Skip to main content

Not Exactly Rarin' To Go

Prompt: What is the hardest part of a big project: getting the energy to begin, finding the time to work on it, or feeling down that it's over?
I can never get started. 

 It's not because I like putting things off. It is actually because of my fear of failing. As long as I haven't started, the project is not a failure. 

 I started to write "perfect", but I don't actually expect perfection of myself. That's not attainable. I do, however, have a standard for myself that probably looks like perfection to some people. I tend to operate with the personal expectation of a high level of competency, creativity, and clarity. I feel it very deeply when I fail on one of those. 

 Thus, it is often easier not to start something because I can't flop on what I don't leap for. 

 What a horrible sentence. 

 It is the time of year when all my spare thoughts are about my Christmas Eve sermon. What can I say to communicate the power, mystery, and deep love of the Incarnation? How can I keep myself out of it, but make it personal enough that the majority of those hearing it believe it was meant for them? 

 I almost write the thing on 12/23. On two years, I wrote it before then only because I had other people involved in the sermon. 

 I was late on a play this year because I wanted it to be just right. I'd planned out most of it my head, but I dragged writing that first page. I knew once I started, I'd be okay. However, I couldn't commit to being open to the Spirit, writing, editing, and moving forward in the way I imagine normal (read:most) people do. 

 I waited. Until it was embarrassing. 

I wish I had a clever ending for this post, but the truth is this: I'm just glad that I started it. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the ...
2 comments
Read more

Would I Do?

Palm Sunday Mark 11:1-11 One of my core memories is of a parishioner who said, "I don't think I would have been as brave as the three in the fiery furnace. I think I would have just bowed to the king. I would have bowed and known in my heart that I still loved God. I admire them, but I can tell the truth that I wouldn't have done it." (Daniel 3) To me, this man's honesty was just as brave. In front of his fellow Christians, in front of his pastor, he owned up to his own facts: he did not believe he would have had the courage to resist the pressures of the king. He would have rather continued to live, being faithful in secret, than risk dying painfully and prematurely for open obedience to God.  I can respect that kind of truth-telling. None of us want to be weighed in the balance and found wanting. For some of us, that's our greatest fear. The truth is, however, that I suspect most of us are not as brave as we think we are. The right side of history seems cle...
Post a Comment
Read more