Desire and a Rule of Life

Desire and habit, as chicken and egg

Friends stopped through town last week. As we talked while the sun sunk behind the trees, I was struck by something my friend’s husband said. He was speaking of his own boastful father, that there isn’t a conversation to be shared with his dad where he isn’t touting some accomplishment or selling you on his greatness.

“It’s like what people do on Facebook sometimes, you know?” he said, then quoting from an imaginary post. After months and years of hard work, I’m happy and humbled to say that I finally . . .

Ugh, I thought. That sounds like a post to promote a book!

I’ve had my own misgivings about this festschrift for Teach Us to Want. What sounded like a great idea, a couple of months ago, now made me wonder if I’m not beating my own drum of congratulations. I’ve worried more as my friend, Laura Fabrycky, has solicited words from others about the book. Where will I post these many kindnesses without producing the kind of eye-rolling I engaged while recently reading a memoir: I was happy and humbled to be given the chance to perform at the Lincoln Center. Imagine me, little old me, with such an extraordinary privilege… Yes, I found myself more than a little incredulous about the humbled part.

Humbled is hard to come by in a life of public words.

It’s one reason my relationship with social media is so fraught. Though I’m not here to judge people who find a way to be present in these spaces, I struggle to show up with meaningful things to say. I did post a photo of our daughter’s recent wedding on Instagram last week, though I wondered what would be required if, God forbid, I was divorcing. Would I imitate a college friend—and post a picture of my wedding ring in hand? I rue a world where our most private joys and griefs must be announced because unannounced, it’s as if they haven’t happened.

And what to say of the work I’m doing and the public river of words that seem necessary for supporting it? How often can I beg the attention of readers without sounding just a little desperate? No, thank you. And posting selfies? Please, dear God, deliver me from the time it takes to carefully edit photos so that I look younger and thinner and more beautiful. No, this is not skill that I have or want to develop, and I can’t live with the constant pressure of the scrutinizing public eye.

But here's the thing: I want to write.

This is a deep, deep desire that I cannot be rid of despite the industry frustrations and internal angst and social media expectations and the daily paralysis of my besetting perfectionism. Though I never imagined Teach Us to Want would be the first in a series of books, I can see that God seeded a desire to write that I must now sustain with means of grace. The spirit is willing—and the flesh is so very weak.

A rule of life is one such means of grace. As I’ve taught in the workshops I lead, is a “creative practice of faithfully patterning our lives in response to God’s voice.” It’s a creative practice because the God-given realities of our lives and the God-given desires of our hearts are different for each one of us. This means our discipleship to Jesus requires discernment, listening, seeking out God’s way for us in these given realities and desires. There aren’t manuals, even if there is the Bible. We are sheep, and we need to learn the voice of our Good Shepherd.

And because I happen to be a writing sheep, a dumb animal moving through the world with a pen in my hand, I need regular habits to keep me writing—and keep me wanting to write. What Teach Us to Want allowed for me to begin understanding is that my words aren’t simply for me: for my spiritual growth, for my emotional well-being, for my relational health (because oh so many arguments are avoided by my journalling practice). These habits—and these words—are for you, too. And such is the movement of a rule of life, making it possible for us to offer all of life, all for Christ.

A rule of life isn’t magical. It doesn’t make me write, doesn’t bang me over the head if I don’t. However, it does foreground divine calling amidst the noise of the world and the whims of my own self. Imperfectly, I keep at the habits—of daily writing and reading, of showing up here most weeks, of taking essay assignments, of hopefully producing a new book—and the habits keep me.