Of Blood And Hope

Last month I wrote about being finished with "it," and that I would write later about just what "it" was. "It" is my first book, which is titled STAND. It is a short allegory about an unnamed character who accepts an invitation to begin a journey that brings her both great heartbreak and great transformation. Seems you can't have one without the other. I knew for quite a long time that I was supposed to write a book, but my journey over the last few years, along with an invitation from my good friend Kim Green, showed me last year that I was at the point of making that first book come to life.

One of my favorite writers, Frederick Buechner, wrote many years ago that the writing process was very simple. "You just sit down at your typewriter and open up a vein." The first time I read that quote, it scared me to death, because something inside me was telling me that not only was it true, but that one day I'd know for myself just how true it was. I in no way consider myself anywhere close to being the writer that Buechner is, but I now know the truth of his words, the truth of the process, the truth of pages covered in blood, as well as in hope.

Writing a book, much less telling people that you've written one, seems to be both a simultaneously egocentric and terrifying experience. But it only seems to be those things for a short while. It has become for me more and more an experience of being a good steward of not only any communication gifts I may have been given, but more importantly a good steward of my journey, my story. It seems that all any of us really have to offer each other is our journey and the story that journey produces. It's always surprising to me how some people can't even tell the truth of their story to themselves, much less anyone else. These are the people who level the greatest criticism at those who dare tell the truth of their journey. I've experienced that same criticism in just the short time since STAND has been in print. I don't live in a vanilla, sanitized world. It's a shame that some do, especially since that world doesn't even exist.

I wrote STAND for those who live in the world of color, even when those colors are only black and grey. Maybe it's the black and the grey that produces the opening of the vein about which Buechner has written. But I also believe hope can live even in the middle of our being surrounded by black and grey. If we've known other colors at some point, that knowledge allows us to pour hope over the blood that soaks the pages of our stories. I don't know what color that combination makes, but it's definitely not vanilla.