“In beginning was the word”
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man coming into the world. John 1: 1-9
I was invited to be a part of a writer’s group a few weeks ago. I was a visitor for the first week. I felt out of place. I didn’t know how this group worked. I didn’t know if I wanted to lay my precious words out in front of them or not.
We sat around the table at our local Starbucks, and I waited to hear how they critiqued one another’s manuscripts.
From Carole’s rollicking fun southern mystery, full of paunchy sheriffs and snake handling murderers to Mark’s fascinating young adult fantasy—where a girl’s terminal disease becomes personified in an alternative world, and it is up to her to fight its demons in order to be cured— to Martha’s mystery replete with murdering Michigan environmentalists, the manuscripts’ words brought whole new worlds to life.
And, I needn’t have worried. Their comments were full of love and kindness. They treated words like precious delicate gifts. Their goal was to help uncover the living truth of each manuscript.
In my graduate writing seminars at FSU, the writer’s heart was laid on the table for all to pick over. Her manuscript contained her hopes her dreams her fears her delights all carefully contained in 12 cpi Times New Roman with one inch margins.
The creative writers around the table took turns critiquing. And while they could easily have eaten her heart, instead, they carefully– oh so carefully–like surgeons engaged in the most delicate of heart surgeries, pulled out the bad stuff, and carefully stitched in the good.
They uncovered the light contained in the words.
Our professor, Mark, told us our job was to help the writer see what the best possible version of this manuscript might look like.
Wow! Isn’t that exactly what God is doing with us? Trying to help us find the best possible version of ourselves?
That’s how the light is supposed to work.
As a practicing writer, I love that God and the Word are synonymous. I love that it is the Word that is life, it is the word that is light. I love that it is the word that brings light to all.
God is in the word. God is the word.
While this truth is powerful for writers, it is also humbling. Carving truth out of words is hard labor. We need a lot of help from our friends.
In the gospel, that’s where John stepped in. He went ahead and smoothed the way so that people would be ready to understand God’s magnificent light and life.
My writer friends wrestle with words. There are words in their hearts and minds that they must get out onto the page so that others can read and understand their messages of hope, of love, of praise for the beauty of this earth.
But it is when we band together as friends and prepare the way for one another that we are truly seeking the light. And some days we even find it.
Today at 1 pm, I will meet with a group of my writer friends. We have read one another’s words, and we have absorbed them into our being. We will be quick to point out the words and sentences and paragraphs and scenes that don’t work. We will do that. We are called to do that. We can’t improve if we don’t. But our goal is to stir the manuscripts into their most flattering light.
And that’s exactly what it takes: a group of friends working together to find the light in the darkness.