Here’s a paradox: the story I tell in my book, A Gracious Heresy: the Queer Calling of an Unlikely Prophet, is an extension of the work of my life. Another way I bear witness. Another kind of prophetic ministry. Now hold that in one hand. In the other hold the idea that I am a creative person who dances with language and paints pictures with words.
1- Faithful to a call in which ego often gets shoved out of the way
and
2- writer as artist with ego to spare.
Interesting intersection. Actually, not a new one for me. I teeter on a balance beam between the two and list one way or the other depending on the time of day, my frame of mind, and how centered I am in Godde on any given moment.
I am not particularly good or saintly. If you read my story you will discover a gleefully imperfect woman. I do have a wicked little voice in one ear that berates me for not being perfect. But there is a stronger voice in my other ear that says, “do your best and let it go” and “you will never be without flaws but don’t be without integrity”.
I wish I could be as good to my writer self as I am to my human self. But maybe that’s the answer to my dilemma today: to know that my work is not perfect, but I have done it with integrity.
Wow. Thanks for listening to me untangle that internal knot. I invite you to do the same. Unravel the cords that bind you to the falsehood that you are not good enough because you are not ‘perfect’.
Amen.
I was once asked if something was the best I could do or was it the best that could be done. One is my strength, the other for those who may be much more capable. I am not a thoroughbred. I am a plow horse. I take pride in my furrows.
I have the same struggle. Some days I just about take a shower, get dressed, and feed myself. On those days, I remind myself that little victories are still victories. Other days I clean, I unpack long-sealed moving boxes, write and publish a long poem, run errands, and help a friend. And yet, on those days, the small inner voice tries to berate me for the remaining tasks, the ones I didn’t do. On both kinds of days, I try to gentle myself into bed with the thought that I did the best I could, and that is always good enough.
I also have to share with you how much this essay brings back to me echoes of the Rap Haggadah you’ve led in years past, a happy memory.
ah… it would have been enough. thanks for sharing!