Friday, November 17, 2023

SINGLENESS AND WRITING

 I started a journal with this title in 1997, dated May 30. I was in my first year as a medical resident in Montreal, and I started writing in third person.

“The night was dark and the sound of rain hitting the roof and flowing down the drain pipes enter the room. She was lying on her bed, seemingly engrossed in a novel. She looked at briefly, laid the book, open on its pages and reached over her side table to light a candle with a match. The smell of the burning match reminded her instantly of a campfire and she sighted and sat up against her headboard in a happy state of reverie. Memories of past holidays, school backpacking trips, and summer camp tumbled through her mind with a smile coming over her face as one happy moment led to another’s memory.”

Some awkward phrasing, giving rise to an image of a happy nostalgic young woman with a room about to flood! My cursive writing was still quite readable, and I stroked through words in error with an average of two lines, something my medical training would teach me only to use one.

“970604

It’s the strangest thing, but I can write things on paper that I hesitate to tell my closest friends in person, and yet I would have no problem my friends or complete stranger reading the exact same words. Although it’s not intuitive, I think part of it [sic] because when a person sits down to read some thing, it means that they have opened theirself [sic] at least enough to make the effort to settle down with a book. And although many would agree with me about it, for an introvert like me who grew up devouring books, I think the medium of print is one of the most intimate, private ways of expression that I have ever known.”

VERSES

Isaiah 54:5 God as our husband
Matthew 19:12 singleness as a choice
1 Co 7:34-36 undivided devotion
Song of Songs 3:5 love in God’s time
Eccl 3:11a In His Time

SONGS

No One But You Lord
Abba Father
As The Deer
Cry of My Heart
Father God
The Greatest Thing
I Cry Out
I Lift My Eyes Up
In His Time
In Moments Like These
Jesus Lover of My Soul
Love the Lord Your God
More Precious Than Silver
O How I Love Jesus
Only A Shadow
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
Vergiß es Nie
When I Look Into Your Holiness
You Are My Wholeness
You Are the One
Father I Want You to Hold Me

I know the tunes and lyrics of most of these songs immediately, although they were stored decades ago. I think of myself of musically challenged, having confused Rush and Tragically Hip songs and many obviously different sounds and styles, much to my embarrassment and others incredulity. But as I sing these songs, there is an undertone that creeps me out. The love of the Father and Jesus is almost cringeworthy, as though their love is an obsessive love usually reserved for crushes, and romantic relationships. In that guileless love is the potential for evil, whether in losing oneself for another or as prey for a predator.

“Dec 16, 2021

THOUGHTS

I didn’t get very far in my thoughts almost 25 years ago,  but I clearly found myself a writer. At least a journalist or a reporter, I think it was difficult to write about singleness when even in my scripture passages, I [sic: sound like I] am not whole single. I am still looking to a man as god. 

Today I can truly write about being single. I could not live the life I have today if I wasn’t single.”


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