Of Easter Repairs and Writing in the Faith

I am working, slowly. Oh so slowly, on the third book for OpenCatholic, titled Easter Repairs. So far, it is constituted of five pages of what amount to aphorisms. I wrote today this:

Writing

is the first thing one does

when what one wants to do

is impossible.

Reading this after having written it, it seems to invite conditions or improvements, which is good, as it resists conditioning as well. I would not say "good writing" as I prefer that the reader supply the modifier; I would not say "seems impossible" as seeming deflates the act and makes the experience disingenuous. We do not act on seeming needs. They are genuine as nothing else quite is. The aphorism is good. The center holds, even as it vibrates.

***

I love the religious life, and I am capable of dwelling within it. I am as capable of dwelling in the parameters of my faith as many who call it their life. I act as a minister at Mass - as Server or Lector. And I observe my faith, literally, as the fount of my existence. I would die for the Lord as surely as I live for Him. I would die, too, for you, who read these words, or who pass them by....

To die, for all, that they might be saved, would be impossible for anyone but God, who did exactly that, at an historic point in the life of the universe, about two thousand years ago on a hilltop in Jerusalem.

I digress, but I do not circumvent. My point is not that I find it impossible to be right, and so I write. I find it impossible to do all that is before me as a priority, and so I write. Sometimes, I pray. But tonight I write.

I learned to write before I learned to pray. I wrote before I was married, had a child, or became Catholic.

I started writing at that age, late teens, when a young man or woman who has no politics or belief to which they can turn instead turns outward with their heart, in the best words they can find, in poems or song, or story, to be confirmed and understood.

So, yes. Writing is a form of prayer. There is no mystery that St. Paul should be considered a great writer, and an Apostle.

***

I said, I love the religious life. And that is true. I ask nothing of it. I have no requests or ambitions or thoughts of anything other than what is before me. I will confess that I would like to be less visible than I am now, but that is a silly, hypocritical looking thing to say as I post it in a blog! haha. Maybe it would be better to say, I am happy to see others do the things I do, knowing that I will pass from this life and that the foretaste of this passage is sweet. Sweeter than life itself.

Amen