(The following sermon was published today on the website of the Twin Cities Area Presbytery; the governing body of my denomination.  Enjoy!)

Scripture: Matthew 21:1-11

"As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

The man at the bus stop was small, thin and shabby. His black skin pock-marked from an early infection, he stared at the ground in front of his ragged shoes and waited for the bus.

I’ve seen him many times. Sometimes he pan handles for bus fare; often I give
him a dollar or two to make it to his stop northeast of the city.

Yesterday he seemed smaller than I remembered; fallen into himself with a private, personal pain.

I don’t know him; don’t know his name or his history. All I know is that he needs my money on occasion and I am happy to pass him whatever I have in my pocket.

But yesterday I felt a connection that went beyond his begging and my acquiescence.

I asked him if he was okay.

He turned to me with fear and relief in his eyes and told me no. He is not okay. He is dying. He feared it for a long time; felt it, he said, in his bones. Yesterday he learned that his fears were righteous. He had, he said, a short time left. Enough time to organize his few things, distribute them to his few friends and prepare to die.

He told me this without hesitation, without pause. His eyes connected hard and fast to mine and I felt myself drawn deep into his pain.

I asked what anyone would; could I do anything for him? Could I cook for him, drive him somewhere, phone someone, buy him groceries?

He smiled. No, he said. There’s nothing left to do. Everything, he said, is in the past now. Everything is over.

“I’m going home,” he said, “to be free.”

I thought of him when I read this passage from Matthew. Jesus enters the city exposing his humility to the citizens; seated upon a donkey, gentle and meek. The gospel writers tell us that the baby Jesus entered our lives in the same way; humble and poor.

He did so because he loved the poor. He did so because he wanted us to love them as well.

We have limitless opportunities to do so. On the bus, on the streets of our city, in our places of work and in our neighborhoods, the poor present themselves to us every day.

Some, like the man on my bus corner, are beyond our help. But Jesus came to Jerusalem to give himself to all of us. The infant in the manger was a gift to the world.

His requirement of us is that we do the same. This advent season, make a decision to release your fear and reach out to the unlovely and the unlovable. Open your heart to those who are hurting; open our homes to those who need the bounty that has blessed us, and open all our lives to the love of God which deepens our compassion, and makes us fit for ministry and service.

I may never see the man on the bus stop ever again. For all I know, he will disappear into the great darkness that poverty creates for those without resources. He will, I think, die alone without the attention every human deserves.

I may never see him again, but every day I see others who are every bit as needy, hurting and desperate as he.

Jesus told us, “the poor are always with us.” And so I watch for our Lord in the faces I meet on the street; the hungry men and angry children, the battered woman and the aggressive, frightened teen agers who walk my city.

I watch for Jesus in the rough, the harsh and the rejected. When church bells chime, when Christmas carols assault the air, when tinsel and white lights line the desperate and tragic streets of my city, I watch for Jesus in the faces of the tired, stressed and weary who hurry home to their dinners and their families.

Like them, I understand that we are living through a hard, desperate and anxious time.

It is also a time of hope. Never before has our nation been so stirred and invigorated to move in a new direction, prepare a new future for the next generation.

At the heart of the hope is the ethic of outreach.

Look beyond the dirty clothes – the downcast eyes and your own fear. Look past the poverty and the filth, and into the soul and spirit of the person before you.

Don’t wait. Let Advent move you to touch and change the life of another creature of God.

Kristine Holmgren is a Honorably Retired pastor who lives in St. Paul.

Living in Minnesota is like living with amnesia.

Don't blame us.  We cannot allow ourselves to imagine life without suffering.

And so we take the bad and call it good.  We keep the mediocre and pretend it is stellar.

The advent of global warming has changed the climate of Minnesota radically.  Even so,  most Minnesotans pretend we still live in the land of four distinct, beautiful and enjoyable seasons, and that we love each one.

