I Don't Even Know Where to Start...

Dear Miss Eleonore (In sixty-three years time, that is),

It's been the past few weeks that I've been pondering this day. Thinking about the past year, thinking about everything that's happened, thinking about what's to come. This is only the third year I've written one of these letters, and yet they already seem vital to my birthday being, well, my birthday. There's something about their strange, somewhat random nature that appeals to me greatly. I've thought rather often about what I want to say about this past year, and it seems I don't know where to begin. So many things have happened, and even more things I've done that I'd never thought about before. However, I don't think that's what's important for this letter.

At the recommendation of my English professor and mentor, I've begun reading Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle. Previously I'd read her Wrinkle in Time series, and fell in love with their unique character. Now, reading Walking on Water I realize that she is one of my favorite authors. Not because she is in any way superior to Hemmingway, Cummings, or Lee, but because we share some beliefs. I have always believed that there is something unfamiliar in writing, painting, and any other artistic action, but have never had words to describe its unfamiliarity. She does. 

"If the work comes to the artist and says, "Here I am, serve me," then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve. The amount of the artist's talent is not what it is about. Jean Rhys said to an interviewer in the Paris Review, "Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake."

To feed the lake is to serve, to be a servant. 'Servant' is another unpopular word, a word we have derided by denigrating servants and service. To serve should be a privilege, and it is to our shame that we tend to think of it as a burden, something to do if you're not fit for anything better or higher."

This unfamiliarity of writing is its life. The work is alive, and I need to learn to serve it. When stories leap into my mind, I dislike being told it is by my own creativity, because it is not. Characters talk in my head, coaxing me to give them life through ink, to give them meaning through the curve of a pen. It is not I who invents them, instead it is I who must set them free. These stories, then, are far greater than I am. L'Engle explains this through the carving of the Pieta. Michelangelo chipped away at a great slab of marble in order to reveal the Mourning Mother inside. The quote of his, that "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." is too often signed off as modesty. This is not what it is. He was given sight of an art, and he dutifully became a servant of it, carving away until others could see that which was always there. This is what I need to learn to do, in all aspects of my life.

The other thing that stands out to me to remember about this year is the date. Today is Good Friday. Today is the day that our Lord died on a cross for our salvation. In that respect, it has not felt like my birthday at all. Instead, this great day of the church year takes precedence. I have always loved Good Friday, because it reminds me of something I often tend to forget. Something that I need to remember.

My God, my God, why have you 

     forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from

     the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not

      answer, 

and by night, but I find no rest.

"Haunting words, from a haunting psalm." as Dad so potently put it in his sermon tonight. These are the words of King David, and the words of Christ. These words are truly haunting, filled with pain and suffering, and yet, as the psalm goes on, filled also with hope. 

But you, O Lord, do not be far off!

  Oh you my help, come quickly to my aid!

Deliver my soul from the sword,

  my precious life from the power of the 

     dog!

  Save me from the mouth of the lion!

You have rescued my from the horns of the 

     wild oxen!

This is true beauty in Christianity. Wherever there is pain, wherever there is suffering, there is always hope. No matter how difficult or despairing the world seems, there is someone who has borne it all away. There is salvation. This is the other thing which I must cling to, which I always must remember. And again, this does not originate in me, but was placed inside of me as a most beautiful gift. Although it can often be the temptation, there must not be such a focus on the great beauty of salvation, while the reason for its need is slowly forgotten. Without pain, suffering, and despair, there would be no need for salvation. "Without the 22nd Psalm, there can be no 23rd Psalm. no green pastures, no still waters." I am a poor miserable sinner, but I am also saved by the grace of Christ. I cannot have one without the other. Sum simil iustus et peccator.  

We are all beggars, this is true. 

Remember and cherish these two things, dear old soul. You are always in the company of all the saints, despite all of your unworthiness, and you are also God's chosen instrument for feeding the lake of literature with the simple stories that bless your thoughts. You are saved, and you are free in Christ to do His Will for you. 

Until next year, and with great love and prayer,

Ellie, at a mere 16. 

P.S. I can't decide whether this means that I've been in school too long, but I've never written a letter so heavily based on outside sources. Soon, I'll have to begin including a Work's Cited page... heaven forbid.