Hope for the less than brave.

I began this challenge to share more of my writing publicly well over nine months into a year I had told myself that my word for this year was “Brave.” Aside from a few isolated moments of shuffle steps toward courage, usually coerced rather than volunteered, I have failed pretty miserably. Fear is the Goliath that I scramble to find stones to defeat, but often only find dirt clods that crumble in my hands. Fear intimidates the tenacity needed in any act of bravery. But fear of what? Well, when it comes to throwing something I write out into the world for anyone to see, my mind conjures up images of throwing myself over a cliff onto the jagged rocks of judgment, rejection, criticism and character or reputation annihilation. Or maybe the slightly less dramatic outcome of someone’s indifference. As if that weren’t enough, there is also this fear of seeming self-indulgent. That may actually be the biggest fear of them all. To be self-indulgent seems, well, selfish; arrogant, absorbed with all things Me. As if I have something to say worth listening to.

Writing has always been simply a devotional practice driven by a love and high regard for words, particularly the written ones. Words are just the topsoil, really, of thought or emotion that unearths much deeper things than the word itself. I think maybe that is why writing can help us make sense of our lives; carving a path through our pain and hopefully into a clearing out on the other side of it. Writing makes a way for us to place outside of ourselves all that is swirling around inside of ourselves. I remember seeing a cartoon of therapy once that had all kinds of craziness and chaos twisted and knotted up inside the client’s thought bubble. Inside the therapists thought bubble was an organized and untangled translation of what was really going on in the client’s mind. I think writing can be like that too, creating order through words out of our chaos of thought.

As a professional counselor for over 30 years, I have had the privilege of bearing witness to how words can unlock inner rooms full of deep things, hidden things; pain, suffering, fear, grief, trauma. Often the right word, or combination of them, is the key to that space inside that needs the door gently cracked open, that lean in a little and say, “Hey, are you ok? Can I come sit with you? Do you want to talk?” Those spaces can be accessed by the words of safe people in our lives or through the wise, kind, compassionate words we can learn to speak to ourselves. The latter, in fact, becomes the master key to every room in our inner house.

The longing to write has always felt like God to me. Not a god, though maybe it is a kind of idolatry: A false god that becomes the focus of my attention in order to gain attention, rather than the focus on the One who has given me something, anything, to write about and just enough skill in assembling a few words together to pull it off.

Nothing brave happens if nothing brave happens, so here goes. If you are reading this that must mean that I continued to take tiny, baby, shuffle steps toward a bit of bravery. I can neither confirm nor deny whether there is a hand pressing firmly against my back. Maybe the kind of bravery we see in the movies is really just found in movies. Maybe most of us just stumble, shuffle, crawl ourselves into our acts of bravery. Regardless of the outcome; even if you never parachute out of a plane, run into a burning building to rescue a puppy, move to a third world country to love on orphaned babies, or risk your life for love of country – or even, like me, imagine throwing yourself over a cliff onto jagged rocks below, you did get out of bed this morning. Well, maybe you didn’t, but you did scroll through some posts and begin to read. So that’s a start. Let’s begin there.

As a result of last year’s failure to be more brave, I decided that this year’s word would simply be, Begin. Just begin. The following are a somewhat loosely assembled, disconnected but not unrelated reflections on some of the stuff of life and humanity. Some I have learned by the life I have myself lived, but much of this is unapologetically stolen wisdom from the hundreds, maybe thousands, of precious humans who have sat on my literal therapy couch over these past 33 years and entrusted me with the stories and lessons of their own lives. Some people find treasures of loose change in their cushions, I get to find treasures sitting right on top of mine.  

In the end, the only end I aim for is to keep the promise I made to myself to be more brave. And to just begin. A kept promise that I hope answers the invitation shoved under the door of my spirit more years ago than I care to admit;  and is a brave step that responds to the nudges of many a kind other whose affirmations and gentle hands on my back have breathed in me courage enough to find words enough to say enough to fear. 

If there is something in these words that makes you feel more seen or heard, or to not be so alone in the reflections of your own interior life; if you are inspired to step more bravely into your own one beautiful life, then fear has taken a smooth stone to the forehead. That is my hope, but even if not, I have held true to my own promise and ever so fearfully crept into my own bravery, and took a lifelong giant down.  

Nothing that I say here couldn’t be better said, or has been, by someone else. But that’s the ground-leveling beauty of all of art, writing, or creativity of any kind. Take the pressure off; none of us are truly original.  By someone else, somewhere else, a seed was planted. This is just what it looks like when it’s watered in my garden. It will take a different form and beauty of its own when it flourishes from the personality, experiences, temperament, DNA and perspective of another.  All art plants something in each of us that didn’t come solely from ourselves. I think it’s important to remember that nothing I have done or accomplished comes from me alone.

Every song uses the same notes used in variation to create a symphony, and every writing uses the same alphabet in variation to tell a story. I have exactly zero musical talent, but by only the grace of God, may He orchestrate these words into something He would enjoy listening to.

More to come, one smooth stone at a time. It may take the rest of my life, but this is my brave beginning.

“May these words of my mouth and these meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14