Five things I've learned from blogging

This week, I begin my seminary education at Duke. While I hope to keep writing, I don’t anticipate being able to update as frequently or to put as much time and thought into the blog as I've been doing. If you want to be alerted when I do post, you can enter your email in the "subscribe" box in the upper right hand corner of the blog to receive new posts via email (nothing else to clog your inbox, I promise). Also, feel free to explore old pieces in the "Favorite posts" tab above.

As I mark this new phase in my career and writing life, I wanted to share a few things I've learned over the past year. Last October, I started trying to share my life story and my deeper, more vulnerable reflections on the blog. I made an effort to write regularly and to share more widely. There have been ups and downs, but overall, I'm exceedingly grateful for the journey.

5. I am a better person when I write. My husband can vouch for this one. I believe this blog was one of several things that has made our second year of marriage so lovely, much smoother than the first. We learned that once or twice a week, he was going to need his extrovert night (games/friends/sports) and I was going to need my introvert night (writing stories on my laptop). Writing gave some structure and purpose to a year that sometimes felt like a holding pattern. By writing I was able to process the world, express myself, and be filled, so that I had more to give.

4. You never know who is reading your blog. This makes for some lovely surprises when you re-establish old connections with friends and neighbors. It makes for a tiny bit of concern when you go to a place where you’re not sure your expressed viewpoints will be seen favorably. It makes for awkward moments when your neighbor mentions that someone around town told her that you had a dream about having a baby, and does this mean you are pregnant?

3. You gotta remember your people. In writing, as in life, it’s so much easier to focus on what you don’t have rather than what you have. There have been moments where, after a popular post, I started dreaming of becoming "successful," getting more shares and followers, working towards publishing. I tried to redesign the blog to look more professional. I opened a Twitter account to connect with readers and writers. I networked with other bloggers through guest posts and linkups and comments in order to increase traffic. But honestly,  my stats didn’t change much.

So I stepped back. The real reasons I started this blog were much smaller. I wanted to discipline myself to write, and to share stories I hoped would matter to even just a few people. Both of those goals have been met completely. The people I started writing for—my family and friends and even Facebook acquaintances—have been so affirming and supportive. You have made me believe my gift is worthwhile. You have shown me that even when we are different, our stories can resonate. I am so thankful for you, and I write for you, the people who read, not, as illogically as it seems, for the people who don’t.

2. Vulnerability breeds vulnerability; trust breeds trust. Sharing deep thoughts and experiences is not easy, but when we open up and tell our real stories, we often find that we’re not the only one. Half the time, after I push the “publish” button, I have a couple hours of anxiety. I feel exposed and wonder if I've said too much or said the wrong thing.

But nail-biting is worth it for the chance that someone will read and taste in my words their own story and know they're not alone.

At least in part due to the blog, some folks have been willing, in return, to share their stories with me. The conversations and dialogues that have popped up in response have been a beautiful thing.

1. The things that connect us are stronger than the things that divide us. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I get a comment or note from someone who says, in effect, I don’t share your religion/life path/worldview, but I really relate to what you wrote about. It’s happened several times and it affirms for me the belief that if we who are different (culturally, religiously, politically) get to know each other deep down, we may find much that we share. We who are divided may become friends.

I love you all, and I am so glad we are on this journey together.

I want so many things.

I want so many things.

Why do I want so many things?

I love people. I want to listen to them, cry with them, teach them, inspire them to be the selves they were created to be. I want to feed them and free them from prison and sing with them and help them find wholeness. I want to love them, to love them in North Carolina and Maryland and Minnesota and Gaza and Bangladesh and Tanzania. I want to reconcile us all with each other—the women and men, the liberal and conservative, the rich and poor, the young and old, the black and white and native and Latino and Asian and Arab and Jewish and everyone in between.

I love the arts. I want to write beauty and vulnerability and redemption. I want to sing with the spirit, to play the melodies and harmonies of hope.

