We’re all preparing for something.
Here are glimpses of people you’ll recognize preparing…
For life. For the Olympics. For the unknown. For writing
through memory and pain.
Preparing to live fully right where you are…
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“One writes not to be read but to
breathe...one writes to think, to pray, to analyze. One writes to clear one's
mind, to dissipate one's fears, to face one's doubts, to look at one's
mistakes--in order to retrieve them. One writes to capture and crystallize
one's joy, but also to disperse one's gloom. Like prayer--you go to it in
sorrow more than joy, for help, a road back to 'grace'.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“I want first of all... to be
at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a
central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and
activities as well as I can. I want, in fact--to borrow from the language of
the saints--to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am
not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner
harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I
am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the Phaedrus when
he said, "May the outward and inward man be one." I would like to
achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give
as I was meant to in the eye of God.” ~
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea
Michael Phelps
Michael Hyatt
“I learned many things about how to confront conflicts and
unexpected challenges. The most important was this: If you want to increase
safety, you must move toward the challenge.”
Be Curious
Take Small Steps
Learn Mastery
Elizabeth Berg
Preparing as a child…
“Day after day, I lay on that small hill and watched the
shifting patterns of clouds and listened to the birds. I could not identify the
birds themselves, but I did recognize their calls. Sometimes I made my own
sounds to call back; whenever I did there would follow a moment of abrupt
silence during which I assumed the birds tried to identify me…
Whenever I was at that place, a sense of peace came into me
like a religion. I wanted to tell everyone what it felt like to be there…This
happened with many things I saw, or heard, or felt. I wanted to share them.”
Preparing to write as
an adult…
“I also work out of a backyard shed, which is plain and
simple, stripped down to the basic elements…”
“I might have coffee and a treat at the bakery, then wander
into the hardware store…”
“For me the best times are always those that are closest to
what I felt as a child when I visited that gully, when I lay on that long,
green grass and looked up into the trees, and felt the wide ache of wanting to
be able to share with someone all that lay inside.”
Stephen King
On how he prepares to
write after being struck by a van…
“I didn’t want to go back to work. I was in a lot of pain…I
couldn’t imagine sitting behind a desk for long, even in my wheelchair. Because
of my cataclysmically smashed hip, sitting was torture after forty minutes or
so, impossible after an hour…Added to this was the book itself, which seemed
more daunting than ever—how was supposed to write about dialogue, character,
and getting an agent when the most pressing thing in my world was how long
until the next dose of Percocet?
Yet at the same time I felt I’d reached on e of those
crossroads moments when you’re all out of choices. And I had been in terrible
situations before which the writing had helped me get over—had helped me forget
myself at least for a little while…
That first writing session lasted an hour and forty minutes,
by far the longest period I’d spent sitting upright since I’d been struck by
Smith’s van. When it was over I was dripping with sweat and almost too
exhausted to sit up straight in my wheelchair. The pain in my hip was just short
of apocalyptic. And the first five hundred words were uniquely terrifying—it
was as if I’d never written anything before them in my life. All my old tricks
seemed to have deserted me…There was no inspiration that first afternoon, only
a kind of stubborn determination and the hope that things would get better if I
kept at it.”
Ann Voskamp
“Out the kitchen window the sky rolls out. Apple blossoms
fill the orchard. The morning dove warms her bluing hope. I can hear Him, what
He is telling the whole world and even me here: this is for you. The lover’s
smile in the morning, the child’s laughter down the slide, the elder’s eyes at
eventide: this is for you. And the earth under your feet, the rain over your
face upturned, the stars spinning all round you in the brazen glory: this if
for you, you, you. These are for you—gifts—these are for you—grace—these are
for you—God, so count the ways He loves, a thousand, more, never stop, that
when you wake in the morning you can’t help turn humbly to the east, unfold
your hand to the heavens, and though you tremble and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful, and you can slow and you can trust and you
can receive each moment as grace. Eucharisteo. Eucharisteo. Eucharisteo.” ~ One Thousand Gifts
~*~
As for me, I write novels. And I keep writing
them. I’ll save the rest of the story for another day.
We are all being prepared for something.
What are you preparing for? Which of the above resonated with you
today?
*photo by
stock.XCHNG
