Hatching Ideas, vol. 20
My week at the hospital, the joy we can't see, and changes moving forward...which is better than changes moving backwards.
Hello and welcome to Hatching Ideas, the crazy, spirit-driven space where all of my plans, big ideas, and wildest dreams reside. All for the glory of God, of course, because after all, every good idea comes from Him. I am simply here to say “yes” and bring you along!
MY WEEK AT THE HOSPITAL
Any amount of time spent in the hospital will change your plans, increase your prayers, and make you think about life in a whole new way. After my daughter’s two visits to the ER earlier this week, she was finally admitted to the hospital, and we have been there ever since. More on what is happening after a Birds & Words update and a little bit of coop-keeping.
ABOUT THE DOLPHINS
It wasn’t a blog post, article, or essay that confirmed I was a writer, but a handwritten letter I sent to my best friend while on a summer vacation, looking too skinny and feeling deeply depressed.
It was about the dolphins.
Turns out that a family boat ride to feed the dolphins would be for me, an encounter with God. I remember marveling at the unseen beauty beneath the ocean's surface; something I never considered until the curved, slick backs of the dolphins made their joyful appearance. There is so much I cannot see. There is more to this story. To my story. I can recall feeling so small… in a healthy way—in a there is Something here greater than me kind of way. And so I grabbed a blank piece of stationery and a ballpoint pen, and I wrote to my friend, telling her all about it.
And she read it to her mom. Her English teacher mother. And she wrote back:
My mom says you are an excellent writer. You should be a writer.
Twenty-five years later, I took her advice.
CLIPPED WINGS
As a published, employed writer, you can lose yourself. You can lose yourself because you are not always writing what you have been specifically created and called to say; you are just so grateful to see your name on a book cover and paycheck. But while you may have a publisher and the security of an audience, you also face the uncertainty of another project on the horizon. Your creativity and passion are in someone else's hands. Your wings may resemble the glorious patterns of a Buff Brahma chicken, but they are, in a sense, clipped. And so an urgency bubbles beneath the surface, and urgency loves to whisper lies. Like the dolphins, these are unseen, but there. Unlike the dolphins, they are not joyful or of God.
Urgency never is.
UNDERESTIMATING THE INTERIOR APOSTOLATE
The contemplative life for the urgent soul is like asking someone covered in poison ivy to stop scratching. They feel utterly opposed to the other, and yet, the Blessed Mother Mary has been showing me that being a contemplative and embracing an apostolic soul is possible. That, in fact, you need both, for they are not opposed—they complement each other. It has been my experience that this is not easy to live out—especially for women. We love to do. We get very excited to make our ideas happen. We like to see the immediate fruits. But until we step into the daily silence, the interior work that requires nothing of us other than resting in God, the quiet apostolate that was Mary’s, “wholly interior, and apostolate of prayer, and above all, of hidden sacrifice,”1 we will risk working for love of self, instead of God.
As Father Gabriel writes:
“Mary shows us how far we are from the truth when, pressed by the urgency of our work, we make our apostolate consist solely in exterior activity, underestimating the interior apostolate of love, prayer, and sacrifice, on which the fruitfulness of our exterior acts depends.”2
LESS IS MORE
Saint John of the Cross said, “A little pure love is more precious in the eyes of God…and of more value than all other works put together.”3
In my desire to love God more and grow in deeper intimacy with Him, I need to do less so that I can be more. Be quieter. Be more present. Be more selfless. Be more humble. Be more silent. Be more attentive. Be more joyful. I need to embrace an interior apostolate so that I can thoughtfully write stories about the things we cannot see, the joy that swims and glides beneath the surface. I will die on this hill: NOTHING MATTERS MORE THAN THE INTERIOR LIFE.
And so I have discerned a few things with the Lord.
The first is that I am, indeed, a writer. He does not want me to stop. He desires to see my wings unclipped. He created me to fly!
But also, I am indeed His daughter. I am not content. And He wants me to rest in that truth. He is the Creator, and when I remain in Him and He in me, the greater my writing will be. Because it will be His.
Finally, it is true what they say: less is more. It is natural when one is a self-employed writer (or any creative), drowning in debt, to feel the need to produce more and constantly show up. I hesitate to say “this is a lie” because I don’t believe it is. If you stop showing up, so will your audience. If you stay quiet long enough, people do forget. I am not the exception to human nature.
BUT GOD.
Here's the thing: if you haven't figured this out about me yet. I am a sinner of the worst kind. Truly. I have done things that if it were not for God’s mercy, I would be destined to hell. It is nothing short of a miracle that here I am today, preaching the good news. I am nothing more than a beggar showing another beggar where to find bread; a credible witness to the saving power of God. And so what I do? My writing? My speaking? My maybe someday back to podcasting? I don’t do these for humans. I do these for God. And word on the street is that with Him, all things are possible.
So here is what we, God and I, would like to do in this space.
First, we eat a really delicious, fresh-egg breakfast, courtesy of the chickens. Okay, just kidding, although breakfast is never a bad idea. But I digress..back to business…
Moving forward:
Hatching Ideas will be a MONTHLY NEWSLETTER, versus weekly.
And written articles will be just that: articles. Not fluff. Not filler. I will not serve up a word salad just to say I showed up. I am talking about well-written, well-thought-out pieces like this. Something of value that you can really dig your spiritual teeth into. Something worth paying for.
I am not saying that I will stop using Notes or writing Monday Motivations or any other short shot of inspiration when the Spirit moves me. What I am saying is that I am committed to the discipline of deeper thinking and better writing, offering you less noise in your inbox in exchange for more value that penetrates the heart. I pray that moving forward, Words & Birds blesses you in ways we never imagined.
ON PAIN AND SUFFERING
“Since, therefore, Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer by human passions, but by the will of God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2
What Peter means by “ceased from sin” is that our continual acceptance of suffering is incompatible with our propensity to sin. As I sit by my daughter’s hospital bed, a 25-year-old young woman who has lost her ability to stand up and walk, this verse has me pondering…