I love this earth, this creation. I want to run and hike and swim and climb. I want to learn and teach us all to eat the fruit of the land rather than the factory, to find goodness and simplicity in the everyday processes of growing and eating and coming and going and waking and sleeping.

I love the church: its babies and nonagenarians, its liturgy and communion and song and scripture, its touchy-feely sharing and tearful prayers and most of all the God who is creating and recreating us all. I want to see the church willing to die and come alive anew.

I want so many things.

I cannot have or do all. This life, this in-breaking kingdom of God is too rich for me to drink it all in. And if I am to give myself fully to this world, I will have to choose: between the piano and the garden or between Maryland and Tanzania or between the incarcerated and the nonagenarians.

What I mean is that I have this one fleeting chance, as we all do, to run at the world holding all the love I can.

And when I choose where, specifically, to run, I will choose also where not to run. I will lose pieces. I will let go of the other dream, the other country, the other song. I will release them into the air and pray one day they come back and find me further on the journey.

I suppose in all truth, it is a good problem to have: the desire to love and create and heal more than is humanly possible. A heart too full to narrow itself to one passion.

The fullness in this heart, though—I just want to bring it to the right place.

I want so many things.

Digging deeper

Photo by ScaarAT

During my senior year of college, I wrote a short story about a twenty-something wanderer trying to come to terms with losing his faith and disappointing his missionary father. In the last scene, he had a mystical experience in a church building and decided to go home.

My professor read it and told me to chop the last two pages. “I don’t buy the ending,” she said simply.

My stomach churned. I was reeling from my own crisis of faith; I needed to believe that the world still operated with logic and meaning, with a pattern of redemption. If I couldn’t write this into a story, did I really believe it?

“If I just leave it hanging, the story will be so depressing,” I protested.

“Life is depressing,” she answered.

With her help, I wrote a second draft, and a third, and a fourth, because I couldn’t just leave the story bleak—I needed to scratch my way toward a real experience of hope. In the final draft, I cut the mystical church scene, and ended instead with a subtle moment of reconnection to his childhood. My professor loved it.

*

Most of the time in life, there is no revelation in a church or on a mountain or while watching a sunset. Most of the time, our moments of redemption are only temporary, until we relapse back into the mess.

On the other hand, I believe people change. Inch by inch, and never linear. So that you barely notice until fifteen years have passed, and you are no longer the socially insecure and moderately self-righteous girl you once were.

It is hard to write this in a short story, or a blog-length piece, because you can only show an inch. The balance is tricky. One day I let the pendulum swing too far and I have shown a mile of change, and it can’t be believed. The next time, I forego any kind of change or deeper awareness, and it is like a mirror in the dark.

The art of writing redemption takes many drafts.

*

When I began my more purposeful approach to the blog last fall, I wrote many drafts. These days, I have sometimes been coming to the blank page hours before I hit the publish button. I think you know this.

It’s okay. Blogging is a discipline as much as an art, so sometimes I will publish something less inspired.

I want to dig deeper, though, to go beyond easy resolution or depressing reality, to find the seed of change and the kernel of truth beneath it all. That is what makes writing worthwhile: not the audience, not the affirmation, but that long, hard reach for hope and understanding.

I am working full-time this summer, and I don’t always have time for drafts and digging. I’d rather sacrifice quantity than quality. I won’t be writing quite as often in the coming weeks, but I will be trying to deepen my reflections: a process which is so difficult and gratifying.

Poetry, song, and the language of faith

Photo by saffroncisco

When I started asking big questions in college, when I started drowning in my own thoughts and fears and the simultaneous existential crises of my friends, I could not turn to theologians or philosophers or scientists or even pastors for respite. I see now as I look back that even when my mind was rebelling, questioning, unsettling, I had a truer kind of knowing in poetry, music, and art.

