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The crises of our times are overwhelming. And Covid has tied our hands; we can’t offer solutions the way we’d like to, the way we know is most effective—in person, together. My dream tells me to trust deeply in work we can do at home, alone and within our families.

We’re in the throes of deep revision and the only way out is through.

The publisher is using a new address for their RSS feed. Please update your feed reader to use this new URL:

“No justice, no peace�� is a metaphysical statement, a irreducible truth that describes how the world functions, with no exceptions. If a society is unjust, it is never peaceful.

The question that presses at me daily now is this: Will I allow myself to be changed for the better by this pandemic? Today? Even

Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people—it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone." --Parker Palmer

There’s a classic Sesame Street skit where Ernie wants to play the sax with cool-dude Mr. Hoots in a jazz band. But he’s clutching his rubber ducky, for security I suppose, and whenever he joins the jamming the duck quacks get in the way. As the drummer flings his hair and cameos parade through, the owl wisely sings, “You gotta put down the ducky if you wanna play the saxophone!��

Obvious, right? As a parent I’ve come to appreciate PBS’s insights into child psychology, and this is one of its best. I can’t tell you how often I ask my ten-year-old to “Put down the ducky.�� She tries to eat while clutching her stuffed cat. She holds a book in one hand and picks up Legos, inefficiently, with the other. She gets her backpack and then tries to squirm into her coat.

I suppose children are developmentally unable to prioritize their actions; sooner or later, putting the coat on first will become intuitive. Still, I can’t seem to get that jazzy refrain out of my mind. Ernie, wearing his famous stripes, holds that rubber ducky so tightly because, as he says, “I really love my ducky and I can’t bear to part with him.�� He wants the comfort, familiarity, and companionship ducky brings and he wants to join the music-making. So he’s faced with a dilemma: Clutch what he loves and never fully participate, or let it go in favor of an untested activity that seems pretty great. The band bounces and jives around him. Ernie’s stuck.

This morning during my meditation, I finally realized why this PBS ditty has become an earworm. I love my thinking mind. I have awesome thoughts; they keep me responsible, help me earn a living, form my sense of identity, entertain me. I’m scared to put them down. Now that I see this, I recognize the pattern everywhere. My house is just north of a municipal golf course that these days, with our changing climate, regularly floods, and the golfers are having a terrible time putting down the ducky. My church has four stunning tapestries that women lovingly stitched over decades but which portray images deeply hurtful to Native Americans and people of color; the congregation is in crisis over putting down the ducky. Our country is polarized because we’re all squeezing our duckies; the quacking is deafening. Fossil fuels are one big petroleum-product ducky.

Ernie’s turning point comes after Mr. Hoots says, “You don’t have to lose your duck! You can pick it up when you’re finished.��

Ernie, amazed, flings ducky over his shoulder.

Would it were so easy for us grown-ups! In meditation, I practice releasing my grip on something I love for the sake of something I don’t yet know or trust—silence, rest, peace. I pray this exercises my capacity to welcome new loves, because I really need this ability in the real world where my attachments are so hard to relinquish. Especially when I don’t even know I’m attached.

After the song ends, Ernie retrieves his pal: “Oh, ducky, I missed you so much!�� What the reunion doesn’t show is Ernie’s internal transformation from which there’s no turning back. Now he also knows the delight of making music. He also knows he can thrive without his security object, and this is both slightly sad and pretty wonderful. �� –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

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Three years ago, after a magnificent evening launching Living Revision, my daughter asked me what I was going to write next.

“All I know,�� I told her, “is that I’m not going to write about writing.��

How is it that I’m neck-deep in another writing text?! I have two dozen essays on various back burners but I find myself, almost against my will, writing about the final stage of writing. Ugh. If ever there’s a self-referential subject, this is it.

When this latest idea arrived, I figured I could take care of it in the course of a summer. What I had to say could fit into a pamphlet that I’d then distribute to my classes.

Three months of drafting later, I admitted that my idea needed more space. Maybe this is a downloadable booklet, I told myself, and kept writing.

