There are moments in writing of utter sheer joy. Moments of intense culmination that you've been preparing for years, that when you finally sit down at your computer that night, you know you are finally going to see on the written page. But there are other moments of deep and intense frustration - moments where you are literally pounding your head against the wall because you just can't get that correct tone or the action doesn't match the message you are trying to convey. Highs and lows and sometimes at the same moment, joy and frustration. To write is to embrace the insanity of life and then let it flow away in words.
I had a moment of intense revelation at church this morning during communion. It was one of those church moments when you can feel the holy spirit encircling you and wrapping you up in its warm embrace. I found myself outside of church - living outside the moment - looking around at all the people in the pews and wondering what was going through their heads and how God was able to hear all their thoughts and feel all their feelings and heal all their pains. It felt like the holy spirit was whirring around the entire sanctuary and only I could see it - even though it was invisible. And it reminded me so much of the deep joy I have in writing.
When you read a story for the first time, if the writer is good, you are caught up in the moment of a scene - of the singularity of action and purpose of the characters. But, if the writer is REALLY good, you are both in the moment and outside the moment at the same time - caught up in the moment of the scene, but also processing the importance of that scene in the larger context of the story so far. You know that Bond is dueling with the bad guy and its a really intense moment, but its made more intense because you know that the bad guy killed his best friend. You are seeing the present, but also the past - the present with context.
But, when you are the REALLY REALLY good writer, you are layering the story with a third layer of context - the story that is yet to come. In one scene, you not only have the action that is occuring, but the context of that action from the past, AND you are layering the context for the scenes that are yet to come. Not only is Bond fighting the bad guy that killed his best friend, but he is about to discover that the bad guy also kidnapped his wife. You, as the writer, know this. You are caught up in the moment of the telling of the story - living IN the moment. But, you are also OUTSIDE the moment - thinking about all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. Each and every scene has to fit in this context. Each and every action from each and every character fits into this story. Seemingly random events in Chapter Three might have huge ramifications in Chapter 120. And seemingly normal dialogue in Chapter 98 wittily refers back to an event in Chapter 7. Each moment is the present and unique, but it also has elements of the past and present wrapped up in it.
And then I finally understood the Trinity. In this great story of God's love for us all, Jesus is the center of the action. He is In the moment. All that has come before and all that will come after is Outside the moment. Moses, Paul, you and I, we're all part of the story - but the part that refers back to the moment. In this respect, Jesus can be In the moment and Outside the moment at the same time. He can be in Heaven and on Earth. He can be living and He can be dying. He is at the beginning and He is at the ending. He is the Alpha and the Omega and all points in between. The story is already written, but the details might change as we go along. Jesus is our context.
We are forced to live in the moment. We can see from where we've come, but we haven't a clue what comes next. Though the temptation is there to skip to the end of the story and see what happens to us, none of us have yet developed that particular ability. We are the characters in this story. We are forced to react only to things that have already occurred and to things we can try to see coming. But we never know when the story will end, or what might happen next in the chapter.
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