Every season, we say, has its own peculiar beauty.  Summer, of course, shimmers with warmth, sunshine, leisure and relaxation.  We choose to not remember the scorching heat, the ridiculous humidity of August.

The spring and fall remind us all of the transitions that we all face - and we bear them with pride and a certain amount of grace. We ignore the fact that because of the harsh summers and awful winters our trees do not have time to turn the colors we expect.  We forget that our spring time is often too hot and too short for tulips and the birds who return here each year, seeking fresh water and emerging earth worms.

But sliding into winter is the worst. It is a bit like riding a reluctant pony.  The anticipation of winter is wonderful, but the actual experience makes us all uncomfortable.

Is winter  beautiful?  Is it fun?  Like riding a lethargic pony, how can a person tell?

Do I love winter or hate it?  I don't know.  I honestly do not know.

Until the first snow fall, the first real snow fall, the landscape is gray with a muted and indifferent death.

Then, one day, when I've forgotten to consider it, I awaken to the first blizzard.

The driveway is gone.  The rooftops disappear against a sky, tamed by large flakes.

I remember where I put my boots when only yesterday I wouldn't be able to find them on a dare.

When you are raised in Minnesota, you grow up with amnesia.  You cannot allow yourself to remember what it means to face another winter; and so you approach the change of seasons with a certain dippy-romantic lie.

Sleigh bells, tinsel on a tree, hot chocolate and home-made baked goods. . .all of these things become the focus of November and the early days of the end of autumn.

Until the big one.

Truth is, more Minnesotans hate winter than enjoy it.

Those of us who can afford to do so, get out of town at the first sign of below-freezing temperatures.

Many take their week-long vacation in late January, early February - with hopes that the break will get them through the rest of the worst time of the year.

Several years ago, when Jesse Ventura was governor and we all received refund checks from our overpayment of state taxes, I suggested the following.

Instead of sending money, send us each, every Minnesota woman, man and child, a voucher for a week-long escape to Cancun. 

Or Santa Barbara.  Or Fiji.

Any place where there is white sand, sun, beaches and nothing to shovel.

Think of the repercussions;  fewer suicides, less domestic abuse.  More loving relationships, happier children.  We would all be healthier, hardier, and return to Minnesota with a new commitment to making our lives better.

As it is - only those Minnesotans with disposable income (read, "real money") can afford to go anywhere in the winter - other than walking one of the shopping malls.

So, here we are.  Stuck. 

The snow is not our only captor.

Minnesotans are trapped by our stubborn lack of imagination. 

If we can't ski, hike, snow shoe, or escape to Bequi, what good can we find in winter?

Damned if I know.

But then, the blizzard has not yet hit.

I'm a little snarly until it does.

Check back after the first school-closing day; when all the edges of our world are rounded with the soft, white blanket of cloud-colored wetness.

Like every other year, I'll probably sing another tune.

At least, I think I will.

But then again - I cannot remember.

The shadows fall, the young day grows weary and old.

And you haven't written a damn thing.

You promised yourself you would make this the day you started the short story.  The great idea for the commentary about Palin, Oprah and Barbara is rattling in the back of your brain, and the Christmas poem you know would be your "break-through" piece needs a first stanza.

And what did you do today?

You worked your job, picked up the kids from day-care, cooked dinner for your family, threw on three loads of whites and collapsed in front of the Sony to watch "Glee"  while your darling spouse put the little binks to bed.

Solid day, sugar.  Lots of stuff got done.

It doesn't matter. does it?  Because you didn't write today, you feel useless, worthless; a sloth in the land of the gazelle.

Don't punish yourself for being lazy.

But don't languish in the languid, lovely land of the loose. 

Make one more promise to yourself; that tomorrow will be another day.

This is not a race to the finish.  The writing life is a stroll down the avenue, arm and arm with your personality, dreams, imagination and humor.

Take your time. Try not to try to hard.

When the inspiration is right, you'll write the inspiration.

