleasure of youth.

Sometimes…no, every time, running is my prayer. Running is my worship. If prayer is relationship and worship is experiencing His presence, then running is my prayer. Because when I run, He has set my feet in a wide place. When I run, I am in the safest place to admit the depths of my wounds, to express the heights of my gratitude. When I am running is the only time I feel like I can say exactly the words I want to say to Him. And when I can hear the smallest murmur. When I run, I can rage, and praise and doubt. And when I run, I am engaged with every part of me.

Running is my sacred expression.

jennifer-luitweiler

Jennifer Luitwieler is a writer in Tulsa, OK. She and her husband have three children, and homeschool one of them. She is an fan of both American football and football. She started running to take care of The Dog’s business. Now, she runs to take care of her own. Her book Run With Me: An Accidental Runner and the Power of Poo was published in 2011 by Civitas Press. She writes a family fitness column for Tulsa Kids and a monthly essay for Deeper Story. You can also read more from her at Jennifer Luitwieler. Find her on twitter and facebook, too.

New Year’s Resolutions, 2014 : A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

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“The essential thing “in heaven and in earth” is that there should be long OBEDIENCE in the same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living; for instance, virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality– anything whatever that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine.” Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

29% of people break their New Year’s resolutions by Jan 14th.

I have cunningly beaten those odds by not formulating them until Jan 14th!!

No new projects this year–phew!!–just working on my ongoing goals, but with alignment with God and his power, and hopefully more focus, discipline and wisdom. A long obedience in the same direction.

* * *

So I’m peeking at my 2013 goals and hopes, seeing what worked and what didn’t, and formulating my 2014 goals.

Writing

A) I am hoping to complete and publish my memoir, Mind Has Mountains, this year. Have organized it, and written some chapters.

B) Bible Blogging—I have blogged quite a bit on Genesis and Matthew, and would like to complete my reflections on these books, and publish them.

C) “Little Books: ”What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects–with their Christianity latent.” C. S. Lewis

I wrote a little meditation on the Beatitude “The Meek Inherit the Earth,” and an illustrated picture book, “Francesco: Artist of Florence,” last year. The latter is still being illustrated, but will hopefully be on Amazon within a month.

D) Blogging goals—Post 5-6 days a week, taking Sunday off. Do shorter posts (200-500 words) and do more guest posts for other bloggers.

Try to write evergreen posts which can still be read and enjoyed in a year or five years.

II Health and Weight. Diet and Exercise

I lost 5 pounds in 2012, and 10 in 2013.

I would like to lose 26 in 2014 (but won’t be crushed if I lose 11).

How? Steadily build up endurance, walking at least 10,000 steps every day, and 1-3 longer walks every week.

Am doing Yoga most days, because it induces a “change of state,” like prayer does. It helps me feel calm, clear-headed, mentally fresh, emotionally at peace, tension and conflict resolved with all that stretching, quietness and breathing. The mind and body, well, they are inextricable!!

Diet—I plan to avoid sugar and white flour as much as possible. Limit carbs; increase veggies.

I have been physically healthy this year, just one cold and cough, no flu or other illnesses, no doctor visits. That’s because I have changed my diet, having green smoothies 2-3 times a day, and lots of salad and veggies. I have eccentrically been having a spinach and romaine salad with feta and olives for breakfast along with my green smoothie, and intend to continue this!

Am slowly moving to eating more vegetables and beans and fewer carbs.

Am planning to watch out for emotional eating, and only eat when hungry. And ask, “Is this going to be a blessing to my body?”

A Stickk commitment helped—I handed over $5 to charity every week that I did not achieve my weight loss goal of .5 lb!! It kept me focused on how exactly I was doing, and to see beyond daily fluctuations. It made me 10 pounds thinner, and well–poorer too!

III Waking Early

 In “The Circle-Maker” Mark Batterson, wrote that early rising is the most important predictor of spiritual AND occupational success.

Last year’s goal was 5 a.m., and I reached 6 a.m.  I plan another gradual assault on 5 a.m.

IV Domestic Order

I read once that most gifted under-achievers live in domestic chaos. And I did for a while.

However, since 2008, we’ve had a cleaner once a week, which means we’ve picked everything up for the cleaner once a week. But I haven’t reached William Morris’s and my own domestic ideal of having “nothing in my house that I do not believe to be beautiful or know to be useful.” Or my ideal of having everything in its place.

What’s really helped me since August has been the 365 less things project of getting rid of one thing a day. (Well, okay, I get rid of 7 things the day the cleaner comes).

