In September 2009, I travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, as part of a short-term mission team. The experience changed me in ways I never expected it would. Mission trip change is a bit cliché, I know. A person sees and experiences things she would not anywhere in her own life and it moves her to action in the midst of the trip. The truth is that most mission trip change is cut short once re-entry occurs. But, my re-entry into life’s daily grind brought with it questions that eventually led me to put down my writing pen.
While each of the team members accepted the responsibility of being an ambassador for our African friends, as a writer, I felt compelled to keep the story alive with my written words. I felt compelled to somehow move people to action with the stories about real people with real names and real lives. For a while the story and my purpose seemed alive as I wrote the captions for the photographs that hung in the Witness Mathare gallery show in January 2010. Soon afterward I became frustrated with writing and I gave up.
Maybe it takes a bout of silence for a writer to understand why she writes. In an article entitled “Why Do Writers Write?” (Huff Post, 2009), Mark Coker explains, “Writers, after all, are artists, and artists are compelled to express themselves, even if only to an audience of one.” As I read the article, the words “audience of one” stood out like a big red stop sign in the middle of a desert road. Writing became difficult because it was no longer about pleasing God but about impressing the audience.
Writing is my oxygen. I would wake up every morning with the sole purpose of writing and be satisfied for the rest of my life. The pen is the conduit through which the thoughts tumbling around in my head move to the visual place on paper where I can gain clarity. I lost the honest writing from the heart and obsessed over finding something to say just to say it—so I could be heard.
What I realize today is my writing is about making me come alive…molding me into the woman God designed me to be…and letting Him bring the right audience to learn from the words I write.
While each of the team members accepted the responsibility of being an ambassador for our African friends, as a writer, I felt compelled to keep the story alive with my written words. I felt compelled to somehow move people to action with the stories about real people with real names and real lives. For a while the story and my purpose seemed alive as I wrote the captions for the photographs that hung in the Witness Mathare gallery show in January 2010. Soon afterward I became frustrated with writing and I gave up.
Maybe it takes a bout of silence for a writer to understand why she writes. In an article entitled “Why Do Writers Write?” (Huff Post, 2009), Mark Coker explains, “Writers, after all, are artists, and artists are compelled to express themselves, even if only to an audience of one.” As I read the article, the words “audience of one” stood out like a big red stop sign in the middle of a desert road. Writing became difficult because it was no longer about pleasing God but about impressing the audience.
Writing is my oxygen. I would wake up every morning with the sole purpose of writing and be satisfied for the rest of my life. The pen is the conduit through which the thoughts tumbling around in my head move to the visual place on paper where I can gain clarity. I lost the honest writing from the heart and obsessed over finding something to say just to say it—so I could be heard.
What I realize today is my writing is about making me come alive…molding me into the woman God designed me to be…and letting Him bring the right audience to learn from the words I write.
1 comment:
Keep up the good work. Through your writing I feel I'm getting to know you even though we've never met.
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