Until then, keep the faith - and give yourself both time and permission to get this thing right.

Trust me; if you want it, you can have it.

One day, when you least expect, you'll awaken and realize you are indeed, a real writer. 

When that occurs, everything changes.  Your world has new curves; the sunrise new meaning. 

The possible surrounds you.  Everything becomes infused with purpose. Metaphors no longer elude; images arise when you least expect and ideas overflow.

This happens, bunky, when you write every day.  And you will; someday soon.

Without your permission, you find yourself making time for what you need to do, what you must do.  You cannot imagine your life without a large part of it devoted to words, words, words.

So up, up, up off the couch, Sugar. Turn off "Dancing With the Stars."  The Osmunds, my friend, are not all that interesting.

And none of this will happen if you don't make it happen.

One step, followed by another.

The road to publication begins with your firm, determined will to write.

There are those among us who believe that writers are mystics.

According to some, we're the most religious of all the artists; the most tuned-in-to-the-muse people on the planet.

They believe that when a writer sits down to create,  the work flows or fumbles, dependent only upon the muse.

I don't buy it.  But hey, I write for a living.  If I consigned my livelihood to the whims of wonder, I'd never be able to pay my mortgage.  

A former mentor of mine once said that to be a good writer, one must empty  the mind.  She advised me to quiet my ego, silence my intellect and let the writing speak. 

That's the reason, she said, that historically so many good writers have been falling-down-brown-bag drunks. Hard to empty the mind without first emptying a bottle of Jack Daniels.

As I write this today, it's hard to remember how I tolerated such nonsense.

I did, however.  For many years I believed I was not the writer of my prose; I was a vessel. 

Creepy, right?

True, however. 

As a younger, more impressionable women, I'd grab my pen, trot to a little plot of land or a sweet little coffee shop and wait for the muse to smack me up the side of the head.

Those were the days, I guess, of wine and roses.  Short lived and mighty worthless.

When I started a writing career in earnest I had to face the hard, fast music of the market and my abilities.

Like other professionals, I was responsible on a regular basis to deliver a product.  In my case, my product was high quality prose for publication.

The loony opinion that I should sit, locus style, in front of my computer unprepared to delve into a concept, an idea, a philosophy or a story was incomprehensible.

For ten years I wrote a regular column for a major newspaper.  The content of my next column was on my mind every day of my life. 

In conversations with others, I considered my column.  While buying groceries, I watched for something to write about.

The discipline of high-accountability made me a better person in many ways; a terrible woman in so many others.

I am, I think, damaged by my long career as a social critic.

But that's the topic for another blog entry.  This one is about the mystery of our process and whether or not we should embrace or run from the ambiguity of our craft.

I'm not the only Baby-Boom writer who was taught to empty the brain when picking up the pen.

I studied creative writing at San Francisco State College back in the late 1960's,  In those days we were told to honor our "inner voice," and listen for its still, small presentation.  Hard to imagine, but that was the standard approach.

I cringe when I consider how many of us received that bad, bad advise. On good days I think of the ignorance behind the message. On bad days, I wonder if it was intentional.

Think of this -  my generation, probably more than any other -  was populated with wild-haired revolutionaries and dreamy romantics.  Raised in over-populated Sunday schools, temples and synagogues, we were taught the moral obligations of social action. 

I remember my seventh grade Sunday school teacher telling us the story of the Good Samaritan; a gospel tale of selfless love. 

"Will you be a Samaritan?" she asked us.  We all nodded, confident in our goodness.  "If not you, who?," she said. "If not now, when?"

When we weren't in Sunday school, we were glued to our television sets, watching weekly morality plays on Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond, and the infamous You Were There.

Everywhere we turned we heard the drumming requirement to be good, follow the conscience, do the right thing.  We  were primed to review, critique and if needs be, overthrow the old orders. 

We were the first raised as a "youth culture," and our remarkable self-absorption was (and is) legendary.

