Maybe
I’ve been mulling over a Zen story about a farmer whose horse ran away. “Such bad luck!” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. Then the horse returned, accompanied by two wild horses. “So fortunate!” the neighbors said. “Maybe,” said the farmer. Later, the farmer’s son tried to ride a wild horse, was thrown off, and broke his leg. “How awful!” the neighbors sympathized. The farmer: “Maybe.” The army came through town, recruiting all the young men. They passed by the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. “Such good luck!” declared the neighbors. “Maybe,” said the farmer. What I can’t get out of my mind is the farmer’s abiding equanimity. Where I ride waves of emotion, he keeps an even keel. The highs of anticipation, excitement, and jubilation, he seems to say, can throw us off as much as disappointment. Throw us off what? Our center. Our place of…
Writing from Deep Gladness to the World’s Deep Hunger
As I move to the close of my second decade of teaching creative writing, I’m experiencing a dramatic shift in my philosophy. Writing has always been for me a means of personal discovery; I came to understand and claim my identity as a bisexual Christian when writing Swinging on the Garden Gate, and then melded my spiritual direction training with writing coaching to support others in profound personal healing and exploration through writing. I’m a firm believer in the power of privacy at the start of a writing project. If a writer’s heart isn’t on the line, what that writer writes hasn’t much chance of mattering. Because I’m well-trained as a feminist, I know the personal is political. So I’ve always trusted that deeply private explorations play a powerful role in public discourse. By reconciling my sexual identity with my faith, in my heart and in Swinging, I believe that,…