On wanting to write...

I want to write.

I want to put ink to page.  Commit thought to word.  Leave a trail; a trail in stories told and ideas shared.  A path that will perhaps ease another's journey.

I want to write.

In case the miracle of this may be lost upon us, let me make it plain: I haven't.  I haven't written and I haven't wanted to write in such a long time.

I once said that ink was my favorite word.

For one who always bites their tongue, speaks with thought and rehearses conversations both before and after they occur, I suppose the appeal of ink has always been its honesty.

Without a face to gaze into at the moment, the opportunity to simply say what needs to be said.

There's an honesty to ink.

I love ink for that.

But life has turned a new shade for the eternal optimist in me.  I haven't been able to reconcile the soaring faith in my heart, growing stronger through the fire, with the fire itself or the ash left in its wake.

A distance between the good He works and the brokenness, not His own, that nonetheless becomes a tool in the working.  A distance I cannot bridge.  A forever gap that takes up residence on the landscape of my faith.

A good God.  And all of the un-good we have seen.

And the fact that His power is mighty enough to turn everything back toward good, no matter how un-good at the start.  And the wonderings about why that power didn't choose to stop the un-good before it happened.

There are theological answers, certainly.

But the truest ink answers for me find their chance to live and breathe in the things we do and feel each day.

And these theological answers I know don't lend to life and breath.  It's the distance I find there - in the land of life and breath.  The un-answer the one which actually brings some comfort.  The embracing of the distance.  The fact of this world not being what He had in mind; the fact of a different homeland ahead.  The distance between the two.  The un-answer that has become home for this heart.

And so, my friends, I want to write.

Finally.

Finally.

I want to write.

It has taken some time and I cannot say with any confidence that said wanting will remain.

But for the time being, my soul has settled enough and my heart has rested enough that ink has again become a dear companion.  For so long its honesty made it a feared adversary.  Something I should have predicted in a time when it was so hard to face in bold terms the realities we saw.

But life is beautiful.  And I see beauty breathing in these days again.  And so, dear ink, a happy reunion.

I want to write.

And for that I am utterly grateful.