Because we were so critical, so Sunday-school thoughtful, so moral, we were a force to be reckoned with. 

Our harsh review of our parent's life must have been insufferable.  It was righteous and revolutionary, a combination difficult to put down if one is trying to be a good parent. 

Our music, our energy, our good will was hell-bent on destroying the old order and creating a new one.

And so we needed to be side tracked from our mission - and the best way was to begin to explore the joy of mindlessness. 

The only way the revolution could be stopped would be if we turned inward and began to ignore the damaged, hurting, imperfect world around us.

I don't think we fell victim to any conspiracy, although I have friends who argue this.  No - I think we were the children of light, moving through the darkness.  Those who examined us knew our generation would change the world forever. We were pacifists.  Socialists   Our music was subversive and shocking.  And we were the Pepsi generation.  We needed to be brought home to our consumer values - the status quo. 

It happened, I think, in 1969 - or maybe in 1970.  I remember -  almost overnight our adult mentors began to put down the virtue of "conscience" and the importance of "doing the right thing."

Instead, our elders began to preach passive acceptance to the world around us. No more talk of "doing good."  Instead, we heard how important it was to be "enlightened." 

The messages were straight up.  "Tune out. Tune in. Turn your mind around.

"Have you never been mellow?  Have you ever tried to find a comfort deep inside you. . .? "

And our educators were not the only folks who told us to stop thinking.  Pop psychologies came up with short-cuts to the lovely, passive life; Primal Scream workshops for the malcontents, "I'm Okay, You're Okay" weekends for divorcing couples; we were inundated with cheap and easy ways to discount the work of being fully human.

Many of us began to turn to the use of alcohol, drugs, sex or physical activities to forget our former sense of purpose.  If a person smoked dope,drank scotch, sucked a sugar cube dunked in LSD, the world wasn't such a bad place after all.

Not me, of course.  Nope.  Never did any of that.  Of course, it's never too late, I suppose. . .

In a heartbeat, my generation was in retreat from the struggle.  The escape was necessary.  Otherwise, it looked like we were going to grow up and change things.  That, of course, would never do.

And so, our educators told us to "let go" and see what happened.

When I trained at the seminary, one of the common mantras was "Let Go and Let God."  My response was, "Let God do what?"

No one I met ever had an answer to that question.

And so it came to pass that an entire generation was taught to believe that creativity flows, unfettered.  The intellect, we were told, only interrupts the creative process.

True art does not need structure.  It does not need a "message" or an "intention."  The true artist meets his or her art with an empty head.  The art draws itself forward.

Of course, this is hogwash.  How did I know?  I began to look around at the dozens of people who called themselves "writers" yet produced nothing.

For a while I lived in a small, Minnesota town populated with underemployed, over-educated women.  I was invited by many of them to join writing groups, poetry collectives, playwright forums.

At first, I jumped at the chance to meet like-minded people.  But there were no like minds in my little town. 

I joined a salon for social criticism and all we did was talk about the best place in Burnsville, Minnesota for Friday night dining, or the cheapest place to buy place mats.

Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's not, however, a writer's life.

Nope.
 
In the end, like it or not, writing is simply writing.

You can run, you can hide, you can try to escape by pretending writing is something else. But in the end, it is what it is.

It is not therapy, although you may find it therapeutic.  It is not world changing, although the world might indeed change because of it.

When all the smoke and mirrors dissipate, we return to the cold, impossible truth.

Writing is only writing.  Those who do it are only writers.

Not an easy life; not a simple life.

But a life, when well studied, when well attended,  produces great work.

The apostle Paul, when asked how one might identify the good people of hte world,  replied, "By their fruits you shall know them."

So it is with writers.

Those who do it, do it. 

Let's keep talking about how that comes to pass. 

One thing I know for certain; it doesn't come without hard work, discipline and serious consideration of the craft. 

My mentor was wrong.  Good  writers plan, think, care and develop their messages, work their craft.

