Wanting

"Everything you ever wanted, in a permanent state..." sung Coldplay's Chris Martin, as I dropped my high schooler off this morning.

Was he singing about heaven?


Tapping into a place in me that I don't wear on my sleeve, his words brought me to tears, and I wondered how often I think about what I really want.

Modern life is like a coddling mother, offering instant food and drink, continuous social connection  and the promise of the good life through possessions that have not been available to so many people during the whole history of the world. We are perhaps numbed into a state of quasi-contentment. 

CS Lewis suggests the following:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.  

For the two minutes it took me to drive back from my daughter's school after I dropped her off, I told God exactly what I wanted. 

He listened. 

He knew.

And now, so do I. 

To Write, Perchance To Publish

Getting a late start at writing is...well...difficult. My brother joined the Army at 39. I guess it runs in the family.

The writing I do in my head, and have done all my life has been influenced by one author and one author alone.

Charlotte Bronte.

Her book, (or rather a filmmaker's newest conception of it)  Jane Eyre will be once again thrust onscreen on March 11, and I have a ticket waiting in my purse to go see it.


I have now reached an age which Miss Bronte was not fortunate to have achieved, and I have not published a substantial work yet, much less a work of the import and influence of a writer who, by her own admission considered the public 'indulgent' for inclining it's ear to a 'plain tale with few pretensions'. The modesty and understatement of her assertion could not have been more off the mark. Her writing hits the mark unerringly.

In rereading this gothic favorite, I have seen the self Miss Bronte carved into my being when at age twelve I read it with a mixture of great horror and delight for the first time. Identifying with the principle-guided suffering servant, I have tended not to asserted my voice, but rather have waited to be called upon. During the course of the narrative, numerous answers to pleas for help, however, are sent as Jane calls out to a higher power, which for her is the Christian God of the Bible. In this, I continue to copy Jane daily.

As Miss Bronte sent her work out for publication, one must assume her proactive energies were beyond the somewhat passive character of Jane. I am still learning from her.

One theme infused in the character of Jane I retain as my life goal: striving to follow God's law even to my own great personal distress, and an absolute reliance on God to provide the life He planned for me.

This is the treasure of Jane Eyre.