Three years later, having recently run my eighty-page “booklet�� past two dozen beta-readers, I’m humbled once again. Dang it all—I’m writing a book, almost against my will. Which means I’m doing a major overhaul and expansion now. I’ve moved a huge soup pot onto the front burner.

Now I’m a pretty experienced writer. How is it that, after all these decades, I’m still delusional about what I want to write, what form it will take, and how much effort it will require? Writers like to make fun of doctors who say, “Someday I’ll take a few months off from work to write a book,�� retorting, “Sure; and someday I’ll take off a few months to learn brain surgery.�� But we know this same ignorance, denial, and deception daily.

Isn’t it curious that, in the creative life, as in marriage and parenting, some portion of delusion is good? We don’t see reality clearly, and this allows us to enter the fray. We’re all painfully familiar with the damage too much delusion can do (look at what a post-truth era has done to democratic process), but is it possible that a tiny bit can do good?

Writers often say that if they knew how much work a book would take, they’d never have started to write. Denial sets us on a path of creativity and growth and change, and this path can then gradually open our eyes to reality in a way we can bear. So inasmuch as delusion and denial keep us on the journey, they’re doing good work.

I suspect a similar dynamic is at play with faith. Maybe faith in a divinity or in humanity’s ultimate goodness or in evolution’s movement toward wholeness or in your capacity to write a book is completely delusional. If living with faith locks you down into a creed or despair, fine, get rid of it. But if living with faith opens you up to vitality and creativity, if it sets you on a journey that helps you see reality more clearly, and especially if its fruits are generous and nourishing, isn’t it worthwhile?

Maybe reality isn’t static or final. Maybe we get to make reality by participating in it. That certainly seems to be the case with writing.�� –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

***

Dear faithful blog readers,

Beginning mid-October, I will combine my blog and newsletter.�� This will help me eliminate an extra publication and streamline my mailing lists.�� It won’t effect you unless you use a blog subscription service and are not already on my newsletter mailing list.�� If that’s the case and you’d like to continue reading my blog, .

I deeply appreciate you!�� Know that I draw inspiration and encouragement from you, and hope that my words are able to give you the same in return.

Warmly,


Elizabeth

UPCOMING:

Second Fridays, 1:30-3:30 p.m.:�� .

October 11:�� Writing as Contemplation


In the city fields


Contemplating cherry trees��


Strangers are like friends

Contemplation, as the Buddhist priest and poet Issa illustrates, is a field of intimacy, and writing is one entrance. ��Guest writer will share observations about writing as a mindfulness practice and lead us in writing exercises that encourage deep listening, responsive creating, and open-hearted becoming.

November 8: Embodying Holiness


Our bodies are trustworthy sources of memory and wisdom.�� Together we’ll write from our bodies, about our bodies, to our bodies, and with our bodies as a practice of welcoming the Spirit.�� We’ll also delve into sensory description as a literary technique that invites the reader deep into our experiences.

December 13: Becoming the Stranger


We use the metaphor of a journey to describe the soul’s path because the risks, challenges, and surprises of spiritual growth are so similar to travel.�� We’ll write memories of leaving home, visiting new landscapes, and becoming the stranger.�� We’ll also explore how and why writing becomes a spiritual journey.

Friday, November 19, 7:00-9:00 p.m.:��

In this evening for creative writers, Lisa Brimmer, Michael Kiesow Moore, and I�� will share the wide range of possibilities for forming writing community and offer advice on what makes groups or partnerships sustainable.�� Participants will get to know one another in a series of small-group conversations, connecting around shared genres, levels of experience, interests, and location. We’ll end with social time so participants can exchange contact information and formalize plans.

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A bout with neck and back pain recently sent me to a few different body-workers (physical therapy, Feldenkrais) who promptly identified the source of my problems as sitting. Too much time on my rear end, hunched over the keyboard. Contemporary work demands things of our bodies that they’re not evolved to do, and I was suffering the consequences.