The process might be tedious.

Never, however, is it  mystical.

Rejection is nasty. 

If you write, however, rejection is part of your daily life.

In the closing moments of the film version of the story "Gone With the Wind," Rhett tells Scarlett the marriage is over.

Scarlett, devastated, pleads for him to reconsider.

"Rhett, Rhett! Rhett, Rhett... Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?"

And Rhett replies, "Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn."

The words were cruel,  irreversible and familiar.

When my manuscript is turned away, when my screenplay denied, my essay rejected and my proposal ignored, the dismissal can feel as complete and final as the end of Ms. O'Hara's marriage.

Frankly, no one gives a damn. .

Scarlett's story did not end, however, with Rhett's rejection. 

Nor does the life of a writer. For those of us who take this whole thing seriously, rejection becomes an expected part of the writing experience.  We use it.  Rejection becomes fodder for short story, juice for commentary, the inspiration of the next scene in a stage play.

When I was a little girl, I decided I wanted to be famous.

I wasn't concerned about how this would come to pass.  Maybe I'd grow to be a star on television like Lucille Ball.  Perhaps I'd wake one day to find myself a famous scientist like Margaret Mead. Or a wealthy fashionista like Gloria Vanderbilt.

In the meanwhile,  I would learn to dance like Shirley Temple and dazzle everyone with my outlandish talent.

My parents enrolled me at Vavro's Dance Studio in South St. Paul, and I started my short climb to fame.

In those days I looked a bit like Shirley. My mother combed my hair into ringlets and taught me to smile to accentuate my dimples.  For a while I  was the star of every Vavro production.  Whenever photos were taken of my dance studio, Mary Vavro placed me in the center. 

One day another little girl appeared at Vavro Studio.  Joyce was younger than I, cuter perhaps, with deeper dimples and a wealthy father. 

Overnight, I lost everything.

Where once I was asked to dance in the spot light, Joyce now danced.  Mary Vavro no longer wanted me in the center of her promotional photos. Joyce became her new star.

I was a little girl and this, of course, was hard for me to understand.  One afternoon at the studio, when Joyce was asked again to show us all the right way to do the "step-buffalo,"  I threw myself into a full-blown pout. 

My humiliated mother pulled me aside.

"Who do you think you are?" she asked.  It was one of her favorite questions.

"No one," I answered.  My favorite answer. It usually ended the back and forth that was to become our banter.

This time,however, my mother was not satisfied with my response.  She pushed for more.

:"You are not 'no one,' young lady." she said.  "But you are  not the only one either."

And so it came to pass that my mother imparted one of the first hard lessons of childhood.  Kristine Holmgren is not  the center of the universe.

 The world, she said, is larger than Kristine Holmgren.  Each of us has a part to play in the unfolding of the drama of life. 

Sometimes the spotlight will shine on Kristine, she said.  Sometimes the spotlight will shine on another little girl. This, said my wise mother, is right, good and the way things ought to be.

"Think of how awful your life would be if everyone worshiped you," she said.  "You wouldn't be able to go to the bathroom without everyone worrying about you falling in."

I assured her that would never be a problem for me.  I would take her with me, to make everyone feel better.

"You miss the point," she fussed.  "Kristine, you cannot be the only special person.  Everyone is special.  Don't ever forget that."

Fame rises, fame fades.  Spotlights grow dim and move to the next shining place.

Good things are followed by bad.  No one gets everything all the time.  Success, eventually, is followed by failure. .

:"So listen up, Missy," my mother wagged her finger in front of my pouting face, "snd make proud.  Show these kids how classy you can be and step into the crowd so someone else can shine."

I remembered her words when, years later, I had lunch with the late Paul Gruchow.

A successful writer, wonderful teacher and sensitive man, Paul struggled with envy and bouts of self doubt.

"I don't want anyone to know," he said, "what I'm working on.  My biggest worry is that someone will steal my idea."

