Something happens when we put words on paper with pen and ink.  There is something deeper and more real about forming the letters with our own hands, producing something tangible and lasting.  For all the many, many buttons I have pushed to put my intangible thoughts on the digital page, nothing quite captures the something that happens when we truly write the words.  This, too, is body theology.

From one of my journals…written in my own hand with pen and ink while amongst friends on March 3, 2010.

I am passionate about connection, connecting people’s stories, connecting to God’s story.  More than anything else, I want to change the world.  I want to change minds and hearts, leave the world better than I found it.

There is something intensely intimate about story, about relational living.  To be relational is to know another’s story, to be known by them.

There are so many people in the world who feel isolated, disconnected, alone, unknown.  People have stories to share, but no one will hear them.  Or they lack the proper equipping to communicate well. That’s what I love about tutoring writing: empowering others to communicate effectively so they can share with the world.

This is a precious gift and also an innate human trait, this connecting through story.  That’s what I want my writing to  be about.  I want it to impact the world — touch and change hearts, connect.

E. M. Forrester wrote, “Only connect…”  Is there anything deeper in the human heart than the desire to connect with another, to connect with the self in a meaningful and illuminating way, to connect with the creator and romancer God? God calls us the bride.  What more intimate and passionate connection is there than between lovers? This is my desire for myself and for everyone I meet.

This is what I want my writing to do: create space for and cultivate this deeply intimate, romantic, scandalous connection with the almighty God who loves us so much that God gave God’s only son that we might receive the grace that enables us to commune with the one who knows us intimately and calls us by name.

By name.

There is nothing more connecting that calling someone by name; it is an expression of knowing and being known.

If my writing could ever facilitate something as earth-shattering and life-altering as connecting with God, ourselves, and each other, then I would have truly and profoundly changed the world.