This is my quest, to follow that star.

I’ve been thinking for the last little while about why I write and I can’t seem to come up with a satisfactory answer; at least not an answer that fits nicely into a package. I think I write because I have to. When I’m doing really good writing that’s absolutely true. I simply become the instrument. Jung talked about art being innate in the artist. Writing seems to be innate in me and oddly, I am usually it’s audience. The most effective writing happens when something clicks inside my head and my fingers are at a keyboard. Any delay destroys the opportunity for that click to have any lasting meaning. Any time to think about what’s happening removes it from the truth and the closer I remain to the truth, the more I allow myself to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to be honest, the closer I am to touching something real inside other people. That tiny delay is all it seems to take to alienate myself from the rest of the world. Just a fraction of an hour spent too much in thought allows my brain to paint something shiny on the cover and to cheat myself out of whatever may have been useful in the experience. It is an amazingly difficult practice. Even sitting here now I can see that I’m trying to craft a message rather that allowing the message to craft itself.

DeeK mentioned that he/she? doesn’t blog in part because of the ego factor. I have to admit that writing publicly opens me up to feeling like I should always be good; always have something useful or witty to say. The more I think about that the farther I get from the truth. Even correcting my typing as I go seems to be a hindrance to getting to the truth. But not writing publicly, only writing for my own eyes, doesn’t really improve the quality. I seem to be out to impress myself as much as anyone. I want to read what I wrote three or six months ago and think I’m brilliant. I’ve actually picked up old journals before, thought what I was reading was brilliant and had no recollection whatsoever of even having had the thoughts I’d set to paper. Actually wondered who wrote them. I think I maybe was really, really smart when I was younger, before the current extensive brain damage which addles me. I know, I know. Everyone assures me that I’m smart as a whip, but trust me, TRUST ME, the lights have dimmed quite a bit.

Bill W. talked once about his need to live in a universe that makes sense and to have faith in a God that intended for him to grow in His own image. A beautiful and comforting thought. I don’t even know how one grows in the image of infinite but thats the thing I want and I can’t even begin to make sense out of the universe. Something about writing turns the chaos into little stars and planets and fills the darkness with order and with light. For me. And not always. Or I can’t always do it.

I wish I had more time to just write. But I wish I could take the time to do it whenever the click happened, when the little flash of spiritual truth was there for me to grab. I wish I could write and stay closer to the truth and could do that more often. And I wish that when I do have time to write that I’d be able to just do it. I spend an unbelievable amount of time avoiding writing. Oh! I have to go smoke a cigarette. Oh! There’s apple pie on the counter. Oh! Look, my sister signed us up for myfamily.com (which is very cool, btw). Hours go in to not writing.

Ultimately I write to find God. And I seem to find God best in the white space on the page, not in the black. And I seem to find God most especially when I come with a broken heart. There is an old Carly Simon song, “Coming Around Again” that says that exact thing. There’s more room in a broken heart. More room for a God I don’t understand to work.

If I come to the table, or the keyboard, and put aside my ideas about what I’m supposed to be or have or do or know, and let you see the real me, the me that is broken beyond repair, the me that is terrified that I’ll never stay sober and never have a life and never love again, then God has more room to work. The minute I think I have any answers at all or think that things are great, I’ve decided that God is done here. It’s strange to me that the greatest love I’ve ever felt is so close to the greatest pain I’ve ever felt.

So I’m giving myself permission to fall apart for awhile because I need to make some more room for God to work. I’m giving myself permission to stop making sense, stop worrying what I’ll think of this 6 months from now or what any of you will think. I’m not checking grammar or sentence structure or clause agreement. I’m just on a quest to follow that star. Not that I think I’m the Sober Blogger of La Mancha or something, but isn’t that what sober blogging and steps 4-9 are all about? Marching through hell for a heavenly cause?