Reaching for True

Sometimes in writing you begin with the one true thing you want to say, and you spend all your time trying to find the best way to say it. This is called clarity. You have discovered something profound and worthwhile, and you see it so clearly that you can boil it down to a tightly worded sentence or phrase, and that is all you allow yourself to see as you're writing. You check everything within the writing with that sentence as it's guide. Does this help me say my one true thought? Will this illuminate it? Provide a universal example of it? Wax metaphorically, cleverly, shining ever-brighter and more colorful pulsing lights on the various aspects of that truth? Or does it distract? The true thing guides the writing, and you write because you've found this true thing, and you have no choice but to get it down, hoping to either share it or find someone else who's seen it and believes it, all to convince yourself that you either have something to offer in this world or that you are at the very least not alone in it. The truth thing compels you to write, and you have no other choice.

Sermon writing is like that for me. I do not want to get in the way of the singular true idea that must control the message. So I spend hours, days, even weeks, looking for that truth. But when I find it, it controls all 30 minutes of my speaking. I do not say it unless I believe it will get my audience closer to the idea. It is the standard-bearer. I instruct my students to boil down some of their essays into 20 words or less. Or entire novels. There is comfort in knowing exactly what you want to say.

Some conversations with friends are this way. Sometimes you discover a true thing, but it just isn't for a wide audience. It isn't for any audience, really, other than this friend who knows you and your previous thinking and will understand the true thing when you are able to talk about it. So you know ahead of time, when you sit down for a cup of coffee with them, or for dinner, or for a tasty beverage around the fire, or a bike ride, or a run, or a letter, exactly what you want to say. You have your truth, and you want to get it out. You want to try it out. It is no test of friendship to determine if they agree; no, you already know from previous experience with them that you are not alone in this world. It is because you've already agreed on so much that you must get this out to them. So you practice ways to bring it up before you see them. Or you realize it, and you count down the days until they're back in town, or back in the country, available for uninterrupted conversation after the kids have gone to bed. And your piece of truth guides you, guides all you have to say, and you know that more than likely it will still stand, and stand strong, daunting or comforting, the next morning.

It is comforting for a true idea to guide you. It can also be rare.

So many other times, a little like this one, you're just not sure what's true. You haven't found it yet. You just know what's real. And you've got to tease out the true and discover it. Or not discover it, as the case may be. But you notice, you observe, and you see a little glimmer. You've been watching for it, not knowing what it would look like or from where it would come, and you've seen it. You don't know what it means, but you know it is real, and you know that it matters. So you write.

You write. You explore. You examine. You don't know where you are headed, but you know it is better than standing still. The engine is running and the foot is on the gas, even if the compass is broken. And you come to the finish line, paragraphs or pages later, and perhaps you've found the destination. You found the land you didn't know existed even though you'd seen the postcards. You know what you didn't know, know why it matters, and know what is has to do with last week and next week. And you couldn't have gotten there without the writing. And you wouldn't have written without the watching.

I have been spending too much time waiting for the true sentence in order to get me started. The true sentence is my security blanket, my self-assurance that I have something to offer, that I have a little wisdom, that what I'm getting down is worth reading and worth writing. It allows me to do what I know how to do and go where I know I want to go. There is no danger in finding that which I don't want to find. And there is no danger in an audience finding that either.

I'm reading a lesser-known John Steinbeck novel called Sweet Thursday right now. I can feel the joy and freedom in the prose that Steinbeck must have felt writing to please himself in the advanced years of his career. At the beginning of every chapter is a pithy phrase that points to the truth of that chapter. They are witty and instructive. The are fun and true. If you've ever seen the sitcom Frasier (Emily and I are greedily devouring a season that just became free on our Amazon Prime Membership), it also uses this style to introduce it's scenes. These titles, these declarations of content, originally made me jealous. Then I realized: for many of them, Steinbeck had no idea what it would be until he got there.

I do not know exactly what journey I've been on in these 600 or so words. But my engine is running. These words reach for the true.