First Things First

So, a few of my friends recently told me to take up writing again. I honestly haven't penned a word that didn't reek of English paper since my eleventh grade year of high school. Because this is the case, I figured a blog would be a good start to "getting back into the swing of things." It's easier to start with "Today...blah blah blah" than to make "dark, stormy nights" interesting and original.

Because this is my first entry, I feel it would be fitting to state why I call this thing "Letters from the Editor." After all, I'm no Editor-in-Chief and if I wrote for the New York Times or The Atlantic Monthly, you definitely would have heard of me before now.

The first thing you should know is that I am an English major. Because of this, I can't help but try to form thematic statements for each year of my life. I love nothing more than to look back over the year and pinpoint the exact lesson or virtue that God was trying to instill in me. Doing this helps me not only connect the dots of various situations that would otherwise be random happenings (which honestly bother me...yes, I am a neurotic, closet control freak.) but also gives the "not-so-beautiful" things that happen a label. Giving hard things a label helps one deal with the why question. For example--Question: Why did I struggle with an eating disorder in high school? Answer: To help others later on who would confide in me about their own eating disorders.

So what's the problem with this philosophy? It has gaps. There are some things that are simply beyond explanation. There are even things, and I am sorry fellow creative writers slash grammarians, that are beyond words. For the first time in my life, when I look over this past year at the "Marriage Mill on the Hill" (better known as Covenant College) I can form no thematic statement. My sophomore year at college was full of random get-togethers with people I never saw again, friendships that fizzled out, gained fervor, and became...well...just plain weird, and hard situations that no matter how much logic I use cannot be placed into a singular box. I use to be able to reason my way out of everything, to make up analytical hypotheses that made each part of my life disectable and easy to deal with. I am no longer at that point.

I am beginning to learn that mysterious is okay. Life can't be diagrammed like sentences, and no matter how much I would like to tear apart the thesis of my own life like I do the papers that come by the writing center, the truth is, sometimes the thesis is that there is no thesis. I believe that the main thing God is and has been trying to teach me this past year is that I create thematic statements and overarching reasons that serve as notebook dividers in my whirlpool of a life because I like control. Labeling is easier than falling back in faith, hoping beyond all hope that someone is there to catch you when the shit hits the fan. I have, for most of my life, been trying to be the editor of my own book. Though I say all of the cliche' things like "God drives my car" and "God writes my love story," this is actually not true. Most of the time, I give God the ID tag that says Editor-in-Chief but treat him like my personal secretary.

I find all of the grammar mistakes in my work and try to fix the sentence fragments and awkward phrases myself. I take the red pen labeled "the blood of Jesus" from God's hand and scratch it across the surface of the paper, dividing, labeling, and outlining because it's a lot easier than trusting that the King of the Universe can do whatever he wants, whether it involve a thematic statement that I can identify or not. I am just now learning why I always try to edit my own mistakes and am discovering the value in simply "letting things be."

Because God has recently stopped bringing me Green Tea Frappes from Starbucks (which He obviously only did in my head) and has now told me to stop playing publicist of my own life, I have been demoted. I am no longer editor of my own life and have instead begun receiving letters from The Editor, whose formal name is Yahweh. So, I title this blog "Letters from the Editor" because over the summer I plan on receiving marked up copies of text for the first time in quite a while. If you want to learn more about my summer and my controlling ways, please continue reading as I receive "Letters from the Editor." Join me in attempting to listen to the Holy Spirit, shutting my big fat mouth when God tells me what's up, and dealing with my demotion to ambassador and secretary to the Editor-in-Chief on High!