morning pages

Last week was one of those weeks that got me right to the edge. So I made a choice on Saturday to actively lay everything out before God (picture ugly crying on my floor and writing angry words in my journal).

Each awful, crappy thing that I felt was unfair, was holding me back, was another hard thing.

And in that place, where I felt broken, I felt a clear and strong voice give me directions. Not a life plan. Just directions. Get up. Get up tomorrow and walk into the fields, consciously choose to move.

So on Sunday I did just that. I got up and walked, with a backpack and water and a vague idea of where I was going. I walked and asked for another direction, a next step.

One of those next steps was an idea that formed to write each morning. Hannah Brencher talks about this, Julia Cameron does as well - both writers whom I have high respect for. This idea just to get up and write - it doesn’t necessarily have to be good, it doesn’t have to be mind blowing, but it is something, a start to the creative juices flowing.

So this has been a new step in my routine (the ones i’m not great at keeping). And each morning I write 2 pages in a document I started 7 years ago titled ‘write what you are afraid to write’.

Two days ago I found myself writing about the idea of knowing nothing. How the older I get the less I feel I know. Not because I suddenly question my intelligence or ability to understand but quite the opposite. I feel like I know less because I have become aware of how much there is to know.

And I love it.

I have found freedom in the idea that I can learn and learn and still not know everything. I find freedom in my faith in knowing I will probably never fully understand God, or life, or the universe. I find comfort in knowing I will never be fully prepared for any job because there is always something new to know and discover.

And I think that is partly why this blog now exists again, in its new form. Because I have become more comfortable in the not knowing, and not being the expert or the person with all the answers.

But I like the adventure and the process of writing these blogs, of discovering new ideas and thoughts. I like the process of writing those morning pages to get my brain in gear and get my mind awake for the day.

And I love that it is a next step, just one little thing in a day. A next step to what? I don’t know, but it is a next step in this journey of the unknown and the learning.

I might have settled in the understanding that I know less the older I get; but this one thing I do know.

We cannot control fully what our lives looks like. We can control our choices and our attitudes, our offenses and our reactions. We can control how we behave to the uncontrollable around us. We can control how we behave in the situations we are in.

I also believe in a God who is in control; even though I don’t always understand how that can be. I believe he created us to be with him, communicating with him, laying out all the crap and all the joy, and asking him for the next step.

Maybe it is writing pages in a document everyday, or maybe it is speaking out about the thing that burns on your heart, maybe it is saying yes to the opportunity or no, because sometimes the opportunities aren’t the right ones. Maybe it is just moving outside of your home.

Maybe we just need to ask each day, what is the step today?

R.