On Writing... (And Being a Real Pastor)

Josh said the other day I should write more. I would agree with him, except I haven't had any coherent thoughts lately that would give me a good start to a new post, so I guess I would start this one off with a shout-out to him. Cheers, Batman. Thanks for getting me to start writing again.

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while would know I'm not one of those professional bloggers who have a blogging schedule filled with specific topics. Some months, I have a lot of angst to vent, so I write a lot. Some months, my head is so full that I don't even know where to begin. Then when I finally sit down and force myself to write again, the first post usually has some content about why I write, particularly because the readership of this blog changes with time so some re-introductions are necessary. Well, here is that "this is why I write" post.

I write because it was a way to release the angst I had as a teenager. When life gives you lemons, stew them into alphabet soup and splash them on cyber-space. I cringe when I think about some of the stuff I splashed on cyber-space ten years ago, but that's all a part of life too.

Cloudy Brain
Zen-Doodle 30-09-14

I write because it was is a way to force my over-stimulated brain to stop and focus. My thoughts become more coherent when I have to dig through the dusty cloud that is my brain to find the right combination of words to string together to communicate where life is at the moment.

I write because it was is a way to freedom. As fingers fly over the keyboard, it's as if the tap-tap-tapping on each letter helped bring an end to another chapter of processing the roller-coaster that is life, before finally releasing the story back into a community that holds each other.

I write because it was is a way to be real. And I guess this is what I'm really trying to get to in this post.

Most people know I struggle with the "pastor" title. Along with some negative associations of what pastors can be like (particularly as I work more and more with a post-Christian demographic), the title can also be loaded with expectations that I somehow lead a more struggle-free or holy life (which can be really handy to speed through immigration procedures at times!). Plus I'm hardly comfortable preaching or teaching so I often disclaim I'm not *THAT* kind of pastor.

But writing... That's a different story (see what I did there?).

I used to give myself heaps of pressure to write highly-intellectual blog posts after all my years of higher-education and pastoral ministry. Sure, my brain loves dissecting the macro and micro of the fate of humankind and once in a while, it leads to a super nerdy post that I get just a bit giddy about. But I can only handle deep academic theology in small doses, and what I really love most is writing about the life stuff. The messy stuff.

Then I used to wonder if writing about the messy life stuff made me a less-than-orthodox pastor (which is really ok, since I'm not *THAT* kind of pastor anyway). I mean, when I first started blogging as a teenager, it was only my peers who read about my angst so I could be as emotionally dramatic as I wanted. But then my audience started shifting, and few of the Christian/theologian bloggers I follow would write about the messy life stuff. At one point, my mum actually said that the bleak posts I was writing as a young adult didn't actually reflect the hope I had in Christ. Admittedly, it stung at first. I didn't want to be another Christian blogger that only talked about how unrealistically happy my life was simply because I had Jesus in my heart. But in more ways than one, that comment continues to influence how and why I write.

A few months ago, I wrote about living with clinical depression and spent the hours after that living in fear of being judged for not being a better steward of my mental/emotional health. I didn't know any other pastor who talked openly about depression and wondered if it was one of those topics that no self-respecting pastor would openly talk about. Oddly enough, that was one of the posts I had the most responses from--because more pastors live with depression than you hear about, and it seemed like everyone was waiting for someone else to give them permission to talk about it.

Perfection: the wall that crumbles
Zen-Doodle 01-10-14

More recently, Kathrin inspired me to begin zen-doodling. I'm not sure how to fully explain the process except that for me, I've started carrying a notebook and a set of markers around for the few minutes here and there when I need a creative outlet. I'm by no means an artist, but somehow filling a blank page with colours, lines and dots of whatever comes to mind seems to release some amount of angst and defrag some disk space in my head. This was my zen-doodle for the day that inspired this post.

I guess part of the reason that writing comes more easily for me is because I get to hide away a little bit. I get to take all the time I want to choose what side and how much of the real, messy life stuff I want to share, then craft it into a neat, perfect string of words and backspace fifty-million times before I finally hit "publish".

But that's the thing. I choose to write not because I can hide behind that wall of perfection, because that wall of perfection will crumble.

No, I write because I hope that the stories I collect continually connects me back to the community that holds me and that our stories will keep that wall from building up.
I write because writing invokes my mother's reminder even on my darkest, most cynical days, that I have an unexplainable and completely experiential seed of faith, hope and love that has sunk deep roots in my spiritual being.
And I write because it waters this seed so that even in the darkest corners with a big bucket of lemons and a bad day with Black Dog, I still see the candle in the distance.

Saying No doesn't have to be complicated
Zen-Doodle 30-09-14

So I'm back at the tap-tap-tapping again. I have some things to say, but I make no promises that they will actually get said. But feel free to throw the occasional reminder for me to write if you so wish. Or if there's something you want to see written about, feel free to interact with this blog as well. Of course, I still get to decide whether or not I want to write about it--mostly just to keep my counselor happy that I'm actually learning to draw boundaries.

And to you, I ask this: What is your outlet?