By Mark Azzara
My Dear Friend,
Last week I wrote a blog about Henri J.M. Nouwen’s book “The Return of the Prodigal Son” and how deeply it is impacting me. I also said that if I continue writing, I’ll be doing things much differently.
Well, this is it. How do you like it? I suppose you need a little more information before answering that question, so let me explain.
One of Nouwen’s problems as a writer, teacher, priest and confidante was that he spent a lot of time wondering how other people reacted to what he said/wrote/taught, and how he said/wrote/taught it. The content of what he said/wrote/taught was never enough of a reward. He was always waiting for the reaction.
That’s the trap into which I have fallen for most of my career as a writer. And it’s been a long career — more than 50 years. I’ve written a LOT of stuff in that time. And, like Nouwen, I’ve spent most of my life wondering who read it and how they took it, particularly because I so rarely ever got any feedback.
But after reading Nouwen’s words about his spiritual/emotional transformation I realize that if I am to know any peace as a writer, my writing must change.
And that’s why I began with “My Dear Friend.”
This may still technically be a blog but I now intend to write something different. From now on, I will write a letter to you every so often (weekly, unless I run out of energy). I will write only to you, the one who is reading this letter. By doing so, I am reducing my audience to one person — you. I no longer need to worry about impressing a big group (not that I’ve ever had a “big group” of readers) because I am focused on writing only to you.
When you write to one person, you say things that you might never say to a larger group. And in the sentence I just wrote I have created the perfect example of the transformation I’m talking about. That preceding sentence was written from my old mindset — with a group in mind. I must learn to stop using the word “you” and start using the word “I” instead. And I must think of the implications that come with saying “I.”
Let me try again.
When I write to one person, I have no idea what I might say. But I am not worried about what I might say to that one person — you — because the presumption is that there is some level of connection between us, something that makes you more than a faceless, unknown reader.
Aha, I know what it is!!! You’re my pen pal. I know that sounds childish and naïve but that’s what you are, in a sense. When writing to a pen pal I don’t have to be concerned about holding the attention of a crowd. I am free to share bits of my life, perhaps an occasional observation about the world in general, perhaps some outrage that I need to vent in the company of a trusted friend, but it’s always something between us.
And I encourage you to reply. I have no desire for this letter and/or future ones to become monologues. I don’t know everything. I need perspective. I need what Nicholas Damascus recently called for in another favs.news blog — the cooperative pursuit of truth, which forces us to confess that we don’t know truth very well.
I got an embarrassing grasp of that when I attended a large district meeting of my church on Saturday. I went there with all kinds of attitudes — I know what’s going on here, I think this guy screwed up for not doing this or that, and the documents we were sent read like a business plan rather than a word spoken by the Holy Spirit.
But then the leader of our meeting got up and spoke with passion about that plan. That’s what was missing from the documents: passion.
And just a few minutes later I apologized to the guy who’d sent us those documents at the last minute, because I heard God telling me to knock off the criticism because the compilation of those documents was delayed by two snowstorms in five days. When I told him I’d heard the passion I’d hoped to find in the documents, he replied, “The challenge now is to write documents where that passion jumps off the page.”
It was a very freeing exchange. Brief. Honest. Uplifting. I had confessed my self-righteousness and cynicism, realized I don’t have all the answers, and acknowledged to myself that there was as much wisdom in the other 300+ delegates as there was in me. And with that I was free of the need to carry around the burden of believing that I know everything. As Nicholas reminded us in his blog, only Jesus does.
All God’s blessings to you – Mark