It’s helped because of the paradigm shift—What am I not using? What can I get rid of? I usually get rid of far more than 7 things. And anticipate having a house with nothing in it that’s neither beautiful nor useful within 1-3 years.

At the moment, I am finishing the decluttering in our bedroom, and working on my study and the library. We bought a romantic, old rambling house, bigger than we needed, which means we have more housework…

V Gardening

I wanted to resume gardening last year, and did so a bit, but then it got dark early, and I got absorbed in writing.

Maybe once I wake earlier, I will have time to do some work in the garden in these short January days.

VI Reading

I so want to recover the girl whose greatest delight was reading, but since I believe in small changes, I will be content if I read one book more than I did last year.

I have started switching off my computer an hour before bedtime to tidy our bedroom, do some yoga, and read myself to sleep, so have that reading slot, and read in the first thing in the morning slot, and a little bit before I write to get the rhythms of good writing into my blood.

The secret of forming a new habit is to find a slot for it, and I am working on that.

So I hope to continue working on these goals, more a long obedience in the same direction, than New Year’s resolutions.

 

Being Authentic Can Be Tricky, But NOT Being Authentic Can Break Your Heart

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I read this entry in Emerson’s journal when I was 21.

 Journal, March 29, 1832

 I will not live out of me.
I will not see with others’ eyes.
My good is good, my evil ill.
I would be free— I cannot be
While I take things as others please to rate them.
I dare attempt to lay out my own road.
That which myself delights in shall be Good
That which I do not want— indifferent
That which I hate is Bad. That’s flat.
Henceforth, please God, forever I forego
The yoke of men’s opinions. I will be
Lighthearted as a bird & live with God.

I decided to live like that. Not praising what I don’t like. Not pretending to like it. Not making small talk that bores me. Not smiling at what I don’t consider funny. Being myself

And it proved harder than I imagined, especially—oddly–when it came to writing.

***

Thomas Merton observes in his essay “Integrity,”

“Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves.  They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their lives.

They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint.

They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavour to write somebody else’s poems or possess someone else’s spirituality.”

There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular—and too lazy to think of anything better.

Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves.

Masks, pretence and imitation: temptations in writing and blogging—areas in which, ironically, one should be most oneself.

“Every original writer must create the taste by which he is to be relished,” Wordsworth observed. Labouring in obscurity, a writer or blogger finds a voice, fashions a unique poetic style.  Or perfects an expression of outrage at things rotten in the state of Christendom. And becomes hugely popular.

And then there are myriad imitators. But the flourishes, the pretzel sentences, the circuitous locutions–sound distorted in the echo chamber, obscuring rather than clarifying meaning.

However, “Me Too” books and blogs written in the updraft of a successful writer achieve a more rapid success! Of course, they do

In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Mephistopheles offers Faust all the world at the cost of his soul. Faust thought he had a great deal– until he had to pay the price!

The Mephistophelean bargain which faces writers is compromising our one wild and precious life for success.  However, by not writing about what really interests us, in a style we consider beautiful, we, ironically, sacrifice the very joys that attracted us to writing.

And if we write what “the market wants” and get it wrong–ah, the misery!

I was tempted as a younger writer. A memoir of my Indian Catholic childhood was the book I really wanted to write,  but the two chapters I had written about volunteering with Mother Teresa won a Minnesota State Arts Board award; a Jerome Foundation award, and fellowships to Writers’ Conferences, and my professor thought I could find an editor and agent, which I did, but I tried to write the book the editor wanted; an elderly distinguished man who’d discovered several famous writers, writing not what interested me but what I thought would interest him, and in the style I thought he would like.

I spun out what I wanted to be two 30-40 page chapters into a whole book–my short cut to success!! Well, the book, written in blood through my pregnancy and two years of my toddler’s life, was rejected. Of course, it was!  It was written for a career, not to express my soul’s imperatives.

I lay down on the carpet and wanted to die. Crushed!

I gave up writing for a season, became an entrepreneur, founded a small company I still own.

I eventually returned to writing, of course, sadder, wiser–and, in jerks, to drafting the book I really wanted to write.

But I have learnt from my mistakes, and now hope I will be too smart to expend my one wild and precious life writing on things that do not really interest me.

And if success, consequently, eludes me? Well, the internet and democratization of writing has changed things.  Success is now on a continuum, and I am content to take my place on it, be it “high or low or soon or slow” and write for the joy of creating, as birds sing for the joy of singing.

* * *

 

The first version of this was hosted by Esther Emery on her brilliant blog.