Competition was everywhere, he said.  Every time he slowed down, he sniffed it at his heels.

"When I'm rejected," he said, "someone else is accepted.  That makes me crazy."

I don't agree with the late Mr. Gruchow.  My life experiences have revealed a different orientation.

I don't see writing as a competitive sport.

When my work is rejected, my work is rejected.  Period.

There's more where that came from and I keep writing.

No one wants to read my stuff today?  That's okay.  Perhaps someone will read what I write tomorrow.  In the meanwhile, my craft is mine; no one can take it from me.  My way of telling a tale, sharing a perspective, styling a paragraph;all of these things are unique to me.  No one writes like Kristine Holmgren.

And no one writes as do you.   That is why the literary world has room for you.

Think not?  Think again.

Readers need us.  Readers are hungry for whatever we manufacture and distribute.

Consider the life of an average reader.  One book each month, perhaps; twelve books per year.  Multiple that one reader by the number of readers in the universe.  See?  Start writing!  .

And consider this - the average American reads two magazines each week, a newspaper (or two) in the morning.  Some of this is online reading, of course - and who knows how much content is consumed on the internet.  Market researchers have yet to develop appropriate instruments to measure and understand the ways in which our media and literature are currently consumed. 

As a writer, you are part of a large chorus of contributors.  By writing what you write, you meet a certain need,  My writing is different from yours - and  I meet another.  Every writer has a right to be here, writing and sharing.

Whether or not it is clear to you, the publishing world is unfolding as it should. 

Rejection is a part of it all.  You will be rejected many, many times. Nonetheless, your job as a writer is to strive to be good at your craft.

Your job is to write, every day, and keep writing.

Your job is to persevere, show up at the keyboard, keep your promises to yourself and your readers.

The rest, my dear, will take care of itself.

When rejection comes, accept it as affirmation that you are making a contribution, and that you are one step closer to  the acceptance you crave.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

I know, I know.  Writing is a "lonely" life.

I hear it whenever I meet another writer.

These days, I'm writing stage plays.  Writing stage plays requires me to engage others along the way.  A person cannot write a play in a vacuum.  The playwright needs an artistic director to assist in determining the scope of the project  and  a group of readers who interpret the work.

Like all writing, however, the work is done by one person.  Alone.

No one praises me while I write.

No one stands over my shoulder and says, "Oh, Kristine - you are so clever!  I would never have thought of that!  Where did you get that fabulous concept?"  No one.

Professor Brainiac,my former husband,  provided a little of that.  But look what happened to him.

Nope.  Writers write alone.  We can't use an audience.  We don't need one. 

Until the time is right and the project needs feedback, we're the nerd kids with ink stains on our middle fingers, perpetual worry smeared across the face and the need to tap, tap, tap our fingers on the table as you try to explain anything to us that does not pertain to the project we're writing.

But even nerds need approval.

Get yourself into a routine where, on a regular basis, someone has the opportunity to say something positive to you.  Not necessarily about your writing alone -  something nice about you .

Make certain it happens by doing something for others every day.  Greet a neighbor and ask about her garden.  Compliment the check-out at the grocery store and thank him for his meticulous attention to his work.  Share your spaghetti dinner with a neighbor - offer to rake someone's autumn leaves.

You're a writer - - you see what needs to be done; you sense the emotions and needs around you.  Step up.  Meet and exceed an expectation every day.

People will shine up to you.  Some one will "howdy do" you when you least expect it.

Daily.  Get yourself out there every day.

And stop whining.  It's a lonely life, this life of writing.  And it's the life you chose.  The life you love.

One morning, much like this one, you awaken and find yourself twice the size you once were.

And now you a fat woman.  Lord, have mercy. 

You have no one to blame but yourself for the altercation of your physique.   All along  the journey you had opportunities to stop the madness. 

A friend invited you to join his walking club.  Your neighbor asked you to play tennis; your daughter wanted to you take up golf. 

