Posts Tagged ‘As Is’
real grace
“She has not raised kids, endured severe financial hardship or cared for a dying loved one – in short, she has not lived enough of life to offer us real grace.”
TheOOZE Viral Blogger Review of As Is by “monster,” July 14, 2010
A monster recently crossed my path. A big, hairy monster with a heavy shadow to boot. And the monster said that I didn’t have any “real” grace to offer because I hadn’t given birth to a mentally handicapped son. Because I hadn’t nursed a dying loved one. Because I hadn’t endured financial hardship. Because, in monster’s opinion, I hadn’t really lived. So how could I dare to write about messy grace – a topic that has “been done before and done better by others” in his opinion.
You see, monster decided to read and review As Is for TheOOZE’s Viral Blogger platform, a platform that has earned As Is mixed reviews at best. But in many ways, it’s been refreshing. I have invited the comments and suggestions from peers and have been inspired to work that much harder at my craft. Until this review. Truth be told, monster knocked the wind out of me with his assumptions and judgments as he questioned the authenticity and validity of who I am.
So, as is my MO, I’ve been thinking. Thinking about this book review. Thinking about my writing. Thinking about my story, my life’s story. And most of this thinking has been good because it landed me in a place I needed to be. A place where I was forced to unearth truth and beauty again. And it was there that I discovered we – all of us – have something to say about grace. Because we all have a story. Some stories are grittier than others. Some stories are, on the surface, a little tidier. But not long after we’re out of the womb, life on planet earth collides with us and brings us face to face with moments when grace, mercy, peace, love and truth must show up if we are to go on.
Some of us have cancer.
Some of us have eating disorders.
Some of us have anxiety attacks.
Some of us lose our jobs.
Some of us bury children.
Some of us suffer deep betrayal by the one who said, “till death do us part.”
Some of us are raped.
Some of us endure racial hate.
Some of us are physically abused.
Some of us are bullied in school.
Some of us have barren wombs.
Some of us endure the tragedy of front-line warfare.
Some of us have multiple sclerosis.
Some of us lose limbs in car accidents.
Some of us go without food.
Some of us are sold into sex trafficking.
Some of us are alcoholics.
Some of us suffer depression.
Some of us don’t have clean water to drink.
Some of us lose our homes in floods.
We all need grace. And we need it spoken to us in a variety of voices.
Maybe monster has the luxury of being choosy about who he’ll allow to speak “real” grace into his life. Me – I’ll take grace anywhere I can get it. I’ll take it from the 16-year-old kid at the grocery store. I’ll take it from U2 or Hoagy Carmichael or Beethoven, Annie Dillard or Joan Didion or Frederick Buechner. I’ll take it from my single girlfriends who have no idea what it’s like to be married with children. I’ll take it from my husband who has never suffered a panic attack or battled an eating disorder. I’ll take it from my 13-month-old son who has barely been touched by the tragedy and pain of this world.
I’ll take it from anyone, anywhere, any time. Because if I demand that anyone who speak “real” grace into my life go through the hardest, most catastrophic life events or the exact circumstances I have experienced before they’re qualified, I’ll never receive grace.
I’ve lived long enough to know that none of our storms are the same. And the minute we go around comparing, judging and deciding whose got the biggest, baddest, most hardcore life story, we lose sight of what grace is all about. We lose sight of something whole-making and powerful. We lose sight of coming like children – clamoring, hands open, excited to receive whatever is given.
No, I don’t have the luxury of being picky about where grace comes from. I grasp for it. I inhale it. I gulp it down like a beggar at a feast. And I find it not only in the hardest and most tragic moments that life hurls at me and those around me. But I find it in the mundane and monotonous. Because grace is for all of us in all our moments – not just for those whose stories are the deepest or darkest.
So it turns out that even in a malicious review and personal attack, grace found me. She reminded me who I am, whose I am, and that life is grace (as Buechner says). So thanks, monster. In spite of your shadow, grace won. Real grace.
Grace finds beauty in everything.
U2, Grace
No Commentsthe word
I’m not pious, I’ve got a foul mouth, I’m ill-tempered,
but in my best moments…I try to make the decisions for love.
Because love wins.
-Cathleen Falsani
As I looked at the six-letter word on its appointed page and thought about the hundreds of hot-off-the-press copies of my first published book gathered around me like a gaggle of unruly children, I sighed.
“Too late now,” I laughed, staring at the unsmudgable ink. Alone and feeling the weight of disapproving voices, I closed my book and left the apartment. I needed a walk.
On my stroll past budding bushes, I thought about the book I’d been working on for nearly two years. Mostly, I thought about the word and the handful of judgments about my choice of verbiage.
“Why did I put it in there?” I agonized and ruminated with each step, frustrated and flustered by the whole matter, angry that it had only taken a little criticism to make me cave. Self-doubt was stealing the happy author joy I had fantasized about since I was a little girl sitting at my Brother electric typewriter. My book was published, released into the world – what could possibly bum me out?
The word, that’s what.
No. Wait. Not the word, but my second guessing the word. Second guessing every word – not just the word. And wondering where I got off trying to be some kind of revolutionary, some kind of radical truth-speaker, an authentic voice in a mass of nicer, conciliatory writers.