During that time of my life, and many times since, the book I have continued to return to is a lovely little reflection on faith and art: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle, who writes about “probable impossibilities,” about naming and being named, about vulnerability and faithful doubt. Her approach of honest questioning, coupled with the openness to receive and affirm it all, has stayed with me.

“I have been asked if my Christianity affects my stories,” L’Engle writes in Walking on Water, “and surely it is the other way around; my stories affect my faith, restore me, shake me by the scruff of the neck, and pull this straying sinner back into an awed faith.”

My stories, yes. And the stories and poems of others. My faith has been formed and re-formed and renewed in the poetry of songs and hymns and liturgy.

So at a time faithful people are abuzz with what kind of programs and churches and relationships and opportunities and strategies are the best for helping the young and the old cultivate their faiths, I want to offer simply this: let us not forget the arts.

I sang in my mom’s church choir when I was old enough to talk. And little by little, as I grew, I noticed the words in the songs. I began to cut out pieces of the church bulletin that held prayers or liturgy or music I liked. I taped them in a little pink journal. I began to close my eyes during the songs we sang, to sense the wonder of Christmas, the agony of the passion story, the joy of Easter.

The poetry of sacred music was not restricted to church, because God cannot be restricted. I found God everywhere good music and good poetry were offered.

In high school, we sang secular music, sure. We also sang gospel: The storm is passing over, hallelu. We sang Mozart: Hail true body, born of the virgin Mary, who truly suffered and sacrificed on the cross for humanity. We sang poetry, scripture, psalms, laments.

There were songs that touched my heart more deeply than any sermon. The idea of listening for God’s guidance first struck me when I was ten and sang, Do you know your shepherd’s voice?

I experienced the power of nonviolence and justice during a high school choral tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.: The world is sick with war. When I lost my voice in eleventh grade, I leaned into Jesus: if my joys and comforts die, I know Truth is living.

I felt peace in the midst of newness in my first college choir rehearsal when we sang the twenty-third Psalm, and I meant it wholeheartedly when I sang in sophomore year of college, the time of my doubt, why should I wander an alien from Thee?

And years later, I still feel shivers of truth and beauty every time I sing certain hymns.

So I think what I want to say is simply that I am grateful: to the poets, the liturgists, the composers; to the music teachers, conductors, and mothers; and to a creative God, for the ways in which art can invigorate us, pull us back to amazement, for the ways in which we, as artists, are made co-creators with God and dreamers in an unfulfilled world.

Social media and me

Photo by Jason Howie

These last few months, I have learned more than I ever wanted to about the blogosphere and how it works and how writers and can market themselves effectively. I have gotten tied up at times in trying to make some inroads in a blogger community, trying harder than I should to publicize my posts all over different blogs and linkups and social media, itching to get noticed on Twitter, where I am notoriously incompetent. I never seem to be able to tweet something clever enough. I can’t respond quickly enough to engage others' twitter conversations. I feel helpless as I write more and more and watch the page views plummet lower. Maybe I peaked in my first month blogging.

There is a kind of freedom when I realize it: you don't fit in, you have never fit in. 

Somewhere along the way I forgot the fact that part of my identity has always been in landing among the outsiders, the never-quite-home, the misfits. It has been a lonely strand of my whole life. It has also given me empathy and understanding—it has also enabled me to reflect on my identity and my place and to find my people and love them dearly.

I’m not sure why I expected to fit in among all these hip, talented, quick-quipping writers on the internet. I was never good at the captivating of crowds or the quick responses to conversation in the high school morning locker routine. As a counselor at Christian summer camp—and these were, I thought, my people—I couldn't keep up with the dining hall banter and the enthusiasm.

But it was okay, I was there for my kids, the ten kids in my cabin that week, and I loved them dearly, just as I have always loved all the other wonderful souls who stuck around long enough to give me a chance. I have always been lucky enough to find and connect with my people, and I am writing now much more for myself and my people than for the chance of making it as a writer.