And of course, there was that older man you met at the Unitarian church. The one with the toilet-seat hair cut who kept inviting you to the Tapestry Club for something called "contra dancing."

You turned them down.  Every one of them.  You told them you needed to sacrifice for your art.  And so month after month, instead of swinging kettle bells, you swing a fountain pen.  Instead of sit ups and crunches,  you sit in front of your computer and crunch adjectives into the Great American Novel.

There's a price to pay for this literary obsession.  Once upon a time you had a face and body that inspired a man to build a wilderness outhouse  in your honor. 

Now you resemble one.

To make matters worse, you feel as fat as you are.  Your back hurts.  Your shoulders ache.  Your legs fail after brief stroll to the top of the stairs.

And you remember what your old writing sage Judy Delton once told you - writing is not an aerobic activity.

Judy, of course, was morbidly obese.

You know the truth.  Fat girls might get published, but they won't live long enough to spend the royalties.  Judy's contract with Dell Publishers for the Pee Wee Scout  series made her a millionaire and, as I write this, continues to support her children and grandchildren. 

But Judy is dead; too early, from obesity. You won't see her on the beaches of Curacao this winter.

The lesson?  A writer has to hike the path to fame.  A writer needs to move.

Each day, before you sit to write, exercise.

Take the dog around the block.  Jump in the car and head to the Y for a few laps.

Put on the motown and boogie.

Not all of us age as did Steinbeck.  Most of us grow into a version of Orson Wells.

Sure, Virginia Woolf was a compulsive, prolific author who wrote herself into near starvation.  But you're no Virginia Woolf. Raised on fortified bread, beef and dairy, if you were to throw yourself into the River Ouse, bereft of all hope,  you wouldn't need stones in your pockets to pull you into the mud. .

So, get out of your seat, put on your twenty-year-old Nikes and get moving.  You know what I'm talking about; the ones with the grass stain from when you raked the leaves two years ago, before you began the third revision of chapter ten.

The muse will not be annoyed - in fact, the muse will follow.

My experience is this - the muse only comes to writers who are depressed, lonely, drunk or physically fit. 

Last time I checked, it's  too early in the day for gin.

Most of us begin our lives with little sense of how we want it to unfold.

A vague hope for "happiness," a certain desire for stability and a simple claim to consistency is all that drives us.

Then, without invitation and against our will, our lives come into focus.  For some the focus is work-related. We find a work, a life with real purpose and meaning.  We drive ourselves forward, focused on work and career.

Other find focus in marriage, family, building a home and a new life. Knowing who we are, we dive into our communities with belief that our gifts make a difference.  Our lives matter.

This happens, remember,  without invitation.  None of us will this to occur - it emerges when we are ready to receive.  I like to think of it as "grace;" a gift, freely given to each of us; a gift we have not earned and did not seek.

I come to this definition because of the way in which grace pulled me into focus.

I remember it well.  I was sixteen-years-old when my parents' marriage ended.  The year was 1965.  Twiggy ruled the fashion scene and the Beatles were in competition with the Rolling Stones for the hearts and minds of my generation.

The world was upside down with demonstrations against racism, early resistance to the war in Vietnam and an increasing awareness of the growing, uncompromising poverty that was on the rise in urban and rural communities.

I cared nothing for any of it. Living in the shadow of my parents' cruel marriage, I only knew fear.

I felt this way because no one gave me an alternative.  My mother was not sophisticated enough to comfort me while my father destroyed our family. No one, it seemed, had the imagination to stop him.  My father drove his destruction to its ugly end and our family dissolved into shame and ruin. 

My beloved brother joined the war in Vietnam to escape the cruelty of it all. My older sister, worried and distraught,  moved home to try to save us. In so doing she abandoned her three little children to a husband who never forgave her.