I followed this line of thinking in a fearful, nauseating and otherwise self-flagellating way for the rest of my walk. And the better part of a week, for that matter.
But then I came upon a life-altering chapter of Sin Boldly, the 2008 book release from fabulous Chicago Sun Times religion writer Cathleen Falsani. And I remembered something. I remembered my heart. No, better than that…
I remembered my purpose. My passion. And the people I had in mind when I wrote my book. People who have questions, who are searching, who are recovering from addictions, who are getting it wrong and making a hairy mess of life, who are frayed and on the fringes, who are lonely, who are sinners and know it, who are full of glory and beauty and don’t know it.
And, to quote Cathleen:
They are the reason I wrote what I wrote. They are the reason I do what I do…my audience is not the big, bellicose voices of God’s professional bloviators. If they want to read over the shoulders of the marginalized, hurting, scared, ostracized, wounded rest of us, more power to them. But they’re not the point.
Nearly two decades ago, Brennan Manning said the very same thing in his priceless book, Ragamuffin Gospel.
This book is not for the super-spiritual. It is not for the muscular Christians…the academicians…noisy, feel-good folks…hooded mystics…Alleluia Christians…fearless and tearless…red-hot zealots…the complacent…the legalists. If anyone is still reading along, The Ragamuffin Gospel was written for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out.
As I re-read Cathleen’s own tale of disapproving readers and remembered Brennan’s words, I thought about the people who matter most – the people for whom I wrote As Is. And, among other monumental things, I realized that they couldn’t care less if I use the word.
Still, the fact remains that there are some who may be disturbed by the word as well as some other content that shows up in my book. There are some who think it’s poor taste, who think I won’t sell many books, who think I’ve made myself look bad. And maybe they’re right. I’m willing to plead guilty. I may look back and say the word was unnecessary, poorly placed, downright wrong. Hell, I may take it out in some future edition (but I doubt it).
After several walks, several sessions with Brennan and Cathleen, and several more conversations with God, I was finally able to answer my question. I finally knew why I put the word in my book. I put it there because, for better or worse, the word is a part of my daily lingo. The real me. Not the marketable me. Not the airbrushed glossy me. Not the Sunday-morning-best me. But the Wednesday-afternoon me, the stuck-in-traffic-and-feeling-hormonal me, the fired-up-and-ranting-about-stuff me.
In a book – and a life – with as-is-ness written all over it, that word (and a few others) are bound to show up. And if I can’t be that me along with the best me… If I can’t “speak what I feel, not what I ought to say” to quote Shakespeare’s Lear… If I can’t be honest about who I am as I try to live and love and write and connect with humanity… Then what’s the point of being an artist, being a communicator, being Krista?
But more than this word or that one, I realized what I had been hoping for all along: that love would win. Every time. Because if the sum total of my book isn’t ultimately love, then all the crisp, clean and Christian-y words I could craft are just clanging and jangling and adding to the noise.
And I think we’ve got enough noise.
No Commentsi am an author
When the green semi rolled in with twelve heavy boxes of my labor of love, I became something I have longed to be since I was eleven…maybe younger. A soft winter breeze cooled my face in the light of February sun rays as Jason pulled out his pocketknife and sliced through a thin layer of tape to reveal the shrink-wrapped stacks of my book.
I think it was Anne Lamott or maybe Stephen King who differentiated between writer and author. She or he said that a writer writes. (And this is a good thing, to write. Because we must always, always, write.) But an author is published.
As the exhaust fumes of the semi diffused around me, I became an author holding her published book in hand. In so many ways, I can hardly remember the woman I was when I penned my first post, “I am a Writer.” Funny how things come full circle.
As I enter this strange and exciting season of author-ness, it seems the most appropriate occasion to point you to another site. My official author site. KristaFinch.com. (That’s my pen name…don’t wear it out!)
If you’ve enjoyed Pendrops at any level, I think you’ll love KristaFinch.com. It has some of the same hints of quirky observation, current reads, and links to “Finch Friends.” In fact, for a short time, my posts on Pendrops will be duplicated there.
But it will also have a fresh delicious flavor, seasoned with video blogs, info about upcoming readings and signings, and other funky, Finchy stuff.
So please visit often or sign up for an RSS feed.
And if you’re in the Nashville area, please stop by the As Is Release Party on March 24, anytime from 7-10 pm at The Franklin Mercantile. I would love to see you there!
Finally, thanks for being a Pendropper and supporting my writing habit. Whatever I’m called – writer or author – you have encouraged me more than you will ever know.
4 Commentsswerving
I was just sitting here watching Field of Dreams, thinking about crazy people doing even crazier things. And I couldn’t help thinking about Jason’s and my own crazy dream, SWERVE Press. We started SWERVE exactly a year ago. And in a few hours, we’re launching the site and pre-selling my first book, As Is. Seems surreal.
And it looks illogical, too. From just about every angle. We knew nothing about publishing when we started this venture (except that we liked published things). We have never run a business (except a few lemonade stands a couple decades ago). And we have started this publishing business in the middle of a so-called recession.
Hmmm.
At the same time, this seems like the perfect time for SWERVE to take the stage. Because a little bit of prudent insanity is just what SWERVE is about. So stop by as we open our cyber doors. You’ll find us just off the beaten path.
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