I’m working around the pain with exercises, a standing desk, stretches, a commitment to not stay in one position for too long, and by sitting the way I was designed to sit. I have these sitz bones that support me like concrete footers for my spine. I just need to sit on them.

Which is ridiculously obvious except that the vast majority of chairs in our culture don’t allow us to do use this foundation and instead force us to lean back. I was shocked the first time I paid close attention to a healthy seated position and then got into my car; the seat dictated that I curve my spine and hunch my shoulders. It prevented me from sitting properly.

After that I started paying attention, to the folding chairs at meetings, the pews at church, the easy chairs in friends�� houses, the seats in the classrooms where I teach, and slowly came to see what I suspect most body workers know: Our culture molds our bodies. Forces much larger than me subtly shape me. This includes the design of our chairs but also the necessity of working at a computer for hours at a time and cultural assumptions about comfort and social expectations about posture. My Feldenkrais teacher told me about working with a tall female metal-worker; when she started standing straight on the job, her male co-workers began harassing her for being “uppity.�� Women swim in a sea of expectations that contort our bodies. Cultural influences are insidious, subtle, powerful.

Just when I think I’m aware and making conscious choices, something—Richard Rohr would say either great love or great suffering—spurs me to open my eyes even further and another layer of illusion falls away. For almost fifty years I’ve been sitting, and only now do I deliberately choose how I sit. Strangely I’m grateful to my back pain (which I suspect will be with me for my remaining years) because it calls attention to my body as I work. As I release automatic patterns in favor of free choice, even sitting has become a contemplative practice.���� –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

***

NEWS

In case you haven’t yet see it, published this essay of mine on writing and authority, �� Here’s an excerpt:

“Write for the love of it. Let go of others�� expectations and your self-serving ambitions and your well-meaning desire to do good or create art or make a difference. Show up at the desk. You have to love to be moved by love and to move others with love. So you consent to love.��

OPPORTUNITIES

Programming at Wisdom Ways is in full swing!�� If you’ve always wondered what I’m blathering on about when I mention spiritual memoir, join me for this intro morning.�� Or if you’d like support for your spiritual memoir practice, drop in at one of the second Friday sessions.�� Lonely writers of all genres, consider coming to the Writers Unite! mixer in November and we’ll do our best to hook you up.

Saturday, September 28, 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.:

Spiritual memoir is the practice of listening deeply to our life experiences through the creation of artful, true stories.�� We come more alive when we accept how our experiences have formed us and when we form something of what we’ve experienced.�� By writing memories with intention, we can find holiness in the details, patterns that unify our sense of self, and deep personal healing.�� By crafting our stories to engage the inner life of readers, we can participate in transforming our world.

Second Fridays, 1:30-3:30 p.m.:�� .

October 11:�� Writing as Contemplation


In the city fields


Contemplating cherry trees��


Strangers are like friends

Contemplation, as the Buddhist priest and poet Issa illustrates, is a field of intimacy, and writing is one entrance. ��Guest writer will share observations about writing as a mindfulness practice and lead us in writing exercises that encourage deep listening, responsive creating, and open-hearted becoming.

November 8: Embodying Holiness


Our bodies are trustworthy sources of memory and wisdom.�� Together we’ll write from our bodies, about our bodies, to our bodies, and with our bodies as a practice of welcoming the Spirit.�� We’ll also delve into sensory description as a literary technique that invites the reader deep into our experiences.

December 13: Becoming the Stranger


We use the metaphor of a journey to describe the soul’s path because the risks, challenges, and surprises of spiritual growth are so similar to travel.�� We’ll write memories of leaving home, visiting new landscapes, and becoming the stranger.�� We’ll also explore how and why writing becomes a spiritual journey.

Friday, November 19, 7:00-9:00 p.m.:��

In this evening for creative writers, Lisa Brimmer, Michael Kiesow Moore, and I�� will share the wide range of possibilities for forming writing community and offer advice on what makes groups or partnerships sustainable.�� Participants will get to know one another in a series of small-group conversations, connecting around shared genres, levels of experience, interests, and location. We’ll end with social time so participants can exchange contact information and formalize plans.