I am sure the other people on the internet are lovely people. I am sure many of the people who appear to me to be getting lots of publicity and popularity, to be great at marketing themselves and networking on social media—I am sure many of them feel the same way I do. And I do value the few connections I’ve made here and there that have turned into real conversation, and mutual admiration.

Freedom comes in accepting that I’m not here for recognition. I’m not here to get a lot of re-tweets from other writers who want to be re-tweeted, too. I don’t want to write for them, I want to keep writing for me, writing for you, who click on my entries every now and again and maybe even on occasion see something you can relate to.

Here we are, you and me, and I hope we are both learning to love the place where we are right now, not the place it seems like we should be. I hope we are both learning that we can be ourselves. We don’t have to market ourselves to be loved.

Honoring women's stories

Photo by Erik Soderstrom

In high school I used to long for summer, which was the time when I would get my fill of deep conversation to last me the year. At camp, late at night we would lie in a starry field or huddle onto a couple bunk beds or poke at the embers of a campfire, and girls would share their stories.

I have never stopped cherishing the vulnerable, real-life, honest, messy-beautiful stories of women and their journeys.

March is women’s history month, and it is a good time to tell stories. I have begun to write about a few women whose lives have been compelling, whose stories have stayed with me.

My intentions and hopes for this project are twofold:

First, I just want to honor the stories and the lives of these women—their strength, resilience, inner beauty. Some have faced great challenges. Some have been pillars for their families or communities. All of their stories are important, worth telling.

Second, in some of the stories, I want to draw attention to different issues that women face all over the world. I said in January that I wanted to write more about others, and that I wanted to take this year to revisit the global justice issues that I once actively cared so much about.

But here’s the exciting part: I would love your help. Maybe you know someone who deserves to have her story told. Maybe you can help us share in the wisdom that comes from hearing people’s stories. Maybe you are a woman with your own story to tell. It is more than just catastrophe and dramatic recovery that make our stories matter, so feel free to think outside the box. What story has captured your heart?

If you have something you’d like to share as a part of the project, please send me an email at katiemurchisonross at gmail dot com. I’d like to have your written story by Wed, March 12, but if you think you might want to contribute, send me a message as soon as possible, letting me know you are working on something.

Empty words and love enfleshed

Photo by Eric Dufresne

I duck my head under the rafters I climb up and sit cross-legged on the end of her bunk. She is sprawled out on her side, resting her head on her arm. One of the cabin’s two dim light bulbs has gone out. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” I say.

“My stomach hurts,” she confirms.

I don’t think until later to wonder if she is really sick or if she was just made uncomfortable by the mob of campers crying as they scrambled down the aisles of the campfire, after Jesus was betrayed, beaten, crucified in front of them by dramatic torchlight earlier this evening—if she didn’t want to respond to the altar call but knew she would be the only one still sitting on the benches. I don’t think until later to wonder if I was made uncomfortable by the spectacle, if there was a subconscious reason I volunteered to walk back to the cabin with her.

They call her Bubbles. She’s the one who put my hair in corn rows yesterday. She is thirteen.

“So how have you enjoyed the week?” I ask her. “Crazy you’ll be going home in just a couple days.” I feel no small pressure to make this time with her spiritually meaningful, considering we are missing the altar call and her chance to pray the prayer, to make a decision for Christ.

She adjusts her bandanna and props up her head on her elbow. It doesn’t take much before she launches into it all. She doesn’t much want to go home. Her mom is always pushing her too hard, and she doesn’t do well in school. She misses her dad, who’s in jail. Her uncle is in a gang; lately he has gotten into trouble with members of an opposing gang, and she is worried about him.

I don’t know what to say. I am nineteen and the urban kids who have come for this last week of the summer have experiences and sorrows far beyond my realm of understanding.

I am still young and insecure enough to be afraid of silence. I steer the conversation back to a topic in which I will know what I am supposed to say.

“What did you think about the cross talk at the campfire?”

