Tag: Writing
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Who Happens Next?
One aspect of writing fiction is the dilemma of writer’s block. The writer sits before a blank sheet of paper tapping a pencil in dismay or suspending anxious fingers above a keyboard . What happens next? is the silent cry echoing in her head. But I’m not sure this is the correct question, or that…
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To Walk Away
When I think about walking, a destination usually comes to mind. Recently, though, my thoughts have wandered to the exact opposite–the idea of walking away, of leaving something behind. This image has sad and forlorn overtones. To leave a place or a person or a culture because it’s harmful or simply bad is to walk…
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A Withered Bloom
It snowed yesterday, and I am looking out the window from the kitchen island as I write. The soil in the kitchen garden has been turned, but the wildflowers along the fence’s edge still have some withered blooms on the top of brown stalks, which will remain throughout the winter until new ones replace them…
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Hic et Nunc
“Here and now.” That’s where we are. Always. My novice master impressed upon me, “All that exists is the here and now.” Hence the phrase Hic et Nunc. These enduring words are so true, they form the motto of the Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Maryland. A school dear to our…
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Where Do Souls Live?
As the details coalesce near the conclusion of the recent K-Drama Little Women, Oh In-ju, one of the three sisters whose life hangs by a thread, ponders who and what she really is. (Confession here: I’ve been hooked on Korean dramas and Sageuk since April.) In the empty room of a luxury high-rise apartment above…
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A Better World
After the wrestling match in Act I, Scene ii of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the courtier Le Beau says to Orlando, “Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.” Before I took on essay and novel writing, I taught this play for twenty years, and this…
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Glory
Fruition. Consumation. Completion. These words capture autumn in all its glory when I pass orchards and vineyards in late September. They evoke the bounty, the generosity that overflows everywhere I am. Glory lives in the completion of goodness. Robert Frost was correct to claim that nature’s first green is gold, but the deeply hued red…
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The Physician of the Soul
Who can remove guilt? I mean, if you’re guilty, you’re guilty. That’s quite plain and clear. Is it even possible to take a way guilt? We can mitigate punishment and forgive once our anger has abated. But to remove guilt? Now that’s something else. Who has the power to do that? What type of surgery…
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The Toilsome Path
Truth to tell: this world is not perfect. Banished from the Garden of Eden, we must toil. Sure the Lord promises an easy yoke and a light burden, but keep in mind the promise of a yoke and a burden. The reality of being human sinks in at this point. ‘To make plain’ is to…
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A Handsbreadth
Place both hands before you, pinky-finger next to pinky-finger. Not very wide is it? Imagine the span across your palms. Now consider that it represents the length of your life. An entire lifetime can be contained in both hands, thumb to thumb, birth to death. It’s hard to imagine measuring our entire lives because it’s…
Richard Earenfight 