Tag: inspiration

The Words I Have Inside

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Writing is no easy task. You sit down to a blank page while your thoughts are in a tangled knot and try to pull one strand at a time out onto the page. Word choice, punctuation, anecdotes, timing — they all matter to make your story pop the way you want. One misplaced sentence or thoughtless word can clip your carefully pulled string, leaving you with two raw and broken thoughts to clumsily tie together.

I once read that amateur writers write when they are inspired, but professional writers write even when they aren’t. That must be true. I want to live up to that name, Writer, but I worry of falling short of it. Does any writer ever feel their work is good enough? Clear enough? Inspiring enough? Real enough? True enough? The more I write the more I am plagued with doubts about the legitimacy of spending every morning at my computer, sometimes typing out thoughts without a clear understanding of where my words will end up.

However,  another writer has also said, “Stories are our prayers. Write and edit them with due reverence, even when the stories themselves are irreverent. Stories are parables. Write and edit and tell yours with meaning, so each tale stands in for a larger message, each story a guidepost on our collective journey. Stories are our history. Write and edit and tell yours with accuracy and understanding and context and with unwavering devotion to the truth…. Stories are our soul. Write and edit and tell yours with your whole selves. Tell them as if they are all that matters. It matters that you do it as if that’s all there is.” (Pulitzer Prize winner, Jacqui Banaszynksi)

The reason I return each morning to my computer, however tired I may be, is that I believe the above is true. I believe stories have the power to change our world. I have seen this time and time again, from testimonies of how a friend’s world was changed by an act of faith to the stories of refugees fleeing darkness for just a glimpse of some light. Stories matter. They give us meaning when all we seem to have is a tangled up knot of our experiences. They act as a compass in this wild, mapless life.

Stories matter deeply to me, and expressing them through writing seems to be one of the clearest way I can tell mine. So even when I don’t see the immediate fruit of my labor, I will continue to write so that I might grow and improve to tell my story to the best of my ability. The words I have are ones I pray bring hope and remind others of that sometimes forgotten spark of joy life holds for us. After all, no one else can express the words I have inside. The same is true for the words inside of you. No one else can tell the world how you see it, so why not you?

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Arresting Beauty

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My heart tightened in my chest. My eyes widened. My breath caught—then spilled out in a torrent of laughter.

I stood on a hill surrounded by farmland on all but one side, where the sea met a cliff’s edge and winked with every silver splash. The distant hills of the Highlands had turned a royal purple with the setting sun and the world was cast in golds and blues and pinks, the colors of wonder.

Sheep decorated the hillside, as if each was intentionally placed, and stood upon a tall crag nearby—perfect silhouettes against the ruby-colored sky.

Down below, nestled between the sea and the folds of the surrounding hills, lay a town—a “royal borough” as the friendly locals called it—just on the edge of sleep. The windows of its houses glowed faintly, and as the sun slipped from the valley, those pockets of light gave the illusion that a net of golden stars rested upon the place.

Glancing toward the sea I was treated with yet another great sight. Rising from the low-hanging clouds above the sea was a nearly-full moon. It was one of those glorious autumn moons that seem to grow to twice its normal size along the horizon. As it hung in a pink and purple sky, it looked more like a great pearl button on a cushion of silk than a heavenly body thousands of miles away.

Just in case you thought I was exaggerating.

I am well prepared to face most kinds of beauty, but this place took my breath away in the truest sense of that phrase. It arrested my heart, and I hope—I pray—it never lets me go for the wonder it has given me in return. As I gazed upon it all, the sheer splendor was almost more than I could bear. So I sank to my knees and laughter broke from my lips. Why? Because there was nothing else I could do at that point, but laugh.

With this laughter came a feeling deep in my soul that this was one of the best ways of all to discover God. When face-to-face with beauty of this magnitude, time slows, “reality” pauses and the wonder of the moment takes your heart to new heights. Resting upon that hill felt like a glimpse of a truer reality. As if waking from a dream, I had a feeling that I was being let in on some great secret—that this was the heart of God. No hymns sung off-key in a quiet church could quite compare to the majesty and mastery of God in His element. This is the God I know. This is the God I worship. This is the reality He calls us to.

