Thursday, April 27, 2006

Redeemed by writing

Oh Henri you thrill my junkie soul!!

Writing to Save the Day

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.

Henri Nouwen

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

'tis true. 'tis true.

I'm usually more calm if I'm spending time writing almost every day. And it sure does relieve my stress when I write my pen pal.

-n

Visual-Voice said...

art saves lives. I own a pin that says this... expressing ourselves is therapy.

gracie said...

I haven't read anything by Henri yet that didn't give me an a-ha moment or a soul-thrill!!!
Even better that he has reasons why writing is a good thing... I need all the motivation and excuses I can get.

owenswain said...

Heidi, thanks for the comment on indexcardart. Great to have someone from our own East Coast writing in. A very good and true quote on your blog today, and vis voice reminds me of another quote, "art saves lives" which is so very timely for me. Owen.

Anonymous said...

HI Heidi

I am looking at your blog tonight and I am stunned to see what a different woman you are now. You are walking in redemption, truly. You are walking in your destiny. I love the photo--you are beaming! So beautiful ... I love the name.

I am just thrilled to see your transformation. You have worked wonders.

Love you,

Darius said...

I found the same thing. Writing for me was as important a spritual practise as meditation.

Thing of it is, writing is peculiar practise in that to do it seriously is also presumptively an attempt to communicate.

In my case, I worked for decades on a nonfiction book to run straight into the reality that the publishing industry has gone bottom line. No "platform" means no getting your non fiction book published. So now I'm debating whether to post a miniaturized version of it as the second half of the blog I've undertaken.

Better that maybe 30 people read it, or parts of it here and there, than no one - I guess... Because in the back of your mind, you hope that after your're dead maybe the publishing scene, and a business world that puts increasing profit year after year above all other gods, will somehow change.