The Unexpected Surprises of God

Sharpening your Saw: Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul

In August, I received an email inviting me to attend a writing-intensive workshop at the Poets House in New York City. The invitation stated I’d received a partial scholarship. I was surprised; I didn’t remember applying for the workshop. Even more surprised when my husband reminded me I’d said, “I’d like to have a New York City writing-intensive workshop experience.”

 

Intensive as in concentrating on a single subject in a short time with vigor, to strengthen the craft and produce work. New York City meant getting on the train and traveling outside my usual space. Walking on crowded streets, eating from food trucks, and seeing something unusual.

 

I had taken a year’s hiatus from teaching after receiving my doctoral degree. I’d received several rejections in my profession as a writer and an educator. I was growing discouraged, but I remained persistence—writing, reading, researching five-six hours a day; five days a week. A hiatus from teaching meant I could focus on the writing. A break from teaching after thirteen years would determine if I desired to return to academia.

Photo by Mona Eendra on Unsplash

During my gap teaching year, a publisher invited me to edit an anthology based on a panel I had curated and would chair at a conference. Then a proposal I’d written about pedagogy had been accepted in a peer-review journal. I was ecstatic, delighted, and humbled.

 

Immediately, I began working on these projects, but along the way, I grew restless, waiting. I had to wait for the contributors to the anthology to send me their essays. I had to wait for the editor to send me peer reviews. Therefore, I thought, an intensive writing workshop in New York City would soothe my restlessness.

 

For me, an intensive writing workshop is like intensive prayer. You know, when you’re praying for a breakthrough. I’m looking at breakthrough as new development or discovery about what’s going on in my life. And during my waiting, I’d hit a wall of doubt, which led to anxiety. I doubted my editing skills. I questioned my research abilities. I was anxious about revision and publication and marketing. I was concerned because I’d had the opportunity to be both a creative and a scholar. I felt like a shaken soda bottle, ready to explode.

In Henri J.M. Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved, Spiritual Living in a Secular World, he claims we become restless because we’re hoping someone, something, or an event will come along and give us that final feeling of inner well-being: “Maybe this book, idea, course, trip, country, or relationship will fulfill my deepest desire.” Pinpointing my deepest desire was the question? Why weren’t these writing projects giving me that settled inner peace about my life as a writer?

 

And that’s why I was completely surprised when invited to attend the writing-intensive in New York City at the Poet’s House. God heard my need and answered my call.

 

The Moment of Humility

In the past few decades, I’ve attended several writing intensives with seasoned writers such as Dorothy Randall Gray, Marge Piercy, Pat Schneider, and Jeffrey Allen Renard. And each time I’ve put my pen on paper raw, untapped emotions spill on the page. I discover something new about myself and the world around me. Thus, writing reflects my journey. Writing is a language that reflects me. As a creative writing scholarly work, those emotions can disappear; they get lost in theory and methods.

 

It’s like prayer. Prayer reflects our journey; it’s our love language to God about what is going on in our lives and the lives of those we love. When we continually pray rote prayers, our prayer life can become stale and stagnant. Or rote prayers can stir us up and transform into a spontaneous prayer leaving us vulnerable and humble. Sometimes snot nose and teary-eyed.

 

So, when I walked into the writing workshop, I was a bit anxious. I didn’t know the workshop leader or the other writers in the workshop. I had no idea what to expect only remembering “In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what can man do unto me” (Psalm 56:11). Ironically, a photo was in the window that read “DON’T BE AFRAID.” I smiled.

Within one hour of the first day of the four-day workshop, I realized I was out of place despite that each of us had enrolled in this workshop as a safe space for people of color. A rarity in our regular writing lives and spaces. Everyone in the room was twenty years my junior. The only way for me to survive was to be humble. I’d come to learn. I’d come to write. At the end of the first day after sharing these lines from my poem “Forgive me for being a Woman,” I knew the next three days would be intense.

 

…cried out in grief, only Christ heard. Forgive me for being a woman who needs a savior. Forgive me for being a woman healed from twelve years of bleeding, demon-possessed stoned for adultery. Forgive me for being the woman who wiped his face, fell at his feet, shed tears and pain; virtuous because of him who came from a woman

I was not surrounded by people who believed in the same God I believed in. The language I scribed reflected a life saved and rescued by Christ. My reading was the only one that did not get a round of applause. And for the next three days, I had no idea what raw emotions would spill unto the page, yet I refused to be afraid.

 

Every writing assignment was awe-inspiring and challenging. The assignments consisted of constructing real selves and imagined worlds, asking questions that we could deconstruct, shatter, and then rebuild.

 

In addition to the writing assignments, I took pleasure in crafting prose-poetry, discovering new sounds and senses, walking along the Hudson River through Battery Park, reading on the subway, and exploring the library shelves of the Poet’s House.

It was the last day of the workshop, I understood my deepest desire. My restlessness disappeared even though no one wanted to partner with me. Who wants to pair up with a religious woman? Our last writing assignment required a partner. We had to create pieces that echoed and mirrored each other. We picked four books from the Poet House library, chose three words from each book. I gave my partner my twelve words, and she gave me her twelve words. With twenty-four words, we were to craft an ode to an unpraised deity.

 

Righteous indignation rose up in me based on the phrase “unpraised deity.” I’d already refused to share my zodiac sign because that had nothing to do with writing. I had a tough time identifying myself as she/her; I was Angela created in God’s image as a female. I’d already been chastised for using the term “ladies” although I use that term all the time without thought to gendering. And my fury poured on the page with twenty-four found words:

 

She cannot praise or lavish an unpraised deity; it violates her comings and goings and betrays her beloved Creator, who molded the mountains, moon, and river out of clay and whose love is like grains of sand on a beach. His faithfulness despite her unfaithfulness gives her iron strength when blue-black tears collapse onto her breast circling the brick ice that once caused an absence of being when sewing gloves to mask her talons to write the cornerstone of her existence.

 

My deepest desire was to always give God glory. I refused to lavish an unpraised deity because everything that I was, everything I would be was because of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It didn’t matter if I was writing in my home office, on the train, or at a space in New York City, my praise was for the Highest, not a couch or a zodiac sign, a bottle of wine or a lover. God was my “beloved Creator” and the “cornerstone of my existence.”

 

Again, no clapping for my reading.                Selah.

I was at peace with God; humbled and thankful for his unexpected surprises.

 

 

Until next time,

I love you!

Tags creative, faith, God, peer-review, Poet's House, scholar, sharpening, writing