There is a richness in this arresting beauty that refuses to be commodified. It cannot be bought or sold, yet it can be sought. And only in the seeking will we realize that we were the ones being sought all along. C.S. Lewis—and countless other great writers—have noted that even if a person were to never hear the gospel or read a bible, they could still come to know God and how he pursues us through the world He created. In just a single sunset I discovered how true that could be.

Sunset along the northeastern coast of Scotland.

A Lesson on Exploration from a Canadian Fjord

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 “A ship is safe in harbor. But then again that’s not what ships are for.”

—Admiral Grace Hopper

So far in 2017 I have escaped to Canada three times. Retreating from the loony American politics and the gloomy Seattle weather, a few close friends and I have gone to a little cabin north of Vancouver, located in a mountain-rimmed fjord. It’s only accessibly by boat, so there are no cars making noise or people walking around. Just the sea, mountains, and us—in a word: perfection.

Most of our mornings were spent blissfully caffeinated with a cozy fire at our backs, marveling at the view outside. However, one morning I decided to not just gaze at the mountains and sea, but to get in the midst of them on a kayaking trip to the northern part of the inlet with our Canadian friend, James. The water was abnormally choppy that day as the wind had kicked up, but we were determined to at least give it a try. So I dressed in layers, grabbed a life jacket, and met James at the dock.

The start of our journey was effortless as we kayaked out of the cabin’s sheltered cove. However, once we got beyond the protective rocks we were hit full force with wind gusts and waves. The water was almost indistinguishable from its usual glassy calm. For over an hour we hugged the cliffs along the edge of the fjord in an attempt to avoid the brunt force of the wind. Though eventually we had two options, either cross open water to reach the other shore or to turn back.

A beautiful and old abandoned power station from the early 1900’s sat on the other side. I had been itching to visit it since my first trip to the area and it taunted me, as if waiting to be explored. So after checking our energy levels (and gumption), we decided to make the most dangerous part of our journey. We would cut across the wind and waves, all coming at us sideways, to reach the power station.

While the other photos are mine, I snagged this one from google because I couldn’t stop to take a picture from the water.

Though the sky was blue and cloudless, it was bitterly cold and the wind relentless. The sea was so riled-up that 2-3ft tall waves slammed against our kayaks as soon as we abandoned the safety of the rocks. Those waves might not sound large, but try sitting half submerged in a little plastic tube sometime, with nothing but the lip of a kayak to keep water from leaping a few inches up and over that ledge and inside with you.

It didn’t help that after we hit the first few whitecaps James called to me across the waves, “You know, we would only last about five minutes in the water at this temperature… so don’t fall in!”

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What Adventure Does

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“Most great adventures work that way. You don’t plan them, you don’t get all the details right, you just do them.” -Bob Goff, Love Does

Think about a book you love. A story treasured from one generation to the next; one so powerful it offers readers insight each year it’s read.

Stories like those have a funny way of sticking to your heart, like snow on frozen ground. Yet it often seems hard to decipher what qualities connect them all to greatness. Is it a complex prose? Captivating dialogue? Or, a meticulously planned storyline?

Maybe.

But when I think of my all-time favorite stories (like Harry Potter, The Alchemist, or the Narnia series), the common theme I find is the unexpected adventure their characters find themselves in.

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Urban Hands: Giving Meals and Second Chances

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Around the corner from a bus stop in North Seattle and down a wide alley is a nondescript white door many walk past without wondering what’s inside. I would have done the same, except on this day I had an appointment with Urban Hands, a nonprofit built around caring for the marginalized in Seattle, primarily by providing meals for the homeless and job opportunities for those in need of a second chance.

I had heard about Urban Hands through my friend Eddie Wang (organizer of the Sleepless in Seattle campaign) and was intrigued to learn the “who, what, and how” behind their use of for-profit businesses to impact the lives of Seattle’s most marginalized. So with my curiosity piqued, they became my first social impact feature for the “Seek the Good” project.

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