Tag: struggles

A Values Crash



I didn’t write yesterday. I felt too swamped with work, even though the only thing I had going was a class presentation at 8 AM. Yes, 8 AM on a Saturday. I needed the rest of the day to recover.


So today I’m going to rest. And not think about Gaia’s Hands for a bit. I have never struggled so much with a book in my life. I am wondering if I should put it aside again and write something else. Like a short story or two. Or another novel. 

I’m obviously avoiding Gaia’s Hands. I have been suggested to write this as a romance novel. I want this book to live up to its potential, yet I don’t see romance as a way to do that. And I feel bad that I don’t hold romance in a better light, because it’s largely written by women and I treasure women writers. In other words, I’m suffering from a values conflict.

But it IS a romance novel, with Jeanne and Josh’s relationship taking center stage. I have to get over my feelings about romance or write it romance-secondary/subplot to make it happen. If you have any advice, please let me know.

Day 25 Reflection: Blessings

 Note: I am not usually overly Christian in my writing, being rather universalist in my leanings. But as the topic is blessings, I thought I would write in the dominant American religious view, Christianity, and its struggle with the concept of blessings.
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I dreamed last night that I was watching a religious TV movie and then I was in it. In the dream, I had checked in to this hotel of sorts, feeling rather down, and I noticed the others in there with me suffered from similar struggles. Being in this place, this boarding house of sorts, elevated us and helped us feel more cherished in the world.

Then I stepped out of the movie for a moment and said to my husband, who watched the movie with me (at a bed-and-breakfast, incidentally) “Watch what happens” in the most cynical tone of voice.

When I returned to the movie, one of the people running the establishment had added a month’s supply of some sort of supplement to my bill. And then the other residents started objecting to the new residents who had come in — from what a sputtering man said, his children should not be exposed to what he called “girly-boys”. 

In a state of being blessed, we too often ask God to bless people like ourselves, not who we see as our enemies. We’d prefer it if God smote our enemies, like He did in the Old Testament. After all, they’re evil. They’re our enemies. We are the chosen ones, after all. We are Christian.

Actually, that’s not Christian. We are supposed to have evolved from that when Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount and when He gave his one Commandmant: Love your God above all and your brother as yourself — and note that he specifically gave an example of the Other — the despised Samaritans — as our brother. 

If you are blessed, bless others. Bless those not like you. Bless your enemies. Blessings are not an economic good — that is, there is no finite amount of blessings such that blessings to your enemies or strangers detract from yours. It may be that your blessings to others soften their hearts or soften yours.

 At the very least, blessing your enemies takes away the constant tension of hating your enemies and wishing them bad. You will find that a blessing.