Simple Gifts

I remember learning that song in perhaps third grade and thinking it was remarkably dull. "To turn, turn will be our delight?" Sounds like a bunch of hippies. And hippies are just a step above Wiccans.

Setting aside my burning torch for a while, let's talk shop. People say it's the little things in life that matter. That's not true. It's just that the 'little' things many people overlook are the things that are really the big things. Ever since I was a wee lad, I've had a fanatical devotion to creative writing. Some novels are dearer to me than most people are.

I value reading things written by my friends. Like a child who is given a blank piece of paper by a psychiatrist and some crayons, the blank page shows the soul of the creative writer with clarity not found in anything else. In a piece of creative writing, be it nonfiction, poetry, or fiction, we reveal our inner selves, our longings and our doubts and our terrors. When we create from the heart, our veils are penetrated, and readers nestle into a private nook of our soul. Even more so than in a painting or a sculpture, which is only a snapshot, a piece of creative writing is a world in itself, with its own rules and values. It reveals if the writer is calloused or romantic, cruel or kind, petty or generous.

Flannery O'Connor believed in a just world, one where truly good people are rewarded and the sinful are punished. She then went on to demonstrate how all of her characters were flawed.

Charles Dickens wanted to believe in a happy world that is safe and good, but they always came out flawed.

Courage and loyalty were paramount to Rudyard Kipling.

Of course, you can argue any of those sweeping generalizations, but my point remains: creative writers don't write about the absolute real world, but rather the world as filtered through their hearts. It's the world as they see it, as they hope it is, as they fear it is, as they wish it was, as they are terrified of it becoming.

This is why I value the writing of my friends above almost anything else. In it, I feel like I really get to know the person. It's not just when you hold a person over a volcano (what, you haven't seen Firefly?) that you meet him, but when you read his poetry.

Perhaps a year ago, a good friend of mine gave me a chapbook of his poetry to read and critique. I never did get to critique it, but I read it every now and then, and I am amazed by both the depth of the writing and I feel like I truly meet again a person I only glimpse in 'real life.' Frankly, I feel a little guilty to hold onto this poetry and read it, but that's a part of someone's soul. It's not the kind of thing I can throw away.

Moments like those, like a sunrise over a treasured landscape I'll never see again, are as unforgettable as they are sacred.

(PS Probably fortunately for my digestive system, the bacon did stay green after it sat on the frying pan for a minute, which dissuaded me from chancing it.)