10 days

in ten days i will be getting married.

all the preparation has kept me quite busy, along with everything else that already goes on in normal life. i haven't really written much of anything for some time now, but i miss it. ideas are constantly coming up into my head for stories, for blogs, for musings, for poems. and then that little voice that sneaks its whispers in, "don't forget, you are a writer."

it's sounds a little pretentious, i know. especially when you haven't published anything or made a dime off writing. but it's more of an identity thing. no, not identity. that's not the right word. vocation? you're supposed to make money with that too, right? how about that it's in my soul? yeah, i could say that.

there is something in writing that is cathartic to my soul.

you see, writers see the world a little differently. they see things from angles that express a slightly tilted world--one a little off from how you usually see it. they pick up the essence of a "character" in a short conversation with a stranger. they are usually a little strange, perhaps slightly "disturbed" as other people might call it. i like to think i do a pretty good job of hiding it.

so, all that to say, here's to writing again. which begins now, not tomorrow, not after the wedding or after this or after that. start where you are.


ok so back to this marriage thing. today we had our final meeting with the pastors who are marrying us. it was good, mostly going over final details and such, but also praying deeply about all of this. and in one of the prayers a phrase stuck out to me, "knitting our souls together." it stuck out, not because i got a mental image of a giant old man dressed in white clinking knitting needles together while he listens to prayers, but because this is a deep and great mystery. and the picture of knitting together captures a very small piece of that mystery.

i will begin and continue to experience this great mystery of love and union that is so powerful and unique. and i only am coming to that through an engagement of absolute commitment. i am very intrigued by the relationship between mystery and commitment, but i'm saving those thoughts for another venue (where perhaps i'll actually get paid for writing it! oo i know you're curious now, aren't you? i'll let you know, don't worry.)

the thing about knitting together souls souls that is a fitting image rather than say, the melting together of metals (which you don't really hear), is that each one keeps its identity though it is interwoven within the other's. yes the busyness of planning a wedding and craziness of life at certain times can pull you away from who you are and the things you love, but that only for a time.  true and healthy intimacy will always affirm and exalt the other person in who they truly are, and allow them the space to live it without suffocating for personal need/dependency. 

it's the mystery that as you completely and fully give yourself to another person you actually find that you have become more yourself. i feel this is what so many people do not realize when they fear commitment or overlook the significance of marriage by entering into it without their whole selfs. 

and that is where this all ties together (see i did that writer thing).  coming closer to the time of marriage, and i'm sure after actually being married, i will only experience a greater desire and welling up of my soul to write, because that is who i am.  and in my love for heather and her love for me i am compelled to be a better man, to be more fully myself, to live a life that is significant--and a big part of that for me is creating through writing. 

ten days and i will be united with another human being in a way that is indescribable.  and at the same time in ten days i will be more fully myself than i ever have been before.  amen.

did i say ten?  i think it's after midnight now, close enough right?. . . not that i'm eager or anything.