Tag: stories

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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From Greece to Germany: 5 Lessons from the Refugee Route

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A few months ago I wrote an article for Nations Foundation about my experience traveling Europe’s refugee route. In light of the tragic events that continue to unfold in Syria, I am reposting this as a reminder of what I learned, why it matters, and why we should be paying attention. The Advent season is one of hope and peace, so read on and discover why I believe refugees are worthy of both–and learn how you can respond.

Imagine this: you are in a massive white tent with 200 people crammed together in rows of shaky bunk beds. The air rings with the sound of multiple languages from men, women, and children all waiting to hear what their futures hold. You walk through the tent’s single pathway and all eyes turn toward you, a young woman with a journal in hand, a camera over your shoulder, and a weight upon your heart. As you head toward a family at the back of the tent one father stops you by placing his child in your way, insisting that you take his son’s photo. He points to the dry cracker in the boy’s hand and cries, “This is all my child has eaten in three days. Please, tell the world what is happening to us!”

Now snap back to reality. The scene I just described seems more like something from The Hunger Games than a moment from real life, doesn’t it?

That, however, was exactly what I encountered in a refugee camp in Serbia. And that father’s plea was why I was there in the first place—to hear and tell those stories.

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The Refugee Route: Our Journey Begins

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Our journey from Greece to Northern Europe to meet with leaders and collect stories along the refugee route has begun! We’re one week in, and in case you haven’t been following my daily updates on The Syrian Circle’s Facebook page, let me give you a quick summary.

GREECE has the weight of the world on its shoulders, or at least that’s what it seems like as of February 2016. Between political unrest, suffocating debt, and a massive influx of people, Greece has been having a pretty rough year (and that’s all I’ll say without getting political)—Now to the reason we’re even in Greece: refugees.

The arrival of refugees in this part of the world is nothing new. It has been happening for hundreds of years with one people group or another as wars have been fought and different populations have fled oppression.

However, what distinguishes this movement of people from any other is the sheer scale of it. With over 1 million refugees arriving on European shores in 2015 alone, that number is only expected to increase exponentially as 2016 progresses. One Greek woman explained to me in Athens, “this is not just a tragedy, this is an exodus.”

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A Love Affair with Books

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Processed with VSCOcam with m3 presetLike many love affairs my adoration for books began with considerable resistance on my part. Until I was around eleven I was pretty neutral towards reading. Back then I was far more enamored by early Saturday mornings spent in front of a television than hours of staring at a bundle of paper.

Then one day my parents came up with an ingenious plan I couldn’t refuse; in lieu of an allowance they agreed to pay me one penny for every page I read. As an eleven-year-old I figured I could make bank with this plan. I still remember the next day, going to the library empty-handed, and walking out with a pile of books stacked under my chin, eager to make a whopping $10 over the next few weeks.

What began as a monetary incentive to dive into the world of reading soon morphed into a genuine love for books and what they could unlock—new characters, settings, histories, and fantastic storylines I had never before imagined.

From that day on reading has opened up the world to me in amazing ways. Like a man with poor eyesight gazing up at the stars and only seeing the 10 or 12 most prominent points of light, I had been missing much of the world that was right in front of me. What I needed was to look at the world through the right lens. So, much like that nearsighted man who gapes in awe the first time he looks at the night sky through corrective lenses, reading became my means for seeing and experiencing exciting worlds I never knew existed.

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