Wednesday, October 25, 2006

broken peaceful faithful thankful

My book proposal is now in the hands of 3 acquisition editors and one agent.

I keep second guessing myself. Wanting to redo parts of it. Doubting that I should have sent it at all. Wondering at every turn toward my phone or computer if I should check for messages.

The waiting itself is drawing me inward. My heart feels like its soaking in a mire of desire and doubt, motivation and miscontent, duty and denial, faith and fear. I feel a physical ache when I consider that I've put my heart and my work out there for consideration.

It makes me want to forget the call I felt to write it in the first place. Makes me want to turn toward something else altogether.

Something that would that would help me forget. Anything would do, really.

I thought about organizing my pictures, repainting the hallway, putting a few new plants to bed in the front yard, eating every last snack in the house. All productive and worthy distractions.

Instead, I stood in the shower til the water grew cold;, let my fears bubble to the surface and prayed them down the drain. I listened to a favorite playlist. I read my bible.

And then I thanked Jesus for the freedom to honestly communicate my mixed feelings, and for the Spirit that soothes whether I'm in my Sunday best or my birthday suit.

For now I have peace. But, I'm sure I'll be back there again soon -- in that broken place -- before I hear an answer.

Til then I'll be breathing, trying not to lick the inside of the potato chip bag, and contemplating how it just may be that waiting will be the hardest work yet.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Something's about to break

It’s funny (not ha ha funny, but weird funny) how things come together sometimes.

I just spent the morning finishing the introduction to my book, and working on a couple chapters that had been bugging me.

Glenn and I had a lunch date, so I had to wrap it up at 11 and get showered & dressed to go.

All I knew about our lunch date was that Glenn had won another radio contest and we were headed to some new place downtown called American Cowgirl to hear a performer who was being promoted by a local station, 105.1 aka “The Buzz.”

We found a parking spot right up front and great table on the far side of the room where we could see the stage, but still enjoy the warm sunshine slanting through the industrial size windows.

“So, who are we here to see?”

“It looks like his name is Matt something.”

Matt turned out to be Mat.

The very Mat Kearney I’d recently discovered on Rhapsody while weaving my way through the sidebar which lists each artist's contemporaries/influences. (Had I started at The Fray, perhaps, or was it Daniel Lanios via Emmylou or maybe Switchfoot?) Who knows, but nevertheless he landed on the playlist I’ve been listening to while writing my book, In the Shadow of a Stranger.

So... I knew Mat seemed familiar, but didn’t know why until I heard him sing a couple poignant lines from his song Nothing Left to Lose; a song whose lyrics helped usher me through one of my tougher chapters…

Mark my words, something’s about to break …

Here we go, there’s nothing left to choose,
Here we go, there’s nothing left to lose.

I can still hear the trains out my window …

I won’t try and explain how, but the tone of this song, and those lines in particular, resonated and helped inspire me to take the steps I needed when I was hesitating about my ability, and right, to write the book.

Mat’s voice and melodies have a hauntingness about them that can’t be easily articulated. For me, its as if he reaches in and stirs waters that are at risk of growing stagnant.

See what I mean that its funny how things comes together sometimes. Makes me wonder what's next, and what it is, specifically, that is about to break for me.

I think I know what it is, but I'll be keeping my ears open while I wait and see...