Volume IX, Issue 03
January 15, 2020
Dear ,
I know I have the right word of the week when synchronicity shows up! I'd decided a few weeks ago to feature author Barbara Brown Taylor again, as the early bird discount the Writing for Your Life conference in Charlotte March 24-25, at which she's headlining, ends on
January 31. I am a huge fan of Barbara Brown Taylor, having heard her speak a number of times. How could I not love a woman whose website opens with "Hello, I’m Barbara Brown Taylor. I say things you're not supposed to say"?
I went browsing through my collection of her books and settled on a passage from The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion, in which she says, "Every effort to understand reality begins with
a leap of faith . . . there does not, at this moment in time, seem to be any way around the experience of awe."
Ah, I thought, awe. Now there's a word I can stand behind the value of! I set up the zine template right then. The synchronicity? The next day, my brother Mike, a research scientist in the field of forestry, sent me a piece of writing by his wife, Linda, also a research scientist, as well as woman of faith, about . . . drum roll, please!
. . . the experience of awe.
What would our lives be without the experience that we are connected, in some way, to someone or something larger than ourselves, whether it's through the miracle of faith or the miracle of science? Or both?
I'm reminded of this every time I see my grandson Rhys, who at the age of six, is awed by weather and maps and the natural world. And books and Lego's and so much more.
Last week, we went on a long, winding "random" (his word) adventure, he on his bike and me run/walking beside. He pointed out the moon. "You don't get to
see it in the day very often," he told me. We debated on whether it was full or "almost nearly" full, and Googled to be sure. Yep, the full moon came in two days.
I had my own moment of awe when I saw the full moon rising two days later, through the trees, in a fog-filled sky. I snapped a picture to send him via his dad's phone. "He loved it!" his dad told me.
Where do you find awe in your life? What can you write that opens hearts and minds to it?
Love and light,
Maureen
This week, I'm featuring a conference at which I'm honored and delighted to be giving a presentation at this March. Barbara Brown Taylor is one of my favorite authors and speakers!
Early bird registration, which comes with a discount, ends January 31. Details below.
If you write, or read, books that matter – books with substance and soul – then this is the place for you.
Writing for Your Life welcomes you to Christ Episcopal Church at 1412 Providence Rd. in Charlotte, NC for our next Writing for Your Life Spiritual Writers’ Conference! The conference is open to all who are interested in spiritual writing, as well as those interested in reading spiritual books (more on that below!). Speakers
include Barbara Brown Taylor, other popular Christian authors, and representatives from the Christian publishing industry. The main conference will take place on March 24-25, 2020, with an optional post-conference seminar: The Business of Being a Spiritual Writer
(separate registration required) on March 26.
In addition to Barbara Brown Taylor, our speakers include: authors Leighton Ford, Margot Starbuck, J. Dana Trent, Patrice Gopo, and Kathy Izard, and literary agents Kathryn Helmers and Jevon Bolden. You can learn more about each speaker through the links below. Also participating in the conference will be Park Road Books,
CharlotteLit, AK Classics, WordPlay, and authors Kate Rademacher, Niki Hardy, and Erin Hall.
For the first time this conference includes a Reader Track. These will be breakout sessions where our speakers present on some aspect of reading spiritual books, rather than writing them. But all breakout sessions are open to all attendees, and you will not need to select anything in advance.
Early-bird tuition (through January 31) for the main conference is $329 and includes all General Sessions and Breakout Seminars (both Writer and Reader Tracks), lunches, morning refreshments, small group meetings with speakers and others, and an open-mic session. (After January 31, tuition will be $359.)
Writing for Your Life is pleased to offer 1.0 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for pastors for this writers’ conference. Writing for Your Life is a member of the Association of Leaders in Lifelong Learning for Ministry (formerly the Society for the Advancement of Continuing Education for Ministry).
Registration Now Open! Click on the link below to pay for your registration (credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, or PayPal Credit are accepted; all payments are processed through PayPal). After you pay, an email confirmation will be sent to the name and email address you
enter into PayPal (or the one associated with your PayPal account) within 5 days. If you need to change the name or email address please let us know.
CLICK HERE to pay for your registration.
More WordPlay opportunities coming soon. Stay posted!
Featured Writing
an excerpt from
The Luminous Web
by
Barbara Brown Taylor
Learn more about Barbara Brown Taylor and her writing at www.barbarabrowntaylor.com.
Photo taken by me when Barbara Brown Taylor spoke at the Hall of Philosophy at Chautauqua Institution in 2019
. . . there are realms of human experience that science can never address, since they do not yield themselves to mathematical equation or empirical verification. There are also people whose lives are no better for all the science in the world. As Mark Helprin wrote in a recent essay, “If salvation depends on development and advancement, what does that imply about the lame, the week, the befuddled, and the
oppressed?”* And yet a dialogue between science and religion offers each discipline a check on its hubris. While science disputes religion's certainty that purpose is built into creation, religion challenges science’s certainty that such purpose is impossible.
Whether the subject is cosmology or theology, chaos theory or prayer, there are limits to our knowledge. Science cannot explain where complexity comes from any better than religion can explain why bad things happen to good people. Every effort to understand reality begins with a leap of faith: the acceptance of a certain point of view, the adoption of a certain
set of symbols. Whichever ones we choose, there does not, at this moment in time, seem to be any way around the experience of awe.
According to Albert Einstein, “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.” Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit paleontologist, said, “Less and less do I see any difference between research and
adoration.”
*https://www.forbes.com/asap/1999/1004/244.html
~ from Barbara Brown Taylor's The Luminous
Web
Learn more about Barbara Brown Taylor and her writing at www.barbarabrowntaylor.com.
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's “awe.”
PROMPT: This week, play with both sides of the brain as you explore what the word "awe" means to you (or one of your characters) by engaging in a "mind map." I call this a "Sprawl" because this describes how the process feels to my mind and looks on the page. It works like this:
- Put the word, subject, or idea you want to write about (this time, use the word "awe") in the middle of a blank sheet of paper.
- Moving out from that center, free associate words and phrases for ten minutes, letting one lead to another. When one strand of your Sprawl runs out, come on back to the center and go out in a different direction. You may want to circle your center word, or all your words. You may want to connect your words and phrases with lines. Experiment.
- Look over your Sprawl. Pick the most evocative idea (or "clump" of ideas) and explore it in whatever way works best for you, whether that's by doing another Sprawl, freewriting, journaling, or
just spending some time thinking about it.
- Craft a piece of writing from what emerges.
Vary this process to suit yourself and your words. I tend to Sprawl when I know what I want to write about. I often start to see the finished piece taking shape in my mind as I jot down words and phrases, so I’m prone
to move right into a draft, with my Sprawl propped alongside to refer to every few paragraphs. If ideas for what will go into an essay, poem, or story, are coming fast and furious, a
Sprawl is just the ticket: You can also use the Sprawl to explore or discover writing subjects.
It's fun to play with prompts in community with fellow writers, and to be able to share the results when you're done. You can find out about WordPlay classes, workshops, and retreats here.
MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of
Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water.
She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, “We are meant to midwife dreams for one another.” Maureen also believes that serious “word
work” requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best
learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours!
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