Up-To-The-Minute

I need to take a few minutes to think about what has been happening in my life for the last couple of weeks, so I’m going to write about it, of course!

My new job (as of Sept. 20) is absorbing a lot of physical and psychological energy. I’m a front-end employee for a grocery store, one step up in responsibility from a cashier. My job is to solve immediate customer and cashier problems, so the job is interactive. Occasionally, the interactions are with dissatisfied customers; more than occasionally, the customers are rude.

Whatever the customer or the cashier is dealing with (and I see the cashiers as my customers as well), I am always “on stage,” as my supervisor puts it. My job, in addition to solving these problems, is to remain polite, pleasant, and non-confrontational. For me, by nature an introvert, this takes a great deal of energy.

Good writing takes a lot of creative energy, and, even though my writing “public” is miniscule, I want my product to be good. Maybe what will help me keep writing even when I don’t feel creative is to remember why I started this blog. Yes, I want an audience, but I also want an outlet for myself. For me, writing is thinking through my fingers. Sometimes my writing is objectively good; I hope it is always at least coherent! But if, on any particular day, all it does is help me digest my life, it is serving purpose that is valuable to me.

The photo I have attached is not related to this post. I took it in Alimena, Sicily, my maternal grandfather’s hometown.

Life and Writing

At the moment, I seem to be too engrossed in my life to write about it. The new position I accepted a little over a month ago is absorbing a lot of physical and emotional energy. It is very people-centric and, while I am surprised at how well I do in most of these interactions, they exhaust me. More on this on my next day off!

Soul

Who am I?

Such a basic question, one that my paid job is forcing me to ask. Am I only what I do? Of course not, but sometimes it feels that way. I work at the “front end” of a supermarket. I am a cashier and self-checkout attendant, training to be a coordinator.

Is this all I am? NO, I want to say vehemently to the people who come through my line with their buy-one-get-one specials, their coupons, their complaints. I am so much more than this. I’ve taught in an inner-city school. I’ve traveled to Spain and Peru and Zimbabwe. I’ve been the communications director for a 1600-member faith-based organization.

Yet with all of these protests, I am still focusing on what I do. Who am I? I am a lover and user of words. I love to taste the nuances of two words that are considered synonyms. Do they really  mean the same thing? Which better expresses what I want to say? Which is more easily understood?

Then it’s on to the larger structures of English. Do I write this thought as two shorter sentences, or as one longer complex sentence punctuated with a comma? Which “sounds” better? Does the meaning shift if I write it one way or the other? Which way is more likely to keep people reading?

Who cares, anyway? I do. In the age of communication by emoticon and vowel-less abbreviations, I care. I use abbreviations when I text, but I don’t love them the way I love words. They are like Morse code: They do the bare-bones job of communication, but they have no soul.

I have soul. What I write must also have soul. So I will continue to ponder the weight of words, the cadence of sentences, the beginnings and endings of paragraphs.

Because this is who I am.

Words

I’m aware that I haven’t posted in over a week and am feeling self–imposed pressure to write, so here goes. It’s my birthday, anyway, so it is appropriate to use one of God’s best gifts to me today.

Words have been a gift to me from the time I could first read a “Dick and Jane”-type primer. I would walk to the library so many times a week that I was embarrassed to have the librarians see me again. I took refuge from the chaos of nine people in a small house by hiding out and reading in our basement.

I remember well the “aha!” moment when I discovered how to use rhyme and meter  to write poetry. Many years later, I delighted in making my living by writing for causes that I believed in.

I am a “geek” when it comes to words. I care about whether an adjective or adverb is used in a particular place, or a pronoun is placed close enough to its antecedent. I love the kinds of words that show up on the SAT, not because I want to show off, but because they help me say what I want to say. I love being able to figure out the meaning of a word because I recognize its root in another language.

I realize that these are esoteric loves. It’s like loving the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast.” For most people, it requires explanation. But those who know me recognize this truth about me even when I forget it myself.

After a sabbatical of several years, I’m writing publicly again. Once more, words are a refuge from chaos. They will help me find my place again in a world that has felt alien and disorienting.

ancient words, and gospel truth

Whether or not you are a religious person, this is a wonderful reflection on words. At their best, in any context, words offer only a hint of the thought and emotion behind them. This is even more true of words about God. There is only one inerrant Word of God, and that is Jesus.

Derek Maul: Words & Photographs for the Journey

Words

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet
    and a light for my path. – Psalm 119:105

This morning I’ve been thinking about words, both ancient words and today’s words too. That’s not really surprising, considering my profession. But the thing is, words don’t belong to writers alone; we don’t own a specialized tool set. Fact is, everyone uses words, and words can mean different things depending on who is saying them, how they are delivered, the context, and a host of other variables resident in the person reading or listening; language is malleable, living, responsive, and constantly evolving.

And it’s not like the evolution of words is something we can regulate. “Evangelical,” for example – a word that used to mean living the good news of the Gospel out loud – has been co-opted by the “Religious Right,” and now has so many political connotations that I can no longer…

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