��������������Related Stories��

(I’m on a hiatus from writing about writing. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from Writing the Sacred Journey.)

Memoir revolves in an orbit of its own choosing, and therefore its pieces are often unified by a theme or period of time. The material is always the author’s life, and the narrator, (the speaker, or “I�� voice), is always the author. Unlike autobiography, which attempts as complete an account of one’s life as possible, starting from the beginning, memoir begins where it wishes and concludes when its story is told. Memoir is more elastic, unpredictable, and crafted than autobiography. Because memoir does not strive for a complete accounting of one’s life, it depends on other elements, typically themes, to give it form.

Because memoir, by its very nature, is only a small window into the author’s life, one of the delights of writing memoir is discovering the best frame for that window. I remember an afterschool art class in which we were given a view finder (a black cardboard mat of about six square inches with a one-inch square hole cut in the center). We walked into the woods holding our view finders in front of our faces, looking for a view. Eventually I found a mossy root that entered and exited that small window in a way that intrigued me, and I sat down with a sketchbook to draw it.

Memoir is similar. A small scope is all that’s necessary. Some memoirists choose to write only about their depression, or their travels, or their cultural identity. Spiritual memoirists choose their sacred journeys. You can select a significant portion of your life, or a few years, or a single day. Regardless of the frame, some material comes into focus and other material—the majority of the woods, in fact—is left out of the picture. And that’s okay. Despite my drawing’s small scope, it conveyed the lush and creeping wooded environment. Whatever cross-section of life you choose to portray reveals the essence of the whole.

*

This first week back to school is one of my favorites–new clothes, new pencils, new routine, and excitement about learning. You can join in the fun with any of these upcoming offerings:

Friday, November 19, 7:00-9:00 p.m.:��

In this evening for creative writers, Lisa Brimmer, Michael Kiesow Moore, and I�� will share the wide range of possibilities for forming writing community and offer advice on what makes groups or partnerships sustainable.�� Participants will get to know one another in a series of small-group conversations, connecting around shared genres, levels of experience, interests, and location. We’ll end with social time so participants can exchange contact information and formalize plans.

Saturday, September 28, 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.:

Spiritual memoir is the practice of listening deeply to our life experiences through the creation of artful, true stories.�� We come more alive when we accept how our experiences have formed us and when we form something of what we’ve experienced.�� By writing memories with intention, we can find holiness in the details, patterns that unify our sense of self, and deep personal healing.�� By crafting our stories to engage the inner life of readers, we can participate in transforming our world.

Second Fridays, 1:30-3:30 p.m.:�� .

September 13: Making Connections


Just as contrasts in flavor make an exciting dish, great writing often emerges when we bring together disparate subjects.�� We’ll experiment with this, conjoining memories from different eras of our lives and making leaps between objects and ideas, belief and doubt, narration and reflection.����Making connections across difference on the page can strengthen our capacity to do the same in our lives.

October 11:�� Writing as Contemplation


In the city fields


Contemplating cherry trees��


Strangers are like friends

Contemplation, as the Buddhist priest and poet Issa illustrates, is a field of intimacy, and writing is one entrance. ��Guest writer will share observations about writing as a mindfulness practice and lead us in writing exercises that encourage deep listening, responsive creating, and open-hearted becoming.

November 8: Embodying Holiness


Our bodies are trustworthy sources of memory and wisdom.�� Together we’ll write from our bodies, about our bodies, to our bodies, and with our bodies as a practice of welcoming the Spirit.�� We’ll also delve into sensory description as a literary technique that invites the reader deep into our experiences.

December 13: Becoming the Stranger


We use the metaphor of a journey to describe the soul’s path because the risks, challenges, and surprises of spiritual growth are so similar to travel.�� We’ll write memories of leaving home, visiting new landscapes, and becoming the stranger.�� We’ll also explore how and why writing becomes a spiritual journey.

��������������Related Stories��