Every day was fraught with ugly, terrifying domestic drama.  My mother in tears, my angry sister storming her righteousness throughout the house.  And I was too young to know the sad truth; that none of it was my fault, and I could neither fix nor save anything.

It was a November afternoon, much like this one.  The skies were dark with the hint of winter to come. My mother, my only friend in my family, had moved away to save herself, leaving me in a house filled with people who did not see or care for me.

I had no one. No one watched to make certain I did my geometry.  No one troubled to give me money for milk or pack my school lunch.  No one laundered my clothes or made them self available to sign my report card, sit beside me in the pew on Sunday or drive me to piano lessons.

Outside the family, no one knew the truth.  In those days, parents stayed married.  Only drunks, whores and the mentally ill divorced.

Shame crowded my life.  I longed to not exist.  Some nights when I went to bed, I closed my eyes and prayed to awaken in a new time, a new place, a new little girl.

On this particular day, my father told me something ugly; I no longer remember what it was.  Something, I'm certain, about his loathing for my mother, his disdain for our family, his desire for freedom.  Whatever the message, he broke my heart.  I longed to escape. 

There was no where to go where he could not interrupt me with his anger.  In those days, there were no locks on our doors; my parents were immigrant Swedes who, because of the way they were raised,  did not believe in personal, individual privacy. 

Only one room was private; the family bathroom on the second floor. And so to think things through on that bleak, sunless day, I did what I always did to get away from everyone.  I retreated to the family bathroom and locked the door.  There I sat and wept for my lost family.  

The room was appointed in God-awful blush pink.  The garish hue covered  not only the tile, but the tub, toilet and sink as well.   Using the bathroom at our house was a bit like slipping into a rosy repose.  And so I sat in that cramped, difficult room, surrounded in pink, and wept for over an hour until I could cry no more. 

When at last I felt in control, I rose to look at myself in the mirror.

It was something I did a great deal in those days.  I was, after all, a teen age girl, obsessed with my appearance. 

On that raw, November afternoon, I looked into the mirror, expecting to see as I always did, the same round, optimistic face I always engaged.

It wasn't the first time, and would not be the last, that I saw my face in pain.  My eyes were red and swollen with suffering.  The year was 1965 and my lips were too full to be pretty by Twiggy standards.  My hair needed shampoo and the puffy flesh of my nose and brow was flushed with sorrow.

But that afternoon, I looked beyond all the anxieties I usually found in the girl in the mirror.  I looked beyond the disfigurement and drama of that November afternoon, beyond my hurting heart and desperate yearning for peace.

I looked deep into the mirror, my face inches from the glass.  My eye met the eye in the mirror, and look deep into the blue rimming the black core. As if for the first time, I lingered, looking beyond what I had always seen. 

I emerged.  In the curvature of my sweet, young chin I saw my determination.  In the tender, submissive corners of my smile, I found my compassion and power.  In the gentle arch of my brow, my gentle eye lash, the subtle chip of enamel on my front tooth, I found someone worthy of protecting.

"You're going to be all right," I said aloud.  "You're going to get through this, come out the other side, and be all right."

There, alone in the ghastly pink room, I wrapped my sixteen-year-old self in my arms, and rocked myself into comfort.

Someone knocked on the door and ordered me out. I don't remember who, and it doesn't matter.

I emerged. On the other side of the door, I emerged as myself. 

Most of us go through life without seeking purpose.  We let purpose find us, trip us up, hold us hostage and rip us into submission.

On that November day, forty-something years ago, while the Vietnam war tortured and nearly killed my brother; while my sister wept in the cellar over her lost babies and my mother languished in exile in a house far from the one she loved, I  found myself.

Grabbing hold, I created purpose for my childhood and the years to come.

When the November shadows fall and I feel more than ever the pressing limits of my life,  I allow myself to remember the meaning behind that dreary decision.

I remember a pink room and a young girl, sick in powerlessness and innocence, who emerged a resilient woman, tired of the austerity of shame and the hungry hold of pain.