*

It’s safe to say that even then, I was uncomfortable with these veins of conversation, the forced feeling that I had to always be looking for a door to insert Jesus into—as though Jesus needed me to awkwardly insert him into any place or moment. I thought the discomfort came because I was an introvert, because I was shy, because I was not a good enough Christian, because I was ashamed of my faith. I thought I needed to push through and be bold.

In high school I felt that tension constantly, and sometimes I would notice an opening in the conversation—after an English class about Jonathan Edwards or Dante’s Inferno, after the anxiety-riddled college-application season, as we sat around dreaming about our futures and the purpose and meaning of life. I should say something about Jesus, I would think. Mostly I felt guilty, and sometimes I wrote convoluted emails and letters explaining my beliefs, which usually didn’t get any response.

I wonder what it would have looked like if I hadn’t tried so much to force these words, words I usually failed to say anyway. I could have focused on the gifts and sensitivities I did have, the desires for justice and action. I could have brought tiny pieces of God’s realm right there to my little high school. I could have been a symbol of what heaven looks like: loving my enemies, refusing to climb the American ladder, befriending weirder weirdos than me, raising money to fight malaria, ending human trafficking. I could have shown them what it was like to be unafraid to be myself, unafraid to live by the Spirit, to live free.

*

The last morning of camp, while the others are playing in the waterpark, Bubbles and I sit and watch from the hill (she has her period, which maybe explains the stomach ache a few days ago, or maybe not).

“Have you thought any more about accepting Christ?” I ask her.

“Yeah, a little,” she mumbles.

“It’s a big decision, more than just saying one prayer,” I concede. “Not something you should do if you aren’t ready to dedicate your life to Jesus,” I explain.

This probably isn’t what she was expecting when she started telling me her problems. The things I am saying about Christ are just words, completely distinct from the secrets she shared with me the other night.

She shrugs. I tell her to keep thinking about it.

*

It is so cringingly blatant, now—that every privileged word I could have said to her about Christ being enough, about God being the answer to her problems, was empty. Not because God couldn’t be a source of strength and comfort and guidance, but because I didn’t, couldn’t know how to relate that to her. Because God’s love wouldn’t change the fact that it wasn’t fair that she lacked a supportive family, that she lacked good role models and a community that could buoy her up through the hard times. Knowing that Jesus died for her sins wouldn’t give her the tools she needed to find a way out.

I see now that what she needed, more than an empty idea of Christ being enough, was incarnation—for God’s love to take on flesh. For a community, a family, a friend, a church, to enact in her life a model of real Love.

Lately I am finding that for me, one way to speak authentically is to write, here in this space, to “witness” to the renewal and life God has worked in me.  Another, perhaps harder, challenge is to let Love come into flesh through me. Complaining, being angry, and being sullen are all much more “natural” than the awkwardness of loving where no one else is, spending time with an outcast, reaching out to people I barely know to offer help.

But that awkward kind of love is what makes words come to life.

Re-launch

After a good hiatus, I have decided to start writing again, only a little differently.

This time, instead of writing short little reflections for my blog, I’m going to start sharing more of the writing that defines me, the writing I think I do best—the writing which is most terrifying to share.

These are going to be posts about my life story: the things that have shaped me, the journeys I have traveled. It might feel more like memoir at times. Some of these stories I have shared before in some form with a few who are close to me. Some I have never shared at all. I will intersperse longer stories with short reflections, and old material with new, to keep the past connected to the present.

This will be my most honest writing, my most vulnerable. I write not for pity or congratulation or controversy but because I hope that in being vulnerable, I will also be relatable. I know that my favorite blogs and stories are those that are genuine and honest. I know that my story wants to be shared more broadly. I also know that sharing it is a risk. But risk makes writing worthwhile.

Know that my writing in the following weeks will come from the heart. I am sure you will treat these words with the same gentleness and grace that you have always treated me.